How Period Tracking Birthed the Calendar

Connecting with the Moon

This research is a follow up to the article: Origins of the word “Queen”.

It reveals a stunning pattern spanning 40,000 years, found all over the world, etched into sticks of bone, marked with precise moon cycles. These observations appear to have been used like ancient templates to track personal cyclical patterns, like that of menstruation and pregnancy tracking, that alone, are significant. But each site that I have researched that shows this sophistication, also just happen to be tied to sites of ancient goddess worship.

Phonetic patterns in sacred names link meaning with place, creating a global web of connection. From Africa's oldest evidence found yet—the Lebombo bone (37,000 BC)—to Ukraine's pregnancy calendars (18,000 BC), France's continuous Venus-to-Mary worship (from 20,000 BC to the 1970’s AD), to Mesopotamia's fire goddess Lisi, these were far more than random markings. They represent sophisticated systems that bridged science and religion.

The evidence suggests prehistoric women were humanity's first astronomers, mathematicians, and record-keepers, tracking the moon to help remember her own body’s cycles, including planning for the all-important moment of preparing for new life. These pregnancy cycles were then matched to seasonal cycles, and are expressed in our modern traditions of Easter and Christmas, mapped exactly 9 months apart. Even more remarkably, these all match up to various star positions in vastly different time zones and locations.

The Linguistic Thread

By paying attention to some important sounds, especially the "is/as/es" sound patterns that appear in many goddess names (IsIS, ASTarte, ArtemIS), place names (ISHango, ESwatini, ISTuritz), and even the personal names of literate Celtic women making religious offerings to "the Mothers"—a pattern emerges. Very often, all of these sites have heavy associations with water, lying on sacred rivers, connected to the nature of birthing waters and the idea of baptism as rebirth (originally voluntarily, after a personal journey and exploration).

When scholars call obvious etymological connections "unknown", that stands out for us as a major red flag to look deeper. Here we find clear dismissals of what should be obvious cultural parallels, relating to that well known goddess name Isis/Ishtar, and it is here where we find evidence of what is really ongoing: academic resistance to recognizing the sophistication of systems built around female intelligence.

Connecting with the moon was not just primitive superstition—it birthed our first calendar - you know, that thing that records time based on the position of the moon and sun throughout the year.

Seeing the Pattern

Across the ancient world, archaeologists have discovered a remarkable pattern: bone artifacts marked with precise notches of the moon cycles. These discoveries suggest that lunar-menstrual tracking may represent one of humanity's earliest forms of systematic observation and record-keeping.

While that in itself is really cool, what is hardly ever noted, however, are that these artifacts are often found in regions with strong historical traditions of goddess worship. Just pick any of these at random, and we are transported to a time when women were associated with knowledge and power, not just known as being appendages, or playthings, of men.

Women, for all time as we know it, would have been looking for ways to make sense of their own menstrual cycles. Once soon as humans understood this association with fertility, we would have wanted to try to predict when we would be fertile, and once pregnant, to count down to when we could expect the little miracle, or when to avoid meeting up with a mate. Just as the ancient Africans would have used the stars to track when the waters of the Nile would flood, tracked carefully with constellations of the stars and location of the sun on the horizon.

The linguistic connection between these sites adds another layer of intrigue—many locations contain the "is/as/es" phonetic pattern found in goddess names like Isis, Astarte, and Artemis, raising questions about shared cultural and linguistic origins that tells us about the first major steps in advancements in our own intelligence.

The African Foundation: Humanity's Earliest Timekeepers

The Lebombo Bone (37,000 years ago)

The oldest known example of these bones comes from the Lebombo Mountains of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) in South Africa. This notched bone contains exactly 29 incisions—precisely matching a lunar cycle length. This location in a region still rich with goddess-centered traditions tells us this location held onto its more native traditions- even after tens of thousands of years.

In the Swazi culture of Eswatini, the iNdlovukati (Queen Mother), plays a crucial role in the spiritual life of the nation. She is considered the spiritual leader (now known alongside her husband). The iNdlovukati, also known as the "She-Elephant," is a prominent figure in national cultural events and ceremonies, and she traditionally shares authority with the king in matters of state. There seems to be a balance between masculine and feminine energies: something missing in many other places in the world. They perform a circular dance in the Incwala Ceremony that symbolizes the balance of these energies, with the men and women facing each other as equals.

