Amcotts Moor Woman is the name given to a bog body discovered in 1747 in a bog near Amcotts, Lincolnshire, England, who lived sometime between A.D. 200 and 400. [1]
Amcotts Moor Woman is the name given to a bog body discovered in 1747 in a bog near Amcotts, Lincolnshire, England, who lived sometime between A.D. 200 and 400. [1]
In the summer of 1747, a peat digger unearthed the body of a woman through roughly six feet of peat moss. The man quickly fled after his shovel struck a shoe with partial remains of a human foot still inside. The following October, Dr. George Stovin, after hearing of the discovery set out with his team to finish the excavation. Dr. Stovin concluded that the woman's body was bent so her head and feet were close to touching. Stovin described the skin of corpse to be strong. With the body, a pair of shoes were found, one of which was damaged by the shovel of its discoverer. The sandals were said to have tawny colour and to be pliable. The bones of the woman's foot were found inside of the sandals, as the bones of the arms and thighs were found inside of the skin. The hand and fingernails were described to have been well preserved, however, they had been lost when they were sent for study. [2]
Lindow Man, also known as Lindow II and as Pete Marsh, is the preserved bog body of a man discovered in a peat bog at Lindow Moss near Wilmslow in Cheshire, North West England. The remains were found on 1 August 1984 by commercial peat cutters. Lindow Man is not the only bog body to have been found in the moss; Lindow Woman was discovered the year before, and other body parts have also been recovered. The find was described as "one of the most significant archaeological discoveries of the 1980s" and caused a media sensation. It helped invigorate the study of British bog bodies, which had previously been neglected.
A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay further if kept in cool and dry conditions. Some authorities restrict the use of the term to bodies deliberately embalmed with chemicals, but the use of the word to cover accidentally desiccated bodies goes back to at least the early 17th century.
A shoe is an item of footwear intended to protect and comfort the human foot. Though the human foot can adapt to varied terrains and climate conditions, it is vulnerable, and shoes provide protection. Form was originally tied to function, but over time, shoes also became fashion items. Some shoes are worn as safety equipment, such as steel-toe boots, which are required footwear at industrial worksites.
The Tollund Man is a naturally mummified corpse of a man who lived during the 5th century BCE, during the period characterised in Scandinavia as the Pre-Roman Iron Age. He was found in 1950, preserved as a bog body, near Silkeborg on the Jutland peninsula in Denmark. The man's physical features were so well preserved that he was mistaken for a recent murder victim. Twelve years before his discovery, another bog body, Elling Woman, was found in the same bog.
A bog body is a human cadaver that has been naturally mummified in a peat bog. Such bodies, sometimes known as bog people, are both geographically and chronologically widespread, having been dated to between 8000 BC and the Second World War. The unifying factor of the bog bodies is that they have been found in peat and are partially preserved; however, the actual levels of preservation vary widely from perfectly preserved to mere skeletons.
A bog or bogland is a wetland that accumulates peat as a deposit of dead plant materials – often mosses, typically sphagnum moss. It is one of the four main types of wetlands. Other names for bogs include mire, mosses, quagmire, and muskeg; alkaline mires are called fens. A bayhead is another type of bog found in the forest of the Gulf Coast states in the United States. They are often covered in heath or heather shrubs rooted in the sphagnum moss and peat. The gradual accumulation of decayed plant material in a bog functions as a carbon sink.
The Windover Archeological Site is a Middle Archaic archaeological site and National Historic Landmark in Brevard County near Titusville, Florida, United States on the central east coast of the state. Windover is a muck pond where skeletal remains of 168 individuals were found buried in the peat at the bottom of the pond. The skeletons were well preserved because of the peat. In addition, remarkably well-preserved brain tissue has been recovered from 91 skulls from the site. DNA from the brain tissue has been sequenced. The collection of human skeletal remains and artifacts recovered from Windover Pond represent among the largest finds of each type from the Archaic Period. It is considered one of the most important archeological sites ever excavated.
The Grauballe Man is a bog body that was uncovered in 1952 from a peat bog near the village of Grauballe in Jutland, Denmark. The body is that of a man dating from the late 3rd century BC, during the early Germanic Iron Age. Based on the evidence of his wounds, he was most likely killed by having his throat slit. His corpse was then deposited in the bog, where his body was naturally preserved for over two millennia. His was not the only bog body to be found in the peat bogs of Jutland. Together with other notable examples, Tollund Man and the Elling Woman, Grauballe Man represents an established tradition at the time. It is commonly thought that these killings, including that of Grauballe Man, were examples of human sacrifice, possibly an important rite in Iron Age Germanic paganism.
The Haraldskær Woman is the name given to a bog body of a woman preserved in a bog in Jutland, Denmark, and dating from about 490 BC. Workers found the body in 1835 while excavating peat on the Haraldskær Estate. The anaerobic conditions and acids of the peat bog contributed to the body's excellent preservation. Not only was the intact skeleton found, but so were the skin and internal organs. Scientists settled disputes about the age and identity of this well-preserved body in 1977, when radiocarbon dating determined conclusively that the woman's death occurred around the 5th century BC.
The decade of the 1740s in archaeology involved some significant events.
Erkanbald was the Abbot of Fulda from 997 and afterwards Archbishop of Mainz from 1011 until his death.
The Koelbjerg Man, formerly known as "Koelbjerg Woman", is the oldest known bog body and also the oldest set of human bones found in Denmark, dated to the time of the Maglemosian culture about 8000 BC. His remains are on display at the Møntergården Museum in Odense, Denmark.
Huldremose Woman, or Huldre Fen Woman, is a female bog body recovered in 1879 from a peat bog near Ramten, Jutland, Denmark. Analysis by Carbon 14 dating indicates that she lived during the Iron Age, sometime between 160 BCE and 340 CE. The mummified remains are exhibited at the National Museum of Denmark. The elaborate clothing worn by Huldremose Woman has been reconstructed and displayed at several museums.
Osterby Man or the Osterby Head is a bog body of which only the skull and hair survived. It was discovered in 1948 by peat cutters to the southeast of Osterby, Germany. The hair is tied in a Suebian knot. The head is at the State Archaeological Museum at Gottorf Castle in Schleswig, Schleswig-Holstein.
The Borremose bodies are three bog bodies that were found in the Borremose peat bog in Himmerland, Denmark. Recovered between 1946 and 1948, the bodies of a man and two women have been dated to the Nordic Bronze Age. In 1891, the Gundestrup cauldron was found in a nearby bog.
Gallagh Man is the name given to a preserved Iron Age bog body found in County Galway, Ireland, in 1821. The remains date to c. 470–120 BC, and are of a six-foot (1.8 m) tall, healthy male with dark and reddish hair, who is estimated to have been about 25 years old at the time of death. The presence of a withy hoop – rope made from twisted willow twigs – found wrapped around his throat indicates that he was strangled during a ritual killing or executed as a criminal.
Stoneyisland Man is the name given to a bog body discovered in the Stoneyisland Bog, Gortanumera, County Galway, Ireland on 13 May 1929.
Damendorf Man is a German bog body discovered in 1900 in the See Moor at the village of Damendorf in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.
Cashel Man is a bog body from a bog near Cashel in County Laois, Ireland. He was found on 10 August 2011 by Bord na Móna employee Jason Phelan from Abbeyleix. The body was a young adult male, around 20–25, who had been intentionally covered with peat after death. The crouched figure was recovered after being damaged by a milling machine in 2011. The head and left arm were presumed destroyed by the peat harvester until later recovered.