How Did Ancient Humans Know What Time It Was?

How Did Ancient Humans Know What Time It Was? All research and sources are linked below. 📚 RESEARCH & SOURCES: ▸ Warren Field pit alignment (the ~10,000-year-old "calendar" in Scotland) — "Time and a Place: A Luni-Solar 'Time-Reckoner' from 8th Millennium BC Scotland," Gaffney, V. et al. (2013), Internet Archaeology 34. ▸ Start of writing in Mesopotamia — "Archaic Bookkeeping," Nissen, H., Damerow, P., Englund, R. (1993), University of Chicago Press. ▸ One week of camping without electric light — "Entrainment of the Human Circadian Clock to the Natural Light-Dark Cycle," Wright, K. P. Jr. et al. (2013), Current Biology 23. ▸ The weekend follow-up study — "Circadian Entrainment to the Natural Light-Dark Cycle across Seasons and the Weekend," Stothard, E. R. et al. (2017), Current Biology 27. ▸ Marks on the Abri Blanchard bone — "Lunar Notation on Upper Paleolithic Remains," Marshack, A. (1964), Science 146. Also "The Roots of Civilization" (1972), McGraw-Hill. The lunar reading is still debated. ▸ The notched baboon bone from Border Cave — "Early Evidence of San Material Culture Represented by Organic Artifacts from Border Cave, South Africa," d'Errico, F. et al. (2012), PNAS 109. ▸ Sleep in the Hadza, San and Tsimane — "Natural Sleep and Its Seasonal Variations in Three Pre-industrial Societies," Yetish, G. et al. (2015), Current Biology 25. ▸ Clock monitoring and insomnia — "Sleeping with the Enemy: Clock Monitoring in the Maintenance of Insomnia," Tang, N. K. Y., Schmidt, D. A., Harvey, A. G. (2007), Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry 38. ▸ The rise of the mechanical clock — "History of the Hour: Clocks and Modern Temporal Orders," Dohrn-van Rossum, G. (1996), University of Chicago Press. ▸ From task time to clock time — "Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism," Thompson, E. P. (1967), Past & Present 38. ▸ Railroad standard time of 1883 — "Selling the True Time: Nineteenth-Century Timekeeping in America," Bartky, I. R. (2000), Stanford University Press. ———————————————————— PEOPLE & SITES MENTIONED IN THIS VIDEO: ▸ Vincent Gaffney — Archaeologist whose team studied Warren Field and argued its twelve pits track the lunar months and point to the midwinter sunrise. ▸ Warren Field, Scotland — A row of pits dug by hunter-gatherers about 10,000 years ago, interpreted as one of the oldest calendars ever found. ▸ Kenneth Wright — Sleep researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder who measured how a week without electric light shifts the human body clock. ▸ Alexander Marshack — Researcher who studied Ice Age bone marks under a microscope and proposed they record the phases of the moon. ▸ Abri Blanchard, France — A rock shelter where a marked bone, about 30,000 years old, was found. Its meaning is still debated. ▸ Border Cave, southern Africa — A cave site where a baboon bone with 29 notches, about 43,000 years old, was found. ▸ Gandhi Yetish — Lead author of the 2015 study that tracked the sleep of three groups living without electricity. ▸ The Hadza, the San and the Tsimane — Three communities in Tanzania, Namibia and Bolivia whose sleep patterns were measured with wrist sensors. ▸ E. P. Thompson — Historian who described how people moved from working by the task to working by the clock in early industrial Britain. ▸ The Day of Two Noons (November 18, 1883) — The day North American railroads switched to one standard time, ending the era of every town keeping its own noon. ———————————————————— #ancienthumans #prehistory #stoneage #anthropology #history #explainer #archaeology #huntergatherers #paleolithic #circadianrhythm #sleepscience #historyofTime #calendar #documentary #humanevolution #sciencefacts #ancienthistory #learnhistory