On the road again

An early start, in the dark, coming home to a dark house. Yup, it's December and the days are getting to their shortest. Only the regular pattern of the radio programmes on the car stereo to let you synchronise your body clock while driving. No wonder the dates of the old pagan festivals were taken over to provide a meaningful pattern to the year. If it's a dark December in Northern Europe, you need a damn good party to keep your spirits up at this time of year.

The archaeologists tell us that the megalithic tombs at Maes Howe in the Orkneys and Newgrange in County Meath were designed precisely to capture the rays of the sunrise at the winter solstice, and convey them to the darkest depths of their ancestral tombs. Maybe the principle was the same as the alarm clock that roused me abruptly from my slumbers this morning, because the sun certainly wasn't going to do that job. Was the intent of the megalith builders to wake the dead, to let them know of another year past, or just to let the living know it was time to celebrate and get a few beers down their neck because the days were going to get longer from here on in.

Did the megalithic passage tombs come with a snooze button? Probably not, but if you're living in the neolithic, you probably don't have an enormous amount of leisure time. There are fires to be lit, crops to tend (if you've discovered agriculture by this point), large furry animals to be trapped, skinned and eaten and big lumps of rock to carve into shape and stick around the landscape to impress the neighbours. Even if your flint-knapping skills are up to scratch, and you have a regular local supply of megafauna to barbeque with the family, this takes up most of your spare time. Go on, have a party, you deserve a break.