A recent study of David W. Pankenier has held that the twenty-two cyclical signs emerged at an early, perhaps pre-Shang, stage in intimate association with a nascent calendrical astronomy. I attempt a systematic elaboration of this conjecture, with critical recourse to the conviction that observed connections between the signs and the larger Old Chinese lexicon and graphicon are material and not incidental, as has been universally assumed. Following a brief introduction, presented first is a series of etymological and epigraphical analyses of the Di Zhi offering the view that the Branches originated as a set of lunar phase names. The subsequent and more cursory treatment of the Tian Gan, built around Pankenier's specific claims regarding the original stellar status of traditional fourth member ding 丁, provides support for an interpretation of the Stems as first naming a cycle of ten asterisms proximate to the ecliptic. It is proposed finally that employment of these two astronomical series in concert, as in composition of unitary records of phase and position of the moon, might sensibly account for the distinctive parallel-cycling operation of the sexagenary series of Shang and later eras.