2. Hundreds of bog bodies found in NW Europe
Ireland, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark
Individual bog bodies
Great degree of variation in preservation
Skeletons, well-preserved complete bodies, isolated heads and limbs
Dating
Ranging from Mesolithic period to the twentieth century
www.pbs.org
3. History shrouded in speculation and mystery
Lack of:
Written history
Contextual understanding of death & chosen interment site
Many generalize when determining reason for death
Instead of analyzing each body independently
Without assumptions involving reason for death
4. 1) Dead bodies: Awkward & hard to move
Easier to carry bodies downhill & submerge in a bog
Completed rapidly & effectively
No need for cremation or underground interment
No ritualistic basis may apply
May be applied to bodies with no peri-mortem (during
death) trauma and/or definitive COD
Natural death; bog: a facilitated means of disposal
5. 2) Social Ritual Theory:
More complex theory
Social ritual conduct (i.e. human sacrifice for deity
appeasement)
Circumstances may indicate:
Single deity appeasement
Combination of rituals to appease several deities through one
sacrifice (i.e. triple death)
6. Lindow Man: 2 BC-119AD, Lindow
Moss, England
~ 25 years old
Fractured rib
Two bludgeons, back of head
Slit throat
Garroted (neck broken)
Drowned
Victim of Triple Death (overkill):
Teutates (drowning)
Esus (hanging)
Taranis (wounding)
www.britishmuseum.org
7. Excessive peri-mortem violence to many bog bodies
Violence may indicate human sacrifice through
ritualistic death
Strangulation or intentional traumatic injury (i.e. blunt
force trauma or slitting of the throat)
8. Grauballe Man: 170 BC- 80
AD, Nebelgård Mose,
Denmark
~ 30 year-old
Throat slit
Forehead wound w/ blow to
right temple
Broken leg
Yde Girl: 20 BC- 120 AD,
Yde, Netherlands
16- 17 year-old girl
Strangled by woolen band
Stab wound near left
clavicle
van Vilsteren et al 2002
www.drentsmuseum.nl Granite 2010
9. Weerdinge Men: 115
BC-230 AD, Drenthe,
Netherlands
Individual 1 (Right):
Stab wound to left
abdomen, intestines
protruding
Individual 2 (Left):
COD unknown
Tollund Man: 350-400
BC, Jutland Peninsula,
Denmark
30-40 years old
Strangled to death
with a rope
www.drentsmuseum.nl
www.archaeology.org
Granite 2010
10. Vary widely in age
Unique / unusual physical characteristics (i.e. physical
deformities)
Often appear well-treated by society before death
Little evidence of heavy manual labor
“Well-manicured” appearance
Possible high social status (no unusual physicalities)
“Chosen” because of physical condition
Protected existence during life, used as sacrifices
13. Neu England Man:
135-340 AD,
Ammerland,
Germany
scoliosis
Zweeloo Woman: 1861
BC – 233 AD,
Zweeloo, Netherlands
Skeletal dysplasia
Consistent with
achondroplasia
Granite 2010
van der Sanden 1990
14. 3) Dehumanization Theory:
Possible criminals, foreign scapegoats, or war captives
“dehumanized” during death
Heads partially shaven
Limbs bound in various forms of bondage
Clothing present of animal fur or leather
Possible disintegration of plant-based clothing (i.e. linen)?
15. Kayhausen Boy: 515 – 385 BC
Kayhausen, Germany
~ 7 years old
Stabbed in throat & left arm
Hogtied with woolen fabric
www.archaeology.org
16. Windeby Child: 365 BC – 65
AD, Schleswig-Holstein,
Germany
18 - 19 year-old
Partially “shaved” head
Oxygen Exposure?
Careless Excavators?
Peat-cutting machine?
Woolen band eye-cover
Hair maintenance that fell over
eyes after death?
17. Yde Girl:
Half of her long hair cut off
Peat cutting machine, not trowel
damage?
No definitive evidence to refute
Dehumanization Theory
Dehumanizing acts of judicial
punishment?
