Bog People: Their Deaths, Preservation and Research

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BOG PEOPLE


Tollund Man from Denmark

Much of northern Europe was once covered in bogs, which were considered sacred because no one could live in them. People lived on the high ground around them. By some groups, bogs were considered gateways to the next world. In the 19th century and after World War II, when peat from bogs was harvested in large amounts for fuel, a fairly large number of bodies was discovered. [Source: Shanti Melnon, Discover, August 1997]

Most of the bog people were found before modern methods of dating and preservation were known As a result the majority of them were not properly taken care of and no longer exist. When peat farms found human remains they usually contacted police, not archeologists, thinking they had found a recent murder victim.

Europe’s bog bodies have fascinated people since one was first documented in 1640 in Holstein, Germany. Rendswühren Man, discovered in Germany in 1871, was smoked like a ham at a local butcher shop. Other were reburied in cemeteries or stored in some place where they dried out and decayed. After World War II they were often stored in beeswax. Some still retain their brains but the DNA inside of them was destroyed by the acid. The Tollund man and Graubelle Man in Århus, Denmarkand perhaps the best preserved bog people in the world.

Bog people are also called bog men. They are officially known as bog bodies and have been described as “accidental mummies” because of how well they have been preserved.

Major Bog People Study

A study published in January 2023 in the journal Antiquity was the first-ever comprehensive study of bog people. Brendan Rascius wrote in the Miami Herald: Over 1,000 bodies were analyzed from sites across the U.K., Ireland, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland and the Baltic States. The remains, which date from as far back as 9000 B.C., were found in varying degrees of decomposition. Some are remarkably undamaged, containing soft tissue and clumps of hair, while others are only skeletons, the study said. The bogs, acidic and oxygen-deprived wetlands, are ideal environments for preserving organic material. [Source: Brendan Rascius, Miami Herald, January 13, 2023]

According to National Geographic: Assessing all these remains, the study’s authors categorized them into three groups: “bog mummies” with preserved skin, soft tissue, and hair, like the famous Tollund Man of Denmark; “bog skeletons,” whose bones are all that survived, like many of the oldest bog body finds dating back to the ninth millennium B.C.; and a third “mixed” group composed of partially mummified and skeletal remains. Varying conditions from bog to bog across the continent created different levels of preservation. Each factor—the bog’s acidity, when a body was submerged after death, the time of year, the presence of insects, and the level of exposure over the years—contributed to a body’s condition upon its discovery and determined which parts would be preserved. [Source: National Geographic, October 20, 2023]

The 2023 study is reshaping the conversation around the ritual importance of bog bodies. Perhaps the biggest reassessment is the role of violence in each person’s death. So many of the bodies were believed to have died violently, because of the state of their corpses, but the Antiquity study could only conclusively identify the cause of death for 57 individuals: 45 died violently, six died by suicide, and four were accidental drownings.

More than 2,000 Bog People Have Been Found


Rendswühren Man, Germany

More than 2,000 bog people have been unearthed in Europe, many of them in Denmark and northern Germany. A few found have been found Ireland and Britain. Most date to after the Iron Age, which started in northern Europe around 2,500 years ago. Many died between 400 B.C. and A.D. 400. The oldest known bog body — Denmark’s Koelbjerg Man — was around a 25 years old when he died around 8000 B.C.

The January 2023 Antiquity study estimates that 2000 figure for the number of bog people is conservative, and the actual number could be much higher. According to National Geographic: The 2023 study was the first large-scale overview of well-dated human remains from these bogs and included analysis of more than 250 sites and 1,000 sets of remains. Burials were practiced as far back as 5200 B.C., but they flourished between 1000 B.C. and A.D. 1500, from the Iron Age through the Roman era to medieval times. [Source: National Geographic, October 20, 2023]

Bogs

Bogs are low-lying, soggy, moss-covered pieces of land often found in coastal areas. They are often composed of peat, which is very young coal. Bogs begin when moss dominates a low-lying patch of land, causing the soil to become waterlogged and acidic. Bacteria has a difficult time surviving in such conditions and thus can't break down the dead moss and other vegetation, which instead simply piles up and become peat.

