Lunisolar pit calendar
Calendario lunisolar de fosos
- Date
- c. 8000 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Warren Field, Crathes, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- Mesolithic hunter-gatherers of Scotland
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
An alignment of twelve pits thought to represent lunar phases and oriented to the winter solstice sunrise, which would allow the lunar cycle to be corrected against the solar year. It would be the oldest known time-reckoning device.
Gaffney et al.'s (2013) interpretation is heavily disputed; the pits could have other functions.
What it led to
- Prediction of salmon and deer migrations and of the gathering season
- The first concept of a year as a measurable, correctable cycle
- A precedent for pit observatories and megalithic circles
Built on
- Palaeolithic lunar reckoning on bone
- Solstice observation
Made possible
- Circular enclosure solar observatoryc. 4900 BCE
- Julian calendar45 BCE
- Goseck solar enclosure
- Nabta Playa astronomical alignment
- Solar calendar