How can we write histories?
 

The case of the Ancient Celts is an example of how we create and use history. We do not and cannot 'discover the past': it is lost to us, unless someone invents a time-machine. Archaeologists, and historians - or anyone else who aims to understand the human past - must seek out the remaining driftwood of earlier times, traces surviving in the present: old documents, objects, monuments, etc. They must then use these, applying their knowledge of how the world works, to construct histories.

All interpretations of history are framed and influenced by our own ways of thinking about the world, our prejudices, and our (often unspoken) motivations. These, in turn, depend on our personal experiences, education, and cultural backgrounds. It is true of everyone, including (and not least) archaeologists and historians. Neither academics, nor anyone else, knows The Truth about what the past was like.

 
     
 

Judging between competing histories

  
 

This does not necessarily mean, of course, that people are either dishonest or insincere in what they say (although some may be); it simply means that they are human, and so predisposed to emphasise certain pieces of evidence, and to present them in favourable ways to build their argument. Hence, there can be wildly differing views based, apparently, on exactly the same body of evidence!

Neither does it mean that surviving traces can be twisted to fit any view of the past - although the thinner the evidence, the more it can be bent to fit a pet theory, and on the subject of the Ancient Celts much of our knowledge is sparse in the extreme. However, the evidence does tell us some pretty definite things, and so supports some interpretations, while ruling out others. It guides us towards the most likely explanations of what the past was 'really' like.

  
  So there is hope that we can say useful things about even the remote past - but we may have to accept that there are many questions we cannot answer with confidence. Certainly, the best answers are likely to come if we all carefully examine what is being said, and why - both by others, and by ourselves. Archaeologists and historians aim to be self-critical, to try to minimise the influence of wishful thinking in their work. However, no-one can succeed in this all the time!  
     
 

Implications for Celtic histories

 
  The world of Celticism, in its myriad different forms, looks to many archaeologists like me to be heavily influenced by wishful thinking. It is a bubbling cauldron of snippets of art, history, legend and other ingredients which are served up in various ways to produce dishes pleasing to a range of palates, spiritual, cultural, and national. The ways in which our knowledge of the past is used appears often to be very cavalier, and much is presented as established fact - about Celtic migrations, Druids, etc. etc. - where there is no certain knowledge at all.