London man connects the dots

Ice Age calendar - 30th January 2023

Ben Bacon's an ordinary man from London. But he answered a difficult question for scientists. He found a calendar in paintings from the Ice Age.

The paintings are of animals. People painted dots next to the animals. The dots are a moon calendar. They counted when animals had babies. But no one understood this before.

Bacon studied photos of the paintings. He saw something interesting. The cave paintings had the same animals and the same dots.

Bacon doesn't work at a university. He fixes old furniture. But he loves the past. He wanted to know the meaning of the dots.

Bacon needed to check his idea. He asked some scientists for help. Two professors from Durham University helped Bacon.

They found something very important. The dots are a system for counting time. People in the Ice Age had a calendar. 20,000 years ago, people understood time. They measured time like humans today.