Did Ancient Farming Needs Shape Math and Language Development?

[Drakkith]

Thread locked for moderation.

 

[Drakkith]

Thread tentatively unlocked. I remind all posters that PF rules require that discussions be able to be traced back to mainstream, accepted sources. Please keep that in mind.

 

[Hornbein]

Noam Chomsky observes that all peoples can learn math, whether or not their ancestors used it. So this ability is not he result of evolution. He thinks that it is simply a variation on the innate ability to learn a language.

 

[Isaacsname]

Ok, great, I appreciate it

The extent of Mesopotamiam metrology is fairly well established fact in the world of academia, it forms the basis of the systems we keep time with { we still use their systems of angles and we still divide land in the US according to these ancient methods }, using several different calendars along with various intercalations. A few cursory minutes on wikipedia would have revealed that

All calculations were done on the hands because the hands were the first calculators, and thus with 10 fingers you would count off arcseconds of the Moon's movement per each finger, this was all based on the math of a circle { This is what tripped up Newton for 14 years until Hooke sent the letter about the parabola } They used the circle and just added corrections { intercalations, this was all that necessary }

It's an obscure subject and crosses into some topics that are not necessarily pure math { linguistics, semantics }, which is why it's tricky to discuss { and if anybody wants to discuss it further on a different thread or in private, just let me know }, however that said, I'm only interested in the basis of the development of mathematics born out of the necessity to feed a population and most importantly here; " sustain population growth "

My statement that " if you cannot math you cannot eat " is entirely accurate in light of what happens when you try to keep accurate cycles without intercalations

Even being off by a tiny amount with your measurements leads to huge errors after just a few years, and this I can assure you would lead to disastrous crop failures

I also have an extensive background with horticulture, botany, permaculture, farming ' gardening in general, orchards, vineyards, mycology, etc { part of my education as a chef } and I could demonstrate how disastrous this would be for each " growing zone " on Earth if you did not keep accurate records of the cycles for farming purposes

You would be way off for planting times, harvests, insect pollination cycles, animal breeding cycles, migrations, etc, all these things are following the seasons and thus the movement of the Sun, Earth and Moon

So, that is my argument in a nutshell

Thanks, Isaac

 

[Evo]

Ok, great, I appreciate it

The extent of Mesopotamiam metrology is fairly well established fact in the world of academia, it forms the basis of the systems we keep time with { we still use their systems of angles and we still divide land in the US according to these ancient methods }, using several different calendars along with various intercalations. A few cursory minutes on wikipedia would have revealed that

All calculations were done on the hands because the hands were the first calculators, and thus with 10 fingers you would count off arcseconds of the Moon's movement per each finger, this was all based on the math of a circle { This is what tripped up Newton for 14 years until Hooke sent the letter about the parabola } They used the circle and just added corrections { intercalations, this was all that necessary }

It's an obscure subject and crosses into some topics that are not necessarily pure math { linguistics, semantics }, which is why it's tricky to discuss { and if anybody wants to discuss it further on a different thread or in private, just let me know }, however that said, I'm only interested in the basis of the development of mathematics born out of the necessity to feed a population and most importantly here; " sustain population growth "

My statement that " if you cannot math you cannot eat " is entirely accurate in light of what happens when you try to keep accurate cycles without intercalations

Even being off by a tiny amount with your measurements leads to huge errors after just a few years, and this I can assure you would lead to disastrous crop failures

I also have an extensive background with horticulture, botany, permaculture, farming ' gardening in general, orchards, vineyards, mycology, etc { part of my education as a chef } and I could demonstrate how disastrous this would be for each " growing zone " on Earth if you did not keep accurate records of the cycles for farming purposes

You would be way off for planting times, harvests, insect pollination cycles, animal breeding cycles, migrations, etc, all these things are following the seasons and thus the movement of the Sun, Earth and Moon

So, that is my argument in a nutshell

Thanks, Isaac

Sorry, what, exactly is this thread about? Ancient planting times based on seasons? I don't doubt that seasons were used in ancient times, lunar, solar, etc... they still are, but I see no citations that math was necessary for knowing these seasons back then. I need acceptable sources.

