I'm pretty sure Caesar did invent the wicker man, just as Polybius invented the Hispanic celts raping their guests. Roman authors like them weren't just recording history, they were engaged in a desperate propaganda war. In the case of Caesar his neck was on the line.
I won't deny that human sacrifice occurred (or at the very least executions did), but your description of European culture prior to Christianity was suggesting that they were backwards savages. This isn't the case. Material finds associated with their sites would not be possible without a stable and prosperous civilisation.
yeah that river trade sure was prosperous.
The viking period is post-christian, almost modern history. If we're talking prechristian europe then I was referring more to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_TZ5ZwR08Q
It's in French but you can set the subtitles to autotranslate. It covers how Halstatt culture celts dominated trade throughout central europe by use of river routes.
[–] notallvegans ago (edited ago)
ERIC BRAVERMAN WAS PROVIDED A HOUSING ALLOWANCE FOR SEVERAL MONTHS FROM
HIRE DATE. HOUSING ALLOWANCE WAS TREATED AS TAXABLE COMPENSATION ON HIS
2013 FORM W-2.
[–] Broc_Lia ago
No problem
Ah, fair enough. I definitely know what it's like to feel contrary.
To be clear, you think they're performing human sacrifice today? In the west?
I find that quite interesting. Would you be prepared to elaborate on it? I'm not very religious myself so I mostly view the ascension of germanic europe to have been caused by the upheval caused by the hunnic invasion, and their adoption of the late Roman imperial societal model (feudalism).
Eh bien? J'ai une ante en Bretagne. C'est mon quartier preferé en France.
There definitely were ritual killings in Ireland, as well as the continent, and they may have been religiously motivated (it's also possible that they were motivated by justice, war or politics). The issue I take is that Caesar's accounts and most other historian's accounts of Celtic society is extreme. He paints them as savages with no respect for human life who needed to be brought to heel by Rome for their own good. If they really were as barbarous as the Roman historians claim, I don't think they would have been able to sustain sophisticated metropolitan civilisations almost throughout the iron age.