some very good info in there, but flawed too

pros:
- a lot of fascinating information, particularly about archaeological information, rituals and gods. There was a fair bit that I didn't already know, and i enjoyed learning about the coursewayed enclosures and similar barrows, tombs and cursus especially. Also finding out what nemeton meant after reading it in a book (The Wren Hunt)
- seeing bits and pieces I did know, from reading the Mabinogi and learning about horses and ritual sacrifice, was cool
- the writing style was direct and clear, using technical language when needed but not being deliberately obscure for the sake of it. the summaries at the end of each chapter were useful

cons:
- main gripe is the lack of actual information about druids! loads of space was dedicated to the Romans and other parts of early history, rather than the actual druids. The parts that went into minute detail about a bunch of Roman authors were particularly trying and irrelevant. Making the point that clear information on the Druids is difficult to obtain without bias or historical distortion is one thing; going name by name through every single Roman who ever mentioned a Druid is quite another. 
- There was some repetition between the first chapter (the intro) and the rest. I get that you need to give a summary at the start of what will be covered, but directly lifting and dropping paragraphs was a bit annoying
- for what is advertised as 'A very short introduction', this went into WAY too much depth about the *origins* of the information we have on druids, rather than the actual information, which was my main grievance.
- the extremely negative mentions of modern Druids and neopaganism in the introduction definitely put my back up, because it seemed so snobby and unneeded. Conliffe did redeem himself with a more magnanimous representation of modern Druids in the penultimate chapter, at least.

Overall, an interesting read but not as good as it could've been.

