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Our first concern, then, is to determine how man creates a calendar. As you shall see, the division of a single day or night into smaller units occurs only after these larger units have been established and in use for some time. |
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Nomadic societies operating in the huntergatherer mode have little need for accurate knowledge of the lengths of months or years. Most such societies are concerned with keeping a tally of elapsed days and remaining days within a single month, which is typically done by keeping two bundles of small sticks. This task of tracking time is often entrusted to a tribal shaman, and is perhaps the earliest developmental instance of a long association between time and priests. Amerindian societies frequently used this technique. The Aztec concept of grouping years in a long count, for example, is referred to as "bundling," using the same word used for a bundle of sticks. We very likely have linguistic evidence preserving a prior nomadic lifestyle. |
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The real change in timekeeping comes when humans form agricultural communities. Once this occurs, an entire complex of related processes in initiated. |
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Settled agricultural communities tend to grow into cities. Virtually every society that enters this stage of social development establishes certain social structures and builds certain kinds of physical structures related to agriculture and timekeeping. In Egypt and Mesoamerica, these structures were pyramids. In England and continental Europe, structures like Stonehenge, Long Meg, menhirs and other evidence of megalithic construction with calendric purposes are found. Wherever we look, we find evidence that early agricultural societies needed a means of determining the length of the year, the time of the winter solstice, and so on. |
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The details of each development are lost in prehistory, but the general outline is clear enough. Early man learned to predict the occurrence of seasons with an accuracy of a few weeks using a vertical "clog stick" to measure the length of shadows on the ground. A taller stick is more accurate. A "stick" of stone is more permanent and better for record keeping than one of wood. |
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Once the length of the year had been determined by record keeping and measurements within the cultural confines of the society, the priest class organized massive projects to erect vertical structures laid out in ways that confirmed and demonstrated the calendric and astronomical knowledge of the priests. The priest class derived power and material benefits from administering this arrangement, predicting and determining those events and times of significance to the society. Knowledge of astronomical events was knowledge of "heavenly" events, so the association of priests with calendars is an ancient one. The association is also durable. Medieval European churches kept lists of "proper" days for sowing and harvesting various crops. The access of the peasant class to this information was mediated by the priests, who jealously guarded their "secret" knowledge, just as they had two millennia before. |
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The peasant class benefited by having their activities directed in a productive way and by having ceremonial reassurance that crops were planted and harvested at the right time to ensure the blessings of the concerned deities. |
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