World's Possibly Oldest Calendar Discovered In Scottish Field

a pattern of alternating pit depths suggests that adjacent months may have been paired in some way, potentially reflecting some sort of dualistic cosmological belief system

Interesting i wonder what kind of astrological belief system they held? I'm guessing it would have also been used as a place of spiritual significance to honour their ancestors as was commonplace in that era.

Originally posted by Heliocentric
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?

edit on 15-7-2013 by Heliocentric because: a world of dew, and within every dewdrop a world of struggle

Hi there helio,

I'm sure it's the oldest one found so far.
With the sheer number and shell middens, in scScotland, and the huge diversity of shellfish represented in those middens, I would make the case that is the main reason for a lunar calendar.

I don't think

Originally posted by Hanslune
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.

Originally posted by punkinworks10
With the sheer number and shell middens, in scScotland, and the huge diversity of shellfish represented in those middens, I would make the case that is the main reason for a lunar calendar.

Yes, that could very well be it. There's an excellent paper by Hayden and Villeneuve called Astronomy in the Upper Palaeolithic? which deals with astronomy in various palaeolithical societies. Trying to understand these people with the scant fragments that are left behind is difficult, but they theorize that this type of calendar is a sign of an emerging social elite.

According to them, astronomy wasn't so much developed so that ancient peoples knew when to plant the crops or follow the herds, or do something else season/weather dependent. The weather changes from year to year. The first snow does not always fall on November 28, and planning your food around this idea is a recipe for disaster. What's notable in modern hunter gatherer societies is that they're paying much attention to signs in nature rather than astronomy (If it is cloudy when a groundhog emerges from its burrow, then spring will come early, etc).
What you can do is schedule social activity around astronomical events. Astronomy was developed to increase political control, especially for the purpose of setting dates for feasting and creating ritual esoterica.

journals.cambridge.org...

It's a thought worth considering...

reply to post by Heliocentric


I'd say both notions are possible and inter-related and not exclusive of the other.

reply to post by Heliocentric

What you can do is schedule social activity around astronomical events. Astronomy was developed to increase political control, especially for the purpose of setting dates for feasting and creating ritual esoterica.

But those 'feasts' and celebrations were to mark the onset of significant times of the year - examples being Lughnasadh which was celebrated to mark the start of the harvest season whilst Samhain marked the end of the harvest season, both were at specific times of the year.
Observing natural signs may have influenced when certain activities occurred but the feasts were pretty much dictated by astronomical signs.

I think Hanslune pretty much nailed it.

However, none of that means that emerging social elites didn't use and exploit these feasts etc to further their influence and possible control.

Bit chicken and the egg really.

My opinion that since they were hunters and gathers they tracked the phases of the moon so they knew when to head out and avoid the PMS of the females of their clans. It was totally a survival tactic to know when to get out of Dodge so to say./sarc

reply to post by Hanslune


reply to post by Freeborn


reply to post by guitarplayer


Yes, or they needed a lunar calendar to know when to stay clear of werewolves...

It really is an open case, there is some slack for speculation.

What's also fascinating is that the Aberdeenshire archaeologists believe that this calendar was in use for some 4,000 years, from 8,000 BC to approximately 4,000 BC.

Stonehenge was in use between 3100 BC to at least 1500 BC. We're clearly talking about very imortant and prestigeous monuments that you kept in use for more than just reading lunar cycles, IMO.

To elucidate further on the henge angle (and Ive posted in other henge threads) I have an expert friend for Stonehenge. Long before there were stones at the Henge there were earthworks and pits. Pits that are remarkably similar to these scottish ones.

And its worth remembering that at that time there were no real nations or national borders on the isles so there was no national animosity. They all spoke the same language albeit probably with different accents and eventually dialects.

reply to post by Heliocentric


It has always fascinated me that ancient civilization who by modern account had just came down out of the trees have these very sophisticated apparatuses to monitor the stars and the moon. Why is there such a total focus on these movements by ancient peoples? Something major must have happened to cause such a devotion to the movements of the planets and stars and moon. What it was I have no idea any thoughts of what it could have been to create such a devotion to the movements of the sky? What were they afraid of or so concerned with?

Originally posted by Heliocentric
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?

edit on 15-7-2013 by Heliocentric because: a world of dew, and within every dewdrop a world of struggle

Maybe they weren't? Maybe they'd figured out agriculture. I know some fruits and vegetables are recommended to be planted during a new moon. Maybe that's what they built this calendar for.

