Some information on Druids. Proto-Druids amongst Proto-Celts By about 6,500 years ago people were starting to build stone monuments in western Europe – particularly in Ireland, the British Isles, and in Brittany, although similar standing stones and circles can be found as far afield as Peru and Madagascar. Although the Druids have always been associated in the popular imagination with stone circles such as Stonehenge, academics until recently dismissed this idea. Historians used to say that the Druids couldn’t have used Stonehenge and all the other stone circles in Britain, because the Druids were the priests of the Celts, and the Celts only arrived in Britain in 500 BCE. Since no stone monuments were built after 1400 BCE, they pointed to the gap of nine hundred years separating the last of the stone circles from the arrival of the Druids. But in the sixties many historians changed their minds. They realized that the origin of the so-called Celtic tribes was far more complex than originally presumed, and suggested instead that early or Proto-Celts were probably in Britain as early as 2000 BCE - when the great stone monuments were still being built - and that they could well have been involved in their use or construction. Forty years later academic opinion is still divided. Some experts emphasize the lack of continuity between religious structures and practices in the second and first millennia BCE. But others point to the new sense of continuity in the genetics and culture of the British, with the rejection of the idea of a Celtic ‘invasion’. This second school of thought makes it possible to again see the Druids as the priests and priestesses of the stone circles, a tendency reinforced by the increasing recognition of the importance of ritual astronomy in the construction of these monuments. If we take this view we might agree with John Michell when he wrote in A Little History of Astro-Archaeology : ‘science restored the Druids to their old temple, Stonehenge, wiser and more venerable than before.’ druidry.org/druid-way/what-druidry/brief-history-druidry/longer-history-druidry ~Maya~
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 18:53:01 +0000
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