How Lunar Tracking Actually Worked

So how would tracking the moon help a woman track her own period? While most periods, and most months, are typically around 28 days long, they both have variations.

The reality is more complex, and doing so correctly requires a sophisticated understanding of people from a very long time ago.

• Lunar Cycle: 29.5 days (from new moon to new moon)

• Average Menstrual Cycle: 24-32 days, with significant individual variation

Their ancient solution was to track both simultaneously to identify personal patterns. Rather than assuming perfect synchronization, ancient women use the moon to help find reference points for tracking their own patterns. It would look something like this:

The clearest visual markers of the moon are the full and new (no) moon. Any woman, 40,000 years ago, or today, could note where in the lunar cycle their period typically began. The cool thing about doing this is the personal connection that one gets by associating personal rhythms with those of the stars, and nature. It makes us feel more connected, and part of something larger. It is also a reminder of things to come.

The period is the most obvious point in a woman’s cycle to start tracking, just like the full moon is hard to miss, while ovulation should be midway, just as the phase of the new (missing) moon. There may have been some advantage, in some communities, to timing sexual rythms with that of the moon cycles, or just happened that couples would get together at one phase or another based on the light provided by the full moon, or darkness with an absent moon.

When many women lived together (as in most traditional societies), tracking the moon helped coordinate group activities. There is also a theory, not fully proven or unproven, that women’s cycles sync when within close proximity to one another. Once women had an understanding of where their cycle mapped as compared to the stars, it would help knowing what phase the moon was in, and maybe effected how women celebrated or performed sacred rights, or even planned for children.

The sophisticated mathematical notations on bones like Ishango suggest these variations were understood. Maybe understanding their methods could teach us how to track our own periods.

As sophisticated as we call ourselves, most women in America have no idea how to track their cycle. They may put a date in an app (at best), but most fertile women I know tend to be on some kind of hormonal birth control that times her period for her (or fully stops it). There is not any kind of education on ovulation phases, or even an understanding that a woman is not fertile 24/7, 365 days a year. In fact, we are only fertile for the few days around ovulation (when the egg drops), but there are some variations, like an egg hiding in a certain spot in the fillopian tubes, or sperm ending up in funny spots, so there is a few days added plus or minus this expected date to be more certain of how to prevent or plan for getting pregnant. A woman then has to consider her own stress levels, as high levels of stress can cause shifts in her cycle. There is actually quite a bit to learn, rather than just taking a pill from a doctor, a pill given out like candy, with literally zero discussion of the side effects in the extremely tiny fine print on a gigantic map fold out in the packaging that nobody reads. What we SHOULD be told is that there are major side effects, and depletion of vitamins and minerals in our bones, so.a woman should get regular checks on various status check marks every few years. And the pills themselves have not been studied long term, and never longer than 4 years. Many women are on it for 10 years plus, with no idea of her starving her body of key nutrients. When I found myself in a health scare, the first thing I was directed to do was get off birth control, and let my body find its rhythm again. I wish I could have learned from the women of old to track my own rhythm by associating with the moon. It turns out a male system of doctors never cared too much, and never investigated the intricacies of a woman, which are quite different than a man. We are told we are too delicate, or too complicated to study while pregnant or fertile, so we just have not been studied, period. Instead, we are massive guinea pigs of our own health care, for better or worse.

Ancient counting systems showed multiple counting patterns. The Ishango bone had systems of (9, 19, 21, 11 in one row), possibly writing variations of a woman’s experience. Some bones show groupings that add up to numbers like 366 (a solar year) alongside lunar counts. The Mezin bracelet's precise 280-day count (the length of time to grow a baby, ~10 months, or 40 weeks) shows deeper understanding of moments of conception and birth. In case anyone has ever done this, it is actually very tricky to understand when you ovulate, and the best way to do so is to know what a typical cycle is and cut it in half. There are other cues, but that gives us the best starting point. Before this, we also have to understand a baby comes from sex, and sex on a certain day of her cycle. All of this would take many many generations to understand. And after that, we only know we are pregnant when our period comes later than we expected, something we are expected to be keeping track of. Can you remember what you did last month?

