Lindow Woman and Lindow I are the names given to the partial remains of a female bog body, discovered in a peat bog at Lindow Moss, near Wilmslow in Cheshire, England, on 13 May 1983 by commercial peat-cutters. [1] The remains were largely a skull fragment, [2] which was missing its jaw, but with soft tissue and hair attached. [1] The remains were subsequently dated to the Roman period. The remains became more technically known as Lindow I after the discovery of other remains in the same bog, which were identified as Lindow Man or Lindow II in 1984 and Lindow III in 1987. [1]
Before the skull of Lindow Woman was dated, it was assumed to be the skull of a local woman who had gone missing in 1961, [3] Malika de Fernandez. Her husband, Peter Reyn-Bardt, had been under suspicion of murdering her, but no body had been found. He confessed to the crime as a result of the skull's discovery and was convicted as a result of his confession. [1]
The bog body of Lindow I was discovered on 13 May 1983 by commercial peat cutters, Andy Mould and Stephen Dooley. They first noticed an unusual item on the conveyor belt, which was similar in shape and size to a football. They took the object from the conveyor to examine it more closely. After they removed the adhesive remains of peat, they realized they had found an incomplete preserved human head with attached remnants of soft tissue, brain, eye, optic nerve, and hair. [1]
The police were summoned to deal with the remains and suspected a crime. They launched a murder investigation. [1] [4] For over two decades, a local 57-year-old man Peter Reyn-Bardt, had been under suspicion of murdering his estranged wife, Malika de Fernandez, and of disposing of her body. [3] [5] When questioned, Reyn-Bardt assumed that the skull fragment came from his wife's body, and said, "It has been so long I thought I would never be found out." [1] He admitted to strangling her, dismembering her body, and burying the remains in a drainage ditch. [6]
Because the rest of De Fernandez' remains could not be found, Detective Inspector George Abbott sent the head to Oxford University for further study. Carbon-14 dating of the skull fragment returned a date of 1740 ± 80BP (c. 250 AD), [7] suggesting that it dated back to Roman Britain.
After the origins of the head were revealed, Reyn-Bardt withdrew his confession; [6] despite this and the fact that no trace of Fernandez' body was found, [1] he was brought to trial at Chester Crown Court in December 1983. At trial, he pleaded guilty to manslaughter. [1] He told the jury that his estranged wife had come to the cottage where he lived with another man; that she had threatened to expose his homosexuality (still criminalized under British law at the time); and that his wife died during an argument over money. [6] [1] He said he could not recall how his wife died, but that he had no doubt he caused her death. [6] The jury found him guilty of murder. He spent the rest of his life in prison. [1]
Today, only the bony remains of the skull from the discovery exist, because of the handling of evidence by the police. The remains of the skull were anthropologically identified as probably belonging to a woman 30 to 50 years old. Recent studies have suggested doubt about the sex of the individual. [4]
Another body was recovered in the area in 1987, and is referred to as Lindow III. It was headless and had a vestigial thumb. [1] A theory described the killings of both Lindow I and II as ritual sacrifice attributed to the Celtic enclaves. [8]
The preservation of bog bodies is dependent on a set of specific chemical conditions, which can occur in peat bogs. A sphagnum moss bog must have a temperature lower than 4 °C (39 °F) at the time of the deposition of the body. The subsequent average annual temperature must be lower than 10 °C (50 °F). Moisture must be stable in the bog year-round; it cannot dry out. [1]
Sphagnum moss affects the chemistry of nearby water, which becomes highly acidic relative to a more natural environment (a pH of roughly 3.3–4.5). The concentration of dissolved minerals also tends to be low. Dying moss forms layers of sediment and releases sugars and humic acids that consume oxygen. Since the surface of the water is covered by living moss, water becomes anaerobic. As a result, human tissues buried in the bog tend to tan rather than decay. [1]
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.
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.
Sphagnum is a genus of approximately 380 accepted species of mosses, commonly known as sphagnum moss, also bog moss and quacker moss. Accumulations of Sphagnum can store water, since both living and dead plants can hold large quantities of water inside their cells; plants may hold 16 to 26 times as much water as their dry weight, depending on the species. The empty cells help retain water in drier conditions.
Chat Moss is a large area of peat bog that makes up part of the City of Salford, Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and Trafford in Greater Manchester, England. It also makes up part of Metropolitan Borough of St Helens in Merseyside and Warrington in Cheshire. North of the Manchester Ship Canal and River Mersey, 5 miles (8 km) to the west of Manchester, it occupies an area of about 10.6 square miles (27.5 km2).
Clonycavan Man is the name given to a well-preserved Iron Age bog body found in Clonycavan, Ballivor, County Meath, Ireland in March 2003. The body shows signs of having been murdered. Theories around the meanings and manner of his death vary.
Donald Reginald Brothwell, was a British archaeologist, anthropologist and academic, who specialised in human palaeoecology and environmental archaeology. He had worked at the University of Cambridge, the British Museum, and the Institute of Archaeology of University of London, before ending his career as Professor of Human Palaeoecology at the University of York. He has been described as "one of the pioneers in the field of archaeological science".
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.
Chester Crown Court is a judicial facility at Castle Square in Chester, Cheshire. The building, which forms part of a series of imposing buildings at Chester Castle, is a Grade I listed building.
The threefold death, which is suffered by kings, heroes, and gods, is a reconstructed Proto-Indo-European theme encountered in Indic, Greek, Celtic, and Germanic mythology.
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.
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.
Lindow Moss, also known as Saltersley Common, is a raised mire peat bog on the edge of Wilmslow in Cheshire, England. It has been used as common land since the medieval period and is best known for the discovery of the preserved bog body of Lindow Man in 1984 as well as Lindow Woman the year before.
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.
Lindow may refer to:
Sphagnum papillosum, the papillose peatmoss, is a species of peat moss distributed throughout the northern hemisphere. Although sometimes confused with Sphagnum imbricatum and Sphagnum palustre, it is distinguished by its yellow-green to brown short, blunt branches and papillose chlorophyllose cells.