Thank you.

 

[micromass]

Sorry, what, exactly is this thread about? Ancient planting times based on seasons? I don't doubt that seasons were used in ancient times, lunar, solar, etc... they still are, but I see no citations that math was necessary for knowing these seasons back then. I need acceptable sources.

Thank you.

It is well known. I already linked a book earlier in the thread that discusses this.

 

[Isaacsname]

Ok, ok, don't get all upset, just hold on a second, nobody even asked me for sources yet and you're jumping my case. If you wanted sources you should just ask

I don't see why this material cannot be obtained simply by taking the few minutes it takes to respond to the thread

Ancient Mesopotamian units of measurement

You can start with this chart on their metrology so you can grasp how and why their units for measurements are based on astronomical calculations, and the entire system is based on the measurement of the first important crop of the are, called the Barleycorn { after what they farmed }

It's a rather large file though, so be warned

It is this system that is based on the unit called the " barleycorn " { pronounced " she " } and the caculations for the astronomical cycles are based on the following things

If the concept of a hand holding a grain could not be more of an indication their system of metrology was indeed meant to facilitate successful farming, then I'm afraid the following would not be true for the year they used

I have a feeling that attempting to discuss this topic is going to be met with resistence, but there is nothing about what I am presenting that is not well established fact

It may be a confusing concept to think of holding time in your hand, but that's exactly how they did it

This is a forum on mathematics, physics and astronomy and the like , yes ?

I can get quite quite rigorous with my math in order to explain these concepts if you like, if there are any doubts

Thanks,
Isaac

 

[sophiecentaur]

Without the ability to predict, your farming doesn't work. You cannot rely on weather conditions today to tell you whether or not to plant your seeds. How, without some Maths, can you know what you should be doing at any particular time?
But the thread suddenly went very detailed and prehistoric. The development of Maths as an entity in itself seems to have been ignored. Nerdishness took Maths outside the realm of sheer practicality and Maths is now, constantly producing solutions to non-practical problems (as a spin off from the practical ones.
Incidentally, Biology has its share of advanced Maths applications. Genome work has some pretty sophisticated Maths involved.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I doubt math was first developed exclusively in order to facilitate agriculture. I am sure it was developed to facilitate everything it facilitated, and I would wager that keeping track of the exchange of goods and services was the main driver: commerce.
Counting, itself, the basis of math, is believed to have a commercial root:

A tally (or tally stick) was an ancient memory aid device used to record and document numbers, quantities, or even messages. Tally sticks first appear as animal bones carved with notches, in the Upper Paleolithic; a notable example is the Ishango Bone. Historical reference is made by Pliny the Elder (AD 23–79) about the best wood to use for tallies, and by Marco Polo (1254–1324) who mentions the use of the tally in China. Tallies have been used for numerous purposes such as messaging and scheduling, and especially in financial and legal transactions, to the point of being currency.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tally_stick

Numerals originally developed from the use of tally marks as an counting aid, with the oldest examples being about 35,000 to 25,000 years old.

Development
Counting aids like tally marks become more sophisticated in the Near Eastern Neolithic, developing into various types of proto-writing. The Cuneiform script develops out of proto-writing associated with keeping track of goods during theChalcolithic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_numerals

After the Ubaid Period (c. 5000-4100 BCE) came the Uruk Period (4100-2900 BCE) in which cities began to emerge across the landscape and the city of Uruk rose in prominence. Though the period is named for the `first city’ of Uruk, Eridu was considered the first city by the Sumerians themselves, as previously noted. http://www.ancient.eu/trade/ was firmly established with foreign lands at this time and writing evolved from pictograms to cuneiform script. It is thought that trade was the main motivator in the development of writing as there now had to be some means for accurate, long-distance, communication between the merchants of Sumer and their agents abroad.

http://www.ancient.eu/sumer/

The fact the Sumerians used a piece of grain to represent the unit doesn't really say anything definite about anything. The Romans used pebbles. Does that mean anything?