Even if a woman’s cycle was 30 days while the moon was 29.5, tracking both allowed for better prediction with pattern tracking, that could be adjusted as they fell out of sync. This kind of attention also connected women to the broader seasonal rhythms, helping women anticipate how environmental factors (nutrition, daylight, stress) might affect their personal patterns. Missing a period , due to stress, is a great red flag telling us we need to slow down. We are not able to get pregnant when our body thinks we are in sufficient danger, or give birth, or maintain a pregnancy. It also hurts us. If we try to give birth while under stress, our uterus fights back. The same muscle that holds the baby in is the one that pushes that miracle out. If that muscle is getting mixed signals, THAT is what causes pain. We are taught, if lucky and determined enough, to learn this before we go into labor. This also brings up the idea of pleasure, and how taking pleasure in life, and sex, is actually a beautiful thing. Feeling sexy helps a body relax, helps us sleep better, helps us connect with other humans in a very special way. Sex in iteslf used to be sacred, and it was that sacredness that scared modern monotheistic religions… an empowered woman had power over all of society. If a man wanted to be in control, he had to write himself into the narrative as relevant to creation, somehow, in the craziest turn of story ever, being somewhat successful in convincing people a man (god or not) should be the ones credited for bringing and nurturing life. Yes, we NEED men, but not in the way women sacrifice themselves and their bodies for years. This is all embedded in the idea of sex, and the REASON women were locked up in homes. Men, in power, needed to know who their offspring would be. The oldest systems we know were all matriarchal, following the female bloodline. women were inhernely genius because their bodies had the wisdom to create life from within her. Modern weapons and land marking caused a shift, where lines needed to be drawn and things kept from being stolen. And THAT is how we got to where we are today. Quite simple. And it starts with the POWER of a woman, not her lack of power.

Using lunar phases meant menstrual knowledge could be transmitted orally and visually across generations without requiring literacy or exact counting—the moon itself served as the teaching aid.

Living Traditions

France: (30,000 years ago)

The Abri Blanchard bone (30,000 years ago) is among Europe's earliest instruments tracking the stars. But the area that the bone was found, in Dordogne, reveals remarkable continuity of goddess veneration from before the last Ice Age:

• The Venus of Laussel (20,000 years ago) a statue of a women holding a bison horn, marked with 13 notches— the same number of moons in a year, or days in a menstrual cycle to be fertile.

• The Venus of Montastruc (450 BC)— is more recent, a carving into cave rock. Evidence shows continuity of worship in this site continuously until the 1970’s, when her worship was transferred over (via story) to being considered Virgin Mary devotion.

• The Vesunna-Isis Connection: The ancient goddess Vesunna from Gaul had a temple (built around 90 AD), which now stands as the ruins of the Tower of Vesunna. It was initially thought by Count Taillefer to be dedicated to the Egyptian goddess Isis (who was incredibly popular in Rome until around 500 AD). Roman inscriptions show Vesunna as a tutela (protective deity), likely a spring goddess similar to the well known Mesopotamian goddess Nemausus.

  • At Nîmes (ancient Nem-AUSUS), local fertility goddesses called the Nemausicae or Matres Nemausicae were worshipped at healing features of the local springs. The tribal name Arecomici contains what scholars consider to be a mysterious suffix -comici of "unknown" meaning—yet the phonetic similarity to goddess Isis is striking: -isi and -ici. We may not know exactly what, but the sound seems to be strongly connected to the sacred feminine.

Czech Republic (26,000 years ago):

The "Wolf Bone" from Dolni VestonICE w/ similar markings

Kyiv, Ukraine (18,000 BC):

The MEZin bracelets feature engravings interpreted as depicting lunar calendars based on 10 lunar months or 280 days—exactly the period of human pregnancy. Along with female statuette, mammoth ivory phallic figurines and birds as well as bones painted with red ochre, the number of lines in the central area and in zigzags is equal to 366 which almost corresponds to one solar year.

The site straddles both sides of the Dnieper/DanaprIS River, called BaurAST-ANA by the earlier Scythians (female warrior culture)

• meant "place of beavers," and this name was linked to the mantle of beaver skins worn by the Iranic water goddess Arəduuī Sūrā Anāhitā, whose epithet of āp (AvESTan: 𐬁𐬞, means 'water'), connected to the river-princess goddess Api, whose own name meant "water." Ovid wrote about BorYSTHenius. 

