Oldest Calendar found in Scotland

[LordOfWizards]

This is kind of history and science, but I’m posting it here:

'World's oldest calendar' in field

I discovered the story because I was researching the history of telescopes.

 

[Abernovo]

Thanks for that, LOW.

The amount of times I visited there, and never knew. Quite a few recumbent stone circles in the area with interesting alignments, so I'm not entirely surprised there's an even earlier tradition.

 

[The Ace]

Stagecoach still use it to schedule their bus services.

 

[chrispenycate]

Twelve posts? Even primitive tribesmen could have spotted that they needed thirteen lunar months to make up a solar year (though they might have missed out on leap years). Precessing the seasons by twenty-eight days every year you've got some real difficulties persuading the animals and berries to move their rhythms round to match…
Still, it's much easier to do twelve equispaced holes, and you'd just have to spin the Earth on its axis about ten percent faster…

 

[LordOfWizards]

Yes. I guess the buses run later and later every year. Could they have missed the thirteenth pit? seems unlikely.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Great topic - just found this piece, when looking for follow-up research to the Coligny Calendar that is believed to show that Gauls already had an advanced calendar (that was actually more accurate than any Roman one that replaced it): Coligny calendar - Wikipedia