A lot of the North American Indians planted various crops: corn, squash, beans, tobacco, without any calendars or any math. I recall reading a book about the French and Indian Wars many years back and learning that one of George Washington's tactics was to locate and destroy the Indian's stores of corn. They knew how to grow and preserve enough corn to get them through the winters. They had no math beyond tally sticks and no calendars.

 

[sophiecentaur]

They had no math beyond tally sticks and no calendars.

What does that prove, except that they were more vulnerable to nature. In any case, how can anyone be sure of how they actually worked things out? Without a detailed written record, we couldn't tell what proto mathematical tricks they were using.
I still don't see how the detailed origins of Maths are necessarily relevant to how and why it's used now and in the future.

 

[symbolipoint]

What does that prove, except that they were more vulnerable to nature. In any case, how can anyone be sure of how they actually worked things out? Without a detailed written record, we couldn't tell what proto mathematical tricks they were using.
I still don't see how the detailed origins of Maths are necessarily relevant to how and why it's used now and in the future.

A university Mathematics program must have curriculum portions dedicated to Mathematics History. Anything from pre-history would only be speculation unless anthropological or archaeological evidence was found and studied, and maybe also speculated upon.

 

[DiracPool]

I must apologize...Whenever I'm engaged in preparing a manuscript I become completely absorbed in it and tend to become "over-empassioned." So I'd like to put forth a more sober analysis here. The question of why did we develop math is as principal a question as why do we know we exist in the first place. So I think it's an important one. These neuroscience questions of the hard problem and the easy problem of consciousness I think are splitting hairs. You can't separate the qualitative experience of being conscious from the "contents" of consciousness such as looking at the world through a mathematical lens. I think the OP makes a good point about this. You have to do a little reading through the lines in his posts, but what I distill from his argument is that there is this mysterious "thing" called mathematical cognition that is deeply infused in our perception of the world and how we interact and survive in it. Where did this come from and why does this seem to be a (mostly) distinctive human trait?

That's a legitimate question. And we do have some clues that can lead us to answer this question. The principal clue is that it can be instructive not to look as mathematical ability as a separate "module" of brain function distinct from all the other putatively distinct human capacities. The curious thing about distinctly human abilities is that they pretty much, across the board, are distinguished by the model that they are hierarchically organized sequential structures. This is as true for math, spoken language, and musical ability, three principle features that seem to distinguish humans from the rest of the animal kingdom.

In W.W. Sawyer's popular book, "Mathemetician's Delight," he starts off every chapter with a quote. In one of the chapters later in the book, the quote is "Mathematics is a language." And so it is.

Karen Schrock wrote a nice article called "Why music moves us" which compellingly argues for an organic link between music and language. I think it's behind a paywall though, sorry..

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-music-moves-us/

There are, of course many more staid scholarly articles and book chapters devoted to this connection, but, the conclusion I think we may be able to glean here is that there may be some general language-related mechanism that somehow was birthed into the human brain, and perhaps this is what defines humanity and can answer these deep existential questions such as why can we differentiate a function, why can we play a pentatonic scale, and why can't we talk to the animals?

Noam Chomsky observes that all peoples can learn math, whether or not their ancestors used it. So this ability is not he result of evolution. He thinks that it is simply a variation on the innate ability to learn a language.

Yes, I think he famously coined this the uniquely human "language acquisition device." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_acquisition_device

I first came across this idea, I think, in his precis of his book "Rules and representations" in the Journal Brain and Behavioral Sciences in the 80's.

http://journals.cambridge.org/actio...e=online&aid=6468760&fileId=S0140525X00001515

I completely agree with his argument other than the perhaps not so explicitly stated subtext that the language acquisition device is some sort of modular addition to the human brain, perhaps the equivalent of upgrading your computer's graphics card from the Geforce 8600gts to the new 970GTX with the 1664 CUDA cores? Sounds like a good first approximation, but it doesn't hold up under more detailed analysis. So these are a few of the things that keep me up at night as I'm preparing this new manuscript.