The Huns' name for the river, Var, was derived from Scythian, connected to the Graeco-Roman name of the Volga river, OaRUS (Oaros). In Crimea and Turkey, the river is known as Özü or ÖZi.

Lesichovo, often misspelled Lisichino, was nearby and also picked out for its name. It is strategically located along the Via Militaris, destroyed by fire around the time of Gothic raids, likely around 250 AD (so little cultural evidence survives. However, we can still learn a lot from this place. Thracian stories and god/goddesses were later associated with Christian saints like St. George (a sure clue this was alread an important religious site). Places like this, and around Bulgaria, show evidence of matriarchal pre-Indo-European societies that revered a "Great Mother" goddess”, whether Cyble, Persephone and Demeter, Mezguashe, or Lisi.

In Mesopotamia, LISin/LISI was goddess, addressed as ama, "mother", who was also associated with fire (the hearth). Her name was also applied to a star within the Scorpio formation. While not certain, it has been proposed that one of her centers of worship was in KESH. She seems to have been recorded later as a man, which is not surprising, and instead just gives us another example of men attempting to steal her reputation.

• It is assumed she had an initially high position in the Mesopotamian god list, but references to her after 3,000 BC are uncommon. Below are the known few.

  • Praying to the star Lisin when it was visible in the sky could secure good luck as long as all members of the petitioner's household were woken up to partake. One of her 8 children is Lulalanna (including an important root word related to our word annual, as well as grandmother/mother/nanny).

• Lisin is addressed as ama, "mother," in one of the Early Dynastic Zame Hymns, 2500 BC

• A temple dedicated to her is mentioned in one of the inscriptions of King LugalzagESI (2,334 BC). 

• 1,894 BC: Lisin is the final deity mentioned int he Zame Hymns, meaning the most important

• The Canonical Temple List (1,200 BC)  mention the existence of a temple of Lisin, Euršaba (possibly to be translated from Sumerian as "house, oracle of the heart").

• 1,000BC, Lisin's name was used in Mesopotamia within the star Antares (of Scorpio). Lisin herself was at some point associated with scorpions.

• She continued to be treated as a woman until the end of the use of cuneiform in Mesopotamia, around 500 BC.

• Later treated as male, she is described as "he who burns with fire", nouns izi and išātu, "fire"

• She is again written as a woman, invoked in prayers as her name is spoken outloud above medicinal plants over a fire (Some of the medicinal plants were ninû, azupiru, and sahlû).

While the cities of her worship are unknown, several mention her worth noting:

• She was the final deity mentioned Zame Hymns, so it has been proposed she was the city deity goddess of ĜEŠGI (GISgi), a town possibly once connected to the city Nippur by a canal. Many beleive that Zame Hymn was compsed to remember and celebrate the founding of her temple. The town itself was abandoned before the Old Babylonian period (1,894 BC).  

• Nippur is important, and known for its own goddesses, like Enheduanna.

• There was several cities that named a whole a month after her: 

• The month EZem-LISI is found in texts from Tell al-Wilayah. Other local goddesses make appearances, including ASki and Mamma/Mammitum. Over 3,5000 cuneiform tablets have been found here. In 1958, discarded tablets were found left by robbers in a garbage pile. This site is along the ancient Mama-šarrat canal off the Tigris river.

• The local calendar of UMMA, gave Lisi the third month: iti-LISI. 

• Early texts from LagASH mention the itu ezem Li-si(-na), "month of the festival of Lisin". Also here, a single text mentions a pool or fountain at the temple dedicated to her, whose precise location remains unknown.

KESH was also considered a place of worship for Lisin

• Old Babylonian god lists Lisin came before her “husband” Ninsikila, which might have influenced the reinterpretation of their gender.

• The goddess Niunhursag was also known here

• MESilim, the king of Kesh called himself "beloved son of Ninharsag".

• An inscription in Kesh from 1,700 BC is written as the “Year in which Ninmah raised greatly in the KESZ temple, the foundation of heaven and earth”. In a letter, Rim-Sin II declares "In order to bring light to Yamutbalum and to gather its scattered people, the great gods established the foundations of my throne in Keš, the city of my creatress".

