Prehistoric peoples may have created the world’s oldest lunisolar calendar thousands of years ago to mark a calamitous comet strike, according to a new study. That conclusion is based on a new interpretation of carvings on stone pillars at the 12,000-year-old site of Göbekli Tepe in Türkiye.
Martin Sweatman, a professor at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, analyzed a series of V-shaped symbols on a pillar at the site. Sweatman believes each of these shapes represents a single day, with one such pillar counting up to 365.
“We can interpret these V-shaped symbols and little box symbols on the pillar to be counting the days of the year like a calendar,” he says.
A bird-like creature on one of the pillars is also adorned with a V-symbol around its neck and could represent the summer solstice. In total, the pillar recorded 12 lunar months, Sweatman, who published his theory earlier this year in the journal Time & Mind, says. If accurate, it could represent the first and oldest known example of a lunisolar calendar that notes the phases of the moon and the position of the sun in the sky, according to a statement.
