April 28, 192 1] 



NATURE 



275 



arranged account of the first steps made by man- 

 kind towards a knowledge of the division of time. 

 The detailed work on this subject by Prof. Nilsson,! 

 of Lund, is, therefore, a most welcome addition to 

 the literature of chronology, and, being based on 

 a thorough study of the immense number of pub- 

 lications on the ways of primitive nations, it is 

 fit to form an introduction to the great work of 

 Ginzel, which "chiefly deals with the chronological 

 systems of more advanced races. 



To the lowest tribes of mankind the seasons are 

 the earliest units of time. Except in the tropics, 

 hot and cold seasons succeed each other, and 

 where the year is not spoken of, the number of 

 summers or winters which have elapsed since a 

 certain event took place is the earliest way of 

 describing intervals of time. This practice is 

 often continued in more civilised times — e.g. in 

 the Middle Ages among Scandinavians and Anglo- 

 Saxons time was reckoned in winters. In some 

 localities the atmospheric conditions are such that 

 two divisions of the year may be distinguished by 

 the winds, as in the Marshall Islands, where 

 months of calm and months of squalls succeed 

 each other. In other places there are regularly 

 recurring dry and wet seasons. People who en- 

 gage in agriculture often divide the year into a 

 greater number of seasons, eight or nine, accord- 

 ing to their occupations, and even in China there 

 is found, alongside the luni-solar year and its 

 subdivisions, another system of dividing the year 

 into twenty-four parts, the names of which refer 

 partly to the weather, partly to other phenomena. 

 In northern India there were originally (as there 

 still are in Burma) three seasons, a hot, a rainy, 

 and a cold, among which two or three transitional 

 ones were later interpolated. Similarly, the Indo- 

 European nations had three seasons — winter, 

 spring, and summer — which were later subdivided 

 into shorter seasons of ploughing-time, hay- 

 making-time, etc. 



Though we have spoken of the year being sub- 

 divided into various parts, this must not be under- 

 stood as meaning that the use of the solar year is 

 as old as the time-indications referring to natural 

 phenomena. Not seldom the dry and rainy or 

 warm and cold seasons are counted without being 

 combined into a year. In Iceland there still exists 

 a curious calendar, which divides the year into 

 two parts — misseri — and the people count so 

 many misseri, not years. Until midsummer 

 (or midwinter) they reckon forwards, and say that 

 so many weeks of summer (or winter) have 

 passed ; after that they say that so many weeks 

 remain. The climatic year is a cycle which has 

 no regular beginning, but the agricultural year 

 has a natural beginning, which is generally 

 marked by the rising of a certain star or group 

 of stars, often the Pleiades, before sunrise (the 

 heliacal rising). 



The word for "year" is usually one referring 



1 '■ Primitive Time-reciconing : A Study in the Origins and First Develop- 

 ment of the Art of Counting Time among the Primitive and Farly Culture 

 Peoples." By Prof. Martin P. Nilsson. (Skrifter Utgivna av Humanistiska 

 Vetenskaps«amfundet i Lund, I.) Pp. xiii-t-384. (Lund : C. W. K. 

 Gleerup; London: Humphrey Milford ; Oxfori University Press 1920.) 

 2 If. net. 



NO. 2687. VOL. 107] 



to produce, but among the lowest races only a 

 few years are counted, perhaps three or four; 

 everything further back is merely said to have 

 happened "some time ago." This is often suffi- 

 cient, as such savages are frequently not inter- 

 ested in their own age or in that of other people, 

 but only in that of their cattle. As to epochs 

 from which the years may be counted, it is not 

 until the beginning of history that the accession 

 of kings is used for this purpose. Before that 

 time some unusual event marks an epoch, such as 

 a very severe winter or a great war, and as cul- 

 ture progresses such events multiply ; and when 

 their succession is known, a longer period is the 

 result. This method of distinguishing the years 

 was employed in ancient Babylonia, in the days 

 of the Sumerian kingdom of Ur, in the second 

 half of the third millennium B.C. The king's acces- 

 sion marks only one year, the others being named 

 by events in the religious cult and politics. 

 Similarly, in the older period of Egyptian history 

 each year is described by an official name bor- 

 rowed from the festivals— e.^. those of the king's 

 accession, of the worship of Horus, of the sow- 

 ing, etc. 



The natural subdivision of the year is formed 

 by the period of revolution of the moon with 

 regard to the sun, or, what comes to the same 

 thing, the period of its changing appearance, its 

 phases. Man's attention must have been directed 

 to the moon from the very infancy of time, as 

 the course of the moon from the first appearance 

 of the new to the disappearance of the old 

 is short enough to be surveyed by the unde- 

 veloped intellect. Almost everywhere the " month " 

 as a unit of measure is denoted by the same word 

 as the moon. At first no attention was paid to 

 the number of days in the month, and many primi- 

 tive peoples cannot even count as far as thirty. 

 But the changing form of the moon is sufficient 

 as an indicator of time, and greater refinement of 

 observation is by degrees attained until every day 

 of the moon's revolution is described by a name. 

 Such names often not only refer to the phases 

 of the moon, but also indicate its position in the 

 sky. The first appearance of the lunar crescent 

 is an important event carefully watched for and 

 often celebrated as a feast day. The full moon 

 also gives rise to special feasts ; half Africa dances 

 in the light of the full moon. So did the ancient 

 Iberians and many others. 



The next step in the progress of primitive 

 chronology is to group a number of months to- 

 gether into a cycle. At first, uncivilised peoples 

 with an undeveloped faculty of counting can 

 numerically determine only a couple of months 

 before or after the time of the moon at the moment 

 visible in the heavens. The months are then given 

 names from the principal agricultural operations 

 going on when the moon appears and while it 

 lasts, and this often leads to the same moon 

 having several names. If all the names in use 

 among Melanesians were counted, the year of the 

 natives would seem to be made up of twenty or 

 thirty months. At this stage the question how 



