Several thousand people have found in ants in Europe. What kind of stories do 12,000 years of remains tell?
During the last hundred years, several very well-preserved human remains have appeared in moors in Northern Europe.
One of the most famous discoveries was made in 1950. Then the police in Silkeborg in Denmark got a call that they had found a body in a bog.
The body turned up while someone was digging up turf in the area. The Finns were sure that it was a man who had recently been killed, according to the Museum in Silkeborg.
The man had actually been murdered, but the murder happened around 2,500 years ago. He will probably be hanged, and the person is now known as Tollundmanden.
Digging up peat has been relatively common work in countries with a lot of peat, since it can be used as fuel, among other things.
Unfortunately, the body of the Tollundman has not been preserved, the exhibition consists of a model. Only the head remains, but it is very well preserved, and you can clearly get an impression of what this man looked like when he was alive.
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2,000 found in Europe
The Tollund man is just one of many very well-preserved corpses from prehistoric times that come from European ants. The researchers know of around 2,000 individuals that have been found in ants in Europe, but far from all are well preserved.
In some bog areas, there may be particularly good conservation conditions, primarily due to special types of peat moss.
These mosses have bactericidal properties. It’s a very important reason why someone who barely breaks down in the ant, according to a new study in the journal Antiquity.
But these well-known ant corpses, where both skin and hair are preserved, represent just some of the human remains that have been found in ants. The preservation conditions differ, and in some places only the skeleton remains. Both whole skeletons and single bones from humans have been found in wetland areas.
In the vast majority of cases, archaeologists believe it is bones that have been proven to have been laid down in marshland, according to archaeologist Grethe Bjørkan Bukkemoen.
She is an archaeologist and excavation manager at the Museum of Cultural History and has helped lead the investigation of an ant skeleton that was found at Starane in Hedmark. The findings are described in this research article from 2018, published in the Journal of Wetland Archaeology.
Is often characterized by violence
Human remains being buried in bogs is a phenomenon that appears in large parts of Europe. The most famous ant corpses are naturally probably the best preserved, and they tend to originate from Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and the British Isles.
The well-preserved corpses often bear the mark of violence, and they have ended their days in violent fashion.
But there are skeletal finds from many other countries, for example Norway. Because rare are complete, it is often difficult to say why these people died.
A Dutch research group has gathered information on all finds of both skeletons and better preserved ones such as from ants in Northern Europe. They have systematized knowledge of all the findings and are looking for any patterns. Artikkel is published in the journal Antikken.
What does the research show, and why did people end up in anthills?
A big top
– This is a good article, and they get a comprehensive overview of all findings within a large time span and within a large geographical area, says Grethe Bjørkan Bukkemoen to forskning.no.
Bukkemoen emphasizes that this new overview includes both the well-preserved ant corpses and all the ant skeletons that have been discovered in northern European ants.
She points out that the researchers have gathered a great deal of knowledge about all the different finds, such as gender, context of discovery, age and cause of death. This provides a very good basis for further research, believes Bukkemoen.
The earliest known human remains in Northern Europe from ant are over 11,000 years old, but things have gotten funky from the next few thousand years. After that, it picks up strongly, and the period with the most discoveries extends from around 3,000 to 1,000 years ago.
Around 180 different finds from this period have been uncovered. The vast majority originate from today’s Denmark, although it is also made fun of in Northern Germany and Great Britain, among others.
The Tollund man, the Grauballe man, the Yde girl and several other well-known mummified as from ants date from this period.
Bukkemoen points out that the vast majority of human finds in ants are from the period that begins around 500 BC. But this new overview shows that the period with many discoveries seems to have started earlier and lasted longer than previously thought.
In the period between the years 1100 and 1900, most discoveries of the British eye have been made clear. Whether this is coincidental or can be traced to different selections or clear historical patterns is unclear. Perhaps future studies can shed more light on this.
But one thing is clear. The well-preserved bodies from around 500 BC often bear traces of violence and brutal endings to life.
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Hanging, beheading and unknown causes of death
An example is the Dutch ant corpse called Yde-jenta. This mummy is dated to have lived sometime around the first century AD and the body is very well preserved.
She was also found with a braided rope around her neck. This may be the remains of the execution method. She may have been hanged, according to the researchers.
Other bodies show signs of having been beheaded. In 1948, a mummified, severed head was found at Osterby in Germany. The hair was tied up in a knot which is still preserved. This head was wrapped in a skin, and the man had been hit so hard in the temple that it might have killed him, according to the researchers’ inventory of ant remains.
Here the causes of death are clear, but the vast majority of remains in the ants, especially the ant skeleton, have no clear cause of death. So why did they end up in the marsh?
Bukkemoen points out that bogs and wetland areas have been identified as important for various reasons.
– We know that notions of wetlands as the haunt of various forces or as an entrance or passage to other worlds have a long history in North-West Europe.
According to the researchers, all the findings included in the studies can be counted into some categories:
Some people ended up in ant due to very tangible reasons, like printing luck. Others may offer criminal acts and laid down or hidden in the ant.
Some may have been sacrificed to supernatural forces, according to the researchers’ interpretations. It could also be that people have ended up in myra as a kind of alternative burial or that they did not meet the criteria to be buried according to local customs.
Sacrifices in Norwegian marsh?
Grethe Bjørkan Bukkemoen points out that the ant skeletons that have been excavated from Starane in Hedmarken may show signs of having been sacrificed.
The skeletons are primarily dated to the Roman Iron Age, the period from 500 BC. to around year 1. Bukkemoen points out that cremation was the most common way of treating the deceased during this time.
Thus, the dead who ended up in an ant were treated very differently from what was usual.
– This is very exciting with the ant skeleton from exactly this period, points out Bukkemoen.
– Nor have we found complete skeletons in ants in Norway from this period, she says.
This may mean that perhaps individual bones were placed in the marsh, while the rest of the body was cremated according to the supposedly common custom.
They also find large quantities of animal bones in several places in the ants, says Bukkemoen. The bones were probably deposited by humans, and what was deposited in the marsh varied over time.
Bukkemoen says that there are very good preservation conditions for skeletons in the calcareous soil of Hedmarken, but not in the same way as in the Danish ants, where you can find preserved skin and hair.
Thus, it is an open question what is shown in other ants in Norway and the rest of Europe.
Reference:
Van Beek et al: Bogs, bones and bodies: deposition of human remains in northern European bogs (9000 BC–1900 AD). Antiquity, 2023. DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2022.163. Summary.
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