In this article I would like to talk about the influence of European cultures and beliefs before the arrival of the Celts were in the continental and insular celtic because we have to keep in mind that before consolidate the Celts as ethnic or cultural group, and there were people in Europe, and obviously those people have strong beliefs for thousands of years in its cultural ideology.
First, I would give some material to make me understand better:
" Until the late nineteenth century and still in some ways where raging syncretism 'esoteric' it was thought and believed that Druidism is linked to the megalithic monuments. The guidebooks have been submitting long lists and descriptions of 'druidic monuments', ie dolmens menhirs and burial mounds cromlechs: hence the imagery of Epinal, which is the bearded druid sacrifice their victims on a sacrificial table considered tame. (...) That is to forget that the megalithic monuments happily can be dated, in the West, between the fourth and second millennium BC, while the Celts appeared not only at the end of the Bronze Age, ie towards the 900 or 700 to EC (...) megalithic monuments were built by peoples who do not know much except that they had nothing to do with the Celts.
(...) However, when we bow about the past, let alone on a distant past, nothing is neither entirely true nor entirely false. If popular tradition has joined Druidism and megaliths, it may be because there is some relationship between them, though vague or secondary. After all, the Irish mythological texts are megalithic tombs of the mansions of the old gods: this location may not be due to chance, and certainly poses a problem that can not be definitely avoid hiding behind after archaeological uncertainties. (...) There would be nothing strange in that they had collected a certain heritage of populations found in the territories they occupied and which formed, good or bad grade, a new community. "
Jean Markale, Druids, p. 53
Although Markale is an author you have to take with tweezers in some of his claims, this passage seems very appropriate. It would be the first time we say the "Celts built Stonehenge", or "Celtic rituals carried out in the cromlechs solar." All this has to be qualified, neither the Celts nor built the megalithic monuments were "sun worship" recognized. Still, it is quite possible respect to using or explicitly what previous generations had planned and built. Henri Hubert emphasizes that recycling temples
" The Celts have had much to its predecessors: it served as megaliths. The great tombs or burial chambers of Newgrange in Ireland were regarded as the abode of the gods and revered as sanctuaries. The twelve stones which formed the Irish idol satellites Cromm Cruaich are the pillars of a cromlech. In Great Britain and certainly in Gaul, the Celts also adopted the megalithic monuments; but in reality, we ignore what actually took precursors of their civilizations. "
Henri Hubert, The Celts and Celtic Civilization, p. 538
"Reinach Rhys and Gomme supported by suggesting that the Celts accepted Druidism of pre-Celtic non-Indo-Europeans, and say that they did it the same way that the Romans accepted or incorporated religions of many of the peoples they conquered. "
Peter Berresford Ellis, The Druids, p. 50
Mircea Eliade, in his book History of Religious Ideas, you risk a little further and says that the influence of these cults would be especially notable in relation to the cult of womanhood, mothers, and the natural environment and its link with the Death and the Underworld. If so, the nexus of the goddess mother goddess of death or war of the Celts would have a possible remote source in these ancient civilizations. And yes, I do not like a crazy theory of everything, because the role of Celtic Matronae and goddesses derived from them are reminiscent of pre-Indo-European religions, objectified for example in fertility figurines.
As such, the difference between survival and then it should be clear: the Celts were not those who devised the megalithic monuments or hunters or matrilineal cults, but in some cases, tribal-level always kept them more or less success.
Sources:
Jean Markale, Druids
Henri Hubert, Celts and Celtic Civilization
Peter Berresford Ellis, Druids
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