Timekeeping In The Prehistoric Era

Imagine what it would be like knowing your birthday is coming up soon but you don't know the exact date. Well before we didn't have the technology we do nowadays so they would get the date using other methods. The most common method consisted of using the sun, moon, stars, and planets. Ancient civilizations would use apparent motions of these bodies through the skies to determine time such as seasons, months and years. However, due to all recent technology, the sky is no longer relied on as much to tell time.

Very little is known about timekeeping in prehistoric eras. Nevertheless, there are theories about how some cultures would keep track of time. It is believed that about 20,000 years ago ice-age hunters in Europe would scratch lines and gouge holes in sticks and bones to count the days between phases of the moon. Another group of people whom also had their own method of telling time was Sumerians in the Tigris-Euphrates valley. They created a calendar that divided the year into

This takes us back to 1582; a time in history where time was changed (Source 2). One of the calendars introduced in 46 BC was the Julian calendar. Each year was made up of 365 1/4 days. It exceeded the actual solar year which was 365.2422 days by eleven minutes and fourteen seconds each year. Without realizing the conflict it would bring, by the late 16th century the Julian calendar was 10 days longer than the solar calendar. As people started growing out the curiosity of to what would happen due to this change they also realized that it affected the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church (Source 2). Influenced by this would be the change in feast days. One of the most common, being easter, rather than occurring in spring would not occur in summer. As a result of the mistake happening in the Julian calendar, a new one was ordered to be created. This was the start of a new calendar known as the Gregorian