Laurence Flanagan on the Rationality of Our Forebears

In a manner of speaking, the fact that humankind itself is unpredictable is the quintessential stumbling-block for archaeologists. We have to assume that the people whose dwelling-places, artefacts, lives even, we are dealing with were rational, integrated, sane and sensible human beings. Then we look around at our own contemporaries and wonder how this belief can possibly be sustained.

Laurence Flanagan. 1998. Ancient Ireland: Life Before the Celts. St. Martin's Press, 1998.