What do we know about pre-Christian religious rites?

There were very strong similarities between the early religious rituals of the Hindu Brahmin and the Old Irish Druids. This article is about new Irish Kings bathing with a sacrificed horse and compares it with the traditional Vedic Hindu royal inauguration. And there are other similarities between ancient Indic and Irish religions; as well as relationships to Greek, Roman and Norse religions.

This connection seems odd — Ireland is a long distance from India; the Irish and Indic languages separated about 5500 years ago; the two populations have different Y-chromosome haplogroups. I think these religious parallels may suggest the great dominance of the early Indo-European culture.