Bog body

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Tollund Man, Denmark, 4th c. BCE
Gallagh Man, Ireland, c. 470–120 BCE

A bog body is a human

Second World War.[1] The unifying factor of the bog bodies is that they have been found in peat and are partially preserved; however, the actual levels of preservation vary widely from perfectly preserved to mere skeletons.[2]

Unlike most ancient human remains, bog bodies often retain their skin and internal

organs due to the unusual conditions of the surrounding area. Combined, highly acidic water, low temperature, and a lack of oxygen preserve but severely tan their skin. While the skin is well-preserved, the bones are generally not, due to the dissolution of the calcium phosphate of bone by the peat's acidity.[3] The acidic conditions of these bogs allow for the preservation of materials such as skin, hair, nails, wool and leather which all contain the protein keratin.[3]

The oldest known bog body is the skeleton of Koelbjerg Man from Denmark, who has been dated to 8000 BCE, during the Mesolithic period.[1] The oldest fleshed bog body is that of Cashel Man, who dates to 2000 BCE during the Bronze Age.[4] The overwhelming majority of bog bodies – including examples such as Tollund Man, Grauballe Man and Lindow Man – date to the Iron Age and have been found in northwest Europe, particularly Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Sweden, Poland, and Ireland.[5][6] Such Iron Age bog bodies typically show a number of similarities, such as violent deaths and a lack of clothing, which has led archaeologists to believe that they were killed and deposited in the bogs as a part of a widespread cultural tradition of human sacrifice or executed as criminals.[1][7] Bogs could have indeed been seen as liminal places positively connected to another world, which might welcome contaminating items otherwise dangerous to the living.[7] More recent theories postulate that bog people were perceived as social outcasts or "witches", as legal hostages killed in anger over broken treaty arrangements, or as victims of an unusual death eventually buried in bogs according to traditional customs.[7]

The German scientist Alfred Dieck published a catalog of more than 1,850 bog bodies that he had counted between 1939 and 1986,[8][9] but most were unverified by documents or archaeological finds;[10] and a 2002 analysis of Dieck's work by German archaeologists concluded that much of his work was unreliable.[10] Countering Dieck's findings of more than 1400 bog body discoveries, it seems that after a more recent study the number of bog body finds is closer to 122.[11] The most recent bog bodies are those of soldiers killed in the wetlands of the Soviet Union during the Second World War.[1]

Bog chemistry

The preservation of bog bodies in peat bogs is a natural phenomenon, and not the result of human mummification processes.[1] It is caused by the unique physical and biochemical composition of the bogs.[12] Different types of bogs can affect the mummification process differently: raised bogs best preserve the corpses, whereas fens and transitional bogs tend to preserve harder tissues such as the skeleton rather than the soft tissue.[12]

A limited number of bogs have the correct conditions for preservation of mammalian tissue. Most of these are located in colder climates near bodies of salt water.

aerobic organisms any opportunity to initiate decomposition. Researchers discovered that preservation also requires that the body is placed in the bog during the winter or early spring when the water temperature is cold—i.e., less than 4 °C (39 °F).[14] This allows bog acids to saturate the tissues before decay can begin. Bacteria are unable to grow rapidly enough for decomposition at temperatures under 4 °C.[14]

The bog chemical environment involves a completely saturated acidic environment, where considerable concentrations of organic acids, which contribute most to the low pH of bog waters, and aldehydes are present.[15] Layers of sphagnum, which are compacted layers of irregular mosses and other peat debris, and peat assist in preserving the cadavers by enveloping the tissue in a cold immobilizing matrix, impeding water circulation and any oxygenation.[16] An additional feature of anaerobic preservation by acidic bogs is the ability to conserve hair, clothing and leather items. Modern experimenters have been able to mimic bog conditions in the laboratory and successfully demonstrated the preservation process, albeit over shorter time frames than the 2,500 years that Haraldskær Woman's body has survived. Most of the bog bodies discovered showed some aspects of decay or else were not properly conserved. When such specimens are exposed to the normal atmosphere, they may begin to decompose rapidly. As a result, many specimens have been effectively destroyed. As of 1979, the number of specimens that have been preserved following discovery was 53.[17][18]

Discoveries such as Röst Girl no longer exist, having been destroyed during the Second World War (photo date: 1926).

