Oldest Lunar Calendar Found In Scotland 51
First time accepted submitter eionmac writes "The BBC reports that 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. The pit alignment, at Warren Field, was first excavated in 2004. The experts who analyzed the pits said they may have contained a wooden post. The Mesolithic calendar is thousands of years older than previous known formal time-measuring monuments created in Mesopotamia. The analysis has been published in the journal Internet Archaeology."
Re:The more they study it ... (Score:5, Informative)
See, the problem is 10,000 years ago isn't before the birth of civilization, it's just before civilization as we know it and have historically understood it.
People have tended to believe the Sumerians and Babylonians were the first civilizations, but there's mounting evidence that there were things going on that predates that by quite a bit.
The whole point is the more they discover, they more they are pushing back the 'birth of civilization'.