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Zubon comments on Rationality Quotes September 2014 - Less Wrong
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This tells me that the order of events is important, and not the actual dates themselves. It is true that, if I want to claim that X caused Y, I need to know that X happened before Y; but it does not make any difference whether they both happened in 1752 or 1923.
Great. I have approximately 6000 years worth of events here, happening across multiple continents, with overlapping events on every scale imaginable from "in this one village" to "world war." If you can keep the relationships between all those things in your memory consistently using no index value, go for it. If not, I might recommend something like a numerical system that puts those 6000 years in order.
I would not recommend putting "0" at a relatively arbitrary point several thousand years after the events in question have started.
I do agree that an index value is a very useful and intuitive-to-humans way to represent the order of events, especially given the sheer number of events that have taken place through history. However, I do think it's important to note that the index value is only present as a representation of the order of events (and of the distance between them, which, as other commentators have indicated, is also important) and has no intrinsic value in and of itself beyond that.