Not that you are necessarily wrong but... A hunter who wants to go out at night and needs to know when it will be light/dark. Ditto someone planning/expecting an attack on/by a neighbouring tribe.

Or really anyone with some free time and interest (not uncommon)...

Tracking breeding cycles is more likely about sustainability. This might have been the precursor to cattle farming.

Once you start counting time in lunar months it's an obvious move to divide the month in two halves, and then to do that again, and divide it into four.

I wonder how old the concept of a week actually is.

The 7 day week is a fairly modern convention; I believe popularized by the Christianization of Europe. The classic Roman "week" is 8 days. The Mayans (and most of mesoamerica) used a pair of interlocking 13 & 20 day "weeks". The Chinese used a 9 or 10 day "week" (xún).

Genesis has a seven day week and was written down 1000+ years before Christianity came into existence.

But the Israelites probably got it from their Mesopotamian neighbors who had a 7 day week.

> What man would need to track the 28-days cycle of the moon?!?

A hunter of any gender who wants to know approximately when the animals migrate or give birth, would benefit.

Things that are easy enough for anyone to track and count:

day/night cycles

lunar cycles

annual summer /winter cycles

"four moons after the middle of winter" is therefor useful as it's possible to count, more easily so than "112 days after midwinter"

> A hunter of any gender

Lol

Unlike what woke propaganda will have you believe, there were, in fact, no bad ass women huntresses standing up to the patriarchy and putting men in their place with their awesome skills.

Men hunted and ruled over women. Women cooked and submitted. This is how it was everywhere in the world always. And it is because of real, intrinsic biological differences between men and women. No amount of ideology will change this fact.

Excellent. Can I take a ride in your time machine too? Does it only go in time or both time and space? How accurately you can aim with it?

Joking aside, what pray tell is the source of this information? When you say "everywhere" and "always" how strongly you mean that?

It's completely absurd to suggest that women have never hunted throughout the entirety of human history.

> there were, in fact, no bad ass women huntresses standing up to the patriarchy and putting men in their place with their awesome skills.

That doesn't need to be the case. Men of a patriarchy simply might decide to have female hunters, it might even be absolutely necessary under particular environmental pressures.

To claim that not a single small tribal community has had female hunter(s) throughout history is frankly moronic.

There are numerous matriarchal societies throughout history… so basically no.

> ideology

That is, you mean, education?

Me: "gender isn't relevant in any way to my argument, counting time in moons is useful because ..."

thewrongthinker: "lol woke propaganda ... patriarchy ... ... ideology, lets fight about gender roles!"

As "wrong think" goes it's not much of a thought, and not even wrong.

Anyone knows of any tribes that still have pre-neolithic culture where women can be hunters under normal circumstances? That is the closest clue we may have. And what chimps do.

-a man who wants to know if she's late -a man who wants to be out hunting bison when she's likely to be grouchy -a man who wants to be home from hunting when she's likely to be doubled over with cramps -a man who wants to know when the moon will light up the night -a man who wants to know when the night will be especially dark

Probably someone with imagination might be able to come up with a longer list of why a man would want to know a 28-day cycle....

> The first astronomers and calendarians were women

You state it as if it were a fact.

Someone who hunts at night. My grandpa could always tell which lunar phase will we are at, despite never having periods.

> What man would need to track the 28-days cycle of the moon?!? [..]

I'm a man and I actually track the moon cycles. I go skiing in the mountains during winter. If it's a full moon, or nearly so, I can plan on starting in the evening. With snow it's easy to ski in moonlight. If it's the wrong phase I can't plan on starting in the evening (typically Friday, for a weekend trip), I have to wait until the next day. There are other activities here which requires moonlight as well. It's important. Where it's snow, moonlight makes all the difference. I always kept track of the moon, especially when I was in my late teens and went somewhere hiking or skiing every weekend.

I can easily imagine how super important moonlight would be for neolithic people, for all kind of activities, hunting and more.

Prior to the invention of fabricated light sources, the lunar cycle would be of interest to any humans that liked being able to see at night to walk.