Agriculture started around 12,000 BC in the fertile crescent, so the calendar could have been used for that. If they were hunter-gathers they would have used it, as already mentioned, to track herds and harvest naturally occurring plants. It could be both, tracking herds and harvesting protected cared for fields of some type of crop.

But I don't think it's the oldest calendar.

The Lembobo Bone is 35,000 years old and has 29 notches in it made by humans (a lunar calendar?). It's also portable hehe:



The Ishango bone looks more sophisticated, has grouping of notches, and is 20,000 years old:



hermesphilus.wordpress.com...

reply to post by Heliocentric


What makes you think Scotland was pretty inhospitable then? I tend to disagree. Scotland is slowly releasing many of its hidden secrets and it would seem like it was one of the most advanced ancient nations on the planet with recent findings.

For a small nation of only 5 million, we have done some pretty remarkable things for this planet.

More geniuses per head of population than any other race on earth...

reply to post by Heliocentric


Hmm. Why would hunter-gatherers even bother to track the phases of the moon? People who live close to nature just know what's happening and when it's going to. Unless of course some random event changes things. In which case, our ancestors, who were not stupid, would have used their resources to figure out what happened and what the effects were.

imho

Originally posted by soficrow
reply to post by Heliocentric

 

Hmm. Why would hunter-gatherers even bother to track the phases of the moon? People who live close to nature just know what's happening and when it's going to. Unless of course some random event changes things. In which case, our ancestors, who were not stupid, would have used their resources to figure out what happened and what the effects were.

imho

Why would that track the moon? Because they needed to. Do think they just blindly wandered around till they stumbled on something to eat? No, they had to be in certain places at certain times to do certain things.
If you want to gather shellfish the best time is during low tide.If you don't live on the beach, which they certainly would not have, then you need to be able to judge whon the tide goes out, you tell this by the moon.
If you want to catch salmon headed upstream to spawn, you could count the moons after winter to tell you when you needed to head to the river fishing spot.
A moonles night is a good night to hunt, so you use the calendar to gauge when to head to the place of red deer.
That's just a few reasons to track moon in a hunter/gatherer society.

Originally posted by jrmcleod
reply to post by Heliocentric

 

What makes you think Scotland was pretty inhospitable then? I tend to disagree.

10,000 years ago, Scotland was just pulling out of the last glaciation. A frozen landscape became a defrosted wilderness, still a hard environment to survive in. That said, the population that moved northward when the ice receded probably followed wild game, so there was food and resources.

www.snh.org.uk...

Originally posted by jrmcleod
Scotland is slowly releasing many of its hidden secrets and it would seem like it was one of the most advanced ancient nations on the planet with recent findings.
For a small nation of only 5 million, we have done some pretty remarkable things for this planet.

Um, yes, I agree. Not just Scotland, but the entire northern sphere of the British isles has been reconsidered by archaeologists in the last decade, because of major finds such as the neolithic constructions at the Orkney islands. This part of Britain wasn't the backwaters of the south, but a highly developed society and culture that must have rivaled with its counterparts in Cornwall and Brittany.

www.guardian.co.uk...

I realise you took offense at what you perceived as condescending attitude towards Scotland, but I assure you it is unfounded. I have nothing against bagpipe tatoos, single malts and Sean Connery.

Originally posted by jrmcleod
More geniuses per head of population than any other race on earth...

Sorry, I didn't realize that Scots form a race, I thought you were a mix of Picts, Irish and a dash of Norse blood.

reply to post by jude11


Notice how the oldest cultures always built Lunar calendars? Probably because there is something wrong with timekeeping via Solar days.

Originally posted by VeritasAequitas
reply to post by jude11

 

Notice how the oldest cultures always built Lunar calendars? Probably because there is something wrong with timekeeping via Solar days.

OR, its easier to keep time with the moon but of course it is inaccurate which is why we switched to solar based ones.

What do you think might be 'wrong' with solar days? Later day cultures also used lunar calendar the last to do was the Hijri Qamari calendar which started working on 622 AD or 1 AH but was based on an earlier lunar. Most if not all Muslim nations use the Hijiri in conjunction with the Gregorian nowadays.

reply to post by Hanslune


That in the unforeseeable future, something could happen causing the Earth to be pushed farther away from the Sun, lengthening the amount of time it would take to revolve around it.

This should beg the question of why it is so imperative to track time.....Tracking time allows for the seed of perception of such a thing to exist....If you do not perceive time, are you affected by it? People who are sleeping do not perceive time, yet it seems their body does phenomenally well in such a state.

reply to post by VeritasAequitas


Interesting idea but brain dead or those severely retarded age and die anyway, so we may ignore time but it doesn't ignore us!

reply to post by Hanslune


Fair point