Why do we keep track of time in such an elaborate way as to keep a calendar?

---Is it because we want to prepare or predict the future (for practical reasons)?

---Is it because we love or depend on history so much that we need to keep a record and preserve it for posterity? Do we need a calendar to give history continuity?

---Is it because we need to have a structure in the present? Do we need it for a common basis for business or personal relations?

(My Time almanac gave the answer, and I disagree, I just wonder what others think, and I wonder if cultures of the past had a different point of view. Do we of the modern world look back on them and force ourselves into a pattern of hindsight, and did they, if they had less historical awareness, always look to the future and develop an importance for seers and fortune tellers?)

The reasons you gave are all good ones. I think the main benifit of having a calendar is to keep track of events and PLAN for future activities. Example, Instead of waiting for the nip in the air to remind us to bring the crops in, we can plan to bring them in when the calendar says it it is harvest time, we have time to prepare for it.

Your answer matches the one in the almanac.

Personally, I think that we've become a worldwide culture, and we need it for uniformity in commerce (such as when exactly is Ecuador's loan payment due the World Bank?)

I think we also use it for uniformity in sciences. The Julian Calendar (authorized for use by Julius Caesar), was the first to be put to use by many nations over a period of many centuries, and so it became useful for "knowing" exactly what someone meant when they said "March 15, in the year of our Lord 401", rather than saying "the 15th day of the first month of the 8th year of ------ 's reign." Who knew exactly when the 8th year really was? A uniform calendar throughout history makes history easier to study. It wasn't invented for that purpose, of course (who knew it would be used so long?), but I think it has been kept and adopted more widely for that reason. (The Gregorian Calendar is the same calendar except for one obscure difference.)