World's Possibly Oldest Calendar Discovered In Scottish Field

Archaeologists believe they have discovered the world's oldest lunar "calendar" in an Aberdeenshire field.

Excavations of a field at Crathes Castle found a series of 12 pits which appear to mimic the phases of the moon and track lunar months.

A team led by the University of Birmingham suggests the ancient monument was created by hunter-gatherers about 10,000 years ago.

www.bbc.co.uk...

intarch.ac.uk...

A very exciting find. Two questions arise in my mind.

If this was happening in Scotland around 10,000 years ago, a rather inhospitable place at the time, then what was happening in other places around the world at the same time?

Why and how did hunter gatherers develop the need for this type of calendar?

Ideas, opinions?

reply to post by Heliocentric


Very interesting and surely a topic that will be ATS material.

An illustration of how the pits would have worked.



I can see tracking of moon phases against the constant of landscape but that's all I can deduce so far. It does resemble the same type of time tracking from cultures globally in the period. One such culture being the pyramids as a constant point of knowledge in society. And the Mayans are not to be ignored.

They used fixed points of nature and their own man-made creations to track and record star, sun, galaxy movements/cycles in order to not only track/record the passage of time but an attempt to understand our place (Earth)(Human) in the cosmos.

Cool find.

"The evidence suggests that hunter-gatherer societies in Scotland had both the need and sophistication to track time across the years, to correct for seasonal drift of the lunar year and that this occurred nearly 5,000 years before the first formal calendars known in the Near East.

"In doing so, this illustrates one important step towards the formal construction of time and therefore history itself."

Personally my belief is not so much towards the mystic but rather survival.

Our ancestors would have tracked moon, sun and star movements along with Earthly seasons in order to predict herd migrations, herbal readiness(aspirin/willow) for example and times to migrate to newer grounds in order to take advantage of new grounds.

There is also the few that would have wanted to just explore. Our true entrepreneurs and discoverers.

Not much more so far but a starting point nonetheless.

Peace

I am jumping straight in the deep end with this.

I think that Atlantis which was on the T junction of tectonic plates in the Atlantic Ocean and was destroyed some 2000 years earlier with a cataclysmic happening. Mankind had only what it could carry by those who survived so were able to rely on whatever technology that their civilisation had and they could carry. The knowledge of time is something most old ancient civilisations would have measured and these ancient peoples would have known how to construct wooden calendars.

They lived in a time of massive change and so probably needed to know when the season's occurred as the weather may not have been easy to interpret. It wouldn't take long for people suffering like this to regress into uneducated survivalists. Some would remember things and once groups were established and they started to organise themselves, they basically had to start again I suspect its hard for us to imagine because its only recently our weather has started going from extremes, but them, who knows?

Great and intersesting find Helio

Hopefully they will also work on comparing this monument to stonehenge (and other monuments needing answers based along the same lines) and see if there are possible similarities?

This thread is on my list of favourites as from now as would love to see how this develops.

Kindest respects

Rodinus

Here's a little bit more information on the people that supposedly built and used the calendar:

www.bbc.co.uk...

10,000 years ago they more or less just arrived after the last glaciation. We can therefore speculate that the knowledge and use of lunar cycles was brought with them as they moved north. It therefore stands to reason that this is not the world's oldest lunar calendar, just the oldest found or left so far.

They're away from the coast, so it should not be related to the tide and fishing. Why do you need a lunar calendar if you're hunting red deer and collecting plants and nuts?

How cool...this is just up the road from where I am. We have so many megaliths and stone circles here...maybe there is a connection.

Originally posted by caitlinfae
How cool...this is just up the road from where I am.

We have so many megaliths and stone circles here...maybe there is a connection.

So now you must acknowledge your responsibility to visit, record and report your findings. Right?

Peace

Originally posted by jude11

Originally posted by caitlinfae
How cool...this is just up the road from where I am.

We have so many megaliths and stone circles here...maybe there is a connection.

So now you must acknowledge your responsibility to visit, record and report your findings. Right?

Peace

What a thing to say to someone on a Monday morning

But agreed... Cait, you have just become our official reporter in your area in order to obtain facts, photos and historical evidence, so you know what you are going to be doing for the next 200 weekends or so! (Or between moments trying to grab something to eat, smoke, drink, sleep, live etc etc etc...)

Kindest respects

Rodinus

Originally posted by Rodinus

Originally posted by jude11

Originally posted by caitlinfae
How cool...this is just up the road from where I am.

We have so many megaliths and stone circles here...maybe there is a connection.

So now you must acknowledge your responsibility to visit, record and report your findings. Right?

Peace

What a thing to say to someone on a Monday morning

But agreed... Cait, you have just become our official reporter in your area in order to obtain facts, photos and historical evidence, so you know what you are going to be doing for the next 200 weekends or so!

(Or between moments trying to grab something to eat, smoke, drink, sleep, live etc etc etc...)

Kindest respects

Rodinus

edit on 15-7-2013 by Rodinus because: Word added

Sunday Night for me so all is ok.

Peace

reply to post by jude11


Lucky you Jude...

Monday morning 11:28 here... what i would give to relive a good nights sleep and wake up at the same time that you will be waking up Monday morning... which will no doubt be Tuesday for me...

Urrgghhh... i have already got jetlag even thinking about it... never mind, nearly luchtime here and time to get that nice chilled bottle of Rosé out of the fridge for the BBQ

Sleep well and sweet dreams.

Kindest respects

Rodinus

Originally posted by Rodinus
reply to post by jude11

 

Lucky you Jude...

