The winter solstice may have been more important than the summer solstice for the people who built and used Stonehenge.
Excavations at Durrington Walls suggest that people held huge feasts around winter solstice time of year.
Archaeologists think that the people who built and used Stonehenge lived nearby.
Recent excavations revealed huge amounts of discarded pig and cattle bones.
Archaeologists discovered that these animals were probably killed when they were around nine months old.
They would have been born in the spring, so it would seem that these pigs and cattle were slaughtered around the time of the winter solstice.
It’s probable that people gathered at Stonehenge during the solstice to take part in feasts, ceremonies and celebrations.
The evidence shows that the Stonehenge crowd loved their roasted pork and beef.
The settlers who built Stonehenge worked hard and had an appetite.
It appears the ancient builders of Stonehenge may have hosted massive barbecue cookouts where thousands of revelers feasted on meat.
Yes, they ate barbecued meats, like pork and beef, just like us.
By analyzing fat residue found inside pottery shards and on animal bones, a team of archaeologists from the University of York and the University of Sheffield discovered "evidence of organized feasts featuring barbecue-style roasting."
If Stonehenge’s builders ate veggies there’s little evidence of it. Mostly, the archaeologists say, they were busy were boiling and roasting the meat—pork, in particular—and then staging elaborate feasts. The cooking seems to have been done inside people’s homes as well as outdoors.
And it seems the cooking and feasting were organized to a fare-thee-well.
The Sun has been around much longer than any life on Earth.
From ancient civilizations to the present day, humans have made sense of the Sun in different ways.
Significance of the Winter Solstice and the role of the Sun
The word 'solstice' comes from the Latin solstitium, which means 'sun stands still.'
This is because the apparent movement of the Sun's path north or south stops before changing direction.
Despite the Summer Solstice and the Equinoxes are also celebrated, the Winter Solstice is the most important day of the year at Stonehenge.
As mentioned already, the builders of Stonehenge, the mid-winter solstice was presumably more important.
As farmers and people rearing domestic animals and growing crops for food, the midwinter sunset marks the turning of the year.
The days would get longer and the weather would improve.
Soon, spring would come again and with it their life and work would be easier.
