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Warren Field is the location of a 
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic (Ancient Greek language, Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic i ...
calendar monument built about 8,000 BCE.
It includes 12 pits believed to correlate with phases of the Moon
A lunar phase or Moon phase is the apparent shape of the Moon's directly sunlit portion as viewed from the Earth. Because the Moon is Tidal locking, tidally locked with the Earth, the same Hemisphere (geometry), hemisphere is always facing the ...
and used as a lunisolar calendar
A lunisolar calendar is a calendar in many cultures, that combines monthly lunar cycles with the solar year. As with all calendars which divide the year into months, there is an additional requirement that the year have a whole number of mont ...
. It is considered to be the oldest lunisolar calendar yet found. It is near Crathes Castle
Crathes Castle (pronounced ) is a castle, built in the 16th century, near Banchory in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It is in the historic county of Kincardineshire. This harled castle was built by the Burnetts of Leys and was owned by the family for ...
, in the Aberdeenshire
Aberdeenshire (; ) is one of the 32 Subdivisions of Scotland#council areas of Scotland, council areas of Scotland.
It takes its name from the Shires of Scotland, historic county of Aberdeenshire (historic), Aberdeenshire, which had substantial ...
region of Scotland
Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
, in the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
. It was originally discovered from the air as anomalous terrain by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland
The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) was an executive non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government that was "sponsored" inanced and with oversightthrough Historic Scotland, an executive ...
. It was first excavated in 2004.
The pits align on the southeast horizon and a prominent topographic point associated with sunrise on the midwinter solstice (thus providing an annual astronomical correction concerning the passage of time as indicated by the Moon, the asynchronous solar year
A tropical year or solar year (or tropical period) is the time that the Sun takes to return to the same position in the sky – as viewed from the Earth or another celestial body of the Solar System – thus completing a full cycle of astronom ...
, and the associated seasons). The Aberdeenshire time reckoner predates the Mesopotamian
Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary o ...
calendars by nearly 5,000 years. It was also interpreted as a seasonal calendar because the local prehistoric communities, which relied on hunting migrating animals needed to carefully note the seasons to be prepared for a particular food source. The Warren Field site is particularly significant for its very early date and that it was created by hunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living in a community, or according to an ancestrally derived Lifestyle, lifestyle, in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local naturally occurring sources, esp ...
peoples, rather than sedentary farmers usually associated with monument building.
See also
*Prehistoric Scotland
Archaeology and geology continue to reveal the secrets of prehistoric Scotland, uncovering a complex past before the Romans brought Scotland into the scope of recorded history. Successive human cultures tended to be spread across Europe or fur ...
* Prehistoric Britain
Several species of humans have intermittently occupied Great Britain for almost a million years. The earliest evidence of human occupation around 900,000 years ago is at Happisburgh on the Norfolk coast, with stone tools and footprints prob ...
* Neolithic British Isles
The Neolithic period in the British Isles lasted from 4100 to 2,500 Before Christ, BC. Constituting the final stage of the Stone Age in the region, it was preceded by the Mesolithic and followed by the Bronze Age Britain, Bronze Age.
During ...
*
*
*
* , ten or eleven days shorter than a solar year
** . For example, if the winter solstice and the new moon coincide, it takes 19 solar years for the coincidence to recur.
References
Stone Age sites in Scotland Archaeological sites in Aberdeenshire Buildings and structures completed in the 9th century BC {{Scotland-stub