Adam’s Calendar: Humanity’s Oldest Timekeeper?

Interwoven in the hills near Machadodorp in South Africa’s Mpumalanga Province is a labyrinth of circular stone walls and linear pathways. Known as the Blaauboschkraal stone ruins, such is the mystery that shrouds them that very little can be stated for certain. Theories as to who created them and when are both abundant and extraordinarily diverse, with proposed dates of the latter differing by tens or even hundreds of thousands of years.

Perhaps the most controversial element amongst the stone structures is what has become known as Adam’s Calendar. So what is it? It has been claimed as everything from a 16th century cattle enclosure to an ancient calendar.

We’re on a mission to find out more about the South Africa stone circle that’s at times even been called ‘Africa’s Stonehenge’.

Laced through the northern part of the remote mountains of the Mpumalanga Province is a seemingly endless web of stone walls. Specifically, neat piles of a dark, fine-grained igneous rock known as diabase or dolerite, formed into concentric circles linked by long passages. Dotted throughout an area of some 4,000 square miles, together they are known as the Blaauboschkraal stone ruins.

It’s among these myriad South Africa stone circles, barely three miles northwest of the town of Waterval Boven, that one finds the Adam’s Calendar location. Measuring some 100 feet in diameter, it’s but one Mpumalanga circle among many, yet it has garnered more attention than any other. Why? Because, while the Blaauboschkraal stone ruins as a whole have been claimed to be everything from the walled city of a 17th century indigenous civilization to ancient temples, only the ruins sometimes known as “Adam’s Circle” has been interpreted as being a megalithic stone calendar.

The name “Adam’s Calendar” refers to this particular circle in the Blaauboschkraal stone ruins, located between the towns of Waterval Bowen and Kaapsehoop. The moniker – coined in the 2020 book Adam’s Calendar: Stonehenge of South Africa by Johan Heine and Michael Tellinger – references the theory that this is the oldest man-made structure on the planet.

Proponents argue that Adam’s Calendar was built as a sun calendar by an ancient civilization some 75,000 years ago. They base this on the concept that its rocks are perfectly positioned to align with the points of a compass. And that the calendar works when a taller rock casts its shadow on one of twelve flat rocks, each representing a month of the year.

This theory, linked with the ancient Sumerian gods called the Anunnaki, also postulates that Adam’s Calendar radiates both sound frequencies and electromagnetic waves so powerful they were used as a power grid over vast areas of land. It also puts forward the idea that the Adam’s Calendar location is geometrically aligned with both the Egyptian pyramids and Great Zimbabwe, marking it as part of a vast network of stone circle ruins throughout southern Africa.

However, the concept of Adam’s Calendar is not one that’s generally held by the established academic community. So, what’s the current prevailing view?

In place of the idea of a megalithic stone calendar, in general archaeologists and scientists believe the Blaauboschkraal stone ruins are the remains of the stone-walled cities of the Bakoni people.

The Bakoni, who lived in the Mpumalanga area sometime from the 16th to 19th centuries, were an advanced community of miners, traders, blacksmiths, and, above all, farmers. In fact, the dominant view is that the site is evidence of an innovative form of intensive farming. The Mpumalanga circles are thought to have been used both as homesteads and cattle enclosures or “kraals.” They also built terraces into the surrounding landscape, yet another example of an agricultural method of great advancement for the time.

There are various other theories as to the origins of the Blaauboschkraal stone ruins. Some subscribe to both the Bakoni viewpoint and Adams Calendar, arguing the two are unrelated. There are also theories that these South African stone circles were astrological clocks built by descendants of ancient India’s Dravidian peoples.

With theories ranging from ancient megalithic stone calendars to remnants of an advanced civilisation, the true nature of the Blaauboschkraal stone ruins and especially of Adams Calendar may never be definitively identified. Regardless, the search for such answers continues to exert its enticing draw.