Göbekli Tepe carvings may be world's oldest lunisolar calendar

New research published in Time and Mind by Martin Sweatman of the University of Edinburgh suggests that V-shaped carvings on a 13,000-year-old pillar at Göbekli Tepe in Turkey represent a lunisolar calendar, potentially the oldest known. The calendar consisted of 12 lunar months plus 11 extra days, tracking the sun, moon, and constellations. One V-shaped symbol around a bird-like figure may depict the summer solstice constellation. The carvings may also record a catastrophic comet impact around 10,850 BCE, supported by sediment evidence in North America and Greenland containing high levels of platinum and nanodiamonds. This impact likely caused a 1,200-year mini ice age and may have spurred the Neolithic transition to agriculture. Another pillar possibly documents the Taurid meteor stream, suggesting ancient inhabitants could track Earth's axial precession, a skill previously attributed to Hipparchus in Greece 10,000 years later. Göbekli Tepe, discovered by the late German professor Klaus Schmidt in the 1990s, is the oldest known monumental complex, with T-shaped pillars up to six meters high featuring anthropomorphic and zoomorphic carvings.