To make a short story, long, then, the model I have developed is essentially in the spirit of Chomsky's, BUT, I envision a radical reordering of the brain on essentially every level. In the isocortex, though, subcortical systems essentially remain conserved with the partial exception of "top-down" (cortex to subcortex) modifications.

As I said in an earlier post in this thread, What I'm using to defend my hypothesis in this recent paper is largely the wide spate of recent genetic data that has accumulated over the part decade related most specifically to the human genome project. Also, I'm using a good deal of archaeological evidence that also seems to be progressing nicely lately.

The crux of the argument is that the adaptive evolution of genes such as ASPM created what we might call a language acquisition device in humans, but not in the same way Chomsky envisioned it. This was a "graduated continuum" process that occurred over millions of years of hominin evolution. It occurred in stages. Nothing "continuous" is going on here. These discrete "jumps" in the evolution of human somatic traits again occurred through the adaptive evolution of microcephlay related genes such as ASPM. There's implications all along the line, from the production of hand-axes to the taming of fire to the descent of the larynx and others. But the most recent significant jump occurred about 6000 years ago, which is what gave us the ability to do math and talk. I'm thinking it was a modification of the ASPM gene:

From: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16151010

"Here, we show that one genetic variant of ASPM in humans arose merely about 5800 years ago and has since swept to high frequency under strong positive selection."

But again, I'm just giving my opinion here to address the OP's question, not trying to advance any personal model

 

[micromass]

But the most recent significant jump occurred about 6000 years ago, which is what gave us the ability to do math and talk.

Are you saying we couldn't talk more than 6000 years ago? And how do you explain the mathematics in america? Did the Mayas/Incas/Indians/whatever miraculously go through the same evolutionary jump?

"Advanced" mathematical notation can be found in any big city throughout history. So I think it is reasonably that the existence of the big cities gave a big impetus towards doing math.

And then only one civilization (Greeks) ever made the jump towards deductive, axiomatic math.

 

[DennisN]

Did mathematics and symbolic and natural languages arise from the necessity of keeping track of astronomical cycles ? [...] Thanks, just trying to settle a debate I'm having with some friends

Hi, Isaacsname, just a short sidenote from me: If you are interested in this topic you may also enjoy this BBC documentary, The Story of Maths. I remember I enjoyed it.

 

[DiracPool]

Are you saying we couldn't talk more than 6000 years ago?

I'm not saying that at all. Our best evidence is that the larynx in hominins descended roughly 300kya, so this is clear evidence that the capacity for speech was selected for about this time. The question is what kind of speech? Obviously is wasn't the kind of speech that left a lasting written record of it. So yes, humans could likely talk to each other in some fashion, but it's not like the sophisticated language we have today. Again, the proof of the pudding is in the taste. The burden of proof is not on me to justify my argument for a model that explains why humans could not do math nor speak nor produce written language prior to 6000 years ago...the burden of proof is for someone to explain to me a model of why humans could do these things and we have no archaeological record of it.

And how do you explain the mathematics in america? Did the Mayas/Incas/Indians/whatever miraculously go through the same evolutionary jump?

So what I think you're saying here is how did this capacity for math spread so widely so fast? That's a good question. And I'm not sure I have a great answer to that right now, other than to say this is a work in progress, and new evidence is coming in every day. But sometimes you have to balance these questions versus the alternative. Does it really make sense that humans had some latent capacity for written language, cuneiform, the ability to construct cities, etc. etc. for thousands of years, and it just so happened that one day somebody woke out of a stupor and said, hey guys, let's build a city and organize our economics with some symbolic structure and scribblings?

Or does it make more sense that humans were gifted through genetic evolution circa 6000 years ago that compelled them, perhaps even reluctantly, to take on this quest?

