A researcher at the University of Edinburgh has discovered what he believes to be the oldest calendar of its kind at Gobekli Tepe, an archaeological excavation site in what is now southern Turkey.
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Martin Sweatman said in research published in July that V-shaped markings on the lunisolar calendar, which combines the movements of the Moon and Sun,They recorded an important astronomical event that had a huge impact on Earth —turning the pillar into part of an ancient version of a memorial.
Sweatman said the intricate carvings tell the story and document the date when fragments of a comet hit the Earth approximately 13 thousand years ago.
The impact of the comet, which the most recent research places at 10,850 BC, has long been a source of disagreement among scholars and researchers.
This is not the first time Sweatman has been able to link the comet impact to the site in Turkey, he said. In 2017, he linked the two in a paper in which he argued that the site was used as a place to observe space.
At the time, a group of excavators at Gobekli Tepe questioned these findings.
Jens Notroff, an archaeologist who wrote the post on the excavators’ website, was not immediately convinced by the new finds and questioned whether the marks had a deeper meaning.
Sweatman said the recent discovery that one of the pillars also represents a lunisolar calendar — and therefore marks the day of the impact — aligned with his previous research. “We can be very confident that it is a date,” he said.
The comet’s impact ushered in a 1,200-year ice age and led to the extinction of many large animals, Sweatman said. For humans, the comet likely also led to differences in lifestyle and agriculture that helped usher in civilization as we know it.
Although Sweatman has long been researching the symbols at the ancient site in Turkey, this recent breakthrough came in the form of a tip when someone emailed him saying that The V-shaped symbols on the pillar could be interpreted as markings of the lunar cycle. “I hadn’t realized that before,” he said.
Each V-shaped symbol could represent a single day, Sweatman’s research suggests. “This interpretation allowed researchers to count on one of the pillars a 365-day solar calendar, made up of 12 lunar months plus 11 additional days,” the research states.
Sweatman said the carvings suggest “ancient people may have recorded their observations of the sun, moon and constellations in the form of a solar calendar, created to keep time and mark the changing of the seasons,” he said.
“What it suggests is that this event was important to them.”
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