informational notes:
- p.18, physical data reflecting behavior, ie. burial rites, depositions, 'ritual' structures and iconography.
- p.19, balancing the opposites of sky and earth
- p. 19, examples of grave goods: red deer antler, shell beads and red ochre. near stonehenge: bronze daggers, axe, sceptre, gold ornaments, amber necklace.
- p.19, the process of death, which is a liminal period between the last breath being taken and when the spirit is at rest or departed. First placed in view as a 'visible assurance that the death has occured and it may be the focus of offerings, relatives providing gifts to the corpse, thus demonstrating to others the strength and power of the lineage'. p.32, a burial from the 1st century AD had the body removed and cremated, grave goods smashed and tomb filled in.
- p.20, multiple burials of a whole lineage occurred, 'the body of the newly deceased was placed in the main passage until such a time that another person died, where the remains of the earlier body were cleared away into a side chamber to make space for the new arrival.' the barrow was eventually closed with a large stone over the entrance.
- p.21, in the middle of the 2nd millennium, cremation began to replace inhumation. there's the same balance of sky and ground gods, though. previously: inhumation for select few (chthonic gods) and excarnation for the rest (sky gods). later: cremation (sky gods) followed by burying the ashes in an urn (chthonic gods)
- p.22, their tombs and monuments built in the 3rd and 4th milinium were timed exactly to the sun. 'the great passage tomb of New Grange in the Boyne Valley of Ireland was carefully aligned so that at dawn on the day of the midwinter solstice the rays of the rising sun would shine through a slot in the roof and along the passage to light up a triple spiral carved on an orthostat set at the back of the central chamber'. p.23, Stonehenge is aligned to 'respect the midsummer sunrise and the midwinter sunset'. p.59, These careful alignments required knowledge of the calender and astronomy, which was the Druids' job
- p.24, in the 2nd and 3rd milinium, pits were dug for deliberate deposition of artefacts and animal bones. 'The interpretation frequently put forward is that these structures represent offerings placed in the earth to propitiate the chthonic deities'
- p.25, far more depositions from the late 2nd milinium, with hoards of specially made bronze implements, high in lead so they couldn't have been used. this increase might've been because of the increase in agriculture, so needed more help from the gods. p.34, these hoards 'lie within an 8-hectate enclosure...some decades after the deposition of the hoards... dug to define the boundary of the territory known, in the local memory, to have been sacred to the gods'. Human and godly boundaries between our world and theirs including ditches, water, earth, enclosures, etc.
- p.26, depositions were left inside old corn storage pits. p.40, 'in the case of shafts used as wells, the deposition of offerings is most likely associated with rites of closure'. p.134, this begins when 'the community had now, at last, imposed itself on the land rather than being subsurvient to it'.
- p.26, artefacts also thrown into rivers, springs and bogs, because water is a 'liminal space through which it was possible for our world to communicate with the world below'. p.33, increase in rivers and bog depositions in the century before the Roman invasion
- p.27, man-made spaces for worship including causewayed (raised banks) enclosures, cursus (ditch or trench) monuments, and henges. 'all three were forms of enclosure, their limits defined by ditches which bounded an area, separating it from the world outside'
- p.36, importance of skulls/heads in rituals and ceremony. 'Clearly the head was percieved to be a special body part, perhaps one that contained the power of the deceased'.
- p.36, ritual killing of Lindow man, body found in a bog in Cheshire, who had 'been hit violently on the head, had been garrotted, and had had his throat cut before being placed in the bog'. p.69, a sacrifice described by Diodorus: 'stab him with a dagger in the region above the diaphragm, and when he has fallen they foretell the future from his fall and the convulsions of his limbs and...the spurting of blood'. p.71, the druids didn't run the sacrifices but they were the officiates and weren't innocent.
- p.38, focus on a 'temenos' (a piece of land cut off and dedicated to the gods)
- p.41, at a spring at the source of the Seine, a number of figurines were found, 'some wearing hooded cloaks, heads, trunks, limbs, hands and feet... models of sexual organs, breats, and eyes...evidently to provide the goddess, Sequana, with an unambiguous indiction on which part of their anatomy she was to concentrate her curative or rejuvenating powers'.
- p.42, statues with leaf crowns behind the head found in France, which may have indicated status in some way.
- (p.49 summary of archaeological finds)
- p.57, different types of powerful men within the Celts: Bards (singers and poets), Vates (augurs) and Druids (occupied with justice and philosophy). these categories became more blended as time went on. p.69, irish texts call them 'baird, filidh and druidh'. The Vates could 'foretell the future through augury and whose duties included carrying out the sacrifices...The Druids...were the philosphers and intermediaries between man and the gods, as well as being the ultimate justices and being skilled in the 'science of nature'.
- p.59, 60, Druids' mistletoe ritual described by Pliny: sacredness of mistletoe, especially when grown on the oak. Ritual preferably on the 6th day of the moon. Other curative herbs; selago (sabine) wards off evil and cures eye diseases, Samolos (marsh plant) protects cattle from disease. 
- p.65, in 106BC, romans sacked a Celtic temple, looting gold and silver from the lakes which were ritual deposits.
- p.77, druids' power to excommunicate anyone who doesn't acquiesce to their ruling, 'no-one will go near or speak to them for fear of being contaminated in some way'
- p.79, annual druid meeting on sacred ground where 'People who have disputes to settle assemble there from all over the country and accept the judgements and rulings of the Druids'. p.94, Ireland had a similar idea in Uisech, the 'navel' of Ireland.
- p.83, sinister poem 'Pharsalia' written by Lucan in the first century AD talking about the Druids' bloody altar
- p.88, pre-Christian Irish gods: 'to begin with, the gods were many and everywhere, much as they were in pre-Roman Gaul... it was believed they were controlled by the Tribes of the Goddess Dana, but later they comprised a loose web of supernatural beings usually inhabiting the underground regions but entering the realms of the humans from time to time. They had many attributes and were visualized in many forms, but these different manifestations could be reduced to two powers, on e male, one female, whose balanced opposition created a state of unstable equilibrium.' (goes on to talk of the female goddess - the Morrígan in her dangerous form - and the male, Dagda, with Lug being Dagda's purer other half.
- p.90, festivals: the light half of the year runs from Beltane (1st May) to Samain (1st Nov), and the dark half from Samain to Beltane. those then split into Imbolc (1st Feb) and Lugnasad (1st August). On Beltane, tradition of driving cattle between two fires to purify them. p.91, Samain was a dangerous time as it was the end of one year and a liminal time. It was when the union between the Dagda and the Morrígan took place so 'chaos could reign as the spirits and deities of the nether-world below swarmed into the world of humans'
- p.91, the nemeton is a sacred place, and yet incorportates the world 'nemed', which meant the privileged classes of the king, the lord, the cleric and the poet.
- p.92, 'Druids were involved in setting the prohibitions (geasa) which controlled the freedoms of the king. A geis was an imperative of magical character which circumscribed behaviour, ie. eating horse meat. p.94, Druids also had the power to 'erect barriers (whether real or virtual is unclear) beyond which anyone who ventured would be killed, and a Druid still had the power to make the weaker side win' in a war. p.97, poets similarly had magical powers and their words could 'raise blisters on the face of an opponent and even had the power to kill'
- p.98, kingship ceremony involving killing a white mare and bathing in the broth - representative of 'the king-to-be to have intercourse... with the mother goddess'
- p.132, summary of druids