Most bogs cannot pile the peat layers very far above the surrounding land, because the bog plants depend on minerals from groundwater to survive. If the land rises to high, the plants can’t reach the nutrients they need. Along the coast, however, the vegetation can get minerals in the spray that comes off the ocean.

"Blanket bogs" cover much of the hilly landscape in western Ireland. Sometimes after heavy rains the thick bogs collapse like "avalanches of jelly" engulfing sheep, farms, and even villages. Bogs are also the source of phenomena called the will-o'-the-wisp (illuminated swamp gas) that is usually associated with sighting of leprechauns, spirits and little people.

According to National Geographic: Bogs, marshes, mires, and swamps are murky, mysterious places found across northern Europe. A space between two worlds, a bog occurs where dry land and a body of water intersect, creating a soft, spongy terrain that is neither wholly liquid nor solid. This liminal quality may have led the early peoples of northern Europe to associate bogs with the supernatural. They were portals to other worlds, where gods and restless spirits dwelled. In more recent times, peat bogs are seen as valuable natural resources, yet they’ve retained their mystical qualities thanks to the thousands of human bodies that have emerged from their depths. [Source: National Geographic, October 20, 2023]

Amy Grisdale wrote in How It Works: Huge hunks of an edible waxy substance made of dairy or meat are sometimes found with peat-bog men. This "bog butter" may have been a treasured food product to slather on Bronze Age bread. It's possible that people of the past stored their butter in bogs to keep it cool and fresh, long before the days of refrigeration. It worked so well that this ancient spread is thought to still be edible — so long as the diner can ignore the smell, Smithsonian magazine reported. [Source: Amy Grisdale, How It Works June 5, 2021]

Peat


Bog in northern Jutland in Denmark

Bogs accumulate a muddy layer called peat. Peat is the mass of decayed plant material formed in bogs or swamps. It is the first step in the process of making coal. Most peat-producing bogs are found in the Northern Hemisphere, mainly in flat areas of poor drainage created by the scouring the landscape by Ice Age glaciers. The Irish countryside used to be full of "sweet smelling turf smoke" produced by the burning of peat, which is called "foot" in many parts of Ireland.

Peat is created mostly from marsh plant: mosses, reeds, sedges, shrubs and trees. Sphagnum moss is the source of peat moss. Ideal condition for peat-making include poor drainage, still but not stagnant water and a wet climate. Plants become waterlogged, decay and sink. The pressure of material deposited on top of them causes compression and carbonization. Peat bogs are usually between 1½ and 9 meters (5 and 30 feet) deep.

Dry peat (which is course like sandpaper) burns slowly, gives off thick black smoke and leaves behind a lot of ash. It burns with greater fuel efficiency than wood but It has about two thirds of heat-generating value of coal. Compressed peat briquettes yield high quality coal. Black peat found deep under the surface is sometimes used as fertilizer. Brown peat found near the surface is sometimes used as litter for cattle. Today, peatlands are valued for their role as highly efficient and compact carbon sinks, playing an important role in the fight against climate change.

Body-Preserving Properties of Bogs

Since peat bogs contain little oxygen and bacteria which assist in the processes of decomposition bodies pulled out of bogs are in surprisingly good condition. Although the bones have often disappeared. The skin, organs and flesh are preserved as a leathery material. Some bog people were buried very carefully. The chemical make-up of the bog preserved their flesh and organs, allowing scientists to study the ones that were recovered .

