Archaeological Footprints of the ?Celtic Calendar??

Despite their elusiveness, the people referred to as ?Celts? by ancient chroniclers left

behind certain archaeological remains that may be interepreted from the perspective of archaeoastronomy

in an attempt to discover a calendrical ?root? for them. In recent years, a number of

studies on Late Iron Age sites, Roman or romanised locations and Christian landscapes in Hispania

and Gallia have raised the possibility of detecting physical evidence of the celestial concepts that

some classical authors attributed to the Celtic mystics, the Druids. However, these studies have

dealt with certain key aspects of how the Celts organised time that are not generally known, and

which tend to be presented in a summary way. Here, we explore aspects of the subject such as the

difficulty of referring to a ?Celtic calendar? per se, the difficulties of adjusting for the cycles of the Sun

and the Moon, and how ?horizon calendars? may have played a role in actions that left a physical

footprint that can still be seen today at several archaeological sites. We show that, although there

may be common aspects that connect all Celtic sites and areas, there was no common calendar as

such, although there are solid indications of the usage of a shared time-reckoning system.

Calendar. Celts. Christianisation. Romanisation. Western Europe.