I'm interested in the question as well, but more specifically tracking time to the exact minute. I'm not a historian, but I know am reasonable sure that calendars and general day/season tracking came long before mechanical watches/clocks.

When did humans concern themselves with the very minute of the hour?

Hi there -- not to discourage further answers, but you may be interested in this section of our FAQ, on calendars and time keeping.

I previously looked for answers to this question here, and was recommended an incredible source titled "The Measure of Reality" Quantification and Western Society, 1250-1600, by Alfred W. Crosby. This is a doubly great source if you're interested in science during the Middle Ages (Medieval?) times.

Here's one excerpt; "Then, betwee 1250 and 1350, there came, not so much in theory as in actual application, a marked shift. We can probably pare that century down to fifty years, 1275 to 1325. Someone built Europe's first mechanical clock and cannon,..." [p. 18-19]

This book is obviously about Western Society. Since you asked about humans I'll provide one relevant quote; "Westerners were not the first to have mechanical clocks. The Chinese had several giant ones as early as the tenth century. Indeed, it is conceivable that news of these spurred the invention of the West's first clocks." Here he sources a book called "Heavenly Clockwork: The Great Astronomical Clocks of Medieval China" by Joseph Needham and quotes in the page notes, "These Chinese devices might be more accurately called astronomical machines rather than clocks, as some would say about the first European clocks, too."