Separation from oxygen is an extremely important factor in preventing decomposition. Amy Grisdale wrote in How It Works: Europe's peat bogs have a combination of a lack of oxygen, low temperature and acidic water, which works to "pickle" the remains of any animal that meets its end in the mud. Over time, layers of moss form on the bog's surface and release chemicals that halt bacterial growth. [Source: Amy Grisdale, How It Works June 5, 2021]


peat gatherers in 1905

Commonly found in bogs, sphagnum moss releases an acidic sugary molecule that takes up the nutrients that would otherwise nourish microbes that cause decay. This helps mummify corpses — though sphagnan also leaches the calcium out of bones, weakening them. [Source: Erin Blakemore, National Geographic, February 6, 2024]

According to National Geographic: Sphagnum moss is a key component of peat and gives northern Europe’s bogs their seemingly magical preservation properties. These northern wetlands are cold, low in oxygen, and very acidic. This environment combined with antibiotic properties of the moss creates a perfect soup for preserving the human body’s calcified and keratinous structures—the bones, teeth, skin, hair, and nails. Sphagnum can leach calcium from bones, making them soft and supple. The sinuous qualities of some of the preserved bodies are because of the bones’ bending to pressure in the bog. The aquatic environment also preserves clothing made of wool or animal skin. Plant-based textiles, like linen, do not fare as well over time. [Source: National Geographic, October 20, 2023]

Dr. Don Robins, a British research chemist, told the New York Times, "The peat not only waterlogs the body but keeps it out of oxygen. The water is saturated with iron and sulfur that replaces the components of the flesh, and when all the conditions are right, the peat may preserve the body for thousands of years. The bones dissolve in the acid peat water and eventually disappear, but the protein in the flesh is converted to stable material." Sometimes the bones are preserved too.

Deaths of Bog People

Many bog people were ritually murdered — either hung, stabbed or bludgeoned over the head — apparently as part of sacrifice to appease local gods. Many wore unusual fox-fur arm bands. Some were to believed to have been killed for religious reasons. Other may have been executed for some crime. The Roman historian Tacitus described the executions as a punishment. "The coward, the unwarlike, the man stained with abominable vices is plunged into the mire or morass," he wrote. The bodies were generally treated with reverence. The bodied were placed carefully in the graves and the eyes had been closed.

Brendan Rascius wrote in the Miami Herald: Given the passage of time, a cause of death could not be determined for many of the bodies, but experts managed to establish an explanation for 57 cases in the January 2023 Antiquity study. Of these cases, violence was involved nearly 80 percent of the time, researchers wrote, adding that the vast majority of bodies were intentionally deposited into the bogs. However, researchers don’t know whether the violence was a result of armed conflicts, such as raids, or if it was associated with pagan rituals. Some exceptions were made for bodies subject to “overkill,” or “excessive violence,” which were definitively categorized by researchers as ritualistic offerings. Other causes of death were far less common. Six of the deaths resulted from suicides while accidents, including drownings, claimed the lives of four others. [Source: Brendan Rascius, Miami Herald, January 13, 2023]


Death of Vittrup Man

The vast majority of bodies were found alone, according to researchers, with the exception of a site in Denmark where 380 people were killed in a violent conflict. In addition, adults between age 18 and 25 were overly represented among the bodies, though older adults and children of various ages were also present. While further questions remain, the study confirms that Europeans were intentionally depositing their dead in bogs between the “Early Neolithic and early modern times” and that many of the bodies placed there came to a violent end.

Miranda Aldhouse-Green, a professor emeritus of history, archaeology and religion at Cardiff University in the U.K. and the author of the book "Bog Bodies Uncovered: Solving Europe's Ancient Mystery" (2015), told NBC News ancient people were likely well aware that bogs could preserve bodies. "If you put a body in the bog, it would not decay — it would stay between the worlds of the living and the dead." [Source: Tom Metcalfe, Live Science, December 14, 2022]

Cremated 'Bog Bones' Found at 10,000-Year-Old Hazelnut Roasting Site in Germany

In 2022, archaeologists announced that they unearthed 10,000-year-old cremated bones at a Stone Age lakeside campsite that was used for spearing fish and roasting hazelnuts in northern Germany. The site is the earliest known burial in northern Germany, and the discovery marks the first time human remains have been found at Duvensee bog in the Schleswig-Holstein region, where dozens of campsites from the Mesolithic era or Middle Stone Age (roughly between 15,000 and 5,000 years ago) have been found. [Source: Tom Metcalfe, Live Science, October 22, 2022]

Tom Metcalfe wrote in Live Science: Hazelnuts were a big attraction in the area because Mesolithic people could gather and roast them, Harald Lübke, an archaeologist at the Center for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology, an agency of the Schleswig-Holstein State Museums Foundation, told Live Science. The campsites changed over time, the research shows. "In the beginning, we have only small hazelnut roasting hearths, and in the later sites, they become much bigger" — possibly a consequence of hazel trees becoming more widespread as the environment changed.

