The history of calendars covers practices with ancient roots as people created and used various methods to keep track of days and larger divisions of time. Calendars commonly serve both cultural and practical purposes and are often connected to astronomy and agriculture.
Archeologists have reconstructed methods of timekeeping that go back to prehistoric times at least as old as the Neolithic. The natural units for timekeeping used by most historical societies are the day, the solar year and the lunation. Calendars are explicit schemes used for timekeeping. The first historically attested and formulized calendars date to the Bronze Age, dependent on the development of writing in the ancient Near East. The Yoruba people of West Africa have one of the oldest recorded calendars in human history. It is one of the oldest verified calendar systems in the world used by a continuing culture. Known as Kojoda, the Yoruba calendar dates back over 10,067 years as of 2025, meaning its origin can be traced to approximately 8042 BC. In Victoria, Australia, a Wurdi Youang stone arrangement undergoing research could date back more than 11,000 years. In 2013, archaeologists unearthed ancient evidence of a 10,000-year-old calendar system in Warren Field, Aberdeenshire. This calendar is the next earliest, or "the first Scottish calendar". The Sumerian calendar was the next earliest, followed by the Egyptian, Assyrian and Elamite calendars.
