[3] In 1991, the American archaeologist Alexander Marshack demonstrated that the notches were not a decorative representation, but a system for recording time.

The composition consists of a boustrophedon sequence of short horizontal containing lines or sections, each of which carries irregular subsets of marks; none of the carvings could have occurred naturally.

[1] The engravings are non-decorative, and represent a complex, cumulative, non-arithmetical notational system of time-reckoning, and recording, based upon daily lunisolar observations - over the course of as much as 3.5 years.

[1] The process of aligning the lunar phase (month) with the seasons of the solar - or tropical - year within lunisolar calendars is called intercalation.

[4] The complex nature of the markings, coupled with their proposed calendrical purpose carries profound implications for the understanding of European early Mesolithic (Azilian-Epipalaeolithic) culture,[4] and within the fields of archaeoastronomy, and the history of art, calendars, and chronometry.