On Tuesday, 15 March 2016 18:12:17 UTC, Col wrote:

I imagine that knowing what time of year it was, in
relation to crop planting/harvesting etc was of vastly
greater importance than the actual year.

Not that the ability of our ancestors was anything less than what it is today:

The brown clay tablet, which could fit in the palm of your hand, is scrawled with hasty, highly abbreviated cuneiform characters. Ancient Babylonians used a complex geometrical model that looks like a rudimentary form of integral calculus to calculate the path of Jupiter.

All that from what was the equivalent of scratched on the back of an envelope:

http://www.livescience.com/53518-bab...ancy-math.html

I suppose it would be too much to ask the present day experts to wonder what importance Jupiter would have been for crop rotation way back then?

"if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out."

Luke 19:40. Do you think the modern flowerpot will have that kind of staying power?

No need?