The World’s Oldest Lunar Calendar

Archaeologists working in the Dee Valley, Aberdeenshire, Scotland have identified what may be the world’s oldest calendar. They also believe the calendar, created as a series of 12 specially shaped pits arranged in a semi-circle and nearly 10,000 years old, may have been maintained and updated until around 4,000 years ago.

Until now the oldest calendars were the Bronze Age monuments found in Mesopotamia. The Scottish calendar predates them by thousands of years, pushing back calendar-making to roughly the end of the last Ice Age. The pits aligned perfectly on the midwinter solstice, adding credibility to the claim that this is an actual lunar calendar.

The pits are even shaped to reflect the various phases of the moon. Waxing, waning, crescents and gibbous phases are all present in their proper positions and arranged in a 164-foot (50 meter) long arc. The center pit, representing the full moon, is circular, roughly 7 feet (2 meters) across.
The pits were first discovered in 2004 on aerial photographs but only recently studied using remote-sensing technology. Specially developed software was used to work out the positions of sunrises and sunsets experienced 10,000 years ago.

It seems obvious that the early people who created this calendar so long ago needed to know about the changes of seasons. It would have helped them to know when game might be available, when crops could be harvested, and even to predict when salmon and other migrating fish could be harvested.

Once again, our ancient ancestors have left evidence of their astronomical knowledge and their ability to take advantage of that knowledge.

There is more detailed information about this intriguing discovery here

The World’s Oldest Message in a Bottle

Captain Andrew Leaper was fishing off Scotland’s Shetland Islands when he found a glass bottle in his nets. There was a paper inside dated from 1914. The find has now been confirmed as the oldest known message in a bottle by the Guinness World Records. The bottle had survived at sea for nearly 98 years.

It turns out that the bottle was released in 1914 as part of a research project tracking sea currents around Scotland. The finder was asked to write down the date and location of its discovery and to send a postcard in return for a small reward. Of the 1,890 bottles released, 315 have since been found to date.

This new find eclipses the previous record-holder, which had been found in 2006. Oddly, that bottle was found by the same fishing boat. The fishing grounds where the bottle was found is very popular, with literally hundreds of boats plying the same waters. It appears that the boat, called Copious, is a lucky little vessel.

There’s more information on this story here