The lead archaeologist observed, “You don’t find a bog body very frequently.
Archaeologists have found the remains of a skeleton, a flint hatchet, and animal bones on property intended for a housing construction northwest of Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark. The bones are thought to be more than 5,000 years old.
Femur bone, pelvis, and a portion of the lower jaw all came first. Although the skeleton’s gender and age are unclear, the finding of the remains in a bog with ritual artifacts has prompted archaeologists to conclude that the person was a sacrificed human being.
It relates to a macabre ritualistic practice of burying bodies, frequently young people, in bogs that has roots in Ireland and Germany and dates back thousands of years. They are collectively referred to as “bog bodies,” and because deep bogs are acidic, low-oxygen environments, they are frequently remarkably well preserved.
Emil Winther Struve, an archeologist at the ROMU museums in Roskilde, which oversaw the excavation, claimed that the discovery “fits into a proven practice of burying both things, people, and animals in the bog in a ritualistic manner.” This was frequently done in antiquity, and it was probably a victim of one of those rituals.
ROMU archaeologists at work. Photo: Christian Dedenroth-Schou, ROMU.
ROMU, an organization of 10 museums also responsible for supervising cultural sites across much of Zealand, was tasked with inspecting the land in Egedal municipality under a provision of Danish law. Bog bodies had previously been found in the region and as Struve told local television following the discovery, his team had joked about the possibility.
“It was a pretty wild experience,” Struve said. “It doesn’t happen very often that you find a bog body.”
The site has been drained ahead of a full excavation that will begin in the spring. The archeologists hope to learn more about the bog body by using cutting-edge DNA technology.
Although the reasons behind the practice remain murky, bogs occupied a prominent position in Northern Europe from the Neolithic age through the Iron Age. In practical terms, bogs were an essential life source: People used the bogs for fuel, as hunting grounds, to gather moss for weaving, and later to extract iron ore for swords and cooking instruments. They were also mysterious, liminal spaces in between land and water, their mix of gasses prone to combusting. Some academics have suggested Iron Age people saw them as gateways to the gods.
The “bog body” unearthed by ROMU archaeologists. Photo: Lea Mohr Hansen, ROMU.
A number of other bog bodies have been unearthed in Denmark since the 1930s, including the Grauballe Man, the Elling Woman, and most famously, the Tollund Man, often dating to the Iron Age and preserved with signs of sacrificial rituals.
“When I heard that human remains had been found, I was ready to jump into my Wellington boots immediately,” said Charlotte Haagendrup, deputy mayor of the Egedal municipality. “I think it could be interesting to exhibit this very early Egedal citizen in the area.”
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