Historical context

Mesolithic to Bronze Age

The oldest bog body that has been identified is the Koelbjerg Man from Denmark, who has been dated to 8000 BCE, during the Mesolithic period.[1]

Around 3900 BCE,

human sacrifices or criminals executed for their socially deviant behaviour.[21] An example of a Bronze Age bog body is Cashel Man, from 2000 BCE.[4]

Iron Age

Windeby I, the body of a teenage boy, found in Schleswig, Germany

The vast majority of the bog bodies that have been discovered date from the

Pre-Roman Iron Age people lived in sedentary communities, built villages and their society was hierarchical. They were agriculturalists, raising animals in captivity as well as growing crops. In some parts of northern Europe, they also fished. Although independent of the Roman Empire, which dominated southern Europe at this time, the inhabitants traded with the Romans.[22]

For these people, the bogs held some sort of liminal significance, and indeed, they placed into them

P.V. Glob believed that these were "offerings to the gods of fertility and good fortune."[23] It is therefore widely speculated that the Iron Age bog bodies were thrown into the bog for similar reasons, and that they were therefore examples of human sacrifice to the gods.[24] Explicit reference to the practice of drowning slaves who had washed the cult image of Nerthus and were subsequently ritually drowned in Tacitus' Germania, suggesting that the bog bodies were sacrificial victims may be contrasted with a separate account (Germania XII), in which victims of punitive execution were pinned in bogs using hurdles.[25]

Many bog bodies show signs of being

strangled, or a combination of these methods. In some cases the individual had been beheaded. In the case of the Osterby Man found at Kohlmoor, near Osterby, Germany in 1948, the head had been deposited in the bog without its body.[26]

Usually, the corpses were naked, sometimes with some items of clothing with them, particularly headgear. The clothing is believed to have decomposed while in the bog for so long.

P.V. Glob, "this probably indicates the wish to pin the dead man firmly into the bog."[28] Some bodies show signs of torture, such as Old Croghan Man
, who had deep cuts beneath his nipples.

Some bog bodies, such as

auguries on the entrails of human victims: on some bog bodies, such as the Weerdinge Men found in the northern Netherlands, the entrails have been partly drawn out through incisions.[31]

Modern techniques of forensic analysis now suggest that some injuries, such as broken bones and crushed skulls, were not the result of torture, but rather due to the weight of the bog.[32] For example, the fractured skull of Grauballe Man was at one time thought to have been caused by a blow to the head. However, a CT scan of Grauballe Man by Danish scientists determined his skull was fractured due to pressure from the bog long after his death.[32]

North America

A number of skeletons found in Florida have been called "bog people". These skeletons are the remains of people buried in peat between 5,000 and 8,000 years ago, during the Early and Middle

Textiles were also preserved with some of the burials, the oldest known textiles in Florida.[33][34][35] A 7,000-year-old presumed peat pond burial site, the Manasota Key Offshore archaeological site, has been found under 21 feet (6.4 m) of water near Sarasota. Archaeologists believe that early Archaic Native Americans buried the bodies in a freshwater pond when the sea level was much lower. The peat in the ponds helped preserve the skeletons.[36][37]

Discovery and archaeological investigation

Rendswühren Man
, Germany

Ever since the Iron Age, humans have used the bogs to harvest

Kibbelgaarn body was discovered in the Netherlands in 1791. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, when such bodies were discovered, they were often removed from the bogs and given a Christian burial on consecrated church grounds in keeping with the religious beliefs of the community who found them, who often assumed that they were relatively modern.[42]

Kreepen Man
Remains from Levänluhta (Isokyrö, Ostrobothnia) at the National Museum of Finland

With the rise of

antiquarianism in the 19th century, some people began to speculate that many of the bog bodies were not recent murder victims but were ancient in origin. In 1843, at Corselitze on Falster in Denmark, a bog body unusually buried with ornaments (seven glass beads and a bronze pin) was unearthed and subsequently given a Christian burial. By order of the Crown Prince Frederick, who was an antiquarian, the body was dug up again and sent to the National Museum of Denmark. According to the archaeologist P.V. Glob, it was "he, more than anyone else, [who] helped to arouse the wide interest in Danish antiquities" such as the bog bodies.[43]

After the

conservation and put on display in a museum.[45]
With the rise of modern archaeology in the early 20th century, archeologists began to excavate and investigate bog bodies more carefully and thoroughly.

Archaeological techniques

Reconstruction of the Girl of the Uchter Moor

Until the mid-20th century, it was not readily apparent at the time of discovery whether a body had been buried in a bog for years, decades, or centuries. But, modern forensic and medical technologies (such as radiocarbon dating) have been developed that allow researchers to more closely determine the age of the burial, the person's age at death, and other details. Scientists have been able to study the skin of the bog bodies, reconstruct their appearance and even determine what their last meal was from their stomach contents since peat marsh preserves soft internal tissue. Radiocarbon dating is also common as it accurately gives the date of the find, most usually from the Iron Age. For example, Tollund man of Denmark, whose remains were recovered in 1950, has undergone radiocarbon analyses that place his death date to around the 3rd or 4th century.[46]

More modern analyses using stable isotope measurements have allowed scientists to study bone collagen collected from Tollund Man to determine his diet as being terrestrial-based.