18. 4) Accidental Death or Suicide Theory:
Accidental death by drowning
Bogs known for being treacherous landscape
Especially during foggy weather or nighttime
Underwater dead vegetation like quicksand
Suicide by drowning
Both reasons would demonstrate no peri-mortem
trauma, or apparent COD
19. No signs of trauma or COD:
Juhrdenerfeld Man: 170 – 45
BC, Juhrdenerfeld, Germany
22-23 years old
Neu England Man: 135 - 340
AD, Ammerland, Germany
40-50 years old
Husbake Man: 765 - 520 AD,
Ammerland, Germany
19-20 years old
Granite 2010
20. Application of multiple theories may be necessary to
explain reason for death and bog interment
Numerous examples strongly suggest human sacrifice
Must determine from evidence presented
Unbiased analysis (case-by-case basis)
Cannot rule out accidental drowning, suicidal
drowning or natural death if peri-mortem trauma is
absent
21. Trauma often inflicted post-mortem by peat-cutting
machines or mishandling by investigators
Granite 2009
23. Aldhouse-Green M 2001. Dying for the gods. Human sacrifice in Iron Age and Roman Europe, Stroud, United
Kingdom.
Asingh, P 2009. Grauballe Man: portrait of a bog body. Korotan, Slovenia, Moesgård Museum, Århus, Denmark.
Coles, J & Minnitt, S 1995. “Industrious and fairly civilised: the Glastonbury Lake Village.” Exeter, Somerset Levels
Project and Somerset County Council Museum Services.
Giles, M 2006, November 17th. “Bog Bodies: Representing the Dead.” Respect for Ancient British Human Remains:
Philosophy and Practice, Conference Paper. 1-14.
Giles, M 2009. “Iron Age bog bodies of north-western Europe. Representing the dead.” Archaeological Dialogues. 16(1):
75-101.
Green, M 1998. “Humans as Ritual Victims in the Later Prehistory of Western Europe.” Oxford Journal of Archaeology.
17(2): 169-189.
Heseltine, M 1969. Translation of Petronius. Cambridge Massachusetts, University of Harvard, Loeb Edition, 368-387.
Jarcho, S 1970 (July). “Tollund Man and other bog burials.” Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine 46(7): 554-
558.
Lobell, JA & Patel, SS 2010. “Bog Bodies Rediscovered.” Archaeology. 63(3): 22-29.
McLean, S 2008. “Bodies from the Bog: Metamorphosis, Non-Human Agency and the Making of ‘Collective’ Memory.”
Trames. 12 (62/57), 3, 299-308.
Meredith, D 2002 (July). “Hazards in the Bog: Real and Imagined.” Geographical Review. 92(3): 319-332.
Painter, T 1991 (June 17). "Preservation in Peat." Chemistry & Industry. (12): 421-424.
Tacitus, PC 1970. The Agricola and the Germania. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
Turner, RC 1995. “The Lindow Man Phenomenon: Ancient and Modern.” Bog Bodies: New Discoveries and New
Perspectives. British Museum Press: London, 168-204.
Turner, RC 1999. Dating the Lindow Moss and other British bog bodies and the problems of assigning their cultural
context, in B. Coles, J. Coles and M. Schou Jørgensen (eds), Bog bodies, sacred sites and wetland archaeology, Exeter,
227–33.
van der Sanden, W 1996. Through nature to eternity. Drents Museum: Assen.
Williams, M 2003. “Tales from the Dead: Remembering the Bog Bodies in the Iron Age of North- Western Europe.” In:
Archaeologies of remembrance: death and memory in past societies. Eds. Howard Williams. New York, NY, Kluwer
Academic / Plenum Publishers, 89-112.
Editor's Notes
Hello, my name is Guinevere Granite and I am a PhD candidate in the Physical Anthropology department here at UB. My presentation today will be on the topic of “Understanding the Burial Placement and Reason for Death of Northern European Bog Bodies”.
