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The Mysteries of the Bog People Unearthed
By M.A. Jackson
Thanks to
scientific sleuthing, the “bog people”—the
mummified remains of our European forefathers—tell
us strange tales of life thousands of years ago.
 A partially decomposed head is found near the Manchester,
England, home of a man whose wife disappeared 20 years
earlier. When initial testing reveals the head belonged
to a 30- to 50-year old European woman, police confront
the man who quickly confesses.
Sounds like an episode of
the ubiquitous CSI: Crime Scene Investigation TV shows,
right? But here’s the twist
that even CSI’s forensic experts could never have
dreamed up: Subsequent carbon 14 dating showed the head
to be 1,700 years old. Even so, Peter Reyn-Bardt—who
police had for some time suspected of killing his wife—went
to prison based on his confession.
That infamous head, discovered in 1983, is among the remains
of hundreds of “bog people” unearthed from
northern Europe’s peat bogs during the past 200 years.
Seven of these bodies and a host of artifacts associated
with them—from tools to jewelry—are showcased
in The Mysterious Bog People, debuting at Carnegie Museum
of Natural History on July 9. The exhibit provides a rare
glimpse into the life, customs, and religious beliefs of
Europeans living during the Stone, Bronze, and Iron ages.
Made
up of wet spongy ground—much like a marsh—that
fills with decaying mosses, a bog has chemical properties
that preserve hair and flesh (fingerprints were still visible
on several bodies). Thanks to those properties, the mummified
remains found in the bogs of Europe have allowed archaeologists
to extrapolate about the culture and belief system of the
northern Europeans who lived at the dawn of Christianity.
“
We can find out how they died, their age, sex, and even
the season of death based on pollen and insect pupae found
with the body,” says Sandra Olsen, curator of anthropology
at Carnegie Museum of Natural History. “We can see
whether or not they had tattoos, what their last meals
were, what kind of parasites they had. We can even determine
blood type, height, and sometimes dental condition.”
Unfortunately,
many of the bodies tell a grisly story of death by violence:
bludgeonings, stabbings, hangings, and
probably drownings. Many individuals suffered a number
of these fates—what police today would call “overkill.” Through
the use of cutting-edge forensic science, the rather creepy
conclusion is that many “bog people” had been
ritually sacrificed.
Ritual and Superstition Meet Science
The people who inhabited northern Europe between 10,000
BC and 500 AD were a superstitious lot. Living in the
high, dry lands between bogs, they believed spirits and
gods dwelled in caves, in groves of trees, and especially
in watery places. In fact, the supernatural was so feared
that many bodies consigned to bogs were weighted or pinned
down to prevent their
spirits from rising to pursue the living. This is where
the bogeyman—the mythical creature that has scared
children into good behavior for centuries—was born.
The people who placed the bodies in the bogs called the
evil spirits
that they believed lived in the bogs the “boggymen.”
“
Sacrifice was done to curry favor with the gods—for
greater fertility for the crops, greater fertility for
the animals, and greater fertility for the women,” says
Olsen, the only Old World archaeologist at Carnegie Museums. “On
the flip side, sacrifice was also done to appease the gods
to prevent them from getting angry and inflicting punishment
such as famine or plagues.”
Although not a part of
the exhibit, one of the best-studied bog bodies is that
of England’s 2,500-year-old “Lindow
Man,” the poster boy for ritual sacrifice. Using
X-rays, CT-scans, scanning electron microscopy analysis,
and electron spin resonance spectroscopy, Lindow Man’s
remains revealed that at the age of 25 he had been killed
as part of a ritual sacrifice—bludgeoned and garroted
before having his throat cut. What’s more, researchers
learned that the ends of his beard were cut on both sides,
or “stepped,” indicating they had been trimmed
with shears or scissors and not a razor shortly before
his death—the first archaeological proof that Iron
Age northern Europeans possessed these cutting tools.
But
the most interesting clues were in his intestines: mistletoe
pollen—a sacred Celtic
plant—and
a small piece of charred oak cake, called bannock bread.
When Romans began invading the British Isle in 55 BC, they
reported that Iron Age Celts often performed ritual sacrifices
during “Beltain,” a spring festival that occurred
when mistletoe would have been in bloom. During these celebrations,
pieces of bannock bread—including one charred piece—were
doled out, and the soon-to-be lucky stiff who picked the
burnt piece became the sacrificial lamb. Olsen says mistletoe—slipped
into food or eaten willingly—might have acted as
a sedative, creating a tractable state. (Mistletoe has
long been administered as an antispasmodic, tonic, or narcotic.)
Olsen, who has
worked on weapons found deposited in a northern English
bog as well as on archaeological finds of prehistoric
sacrifices in Kazakhstan, was working at the British Museum
when Lindow Man arrived for analysis. “I didn’t
personally work on him, but my friends did,” she
says. “They did a fantastic job of analyzing every
aspect of him and publishing the results.
“
I remember the excitement when they found his navel…the
only Iron Age belly button ever found,” Olsen recalls. “And
it’s an innie!”