Ground-penetrating radar can be used in archaeological investigation to map features beneath the ground to reconstruct 3D visualizations.[49] For bog bodies, ground-penetrating radar can be used to detect bodies and artifacts beneath the bog surface before cutting into the peat.[50]

Roter Franz and Windeby I.[52][53]

Notable bog bodies

Main article: List of bog bodies

Hundreds of bog bodies have been recovered and studied.[32] The bodies have been most commonly found in the Northern European countries of Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and Ireland. In 1965, the German scientist Alfred Dieck catalogued more than 1,850 bog bodies, but later scholarship revealed that much of Dieck's work was erroneous, and the exact number of discovered bodies is unknown.[54]

Several bog bodies are notable for the high quality of their preservation and the substantial research by archaeologists and forensic scientists.

References

Footnotes

  1. ^ a b c d e f Fischer 1998. p. 237.
  2. ^ Van der Sanden 1996. p. 7.
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  7. ^ a b c Randsborg 2015, pp. 7–8.
  8. ^ Dieck, Alfred (1965). Die europäischen Moorleichenfunde (Hominidenmoorfunde) (in German). Neumünster: Wachholtz. pp. 136pp.
  9. ^ Glob 1969, pp. 101.
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  12. ^ a b Fischer 1998. p. 238.
  13. ^ Dente, Jenny (2005). Bog Bodies: Reluctant Time Travelers. El Paso: University of Texas.
  14. ^ a b c d Silkeborg Museum "The Tollund Man – Preservation in the bog". Silkeborg Museum and Amtscentret for Undervisning, Aarhus Amt, 2004 (in Danish). Archived from the original on 20 April 2017. Retrieved 20 August 2008.
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  16. ^ "Definition of SPHAGNUM". www.merriam-webster.com. Archived from the original on 11 March 2021. Retrieved 4 December 2020.
  17. ^ Gill-Frerking, Heather. "Bog Bodies-Preserved from Peat." Mummies of the World. Ed. Wilfried Rosendal and Alfried Wiczorec. 2009. 63. Print.
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  19. ^ Official Danish history @http://denmark.dk/en/society/history/ Archived 27 August 2017 at the Wayback Machine
  20. ^ Bennike 1999. p. 27.
  21. ^ a b Bennike 1999. p. 29.
  22. ^ Glob 1969, pp. 121–125.
  23. ^ Glob 1969, pp. 136.
  24. ^ Vergano, Dan (16 January 2011). "Bog bodies baffle scientists". USA Today. Archived from the original on 16 September 2012. Retrieved 14 December 2011.
  25. doi:10.1111/1468-0092.00057. Archived from the original
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  26. ^ Glob 1969, pp. 116–117.
  27. ^ Glob 1969, pp. 107.
  28. ^ Glob 1969, pp. 105.
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  31. ^ "Mummytombs.com". www.mummytombs.com. Archived from the original on 2 April 2010.
  32. ^ a b c Lange, Karen E. (2007). "Tales From the Bog". National Geographic (September 2007). Archived from the original on 17 August 2016. Retrieved 23 April 2009.
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  36. ^ Gannon, Megan (28 February 2018). "7,000-Year-Old Native American Burial Site Found Underwater". National Geographic. Archived from the original on 2 March 2018. Retrieved 2 March 2018.
  37. ^ Rodriquez, Nicole (28 February 2018). "Archaeological site, 7,000 years old, found in Gulf near Venice". Sarasota (Florida) Herald-Tribune. Archived from the original on 2 March 2018. Retrieved 2 March 2018.
  38. ^ "Bodies in the Bog: The Lindow Mysteries". Science History Institute. 23 July 2019. Archived from the original on 27 November 2020. Retrieved 5 December 2020.
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  40. ^ Glob 1969, pp. 103.
  41. ^ Glob 1969, pp. 65–66.
  42. ^ Glob 1969, pp. 63.
  43. ^ Glob 1969, pp. 68–69.
  44. ^ Glob 1969, pp. 69–73.
  45. ^ Glob 1969, pp. 106–107.
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  47. ^ Dorey, Fran (11 February 2018). "How do we know what they ate?". Australian Museum. Archived from the original on 19 October 2019. Retrieved 19 October 2019.
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  50. ^ Chippindale, Christopher (27 June 1985). "Flag Fen: New Finds from the Bronze Age". New Scientist (1462): 39–43.
  51. ^ van Vilsteren, V.T. (2004). The Mysterious Bog People. Canadian Museum of Civilization, Glenbow Museum: Waanders Publishers. pp. 1–6.
  52. ^ "Reconstructions". Archaeology Magazine. Archaeological Institute of America. 1997.
  53. ^ Deem, James M. (2011). "Clonycavan Man". Mummytombs.com. Archived from the original on 15 October 2011. Retrieved 27 September 2011.
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Bibliography

External links

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