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quantumclaustrophobe say: By the time writing was invented, the year was fairly well known.
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Raymond say: No.
There is evidence (in more than one location on Earth) that humans knew about the relationship at least 7000 years ago. The work of Alexander Thom* suggests that it might go back well before that.
The Bible itself is the consolidation of Hebrew Scriptures into a single, translated book: "Ta biblos" = the book (in Greek), and that was done at most 2300 years ago.
The oldest versions of the Scriptures themselves are (at most) 4 to 5 thousand years old (most probably less).
However, there are sufficient examples of exaggeration in the Scriptures to conclude that the 900-year lifetimes are just that: exaggerations.
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Mutt say: Watch TV or movies, and a Native American states that something was 20 Winter ago? That's the equivalent to a year. Every season comes once a year, so from one winter to the next is one year, It may not be an accurate way to count the years, but it was close.
So no, what they may have referred to as a "year" was not a lunar cycle. What you are referring to is from the Bible. To me (a Christian), the Bible is not a scientific textbook. It doesn't explain much as to the "How" of events. It does, however, tell us "Why" these events happened. And life spans grew shorter and shorter until we are where we are today because of sin. Sin corrupts humans, and that corruption shortens our life span. It goes all the way back to Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit, and God cursing the ground. But it was really after the Flood (which was because of all the sin in humanity) that life spans really dropped off. Noah lived to be 950, his son Shem to be 600, and it continues to drop until you get to Abraham, who lived to be 175. And today, we have a maximum life span aroudn 120 years (oldest living person in modern times lived to be 122 years, 164 days).
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