Non-Judgmental Learning
Roman historian Tacitus reported that northern Europeans
often punished deserters, social outcasts, law-breakers,
thieves, and prostitutes by hanging them. That may have
been the fate of The Mysterious Bog People’s “Yde
Girl.” Living in the first century Netherlands,
Yde Girl’s short life—she died at age 16—was
not a happy one. She suffered from scoliosis, a curvature
of the spine, which affected her walk; her woolen cape
was threadbare and oft mended, indicating poverty; and
she died violently—stabbed in the clavicle and
hung with a woolen cord that still encircled her neck
when she was uncovered in 1897.
Yde Girl may have been
punished for a crime or sacrificed—or
both. “They were very practical people,” says
Olsen of the early northern Europeans. “If they wanted
to get rid of someone they didn’t like, they may
have made a ritual sacrifice of them.”
Judging from
the items discovered in the bogs, researchers have discerned
that human sacrifices were probably the
exception and not the rule. The Mysterious Bog People showcases
400 less-grisly items that were offered up to the bogs’ spirits
and gods. Since most of these items are valuable and in
good condition, archaeologists think they were prized possessions
placed in bogs along travel routes to ensure safe passage
through the quicksand-like waters often frequented by thieves
and highwaymen. Items in the exhibit include a ceremonial
wind instrument called a lur, agricultural tools, weapons,
and a beautiful necklace of tin, faience, and amber beads.
The objects found in the bogs tell us much about how these
people worked, what materials they received in trade, and
how they adorned their bodies. And, yes, how they died.
But despite the physical evidence, some researchers will
try to explain-away the idea of ritual sacrifice. According
to Olsen, they rationalize that “nooses” could
have been necklaces that shrank in the bog’s water,
and “knife wounds” could have been made post-mortem
with peat-cutting machinery.
“
We try very hard not to put our value system on what we
find; we try not to be judges,” she says. “I
think some of the people who dispute the ritual sacrifice
angle just don’t want to think our ancestors could
have done something like that.”
The Bogs
Just as mysterious as the bodies found in the bogs are
the bogs themselves. Only two other environments preserve
human remains as well—arctic cold and dry deserts.
In
the 16th century, hundreds of years after Christianity
ended the pagan ritual sacrifices, Europeans discovered
that peat could be burned for fuel. The first
known discovery of a bog body occurred during peat harvesting in the late 1700s,
but there were surely earlier discoveries whose significance was overlooked
and the remains reburied.
“
Red Franz,” whose name came from the carrot-colored hue the bog water
turned his blonde hair, almost suffered that fate. When Franz was unearthed
in Germany 105 years ago, his body was so well preserved he was taken for
a recent murder victim. When his body wasn’t claimed, he was buried
in a local cemetery only to be dug up again five months later when scientists
at a local museum realized the error. Franz had indeed been a
murder victim—his throat was slashed—but he actually died at
age 25 between 200 and 400 AD.
How does a bog preserve human remains so well
that a millennium can pass without much effect? While cold freezes and
deserts dry, a bog pickles and tans. A bog’s stagnant
waters prevent flesh-decaying bacteria from growing and
its highly acidic waters preserve skin, hair, nails, and
even organs that tannin in the sphagnum
moss tans like
leather. Surprisingly, different bogs preserve things differently. In some,
only hair, skin, and hide or vegetable-based clothing (such as cotton and
flax) remain; while bones and teeth are eaten away. “Calcium-rich
bones and teeth need a more alkaline environment,” Olsen explains. “Some
of the bog bodies have few bones left. They’re just a hollow bag,
somewhat like a leather purse.”
Protected for hundreds of years in
a watery grave, a bog body can quickly begin to deteriorate once brought
to the surface. “Once the body is out of
the ground, then we have to worry about how to preserve it again,” says
Olsen.
The best method is freeze-drying, which removes moisture
from the organic material and prevents excessive shrinkage,
but bodies have
also been
re-tanned in oak
bark and then oiled with glycerin, lanolin, and cod liver oil to prevent
them from drying out. They can then be displayed—almost like
giving them a second life.
 Another method of “reviving” these
people is through facial reconstruction, a procedure often utilized
by modern-day police investigators who’ve
found a decomposed John (or Jane) Doe. Using a well-preserved skull,
CT-scans, and sophisticated computer software, the face is rebuilt
layer by layer using clay or wax for soft tissue and artificial eyes
and hair.
The results are stunningly—and a little disturbingly—life-like.
The Mysterious Bog People features two such reconstructions—Yde
Girl and Red Franz. They almost appear ready to speak.
And if only they could…what stories they would tell.
Through the wonders of facial reconstruction,
the world
sees “Yde Girl.”
Carnegie Museum of Natural
History's presentation of The Mysterious Bog People was
made possible through generous grants from ANSYS, the
Inns on Negley, Jendoco
Construction Corporation, NOVA Chemicals, and the
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Promotional
support is
being provided by Citizens Bank, Duquesne University,
the Greater Pittsburgh Convention & Visitors
Bureau, and Walnut Capital. Media sponsors for the
exhibit
are KDKA-TV, Lamar Advertising, and Steel City Media.
The Mysterious
Bog People will be at Carnegie Museum of Natural
History through January 23, 2006. The exhibit was
produced in partnership by four major European
and Canadian museums: the Niedersächsisches
Landesmuseum in Hanover, Germany; the Canadian Museum
of Civilization in Gatineau, Canada; Glenbow Museum
in Calgary,
Canada; and the Drents Museum in Assen, Netherlands.
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2005 CARNEGIE Magazine. All rights reserved.