The first sites investigated by Bokelmann in the 1980s were on islands that would have been near the western shore of the lake, which has completely silted up over the last 8,000 years or so, and formed a peat bog, called a "moor" in Germany. Archaeologists have discovered mats made of bark for sitting on the damp soil, pieces of worked flint, and the remains of many Mesolithic fireplaces for roasting hazelnuts, but they haven't unearthed any burials at the island sites. "Maybe they didn't bury people on the islands but only at the sites on the lake border, which seem to have had a different kind of function," Lübke said.

Unlike during the later Mesolithic era, when specific areas were set aside for the burial of the dead, at this time it seemed the dead were buried near where they died, he said. Significantly, the body was cremated before its burial at the Duvensee site, like other burials of approximately the same age near Hammelev in southern Denmark, which is about 120 miles (195 kilometers) to the north. Only pieces of the largest bones were left after the cremation, and it's not clear if they were wrapped in hide or bark before they were buried. In any case, "burning the body seems to be a central part of burial rituals at this time," Lübke said.

The Duvensee bog is among the most important archaeological regions in northern Europe; dozens of Mesolithic sites have been found there since 1923, and most of them since the 1980s. As well as roasting hazelnuts and burning bodies — both of which are activities utilizing fire — Mesolithic people used the lakeside campgrounds for spearing fish, according to the discovery of several bone points crafted for that purpose that were found at the site. Flint fragments also have been found throughout the area, although flint doesn't occur naturally there, suggesting that Mesolithic people repaired their tools and hunting weapons in this place during the annual hazelnut harvest in the fall, Lübke said.

5,000-Year-Old Bog Man Found in Denmark — a Human Sacrifice Victim?


Grauballe Man

In 2022, scientists announced that bones found in a Denmark bog may belong to a 5,000-year-old human sacrifice victim. The archaeologists first found the bones from a human leg, and then a pelvis and a lower jaw with some teeth still attached near the remnants of a flint ax and animal bones, clues that suggest this person was ritually sacrificed. "That's the early phase of the Danish Neolithic," said excavation leader Emil Struve, an archaeologist and curator at the ROMU museums in Roskilde. "We know that traditions of human sacrifices date back that far — we have other examples of it. In our area here, we have several different bog bodies.It's an ongoing tradition that goes back all the way to the Neolithic." [Source: Tom Metcalfe, Live Science, December 14, 2022]

Little is known so far about the supposed victim, including the person's sex and age at the time of death. But the researchers think the body was deliberately placed in the bog. They hope that wear on the teeth could indicate the person's age when they died, and that the teeth themselves may contain ancient DNA. Tom Metcalfe wrote in Live Science: The ROMU archaeological team found the latest set of bones in October 2022 ahead of the construction of a housing development.

The site, which has now been drained, had been a bog near the town of Stenløse, on the large island of Zealand and just northwest of the Danish capital Copenhagen. Danish law requires archaeologists to examine all land that's to be built on, and the first bones of the Stenløse bog body were found during a test excavation at the site, Struve said. Struve hopes that the sex of the body can be determined based on the pelvis and that wear on the teeth may indicate the individual's age. In addition, the teeth could be sources of ancient DNA, which might reveal even more about the person's identity, he said. Struve said the flint ax-head found near the body was not polished after it was made and may have never been used, and so it seems likely that this, too, was a deliberate offering.

