Timing is Everything: The structure of Neolithic-Bronze Age calendars in the British Isles
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2019-02-12

Full title: Timing is Everything: The structure of Neolithic-Bronze Age calendars in the British Isles, a theoretical framework 

This paper will present a framework elucidating the fundamentals of Neolithic-Bronze Age calendar structures in Britain and Ireland. It is based upon a combination of the structures evident in historic calendars and the ‘natural’ cyclical processes which would have informed the ‘rhythms’ of prehistoric life. While the evidence does appear to suggest that changes in calendar structure are likely to have occurred during the later Bronze Age, within the theoretical model presented it will be advanced that the Neolithic-Bronze Age calendars of the British Isles had an overarching ‘lunisolar structure’, and that two calendars are likely to have been utilized in parallel: one with an economic focus, the other with a more overt ceremonial (‘ritual’ or religious) function. In combination with the framework provided, the detailed chronological and regional patterns presented serve as a robust foundation for future analysis of Neolithic-Bronze Age calendar structures. It will also be argued that more nuanced understandings of such calendar structures are possible through integration of archaeological data-sets connected with symbolic systems. This will, for example, be demonstrated for the Neolithic with reference to calendrically significant Irish passage tomb orientations. 

Thor McVeigh (NUI Galway)