• The Bassetki Statue of Naram-Sin mentions “through the love which the goddess Astar showed him, he was victorious in nine battles.”

• There is a famous Kesh temple hymn where the goddess NISaba appears as the temple's caretaker and decision maker.

• One of the Temple Hymns of Enheduanna (2279 BC) is dedicated to KESH. She was the first known writer in the whole world, writing about the goddess Inana. 

Dilmunite goddess MESkilak (Semetic Arabian culture) associated with Lisin

• Some say the Sumerian tale of the garden paradise of Dilmun may have been an inspiration for the Garden of Eden story: close to the sea and to artesian spring.

• The city was an important trading center, prosperous from 2,000 BC, and for another 1,000 years, until it went in decline due to piracy.

• This location matters, because it was the base of water trade between the Indus Valley and Mesopotamia, then later between China and the Mediterranean.

  • The first king known in Dilmyn, 2,700 BC, was ZIUSudra. Does that sound at all familiar, kind of like Greek Zeus? Well it could not have come FROM the Greeks. The first form of Greek writing came around 1,300 BC (over a thousand years later). 

  • Dilmun had a Ruler named Qena in 680 BC (Legrain, 1922). Aside from the name and dates, we really know nothing, not even if this person was a man or woman. But there are some cool things about this:

  • Dilmun: Important for trade between Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley.

  • There is evidence of queens in the region, including mentions in Assyrian records of "Queens of the Arabs". Also, a letter found at Girsu describes gifts exchanged between a queen of Lagash (Mesopotamia) and a contemporary queen of Dilmun

  • Qena: City in Egypt (4,000 BC), known for its ancient Egyptian sites like the Dendera Temple complex (2,250 BC.). 

  • Google of course says “While there are connections between Mesopotamia and Egypt demonstrated by the discovery of Mesopotamian artifacts in Egypt, there's no evidence to suggest a direct link between Dilmun and Qena in particular.” Except they had a ruler named Qean. Duh. 

Lysiatychi: A village first recorded in 1443, it was historically a town with a town hall and a large Jewish population. I note this one, because it preserves the Lisi sound, but also shows a Ukranian village with Jewish people, those obviously familiar with African and Middle Eastern Religions: showing continuity.

Lisne (Crimea/Turkey): Indiginous Turks pushed out of their homeland in 1948, people with a very long history.

• Related with the Scythians, but also had features of many others around the Mediterranean, Middle East, and central Asia.

• Elements of their pre-Islamic beliefs and folklore remain today, including remnants goddesses, like Umai-ANA, the Goddess of Fertility, and goddess of the sky, often depicted as a radiant being with golden tresses symbolizing the sun. She is also seen as a guardian of women, children, and the cycle of life, including death. It's believed that if Umay Ana leaves a child, they may become ill, and shamans may be called to bring her back. Her association with the sun, the sky, and golden tresses reflects her role as a source of light, life, and protection.

• She is a significant figure in the religious and cultural practices of various Turkic peoples, including the Khakas (KhakASS). The image of this Turkic goddess Umay is one of the most widespread in the work of modern Kazakhstani artists. They believe in the deep unity of everything despite the three-sphere division of the world, the indissoluble connection of nature. Time is not linear, the movement of life is cyclical. The poet Mircea Eliade (1996) said, “It keeps the world in the same dawn moment of beginnings”. Since Kazakhstan gained independence around 1900, genuine attention has been paid by professional artists to national origins, culture and mythological traditions of the ancient civilizations of the Great Steppe. Perhaps the most famous image is a petroglyph on a boulder from the Kudyrge burial (Altai), on which the figures of a woman has 3x kneeling horsemen worshipping her. 

The French Isturitz Cave Complex (17,000-10,000 BC)

The Isturitz Baton encodes both 4 and 5-month calendar systems alongside the world's oldest known bone flutes—suggesting these people were more than mathematicians, they were musicians, too!

The cave complex sits within a with many of the phonetic patterns:

• A series of 3 caves named: Isturitz, Oxocelhaya, and Ergerua (Ra sound being the divine child of the mother)

• Villages: HASparREn (multiple variant spellings: AhESparre, ESparREn), giving us insight to how the phonetics can be expected to change with various -S- variations

• Regional names: NavarRE, PyREneeS, River ARAn, Cambo-lES-Bains

• OSSès valley with villages IrISSarRY and BidarRAY

The Basque language itself (BAISHa/BAXen/BASSe/BAJa) carry these ancient sound patterns, while local festivals still hold onto native traditions that strengthen bonds and celebrate identity— encouraging modern locals to investgate their own ancient prehistoric community rituals.

