Mummies from the Marshes: Investigating Europe's Bog People

     Northern European countries like Denmark, Britain, Ireland, and the Netherlands are home to many bogs and marshes. What is unusual about these bogs is that they have yielded hundreds of corpses over the past three centuries. The vast majority of these so-called “bog bodies” date back to the Bronze and Iron Ages, and many of them are incredibly well-preserved. These extremely important archaeological finds, many of which were probably killed for ritual sacrifices, have provided much insight into what their societies and cultures were like.

    There are many theories on how the bodies ended up in the bogs, but most known evidence points to ritual sacrifice. For instance, the corpses show signs of brutal, meticulous murder, with multiple fatal wounds, and wounds inflicted after death. However, there aren't many signs of struggle from the victims (Levine 70). This probably means that the killers' motives were more than just murder, and the victims already knew their fate. Also, some nonhuman artifacts have been dug up from bogs as well, like weapons and food (Mikanowski). These were most likely offerings to the gods too, which indicates how important and sacred the bogs really were to these societies. Finally, some other peoples, particularly the Romans, actually wrote about Northern European traditions and practices, including sacrifices (Mikanowski). While many Romans exaggerated their writings to make other peoples sound more barbaric, there is a definite correlation between their writings and the bog bodies. This is especially important as concrete evidence, since most Northern Europeans didn't keep written records at the time.

    This also shows connections between the bog people's societies and others in Europe. The Romans perhaps had the largest, or at least the earliest, effect on these people. Take, for example, the Druids, of which the bog body called Lindow Man is speculated to be one. The Druids were a sort of ancient Celtic upper class, consisting of priests, sages, judges, and the like. Very little factual information is known about them, and over the centuries they have become shrouded in myths and lore. The Druids were pushed out of Gaul and Britain, and into Ireland, by the Romans. There, with Saint Patrick's pagan conversions, and later the oppression of the English, Druidic culture gradually dwindled to nothing (Wernick). However, Lindow Man could be the very first physical piece of evidence of the Druids, among the mystery surrounding them. The Druids are just one example of Northern European interaction with other peoples at the time.

    Finally, cases like Lindow Man's also prove the significance of these bog bodies for history and archaeology. Factors like where the bodies were found, their wounds, and the time period they are from can determine how they as people lived and died. Looking at how the bodies are built can indicate social status; for example, a well-fed corpse points to an upper-class person (Mikanowski). In addition, the acidic, low-oxygen environments of the bogs themselves inhibit bacterial growth, which has made for excellent preservation of the bodies, or at least of their skin and petrous bone (Levine 69). Unfortunately, this preservation process has left little DNA to examine, but if archaeologists can extract some from the petrous bone, they can learn much more about who exactly the bog people were. In short, the millennia-old bog bodies of Northern Europe are still important today because of the information they contain about the often obscure societies from which they came.

Works Cited

Levine, Joshua. “The Living Dead.” Smithsonian, May 2017, pp. 66-76.

Mikanowski, Jacob. “Were the Mysterious Bog People Human Sacrifices?” The Atlantic, 11 Mar. 2016, www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/03/were-europes-mysterious-bog-people-human-sacrifices/472839/. Accessed 19 May 2017.

Wernick, Robert. “What Were Druids Like, and Was Lindow Man One?” Smithsonian, Mar. 1988, pp. 146+. Student Resources in Context. Accessed 16 May 2017.