Was Buddha's birth date a century earlier than previously thought? The oldest Buddhist shrine has been found in Nepal, and suggests that Gautama Buddha was born around 550 B.C., a century earlier than his widely-accepted birth date.

The birthplace of Buddha has been found in Nepal, revealing that the origins of Buddhism date to the sixth century B.C., according to archaeologists, Discovery News reports. The archaeological team dug under a series of brick temples at the site and unearthed a previously unknown sixth-century B.C. timber structure.

"What we have got is the earliest Buddhist shrine in the world," says archaeologist Robin Coningham, The National Geographic reports.

"By placing the life of the Gautama Buddha firmly into the sixth century B.C. we can understand the exact character of the social and economic context in which he taught - it was a time of dramatic change with the introduction of coinage, the concept of the state, urbanization, the growth of merchants and the middle classes," Coningham, co-leader of the project, told Discovery News.

The research appears in the latest issue of the journal Antiquity and was partially funded by the National Geographic Society, USA Today reports.

The archaeology team reports digging beneath existing brick structures at the shrine in Nepal's Lumbini pilgrimage center, the legendary site of Buddha's birth, which is visited every year by hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, The National Geographic reports. There, the archaeologists found older wooden structures beneath the the walls of the later brick Buddhist shrine.

According to the National Geographic, the layout of the more recent shrine is the same as the layout of the earlier wooden structures, pointing to a continuity of Buddhist worship at the site, Coningham says.

However, not all scholars are convinced. 

"Rubbish," says Richard Gombrich, a historian emeritus of Buddhism at the University of Oxford. "There's no evidence that what was there already was a Buddhist shrine. None!"

According to USA Today, Gombrich believes that it's possible the site could have been built as a religious center for one of the many cults of the day, then transformed into a site of Buddhist veneration later.