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Wicca IS NOT an Old Religion
I am bothered by the 'facts' that so many use to define Wicca as an old religion. The ritual trappings and tools, as well as religious content iteself dates back, even by a large stretch of the imagination, to the beginning of the 20th century. There are simply no facts that place Wicca's roots beyond that time.
By facts I mean credible anthropological evidence. There is a fair amount of evidence regarding Celtic mythology and from that we can determine that the Celts had their specific pantheon. This pantheon was not consistent, even among the Celts. A lot of the knowledge of the Celtic mythology was diluted by Greco-Roman influence. The written language of the Celts, for example, was taken from the Roman language.
Typically, when people refer to the Wiccan roots, they refer to the spiritual roots of the British Isles and northern Europe. Some, such as Margaret Murray, for example, claim Witchcraft goes back 25,000 years. Starhawk claims it goes back 35,000 years.
Consider the last ice age. The glaciers in northern Europe receded 9,000-10,000 years ago, and following that the indigineous inhabitants of northern Europe were sacked by a variety of invaders thus diluting their culture considerably. The Celts who occupied a majority of Europe were such invaders (there were also the Normans, the Romans, etc.). The Celts brought their beliefs with them. The beliefs held by the Celts were, in some cases, vastly differnt from each other given locale. Hibernia, Scotia, Brittany, Gaul all had different names and attributes to their mythological deities. As an example it is highly unlikely the first harvest was celebrated as Lughnasadh in Gaul, or even Wales as the deity Lugh was endemic to Hibernia (Ireland)
We do know that certain feasts and festivals were recognized and we revere these today as the Major Sabbats. The Minor Sabbats simply reflect the passing of the year with the positioning of the sun. The ways these festivals were observed, however, is not very well known.
Far from peace loving people, however, the Celts were, as said, invaders and mercenaries. They expanded south to Rome and Greece and east to Persia and India, borrowing their religous beliefs in the process. These events took place over 1,000 years. Failing any central organization there was no central record keeping, church, temple, etc.
What is missing, though, is anything describing religious practices and ritual. We simply do not know what they were doing. 25,000 years ago northern Europe, being covered in ice and glaciers, was an inhospitable environment. In such an environment records, writings, and stories were difficult to maintain, preserve and pass down.
Wicca's roots, even at a stretch do not go back past the 20th century. Even Gardner admitted that what was handed down to him as Wica (not a mispelling) was fragmentary. Practices such as circle casting and calling of elements are practices which were borrowed from ceremonial magic. (Gardner was a contemporary and brief friend fo Crowley.) The Book of Shadows was a Garnderian term which was borrowed from Sanskrit.
I don't doubt that some pagan practice goes back a thousand or more years. I sincerly question, though, that there is any real historical or anthropological record of these practices beyond the 9th or 10th century BCE.
I would love to be proven wrong and would welcome real evidence to support opposing theory.
Disclaimer: As I discuss Wicca as a religion on this site I describe the Wiccan religion with respect to my personal viewpoint, or, perhaps my "tradition". Different traditions describe things differently and those traditions may hold different concepts, beliefs and codes.