Bret Devereaux

They leave lots of prestige objects in shrines, lakes, rivers. Rich burial assemblages, identifiable hill-fort-town-centers. Lots of good archaeological evidence. But zero textual sources until the Romans show up. 39/52

Consequence: almost everything about their values, culture, social organization before the Romans and Greeks start describing it is speculative. Lots of ????s - tons. What archy can tell us, we know well - we can chart the changes in their objects really well! 40/52

Like 'when did they shift from shorter, pointier swords to longer, slashier swords' - can do a detailed map! But 'what was Gallic kingship like in 350 BCE? LOL best guess is to reason from Gallic kingship in 50 BCE, when we have Roman/Greek lit. texts. 41/52

Which brings us to: 6) Comparative Evidence - or (favorite Jurassic Park reference), "the frog DNA." Basically, if you don't know, fill in the blank with a similar, but more modern society which is better attested in the evidence. 42/52

Absolutely, comparative is the weakest form of evidence - it is what you use when you have nothing, but have a gap which has to be filled with *something* - comparative evidence is better than guessing... 43/52

...or in mid-19th century scholar fashion, just assuming ancient elites were just like your fellow British/French/German/American aristocrats. The good news is that comparative evidence can be brought to bear on any question. 44/52

The bad news is that societies are different! Societies separated by centuries tend to be *really* different. Comparative evidence thus works better when you have a reason to think things are less different. 45/52

For instance, subsistence patterns. Ancient people needed to eat too and had similar bodies (and thus dietary needs) to modern humans, so you can sometimes reason from early modern subsistence patterns to ancient ones (but beware tech/selective-breeding!) 46/52