Bodies in bogs

[Erpingham]

Another meta-study, this time looking at the evidence for bog bodies in Europe.  It combines archaeology, science and dead bodies in a way that will no doubt appeal to some members.  No really solid conclusions but I was struck by how it challenges popular narratives e.g. it's all about ritual sacrifice in the Iron Age.  In fact, the finds cover a much wider span and the vast majority show no clear cause of death.

[Anton]

I heard an interesting lecture on this recently.  The ritual sacrifice notion took an adept pounding.  I'll see if I can find a link.

[DBS]

I think they are right to caution about assuming a distinction between "common or garden" violence, and ritual violence.  However, one does have to consider the wider context of why the victim of violence would be deposited in a bog in a pre-forensic law enforcement period.  One suspects that victims were rarely mugged in a bog - why would they be there anyway, and how does someone surprise them in a bog?  Which tends to point towards a deliberate act of either taking the victim to the bog and killing them there prior to deposition of the corpse, or taking the corpse there for deposition.  In both cases, execution and/or sacrifice (given that classical authors often state sacrificial victims to be condemned prisoners) must seem credible motives.  The only reason for dumping the victim of criminal violence in a bog would seem to be to conceal the crime itself, and the sheer burden of shifting a body through a bog would seem to point towards a need for several perpetrators/accomplices judging such effort to be worth their collective while.

[Swampster]

Could it simply have been a choice by the family of the dear departed? They may have had religious reasons for placing the body there and, cynically, it is much easier to put the body there than to dig a grave. Or perhaps offerings could be made of people who had died a natural death rather than always those who had been ritually killed.

If some had no apparent cause of death, could some have strayed from the path and drowned?

[Erpingham]

If some had no apparent cause of death, could some have strayed from the path and drowned?

This is one of the points made.  When we look at bog bodies in historical time, when presumably ritual killing is less popular, we find that some have become lost in the mire and been overcome by the elements or fallen in.  Likewise, some people have committed suicide (presumably by drowning).  So, this may have been the case in earlier times, as we have no pathology that explains cause of death in most cases.

[Nick Harbud]

So, if we now think that the case for all the bog bodies being sacrificial victims is not proven, how do we feel about weapon deposition in bogs?  Were these offerings to whatever deities one might believe inhabit such places or are they all simple carelessness?  ("I am sure I fixed that really expensive pattern-welded sword to my belt when I left the house this morning.  Wherever could it have got to?")

[Erpingham]

I think it would be difficult to make a case that hundreds of weapons were accidentally dropped in a bog.  The odd find, maybe.  Similarly with bodies.  The isolated individual with no clear cause of death has to remain an open verdict.  Groups of individuals suggests someone has put them there, though not necessarily as a ritual offering (it may just be a burial rite).  The isolated heads are an interesting one.  We know that in some periods and places, there was head hunting.  In others we know people had their heads cut off and were then buried (though we don't know why).  So that's two possible reasons, one maybe ritual deposition, the other uncertain.  Then there is the tendency to find skulls separated from skeletons by natural processes and perhaps the greater likelihood of a skull attracting attention and being pulled out the bog by some peat cutter.  All quite difficult to be dogmatic about. 

[DBS]

Do note that the article specifically cautions that the percentage of deaths due to violence is probably underestimated given the difficulty of determining cause of death in a lot of the bodies.  They are not suggesting that quite a few of the deceased were not killed, simply that one cannot tell whether they were sacrificed, executed or murdered.  My only criticism in this regard is a failure to consider the environmental context of the violence, which to my mind is circumstantial support tending towards some form of ritual, whether religious or judicial (or both), rather than criminal.

[Anton]

Prof Ronald Hutton is very interesting on one famous bog body. 

Two police forensic experts were commissioned.  Expert A's report favoured the ritual explanation, expert B disagreed.  The differences were quite marked.  A garrote became a necklace, some wounds had occurred long before the time of death. 

Expert A's report was adopted and B's report buried.  The British Museum press released on ritual sacrifice.  Hutton campaigned and eventually expert B's report was exhumed.  Expert A conceded his reading could not be taken as a certainty.  The British Museum changed its narrative accordingly sans press release.

A salutary tale.

[Nick Harbud]

It all sounds terribly complucated.

BTW, what is the current opinion regarding the deposition of weapons and other objects in particular bogs after a significant journey across Europe?  Are we still in the paradigm that these bogs were so highly regarded as portals to the deities that people were willing to make long pilgrimages across a continent without autobahns just to drop their weapon or other precious object in this one particular watery hole?

[Erpingham]

BTW, what is the current opinion regarding the deposition of weapons and other objects in particular bogs after a significant journey across Europe? 

I confess to an interest in the subject of these deposits and have read quite a few papers on the subject recently (fortunately, Scandinavian archaeologists seem to follow an open access approach to their work and put lots of stuff on Academia.edu and Researchgate).  There seems to be a certain amount of uncertainty.  Most equipment in Southern Scandinavian finds is from that area, but there is also material from North Germany and quite a bit from the Roman Empire.  Some of the "exotic" material could include traded items i.e. at the time of deposition they were in the possession of locals, perhaps the richer ones or the professional warriors (i.e. members of a comitatus).  Other things may have been brought back from campaigns elsewhere, either organised locally or a part of a Roman force, and deposited e.g. as a thank-offering for success.  I don't think I recall reading anything recently that the Roman stuff reflects Romans campaigning in South Scandinavia.

As we've discussed before around specific papers on deposits, Scandinavian archaeologists have something of a consensus on Iron Age military organisation which is drawn from Tacitus and a strong belief that lots of people from this area sought their fortune serving in Roman army units, certainly from 3rd-5th centuries and this influenced military developments.  These facts colour interpretations of these finds.

[DBS]

Of course, some of the violent deaths could have been the result of having swords thrown at them by a watery tart in some farcical aquatic ceremony...