 

[micromass]

Again, the proof of the pudding is in the taste. The burden of proof is not on me to justify my argument for a model that explains why humans could not do math nor speak nor produce written language prior to 6000 years ago...the burden of proof is for someone to explain to me a model of why humans could do these things and we have no archaeological record of it.

And now you misunderstand the burden of proof. You're making the claim that they couldn't do the math 6000 years ago, so you need to prove the claim. I am merely saying I don't believe your claim, so I don't have a burden of proof.
There are two situations for a claim A. You can say: claim A happens or claim A did not happen. Both have burden of proof. If you say "not enough evidence has been presented", then you don't have burden of proof until there is enough evidence.
So what I think you're saying here is how did this capacity for math spread so widely so fast? [/QUOTE]

No. I am saying that 6000 years ago it was impossible for Americans and other cultures to come into contact. It just couldn't happen. But both developed math skills.

Does it really make sense that humans had some latent capacity for written language, cuneiform, the ability to construct cities, etc. etc. for thousands of years, and it just so happened that one day somebody woke out of a stupor and said, hey guys, let's build a city and organize our economics with some symbolic structure and scribblings?

That's where evidence points to. The importance of math came from organizing a big economy. The question therefore is why people started building big cities suddenly.

 

[DiracPool]

No. I am saying that 6000 years ago it was impossible for Americans and other cultures to come into contact. It just couldn't happen. But both developed math skills.

Ok, so it was impossible..So how did they both develop math skills at (nearly) the same time? I'm not fact checking this btw, right now, I'll just accept your argument.

That's where evidence points to. The importance of math came from organizing a big economy. The question therefore is why people started building big cities suddenly.

Ok, so let me rephrase this in light of my argument. You are saying here that the modern (mathematical, etc.) capacities of the human mind were latent (for how long?) prior to 6000 years ago, and that perhaps it was a critical mass of some sort of humans gathering in a community that sparked a cognitive revolution that led to the building of cities and beyond?

 

[micromass]

Ok, so it was impossible..So how did they both develop math skills at (nearly) the same time? I'm not fact checking this btw, right now, I'll just accept your argument.

I don't know. But me not knowing does not provide any evidence for your model.

 

[micromass]

Ok, so let me rephrase this in light of my argument. You are saying here that the modern (mathematical, etc.) capacities of the human mind were latent (for how long?) prior to 6000 years ago, and that perhaps it was a critical mass of some sort of humans gathering in a community that sparked a cognitive revolution that led to the building of cities and beyond?

To be clear, we don't know that they didn't have "advanced" math prior to 6000 years ago, we just have no evidence that they did (which is not surprising since it seems difficult to find original sources for anything math related in history, just look at the amount of original Greek texts we have, almost none!). So it is likely that some people 10000 years ago suddenly found an amazing math notation system, but then it was disregarded by everybody else because it was not useful to them. It only became useful once you needed to work with big numbers and do difficult calculations. Those things are needed in big cities and empires.

 

[DiracPool]

So it is likely that some people 10000 years ago suddenly found an amazing math notation system, but then it was disregarded by everybody else because it was not useful to them.

Likely? That's abject conjecture of the most serious kind. This kind of thinking posits that we, as humans, were sitting around in tribes for thousands of years, while, at the same time having an "amazing math notation system," that for some reason "Thog" the caveman wasn't able to "shop" successfully to the rest of the community or the other tribes. Does that fit with the quality of opportunism, greed, and entreprenurialism that runs rampant in society since 6000 years ago?

It only became useful once you needed to work with big numbers and do difficult calculations.

See, this is where I disagree with you. I think these things become useful once we have the capacity to do them. There's a great tradition of the arts that sees artistic expression coming from deep inner need to express for the sake of expression rather than for some practical need. It's even been said that Newton used to calculate logs out to extreme decimals for no practical purpose other than he liked to calculate.

