Our ancestors revered the Sun as a creator and destroyer of life. Their senses told them that when the Sun is absent, everyone and everything suffers. They tracked its movements, noticing how it rises a little further along the horizon each day, until the solstices, when it pauses (the word solstice comes from ‘sun standstill’), then tracks back in the opposite direction.
The winter solstice was particularly significant. To mark this crucial turning point, when the Sun appeared to be at its weakest, people held feasts and created monuments, which they aligned with the rising or setting midwinter Sun, perhaps in the hope that things would get better: that the barrenness of winter wasn’t forever.
Read more courtesy of Aeon