The inhabitants who lived in the area around Mexico City may have used a fairly accurate natural solar calendar many years ago, before European invaders came to North America. The fact that there are additional months in a year—known as leap years—because the Earth revolves around the sun in 365.24 days is taken into consideration by this calendar.
The “horizon calendar,” put out in a recent study, was based on geographical features in the craggy eastern highlands of the valley and was adjusted to the astronomical year by a temple on a revered volcano. The Aztec culture, which thrived in the region from around 1300 to 1500, may have adopted the method.
There is one additional day each year. This day can occasionally only last for a quarter of a day, throwing off the calendar. Due to the high population density and the requirement to grow crops in a precise pattern to ensure that everyone has access to food, people in the Basin of Mexico used to worry a lot about this.
The Mesoamerican peoples may have used something else to record their agricultural calendar since they lacked compasses, quadrants, and astrolabes. According to a study that was published on Monday in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, this technique was used around the basin while remaining undetected.
Neither a historian nor an astronomer nor an archaeologist is Ezcurra. He studies environmental sciences as a biologist. He is curious to learn more about a new inquiry he has about the development of the key crops in Mesoamerica.
On Mount Tlaloc, the researchers went to see the sunrise over an old causeway. They suggest that this could have been a celestial indicator of the Mesoamerican new year that was utilised to compensate for leap years.
According to the Aztec calendar, the long stone causeway is in alignment with the sun every day around February 23 or 24. This indicates that today is unique because it marks the start of the Aztec calendar.