 

[micromass]

Likely? That's abject conjecture of the most serious kind. This kind of thinking posits that we, as humans, were sitting around in tribes for thousands of years, while, at the same time having an "amazing math notation system," that for some reason "Thog" the caveman wasn't able to "shop" successfully to the rest of the community or the other tribes. Does that fit with the quality of opportunism, greed, and entreprenurialism that runs rampant in society since 6000 years ago?

Yep. And I actually have some evidence for this. Consider the case of Tasmania. Tasmania was connected with a landbridge to Australia for a long time. Thus the Tasmanians and the Australians had the same technology. This technology consisted of eg fishing. Around 10000 years ago, the landbridge with Australia became severed and Tasmania was isolated for thousands of years. During that time, Tasmanians actually lost their fishing abilities. When the Europeans finally discovered Tasmania, they had no noteworthy technology, as opposed to the Australian aboriginals which did have some more.

You have to admit that the ability to fish is much more useful than an "amazing math notation system"! And if small isolated societies can lose their ability to fish, I see no hope for some useless math to be very succesful.

Also, before we knew farming, humans were hunters-gatherers. This means that virtually all humans had to work hard to obtain their food. This leaves little time for discussing amazing math. With farming, you have better food yields. And thus a society could support a different class of people who didn't need to make food every day and who could perhaps think more about theoretical stuff.

See here for more reading: http://edge.org/conversation/jared_...d-differently-on-different-continents-for-the

See, this is where I disagree with you. I think these things become useful once we have the capacity to do them. There's a great tradition of the arts that sees artistic expression coming from deep inner need to express for the sake of expression rather than for some practical need. It's even been said that Newton used to calculate logs out to extreme decimals for no practical purpose other than he liked to calculate.

Even recently, people have done amazing things, which have forgotten through time. For example, in the 19th century, there was an immense surge in projective geometry. And I have read some of that research, and it is simply amazing and beautiful. However, only a handful of mathematicians nowadays know a lot about what has been done then. It just wasn't useful even to mathematicians. We are still doing some kind of projective geometry today, but in a completely different style and with a different purpose. Even math research is susceptible to fads, and within 100 years a lot of what has been done has been completely forgetten. So just the capacity and the ability of doing something does not means that it is useful and does not mean that it will be preserved through time.

 

[Hornbein]

And then only one civilization (Greeks) ever made the jump towards deductive, axiomatic math.

Perhaps, but India invented axiomatic logic. It came to England via George Everest, who was a close associate of George Boole.

 

[Hornbein]

The burden of proof is not on me to justify my argument for a model that explains why humans could not do math nor speak nor produce written language prior to 6000 years ago.

The Mahabharata precedes written language. It was passed along via memorization. A few practitioners remain in India.

 

[micromass]

Perhaps, but India invented axiomatic logic. It came to England via George Everest, who was a close associate of George Boole.

When? Independent of the ancient Greeks?

 

[Hornbein]

When? Independent of the ancient Greeks?

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=ancient hindu texts formal logic

Wikipedia:
Logic began independently in ancient India and continued to develop to early modern times without any known influence from Greek logic.[32]https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Medhatithi_Gautama&action=edit&redlink=1 (c. 6th century BC) founded the anviksiki school of logic.[33] The Mahabharata(12.173.45), around the 5th century BC, refers to the anviksiki and tarka schools of logic. Pāṇini (c. 5th century BC) developed a form of logic (to which Boolean logic has some similarities) for his formulation of Sanskrit grammar. Logic is described by Chanakya (c. 350-283 BC) in his Arthashastra as an independent field of inquiry.[34]
...
Since 1824, Indian logic attracted the attention of many Western scholars, and has had an influence on important 19th-century logicians such as Charles Babbage, Augustus De Morgan, and particularly George Boole, as confirmed by his wife Mary Everest Boole, who wrote in 1901 an "open letter to Dr Bose", which was titled "Indian Thought and Western Science in the Nineteenth Century" and stated:[40][41] "Think what must have been the effect of the intense Hinduizing of three such men as Babbage, De Morgan and George Boole on the mathematical atmosphere of 1830-1865".

