The archaeological evidence of burial customs among the Celts also bears witness to this belief.  Over the whole Celtic area a rich profusion of grave-goods has been found, consisting of weapons, armour, chariots, utensils, ornaments, and coins.[1163] Some of the interments undoubtedly point to sacrifice of wife, children, or slaves at the grave.  Male and female skeletons are often in close proximity, in one case the arm of the male encircling the neck of the female.  In other cases the remains of children are found with these.  Or while the lower interment is richly provided with grave-goods, above it lie irregularly several skeletons, without grave-goods, and often with head separated from the body, pointing to decapitation, while in one case the arms had been tied behind the back.[1164] All this suggests, taken in connection with classical evidence regarding burial customs, that the future life was life in the body, and that it was a replica of this life, with the same affections, needs, and energies.  Certain passages in Irish texts also describe burials, and tell how the dead were interred with ornaments and weapons, while it was a common custom to bury the dead warrior in his armour, fully armed, and facing the region whence enemies might be expected.  Thus he was a perpetual menace to them and prevented their attack.[1165] Possibly this belief may account for the elevated position of many tumuli.  Animals were also sacrificed.  Hostages were buried alive with Fiachra, according to one text, and the wives of heroes sometimes express their desire to be buried along with their dead husbands.[1166]

The idea that the body as well as the soul was immortal was probably linked on to a very primitive belief regarding the dead, and one shared by many peoples, that they lived on in the grave.  This conception was never forgotten, even in regions where the theory of a distant land of the dead was evolved, or where the body was consumed by fire before burial.  It appears from such practices as binding the dead with cords, or laying heavy stones or a mound of earth on the grave, probably to prevent their egress, or feeding the dead with sacrificial food at the grave, or from the belief that the dead come forth not as spirits, but in the body from the grave.  This primitive conception, of which the belief in a subterranean world of the dead is an extension, long survived among various races, e.g. the Scandinavians, who believed in the barrow as the abiding place of the dead, while they also had their conception of Hel and Valhalla, or among the Slavs, side by side with Christian conceptions.[1167] It also survived among the Celts, though another belief in the orbis alius had arisen.  This can be shown from modern and ancient folk-belief and custom.