diff --git a/dulwich/contrib/latest_git_tags.py b/dulwich/contrib/latest_git_tags.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..b014e014
--- /dev/null
+++ b/dulwich/contrib/latest_git_tags.py
@@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
+"""
+Alternate to `Versioneer <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/versioneer/>`_ using
+`Dulwich <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/dulwich>`_ to sort tags by time from
+newest to oldest.
+
+Copy this file (``latest_git_tags.py``) into the package's top folder, import it
+into ``__init__.py`` and then set ::
+
+    from latest_git_tags import get_recent_tags
+
+    __version__ = get_recent_tags()[0][0][1:]
+    # other dunder classes like __author__, etc.
+
+This example assumes the tags have a leading "v" like "v0.3", and that the
+``.git`` folder is in the project folder that containts the package folder.
+"""
+
+from dulwich.repo import Repo
+import time
+import datetime
+import os
+
+# CONSTANTS
+DIRNAME = os.path.abspath(os.path.dirname(__file__))
+PROJDIR = os.path.dirname(DIRNAME)
+
+def get_recent_tags(projdir=PROJDIR):
+    """
+    Get list of recent tags in order from newest to oldest and their datetimes.
+
+    :param projdir: path to ``.git``
+    :returns: list of (tag, [datetime, commit, author]) sorted from new to old
+    """
+    project = Repo(projdir)  # dulwich repository object
+    refs = project.get_refs()  # dictionary of refs and their SHA-1 values
+    tags = {}  # empty dictionary to hold tags, commits and datetimes
+    # iterate over refs in repository
+    for key, value in refs.iteritems():
+        obj = project.get_object(value)  # dulwich object from SHA-1
+        # check if object is tag
+        if obj.type_name != 'tag':
+            # skip ref if not a tag
+            continue
+        # strip the leading text from "refs/tag/<tag name>" to get "tag name"
+        _, tag = key.rsplit('/', 1)
+        # check if tag object is commit, altho it should always be true
+        if obj.object[0].type_name == 'commit':
+            commit = project.get_object(obj.object[1])  # commit object
+            # get tag commit datetime, but dulwich returns seconds since
+            # beginning of epoch, so use Python time module to convert it to
+            # timetuple then convert to datetime
+            tags[tag] = [
+                datetime.datetime(*time.gmtime(commit.commit_time)[:6]),
+                commit.id,
+                commit.author
+            ]
+            
+    # return list of tags sorted by their datetimes from newest to oldest
+    return sorted(tags.iteritems(), key=lambda tag: tag[1][0], reverse=True)