 

[zoobyshoe]

What does that prove, except that they were more vulnerable to nature.

No, It proves it isn't necessary to have calendars to have successful agriculture.

In any case, how can anyone be sure of how they actually worked things out? Without a detailed written record, we couldn't tell what proto mathematical tricks they were using.

The only thing you need for agricultural timing, it should be obvious, is simple memory of the course of the seasons for a year, and the knowledge that that fairly short cycle repeats endlessly. It isn't necessary to know a specific date. It isn't necessary to know there are 365 days in a year. All you need to know is things like, you have about a 4 1/2 moon window to grow a plant that takes about 2 1/2 moons to mature. That sort of rule of thumb.

And, we have lots of detailed written records of how various primitive peoples worked out all kinds of things, records made by literate people who encountered and interacted with them, both ancient and modern.

Googling tells me the Sumerians had an astrological system. The calendars they worked out were probably more linked to that than anything else.

"Advanced" mathematical notation can be found in any big city throughout history. So I think it is reasonably that the existence of the big cities gave a big impetus towards doing math.

It only became useful once you needed to work with big numbers and do difficult calculations. Those things are needed in big cities and empires.

I agree with this. Math was needed to build cities and empires and was explored for those purposes, and the converse is true; the existence of cities and empires allowed for the dedicated mathematician, the architect, the accountant, the astrologer, etc. In more primitive societies everyone has to be able to do everything such that no one gets really expert at anything the way city dwellers can.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

Necessity is the mother of invention. The development of math enhanced survival and population growth.

 

[Hornbein]

The Balinese calendar is 420 days. It is numerological.

 

[Isaacsname]

"zoobyshoe " The Romans used pebbles "

They used them for what ?

Isopsephy ?

About the only thing they used pebbles for was to teach figurate numbers { but that is entirely another conversation }

Babylonian S type cuniform is the basis of what I am discussing, thanks, not rocks

 

[Isaacsname]

Look, try to keep an accurate calendar using months that are off from the average Synodic length and see what happens

Average SYM = 29.53 days

12.369 SYM / year = 365.25657

That's a Julian year

Now try to keep that with a 30 day month

12.369 SYM / year x 30 days = 371.07

Now look at how far off you drift in the space of just 5 years

{ 30 day months } = 1855.35 days

{ 29.53 day months } = 1826.28285 days

In just 5 years you are off by almost a full month

That is disastrous for a farmer who is trying to keep a schedule

I guess some of you have never attempted farming on a large scale ?

 

[Isaacsname]

If you don't think you need to know the cycles accurately, you have obviously never farmed

It's not as easy as just walking outside and throwing seeds on the ground

I don't think you are considering the logistics of large scale manual farming, this much is obvious

also, simply by information entropy in historical records you can plainly see the information that was the most important is what they left the most records of:

Farming and astronomical cycles are two of these things they must have deemed important otherwise they wouldn't have been so meticulous about keeping records

Unless there is a plethora of undiscovered cuniform regarding how to sew buttons on shirts, or how to wage war, or how to tell lame jokes, and I haven't seen those yet

 

[Evo]

It is well known. I already linked a book earlier in the thread that discusses this.

You linked a book? It just mentions positions of constellations for planting times? I already agreed with that, but I don't see any reference to math in your post.

I think this could be a really interesting thread, but we need to do some clean up and follow rules (not you), nothing has improved since Drakkith's re-opening message. If this thread is going to become meaningful, we need to agree on some rules.

 

[Evo]

Ok, ok, don't get all upset, just hold on a second, nobody even asked me for sources yet and you're jumping my case. If you wanted sources you should just ask

I'm not upset, our rules stipulate acceptable sources must be cited, that was brought up by micromass and then mentor drakkith said so right before you posted again without sources.

It seems this thread continues to deteriorate into arguing back and forth. I don't have much time and perhaps this was already linked.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_mathematics#Prehistoric_mathematics