I agree that the concept of the 'year' would surely have come about regardless of religion. Not only due to commerce, but also because it represents the period of time which encompasses all of the seasons we experience.
The idea that we would have numbered our years based on the founding of Rome makes sense, but I would think it might have been just as likely that we based the number on the advent of written language, or the dividing point between history and prehistory. We might also have "reset the clock" at the invention of the printing press.
One can also imagine that numbering systems in various geo-political regions might have differed for centuries without Christianity. Here in the English-speaking world we might well have reset the numbering at the Norman Conquest of 1066. If we had done so our January 1 (or its functional equivalent) would have been in the fall, during what we call October.
Likewise, America might have had a system starting with what we call 1776, in which case New Years Day would have been in the dead of summer.
At some point an international system of year numbering would have been required, but it should not be taken as a given that the the US would have subscribed to its usage. We still live in the dark ages of weights and measures, after all.
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