Monday morning 11:28 here... what i would give to relive a good nights sleep and wake up at the same time that you will be waking up Monday morning... which will no doubt be Tuesday for me...

Urrgghhh... i have already got jetlag even thinking about it... never mind, nearly luchtime here and time to get that nice chilled bottle of Rosé out of the fridge for the BBQ

Sleep well and sweet dreams.

Kindest respects

Rodinus

edit on 15-7-2013 by Rodinus because: I have not been drinking and have already spelt Rosé wrong!

Just realized 2:30am so not as lucky. I have no BBQ nor wine.

Lucky you instead.

Peace

reply to post by Rodinus


Guys..guys... God almighty....I'm quite happy to investigate, but how much I will actually find out may be limited...I just started a business, am trying to find my mum another house as well as painting my own, and now I have archeologicals to do as well. Just as well I don't have kids!

Seriously though...I will see what I can dig up for you all....haha!

Originally posted by jude11

Originally posted by Rodinus
reply to post by jude11

 

Lucky you Jude...

Monday morning 11:28 here... what i would give to relive a good nights sleep and wake up at the same time that you will be waking up Monday morning... which will no doubt be Tuesday for me...

Urrgghhh... i have already got jetlag even thinking about it... never mind, nearly luchtime here and time to get that nice chilled bottle of Rosé out of the fridge for the BBQ

Sleep well and sweet dreams.

Kindest respects

Rodinus

edit on 15-7-2013 by Rodinus because: I have not been drinking and have already spelt Rosé wrong!

Just realized 2:30am so not as lucky. I have no BBQ nor wine.

Lucky you instead.

Peace

Over to you goes a full box of Cabernet Jude...... OOOPs box just fell on the floor and had to "WIPE" everything up... *HIC*.... *Buuurrpppp*

Kindest respects

Rodinus

Originally posted by caitlinfae
reply to post by Rodinus

 

Guys..guys...

God almighty....I'm quite happy to investigate, but how much I will actually find out may be limited...I just started a business, am trying to find my mum another house as well as painting my own, and now I have archeologicals to do as well. Just as well I don't have kids!

Seriously though...I will see what I can dig up for you all....haha!

Start digging Cait... *winks*

Take it easy, was just a dig in the ribs...

We will give you 150 days instead

Kindest respects

Rodinus

Ps. when you have finished painting your place, could you kindly pop over here to France and have a go at my hallway please?

Originally posted by Rodinus
Ps. when you have finished painting your place, could you kindly pop over here to France and have a go at my hallway please?

Ummm....love you...but...no!

Seriously though, I just occurred to me that this calendar thingy might be another end of all time scenario hatching. What if they interpret it and find we have three and a half weeks left, and the Aztecs were almost right? Hmmm? This digging up of calendars has got to stop. I'm going to sneak in and rebury it when they're not looking. Or maybe re-configure it. Or add stuff to it. Any suggestions?

The only reason they invented time is so we would know what time we were supposed to go to work.

I can't figure out another reason we would really need it. When the weather got nice you plant. Back when hunter gatherers were around, you didn't need to even plant. I suppose you needed to know what day to go to church, what day your taxes were due, when you qualified for social security, what day you needed to get your hunting license, etc, Seems that time was created for government and businesses

Originally posted by caitlinfae

Originally posted by Rodinus
Ps. when you have finished painting your place, could you kindly pop over here to France and have a go at my hallway please?

Ummm....love you...but...no!

Seriously though, I just occurred to me that this calendar thingy might be another end of all time scenario hatching. What if they interpret it and find we have three and a half weeks left, and the Aztecs were almost right? Hmmm? This digging up of calendars has got to stop. I'm going to sneak in and rebury it when they're not looking. Or maybe re-configure it. Or add stuff to it. Any suggestions?

Well.. it still gives you 3 and a half weeks to paint my hallway!]

Ohh gawwdddd, please don't mention the aztec calender and the end of time...you are going to trigger some loonies off! and how the buggery are you going to sneak in and bury that big massive thing? you would need at least 20 bulldozers!

Kindest respects

Rodinus

edit on 15-7-2013 by caitlinfae because: (no reason given)

[/quote

Originally posted by Rodinus


Ohh gawwdddd, please don't mention the aztec calender and the end of time...you are going to trigger some loonies off! and how the buggery are you going to sneak in and bury that big massive thing? you would need at least 20 bulldozers!

Kindest respects

Rodinus

Ok...I see your point....I'm not flush with bulldozers at the moment, but my dog does like to dig, so maybe we could add stuff to it, a few extra pits and dents here and there. Could be a lot of fun.

Perhaps we are are so far north here that planning would be of utmost importance when it comes to food production. We have long and very dark winters and short growing seasons in the summer with almost 24 hour daylight at the solstice, so perhaps it was just a way of planning their days so they could maximise crops.

Hunter gathers and early farmers were interested in when (as noted above) when animal migrations would occur when certain streams would be filled with fish, when plants domesticated and not would be planted and harvested also you wanted to know when your enemies over the hill would have their harvest in and would have time to raid you or when it was best to raid them to grab their produce. You may also have agreed to trade with group x a the time of summer solstice at the place where the grey rocks rose from the river. For nomadics it was important to know when to move locations, when to go into your winter camp or when to head north, etc.

I do hope they expland the excavation perimeter to take in what is to the left and right - just to make sure there are no other post holes. That they don't line up is interesting too.

Wasnt scotland under Ice 10,000 years ago?