Druid - History of Reception - Modern Scholarship

Modern Scholarship

In the 20th century, as new forms of textual criticism and archaeological methods were developed, allowing for greater accuracy in understanding the past, various historians and archaeologists published books on the subject of the druids and came to their own conclusions. The archaeologist Stuart Piggott, author of The Druids (1968), accepted the Greco-Roman accounts and considered the druids to be a barbaric and savage priesthood who performed human sacrifices. This view was largely supported by another archaeologist, Anne Ross, author of Pagan Celtic Britain (1967) and The Life and Death of a Druid Prince (1989), although she believed that they were essentially tribal priests, having more in common with the shamans of tribal societies than with the classical philosophers. Ross' views were largely accepted by two other prominent archaeologists to write on the subject, Miranda Aldhouse-Green—author of The Gods of the Celts (1986), Exploring the World of the Druids (1997) and Caesar's Druids: Story of an Ancient Priesthood (2010)—and Barry Cunliffe, author of Iron Age Communities in Britain (1991) and The Ancient Celts (1997).