Bog bodies are unique types of mummies that form during a body’s interment within a bog or marshland environment. Bog bodies have been found in areas of Canada, NW Europe, and Florida. The bog bodies I am investigating for my dissertation research are ones from NW Europe. Hundreds of bog bodies have been unearthed throughout NW Europe during peat harvesting activities. Countries in this area most known for these findings are Ireland, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark. Preservation of these bodies vary depending on the chemical composition of the bog environment. Bog bodies can be found completely skeletonized, well-preserved with hair, skin, fingernails, and clothing intact, or as isolated heads and limbs. These bodies generally range in dating from the Mesolithic period to the twentieth century.
Due to the lack of written history in reference to these individuals, contextual understanding for their deaths and/or the reasoning for their interment within the bog is highly deficient. Bog bodies are viewed as a great enigma within the field of wetland archaeology and forensic anthropology. In an effort to explain these mysterious remains, many experts within these fields jump to generalizing conclusions for explanations, rather than analyzing each body independently and without assuming that all bog bodies have died for the same reasons.
Through my investigations, I have postulated four types of theories that can be applied when understanding the reasoning for bog interment on an individual case-by-case basis. My first theory, the Practicality Theory, really hits home the idea that jumping to the conclusion of sacrifice for each of these individuals is just plain wrong. Some bodies have been found with no evidence of peri-mortem trauma and in many cases no definitive cause of death. The possibility of death by natural causes cannot be overlooked for any case, as well as the use of the bog for interment merely as a means of practicality. Dead bodies, as we all know but hopefully not from personal but rather professional experience, are awkward and hard to handle. Carrying a body downhill and submerging it within a watery tomb, such as a bog, makes complete sense. You complete the disposal process in a quick and efficient manner, while also eliminating the need for cremation or burial, which require a lot of energy and resource usage to execute. This theory can be accurately applied to many of the bog bodies that have been found lacking peri-mortem trauma and/or definitive cause of death. These individuals could have died of natural causes and the bog was a facilitated means of body disposal.
My second theory is the Social Ritual Theory. Much more complex than simple practicality, this theory involves the social ritual aspect of early Northern European societies, in the form of human sacrifice. Religious sects have been known throughout history to provide both animal and human sacrifices to their deities for reasons such as appeasement, plentiful harvests, or success in battle. These sacrifices may have been executed in an effort to appease a single deity, or a ritual combination inflicted on one individual may have been carried out to appease several deities at once.
Lindow Man is an example where this theory applies perfectly. Lindow Man displays peri-mortem damage associated with being the victim of triple death sacrifice. Lindow Man, the mid-twenty year-old British Iron Age bog body, was subjected to a vicious blow to the back fracturing a rib, bludgeoning with 2 strikes to the back of the head, his throat was slit, he was garroted which broke his neck, and finally he was drowned in the bog. This form of overkill has been referenced by Marcus Lucanus (Lucan), a renowned Roman poet of the Middle Ages, who in his writings, speaks about sacrifices to the three Celtic gods Teutates (represented by drowning), Esus (represented by hanging), and Taranis (represented by wounding). Plausible reasoning behind this three-fold death is the person dies in three ways simultaneously, making the actual cause of death indeterminable. An indeterminable death in the eyes of the Celts meant that the person had become immortal and could now live among the gods.
Continuing with the Social Ritual theory, as shown by Lindow Man and numerous other bog bodies some of whom I will highlight next, many of these bog bodies present excessive evidence of peri-mortem violence. Strangulation and intentional traumatic injury, such as blunt force trauma and/or throat slitting may be indicators of ritualistic death via human sacrifice.
Two additional examples of bog bodies that may have been victims of ritualistic death are the Grauballe Man of Denmark and the Yde Girl of the Netherlands. Both individuals demonstrate evidence of peri-mortem violence. Grauballe Man’s throat was so viciously slit that it nearly beheaded him, completely bisecting his larynx. His right temple was also bludgeoned and his leg was broken during death. Yde Girl was only 16 or 17 when she was murdered and shows evidence of strangulation using the woolen band her body was found with, as well as sharp force trauma from being stabbed near her left clavicle, as highlighted by the arrow. The violence inflicted on these two people was methodical and excessive in nature, strongly suggesting that they were the victims of human sacrifice.
