Human sacrifice

The neutrality of this section is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until conditions to do so are met. (March 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

An 18th century illustration of a wicker man, a form of human sacrifice that Caesar alleged the Druids, or Celtic priesthood, performed, though no archaeological evidence has been uncovered to support this.

Greco-Roman writers stated that the Celts practiced human sacrifice in Gaul: Cicero, Julius Caesar, Suetonius, and Lucan all refer to it, and Pliny the Elder says that it occurred in Britain, too. It was forbidden under Tiberius and Claudius. However, it is possible that these claims may have been false, and used as a sort of propaganda to justify the Roman conquest of these territories.^[37] There are very few recorded archaeological discoveries that preserve evidence of human sacrifice and thus most contemporary historians^{[ weasel words ]} tend to regard human sacrifice as rare within Celtic cultures.^{[ citation needed ]}

However, there is also archaeological evidence from western Europe that has been widely used to back up the idea that human sacrifice was performed by the Iron Age Celts. Mass graves found in a ritual context dating from this period have been unearthed in Gaul, at both Gournay-sur-Aronde and Ribemont-sur-Ancre in what was the region of the Belgae chiefdom. The excavator of these sites, Jean-Louis Brunaux, interpreted them as areas of human sacrifice in devotion to a war god, ^[38][39] although this view was criticised by another archaeologist, Martin Brown, who believed that the corpses might be those of honoured warriors buried in the sanctuary rather than sacrifices.^[40] At a bog in Lindow, Cheshire, England was discovered a body, designated the " Lindow Man", which may also have been the victim of a sacrificial ritual, but it is just as likely that he was an executed criminal or a victim of violent crime.^[41] The body is now on display at the British Museum, London. In Ireland, similar discoveries in 2003 of two murdered individuals preserved in separate bogs, each subsequently dated to around 100 BCE, lends some credence to the ritual murder theory.^[42]