Okay, so obviously with modern technology it's pretty simple to find out how long it takes the earth to fully orbit once around the sun, but how was this calculated thousands of years ago? I can't think of any distinguishing features of the sun that would give it away, and I can't see how you could use any reference point to determine where the earth was, seeing as things close enough aren't a stationary reference points, and for objects farther away, you probably wouldn't be able to figure out the difference in distance between then. So how was it first calculated? Ancient Rome has it more or less right, after all.
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You seem to be under the (false) impression that because your civilization has a hard time coping with nature, then past civilization must have had even more trouble.
There were two approaches.
One started 8000 years ago with the use of leys and hinges (Stonehenge is just a "recent" and exagerated example, being ONLY 3500 years old).
Use one stone (or some natural feature, like a cliff) and move a 2nd large stone to line it up with the direction of sunset. Once the direction of sunset stops going south (solstice = Sun stands still = the direction of sunset remains the same for a few days), leave the stone there and start counting the days. When the Sun sets in the same direction, a year will have passed. Do this for a sufficient long time, and you will have a good measure of the length of the year.
There are still dozens of these ancient stones sill standing in Northwest Europe and in England.
Another way is to plot the position of the Sun (and other planets) on a star map. This is a more recent method (3000 years at most) which we know was done by the Greeks and MIGHT have been done by the Babylonians before them. Of course, you cannot see the position of the Sun directly against the stars, because the glare of the Sun makes the stars behind it invisible.
There were two approaches.
One started 8000 years ago with the use of leys and hinges (Stonehenge is just a "recent" and exagerated example, being ONLY 3500 years old).
Use one stone (or some natural feature, like a cliff) and move a 2nd large stone to line it up with the direction of sunset. Once the direction of sunset stops going south (solstice = Sun stands still = the direction of sunset remains the same for a few days), leave the stone there and start counting the days. When the Sun sets in the same direction, a year will have passed. Do this for a sufficient long time, and you will have a good measure of the length of the year.
There are still dozens of these ancient stones sill standing in Northwest Europe and in England.
Another way is to plot the position of the Sun (and other planets) on a star map. This is a more recent method (3000 years at most) which we know was done by the Greeks and MIGHT have been done by the Babylonians before them. Of course, you cannot see the position of the Sun directly against the stars, because the glare of the Sun makes the stars behind it invisible.
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