timelets

For the vast majority of human history, Newtonian time—the unitary, linear continuum assigning each event a unique location—was quite alien. Instead, human activity was closely tied to recurrent patterns, from the parts of the day, the lunar cycle, or the year to the parts of a lifetime. In traditional societies, past events are remembered by their coincidence with locations in these patterns, not as positions in a linear continuum.

The sense of an absolute chronology in our lives is an illusion, a thin veneer on the more basic substance of coincidence, locations in recurrent patterns, and independent sequences of meaningfully related events.

William J. Friedman. Memory for the Time of Past Events. Psychological Bulletin. 1993, Vol.113, No. 1,44-66.