Police Find 2,000-Year-Old Bog Teenager with Missing Head in Northern Ireland

In February 2024, archaeologists announced they had found a "bog body" of teenager in Northern Ireland that was between 2,000 and 2,500 years old. The well-preserved skeleton still has portions of its fingernails and skin intact but was missing its head. The find was made after the police were alerted about the discovery of human bones in peatland near Bellaghy, a village in the central part of Northern Ireland, according to a statement by the Police Service of Northern Ireland. [Source: Jennifer Nalewicki, Live Science, February 2, 2024]

"On initial examination, we couldn't be sure if the remains were ancient or the result of a more recent death," Nikki Deehan, a detective inspector with the Police Service, said in the statement. "Therefore, we proceeded to excavate the body with full forensic considerations in a sensitive and professional manner," Deehan said. "This approach also ensures that any DNA evidence could be secured for any potential criminal investigation. Ultimately this wasn't the case in this instance."


Gallagh Man, Ireland, c. 470–120 B.C.

Jennifer Nalewicki wrote in Live Science: Instead, authorities learned that they'd found a "bog body." Forensic anthropologists determined that the skeleton, whose bones were scattered across the peatland and were just reassembled, was that of a teenage boy who died sometime between the ages of 13 and 17. While most of his bones were recovered, his skull remains missing and researchers are unsure if it was separated from his body before or after his death.

Due to the excellent preservation of the bog body, researchers were able to recover bits of skin, fingernails, toenails and "possibly a kidney," according to the statement. "The well-preserved nature of the body meant radiocarbon dating could be used to ascertain the time of death," Deehan said. "The radiocarbon dates have placed the time of death between 2,000 [and] 2,500 years ago, approximately 500 B.C. This is the first time radiocarbon dating has been used on a bog body in Northern Ireland, and the only [bog body] to still exist, making this a truly unique archaeological discovery for Northern Ireland." Authorities are transferring the remains to the National Museums Northern Ireland to conduct further investigations and determine how the boy died.

Early Study of Bog People

According to National Geographic: Scholars had little to go on in the 19th century when they began exploring in earnest how these bodies ended up in the bogs. There are no written records documenting the rituals and beliefs of preliterate societies in the region, and early scholars pulled information wherever they could find it. Many relied heavily on the writings of Tacitus, a first century A.D. Roman historian, to inform their interpretations of the Iron Age bog sites. [Source: National Geographic, October 20, 2023]

Despite never having been to the northern regions himself, Tacitus wrote Germania around A.D. 98. Relying on secondhand and thirdhand sources, he described the northern peoples and their cultures. The work extols the virtues of the Germanic tribes in order to shame Romans for what Tacitus considered their extravagant behavior at home. In the section where he describes crime and punishment among the Germanic peoples, Tacitus includes approving descriptions of hanging certain criminals while drowning others in the bogs.

This reliance on Tacitus led to colorful (and somewhat imaginative) explanations for the conditions of each body. Their grotesque limbs, often twisted, and grinning skulls, often fractured, supported the interpretation of bog bodies as disgraced people—adulterers, thieves, and outcasts—supposedly punished with first torture, then execution, and lastly submersion in the bog. Many of these explanations held for decades, inspiring poems, stories, and novels about the sad fates of Europe’s bog people.

Study of Bog People with Modern Technology

According to National Geographic: Not surprisingly, bog body research has taken many different turns as technology has developed over the decades. New methods—CT scans, 3D imaging, DNA analysis, and radiocarbon dating, to name a few—are creating a larger and more complex rendering of the lives and deaths of these people. Rather than romantic stories about their deaths, scholars are finding more details, more nuance, and even more mystery. [Source: National Geographic, October 20, 2023]

New research has confirmed violent causes of death for some individuals like Denmark’s Tollund Man, who was hanged. Injuries on other bodies are being revealed as postmortem damage caused by pressures from the bog itself or even by accidental damage during excavation. These broken bones and fractured skulls had been seen as evidence of torture or assault. The correct identification of the cause of these injuries could feel satisfying, but it also invites more questions about the deaths.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: National Geographic, Wikipedia, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Nature, Scientific American. Live Science, Discover magazine, Discovery News, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, BBC, CNN, The Guardian, Reuters, AP, AFP and various books and other publications.

Last updated May 2024


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