The Weerdinge Men of the Netherlands are additional cases of potential sacrifice. The individual to the right in the photo was brutally stabbed in the left side of his abdomen causing his intestines to leak out of the wound. However, there is no sign of trauma or cause of death for the second individual. It is possible this individual was willingly drowned along with his murdered friend because they were related or lovers. According to the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, the Gauls or Celts of Western Europe living during the Iron Age and Roman Era, disemboweled sacrifices in an attempt to divine the future by “reading” the victim’s entrails and limb convulsions. Tollund Man, a middle-aged Dane that lived during the Iron Age, is another example of murder by ligature strangulation. Though strangulation strongly suggests human sacrifice, if it is the only sign of trauma, then strangulation could also be the result of either corporal punishment or murder without ritualistic purpose.
Other common characteristics among discovered bog bodies are unique or unusual physical deformities. Varying in age, it seems many of these individuals were well-treated by society and kept alive to serve a sacrificial purpose. These bodies demonstrate little evidence of heavy manual labor and often present a “well-manicured” appearance. Rather than murdering individuals with congenital deformities when their conditions were first noticed, these individuals were kept alive potentially for the purpose of deity appeasement. Individuals, such as Lindow Man, who did not display unusual physical characteristics, but were well-groomed even in death suggests that individuals of high social status may have also been sacrificed possibly to present the archetypal human to the gods in order to receive the finest rewards in return.
Yde Girl and Moora Girl both exhibit scoliosis based on skeletal deformities found on their sacra and/or their vertebrae. These abnormalities would have caused an unusual gait and a curved spine in both of these individuals. Demonstrating a visible physical disadvantage, these girls may have been set apart in some way from the rest of their people, leading to their selection as suitable scapegoats when communal crises occurred.
The Esterweger Dose Child, a Middle-Ages bog body whose age is estimated between 8 and 12 years-old, suffered from what is now known as Legg-Calve-Perthes Disease or LCPD. This involves avascular necrosis of the femoral head. In addition, this unfortunate child also had osteomyelitis or a chronic bone infection in his/her right tibia and fibula. The lesion does show signs of healing meaning this child lived with osteomyelitis for an extended period of time. This supports the theory of keeping those with physical deformities alive for sacrifice. However, it cannot be discounted that this child may have succumb to the leg infection and not have been a sacrifice since no signs of trauma were found with the remains.
The Neu England Man is another example of physical abnormality in bog bodies who also exhibits scoliosis. Scoliosis is a disorder more commonly found in females. This could possibly have made this individual’s irregularity stand out even more in his society, making choosing him as a sacrifice greatly facilitated. The Zweeloo Woman is a very interesting case of skeletal dysplasia consistent with achondroplasia. This disorder involves asymmetrical forearm and lower leg lengths, as highlighted by the arrows. Such a noticeable physical disorder could have made the Zweeloo Woman a prime candidate for human sacrifice.
The third theory: Dehumanization Theory, can be closely linked to the Social Ritual theory, but its reasoning for death differs greatly. With this theory, the bog bodies it applies to may have been criminals, foreign scapegoats, or war captives “dehumanized” during their death. Though ritualistic in nature with their demonstrations of partially shaved heads, bonded limbs, and fur or leather clothing, these individuals’ deaths may represent a form of capital punishment, rather than human sacrifice. Speculation surrounds the application of fur or leather clothing to this theory as an additional means of dehumanization. These individuals may have always worn these types of clothes and other bog bodies that have been alternatively found naked may have also been dressed in their time of death but in plant-based clothing that disintegrated during interment.
