Early astronomers were simply the people who lived with the earth cycles. There was no artificial lighting, no central air conditioning or furnaces for efficient heating of indoor space. These were no grocery stores, nor restaurants, and so food was, by necessity, whatever was available or whatever had been preserved. Paying attention to the seasons, being at one with the environment, led to awareness. Light followed dark - day and night, were regular intervals.
They noticed that the moon went from full to new in a regular cycle. People noticed a regular pattern of seasonal change. Dry season routinely followed a wet season, or months of cold were followed by months of warm. The seasons were connected to plant growing seasons, and so this awareness became quite important.
As humans became aware that the seasons happened on a reliable time schedule, that the seasons were tied to longer and shorter daily periods of daylight versus dark, they began counting the days and organizing them into trial calendars. An early calendar based on 12 months of 30 days did not work. Very quickly, the moon was completely out of phase with the month. By 600 BC this calendar had been replaced by a year of 6 'full' months of 30 days and 6 'empty' months of 29 days.
This attempt took the year out of phase with the seasons. Next, Solon, a statesman from Athens, later known as one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece, introduced an improved calendar, based on a two year cycle.
There were 13 months of 30 days and 12 months of 29 days in each period of two years so this gave a year of about 369 days and a month of 291/2 days. Frequent adjustments to the calendar were necessary to keep it in phase with the moon and the seasons.
Later, Oenopides created a calendar involving a 59 year cycle with 730 months. Another scheme worked with 8 year cycles, adding extra months in three of those eight years. There is evidence that this scheme was adopted. Approximately the same time as Oenopides proposed his 59 year cycle, Philolaus proposed a 59 year cycle based on 729 months, stemming mostly from 729 being twenty-seven squared.
In 432 BC, Meton introduced a calendar based on a 19 year cycle. Meton was famous in his own time as is shown in the play Birds written by Aristopenes in about 414 BC.
Meton: I propose to survey the air for you: it will have to be marked out in acres.
Peisthetaerus: Good lord, who do you think you are?
Meton: Who am I? Why Meton. THE Meton. Famous throughout the Hellenic world - you must have heard of my hydraulic clock at Colonus?
Meton and Euctemon also invented a parapegma, a stone tablet with movable pegs indicating the approximate correspondence between rising stars and the calendar date.

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