The Mothers Across Gaul: inscriptions even beyond Roman occupation reveal the widespread love for the Matres (Mother goddesses) by Celtic women across Europe. Some of the writers of the inscriptions left their names, many retaining their Gallic names (rather than taking on Roman identity), and their personal names continue these phonetic sounds associated with the African divine mother(CASuna, MASTonia, OXia). And even cooler, some of these were women writers, suggesting they had an elevated status in society than women throughout the next 2,000 years.

The inscriptions show personal devotion to the goddesses: "Oxia Messorus paid her vow willingly and deservedly, Sacred to the Mothers"

The Global Pattern

The recurring "is/as/es/ar/ox" sound patterns appear across cultures associated with lunar tracking, especially in locations associated with water:

African Origins:

• Ishango (Congo)

• Eswatini (Southern Africa)

Egyptian, African, and Mesopotamian Goddesses:

• Isis, Astarte, Artemis

• Anahita, Inana, Vesunna

European Extensions:

• Abri Blanchard, Isturitz, Dolní Věstonice

• Hasparren, Ossès, Irissarry (Basque toponyms)

• CASuna, MASTonia, Oxia (literate Celtic women)

• NemAUSUS, AreomICI (“unknown” etymologies we can shed some light on)

Ukrainian/Mesopotamian Bridge:

• M-EZ-in, Baur-AST-ANA, LIS-I/LIS-IN

• K-ESH, Ez-em-LIS-I, Q-ena

• UM-AI-ANA, Öz-ü/ÖZ-i

The convergence of evidence reveals multiple layers of preservation:

• Deep Continuity: From 37,000-year-old Lebombo bone markings to 1970s Virgin Mary worship in the same French caves, these aren't isolated practices but enduring spiritual-scientific traditions.

• Linguistic Embedding: Sacred feminine names became embedded in geographical locations, personal names.

• Integrated Knowledge Systems: Sites like Mezin (pregnancy calendars) and Isturitz (lunar calculation + music) reveal stronger pattern recognition that makes the connection hard to deny.

• Transmission Networks: The Ukraine-Mesopotamia connection through LISI worship, centered at trading centers like Dilmun, suggests organized cultural exchange across vast distances.

• Academic Resistance: The pattern of scholarly dismissal—from "unknown" etymologies to rejected Isis-Vesunna connections—indicates ongoing resistance to recognizing the scope and sophistication of prehistoric goddess-centered scientific traditions.

The convergence of archaeological evidence, word patterns, and surviving cultural traditions points to a global phenomenon spanning tens of thousands of years, and possibly a shared language root. These cultures traded along known trade routes, discussed their favorite deities, and even fought over rights to worship them. These ancient lunar calendars may represent more than just humanity's first scientific observations, but also our earliest religious practices—with women as the primary keepers of both cosmic and temporal knowledge, as well as the seat of power.

Developing accurate menstrual tracking was vital to the very existence of the human race. The sophisticated tracking of the stars in ancient bone calendars challenges every assumption about early human capabilities and gender roles. It pushes all dates back about how smart we were, and places the holder of that intelligence in women’s role.

As Claudia Zaslavsky wrote in 1979: "Who but a woman keeping track of her cycles would need a lunar calendar?"

Connecting with lunar cycles wasn't primitive superstition—it was a moment of upleveling in society, showing a sophistication of skill, depth of thought, and transmission of devotion of a love for women we deserately need today, 40,000 years later.

Recommended Reading:

• The Curse: A Cultural History of Menstruation, Janice Delaney et al.

• Blood Relations: Menstruation and the Origins of Culture, Chris Knight

• Blood Magic: The Anthropology of Menstruation, eds. Alma Gottlieb & Thomas C. T. Buckley

• The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, Barbara G. Walker

Note: Of course we always need more research. This research only synthesizes archaeology with ethnographic observations and linguistic analysis. Further interdisciplinary studies from seemingly separate groups should come together and discuss these connections. Please.