"…the idea that the ancients wanted to know the length of the year accurately for agricultural purposes seems risible to me: farmers plant seeds when it's warm enough, and year-to-year variations in when the appropriate weather is attained may vary by many days…

On the other hand, if one wanted to know when an abrupt meteor storm was due, then in effect the length of the year must be determined to an accuracy of better than a single day."
 

"…the most active recent phase of the Taurid progenitor comet appears to have been about 3000 BC although it may have a pedigree an order of magnitude longer than this."

"Conservative estimates have the short period progenitor at that time brighter than Venus. Thus the night sky around 3000 BC, and for a period of at least centuries and probably one or two millenia after it, was disturbed, combined one or a few major comets recurring annually, coupled with epochs (set by orbital precession) when the annual meteor storm reached prodigous levels.

Meteor storms are probably the most impressive spectacles the sky has to offer. At some intensity level beyond modern experience, they may become an ecological hazard."

"Historically, too, there have been epochs of about a century's duration when strong peaks in the incidence of fireballs were recorded in Korean and Chinese annals. The 11^th century AD peak is particularly strong and is difficult to attribute to say calibration or climatic factors. It seems to have comprised mainly of Taurid fireballs."

("Natural Catastrophes During Bronze Age Civilizations" - BAR International Series 728. 1998.)