Future historians will be in a unique position when they come to record the history of our own times. They will hardly know which facts to select from the great mass of evidence that steadily accumulates. What is more, they will not have to rely solely on the written word. Films, videos, CDs and CD-ROMs are just some of the bewildering amount of information they will have. They will be able, as it were, to see and hear us in action. But the historian attempting to reconstruct the distant past is always faced with a difficult task. He has to deduce what he can from the few scanty clues available. Even seemingly insignificant remains can shed interesting light on the history of early man.
Up to now, historians have assumed that calendars came into being with the advent of agriculture, for then man was faced with a real need to understand something about the seasons. Recent scientific evidence seems to indicate that this assumption is incorrect.
Historians have long been puzzled by dots, lines and symbols which have been engraved on walls, bones, and the ivory tusks of mammoths. The nomads who made these markings lived by hunting and fishing during the last Ice Age which began about 35,000 B.C. and ended about 10,000 B.C. By correlating markings made in various parts of the world, historians have been able to read this difficult code. They have found that it is connected with the passage of days and the phases of the moon. It is, in fact, a primitive type of calendar. It has long been known that the hunting scenes depicted on walls were not simply a form of artistic expression. They had a definite function, for they were as much a part of the ritual of hunting as the killing of the prey itself. This ritual was necessary to calm the gods who controlled the animals. Hunters and fishermen, in particular, were extremely superstitious. Thus, they engraved on the bones of the prey animals the signs of the moon which they had observed. The nomads who made these markings saw the moon as a major influence on their lives. They knew that it would affect the growth of plants and the migration of animals. They were convinced that it was the moon which caused the tides. They noted the phases of the moon in order to predict the times of high and low tides. They made these markings on the bones of the prey animals for two reasons. First, they wanted to record the number of kills they had made. Second, they wanted to mark the passage of days and the phases of the moon.
The ancient hunters" calendar was different from the calendars we use today. For one thing, it was not based on the movement of the sun. It was based on the movement of the moon. For another, it was not a written calendar. It was an engraved calendar. But it was a calendar just the same. It was a means of recording the passage of days and the phases of the moon. It was a way of predicting the times of high and low tides. It was a tool for hunters and fishermen. It was a form of art. It was a form of religious expression. It was a part of the ritual of hunting.