Kayhausen Boy is a prominent case in bog body discoveries that is strongly suggestive of dehumanization. Only about seven years old when he was savagely murdered, this small child was hogtied and stabbed several times in the throat and left arm as if he were a rabid animal needing to be brutally euthanized. The boy also shows evidence of avascular necrosis of the femoral head, similar to that of the Esterweger Dose Child. With such a disability, this young boy could have been another example of human sacrifice. Combining both the Dehumanization Theory and the Social Ritual Theory to explain the death of Kayhausen Boy seems to be an accurate means of analyzing this case.
Two other bog bodies that could be examples for the Dehumanization Theory are the Windeby Child and Yde Girl, but there is much skepticism when trying to label these individuals as such. The Windeby Child, who was 18 to 19 years old at death, was found with a partially “shaved” head and a woolen band eye covering. Following the Dehumanization Theory, this individual may have had their eyes covered and head shaved in order to control them and degrade them in front of the gods and their people. However, it is possible that the head was partially exposed to oxygen at some point during its interment in the bog and the hair in this region decomposed. It is also possible that excavators were careless with their trowels or even the peat cutting machine that unearthed the body damaged the hair. The woolen band covering may have been for hair maintenance and fell down while the body settled into the bog. Such ambiguity makes it difficult to concretely explain this individual’s death as a result of efforts to dehumanize them.
The Yde Girl, previously mentioned with the Social Ritual Theory, may also be additionally explained by the Dehumanization Theory. She was found with half of her long hair cut off. This may be a purposeful act carried out by her murderers to dehumanize her. However, just like with the Windeby Child, the blade of the peat-cutting machine that originally discovered the body could have caused this damage. It is unlikely that a trowel could have removed such a large amount of hair, making the machine blade a much more reasonable culprit. Without definitive evidence for purposeful or accidental hair removal for either of these individuals, it must be upheld that their death could have been the result of dehumanizing acts of judicial punishment.
The fourth and final theory involves cases of accidental death or suicide. Similar to the Practicality Theory, these individuals demonstrate no peri-mortem trauma indicative of cause of death. However, bog bodies applying to this theory did not have a natural death nor was their body deposition in the bog purposeful. The bogs of Northern Europe, particularly during the lifetimes of many of the discovered bog bodies, were known to be dangerous to travel alone, particularly during foggy weather or at nighttime. During my own experience taking elemental levels directly from the bog, I too had a very hard time traveling through it. The underwater dead vegetation literally acts like quicksand, immobilizing your feet and making it very difficult to get out once you’re immersed. The possibility of death by accidental drowning or even drowning by purposeful suicide is a plausible explanation in these cases of questionable death.
All three of these bog bodies demonstrate neither signs of trauma nor a cause of death. It cannot be ruled out that each of these men may have died accidentally, by suicide, or naturally from sickness or stressful life situations, such as malnutrition. If death were natural for these men, the Practicality Theory may be more applicative for their reason for death.
In conclusion, to accurately explain the reason for death and bog interment of studied bog bodies, it may be necessary to apply more than one of the posited theories. For example, in the case of the Yde Girl and the Kayhausen Boy, aspects of their deaths may be explained by applying both the Social Ritual Theory and the Dehumanization Theory. Numerous bog bodies strongly suggest death as a result of human sacrifice, but such an explanation must be determined from an unbiased analysis of the evidence presented and on a case-by-case basis. Further, one cannot rule out accidental drowning, suicidal drowning, or natural death if there is an absence of peri-mortem trauma to the bog body.
Lastly, much of the trauma found on bog bodies was inflicted post-mortem by peat-cutting machines, which resulted in their initial discovery, or from mishandling by investigators excavating the remains, such as shown in the top left photograph where the bone is literally twisted upon itself due to pressure at its midshaft while being mishandled. Such fragility is common with bog body bones due to the de-calcification process that occurs to the bones within the bog. This again emphasizes the necessity to abstain from grouping bog bodies all as sacrificial victims, but rather examine each body independently, drawing conclusions about reason and manner of death from actual evidence and not from mere speculations.
Thank you very much for your time and I will now take any questions that you may have.
