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BOG MEMORY: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF HUMAN | WETLAND RELATIONS AND THE INTERPRETATION OF BOG BODIES

This essay is available as a fully formatted and illustrated zine here

bodies

Under museum light they lie dark and leathered. Skin and hair stained red, preserved down to the thin gesture of their hands. They are Bog People - the name given to human remains found in peatlands largely across North Western Europe.

The great architect of the bog - Sphagnum moss -  is also its archivist. Sphagnum species produce tannins which increase the acidity of their wetland environment and prevent decomposition of organic matter - this accumulation forms peat, the foundation of bogs. Like black tea or red wine, these tannins stain the skin and hair. They sap calcium from bone and cause the bodies to flatten over millennia spent under the growing weight of the bog.

Bodies and artefacts found here are often incredibly well preserved, more immediately human than other archaeological finds. Featured in P.V. Glob's classic 1969 publication The Bog People, Tollund Man (born c.430 BC) looks almost as though he was sleeping.

In addition to providing an insight into health, appearance and daily life that other remains do not, Bog People are captivating. They are lodestone, a direct connection to our history. Looking into their faces, we recognise the human - we care. Held under what Seamus Heaney deemed their unique riddling power1, we can't help but wonder - why were they interred in such a seemingly wet and lonely place?

Perhaps our intrigue is older, deeper than the grim fascination apparent in historical records. Transformed by the magician, Sphagnum, the body is suspended outside of the natural order, becoming more than the life it once was filled with. Perhaps our ancestors were aware of this power - sought to transcend the body.

Historically, research has focused on these better preserved and more captivating remains. Recent work however, describes the need to expand the definition of “bog body” beyond the well-preserved remains found in acidic peatlands - bogs - to include skeletised remains found in alkaline peatlands - fens -  and even to the remains found in other wetlands. In her comprehensive book on the subject2, Melanie Giles suggests that: 

our contextualisation of these bog bodies must embrace other wet contexts – the mere, the lake, the spring and watering hollow, even the damp ditches of enclosures – if we are to properly understand the reasons behind the association of human remains and bodies of water in later prehistory.

human | wetland

What is our relationship to wetlands? How has this developed over our shared history? Bodies have been recovered from as early as the Mesolithic, and each must be interpreted within its  context - the societies they belonged to are diverse, as were the attitudes of their people. Today, whilst there is a growing appreciation of the complex biodiversity of bogs and at least an acknowledgement of their vital carbon sequestration3, for most the connotations widely persist: inhospitable and dangerous places, barren and bleak, wastelands. 

there rose ever, dark against the evening sky, the long, gloomy curve of the moor, broken by jagged and sinister hills4 

These negative associations have developed over centuries, with the growth of Christianity having a clear impact on widespread attitudes towards wetlands. European folklore populates these lands with Will-o’-the-Wisp and other apparitions who lead travellers to their deaths. As with much folklore, this warns of real danger - bogs are characteristically unstable, with deep pools and exposed conditions meaning anyone lost there may well lose their life. We can imagine these cautionary tales reaching through time: the bog as other-worldly, places where someone could be vanished without a trace, fey danger demanding respect. Looking further back, what else can we understand about human and wetland evolution?

As the ice of the last glacial period retreated, environmental changes were shaping Europe. Newly waterlogged and warmer conditions favoured waterloving plants such as reeds, the accumulated remains of which would eventually be colonised by sphagnum mosses. On these reedbeds peatlands subsequently formed, and would expand rapidly following a cooling period in the Mid-Holocene. Later, Neolithic farmers settling in this landscape would inadvertently create the conditions for peatlands to spread further by clearing woodland for farming. In some areas the rapid expansion of blanket-bog5 is thought to have overrun these hardwon cleared lands and forced humans to retreat to lower ground. To what extent it is debated, but it is clear that early man would have been witness to the changing nature of wetlands - be that the creeping expansion of blanket-bog or the bizarre vertical growth seen in raised bogs. With the advent of agriculture, the land was centred in religion, a successful harvest meaning survival. Here, maybe the strange-moving-animal-land of the bog was first set apart.

Many human settlements grew up around wetlands and their wealth of birds, fish and mammals, as well as the materials for ever expanding technology. It is thought that during the Neolithic, wetlands were used seasonally for hunting bases. Wooden trackways from this age are commonly found preserved in bogs, such as the Sweet Track near Glastonbury dating from 3800BC. During the Bronze Age, sites like Must Farm in the Cambridge Fens (850BC) show that some were living permanently in wetlands. Our long history of peat-cutting for fuel had also begun, an abandoned 3500yo stack of peat found in Scotland still bearing finger impressions.6 This settlement of wetlands throughout Europe increased over the Iron Age. Examples such as the Glastonbury and Meare lake villages (250BC) reveal extensive human activity in increasingly wet conditions as dugout canoes replaced trackways, used to navigate the swollen waters.7 The majority of bog bodies found date to this era, indicating strong cultural relationships with wetlands.

In addition to benefiting from the resources and protections wetlands provided, we can assume that our ancestors were aware of the preservative qualities of bogs. Butter preserved in bogs - bog butter - is widely found across northwestern Europe. Whilst the reasons for this seem to vary - votive offerings or a cache? - the sheer amount of findings8 as well as traditional methods still practiced in parts of Europe using sphagnum as a preservative for food9 demonstrates this historic understanding. As well as food and other objects10, they may have been aware of the preservative effects on bodies. These effects on decomposition are noticeable after only a short time, and whilst living in close proximity to the bogs they likely came across animal remains. It is impossible to know whether Bronze or Iron age peoples would have found human remains deeper within the peat as they worked the lands, or how they might have interpreted them, but as the earliest body found dates from the Mesolithic11, it’s surely possible. 

Rich, but changeable and unpredictable providers. Over our extensive  shared history, we can trace the emergence of beliefs that wetlands hold the power to bestow good or bad fortune, feast or famine. They may also have been seen as liminal places between worlds where decay was halted, where people and objects could be left suspended. Ritual developed as early man navigated a precarious world, some bog bodies offering insight into these practices.

ways to die

When looking at cases from the breadth of European prehistory, excepting the more universal causes of death (accidental, murder etc.) we must acknowledge the diversity of beliefs that surround each body - each requires investigation into their own context. It must also be understood that in many cases, there is not enough evidence to determine the nature of their death. That acknowledged, we can broadly categorise the bodies so:

- MISADVENTURE -

Firstly, many deaths appear to have been accidents. As discussed, wetlands can be dangerous places and there are numerous records from the medieval period onwards of travellers being lost to them. Earlier communities living in closer proximity to wetlands would have been familiar with this fate. In the Early Holocene in particular, monsoonal rains and changing water levels may have caught people working in the wetlands unaware. This simple explanation has led to some previously labelled “ritual” deaths being debated, under the argument that the intrigue of ritual has led to some bodies being hastily categorised as such, when further analysis suggests accidental death.12

- A DISCREET PLACE -

There are also examples where death was deliberate, but the location was not of importance other than as a place to dispose of bodies discretely, or was immaterial as in conflicts. As well as this there are a few examples from more recent history which, with understanding of social attitudes or actual records from the time, appear to be suicides. These “known” suicides read as people outcast by their community, seeking to conceal their fate in the landscape.

- WETLAND AS WASTELAND -

In medieval Christian psychogeography, the landscape of the bog, the moss and the mire begin to be reshaped to embody purgatory or portals to hell13

This rising Christian view of wetlands as wastelands, which would later lead to their exploitation, meant that they were often used as places of internment for those who were not eligible for burial in consecrated ground. Bodies found here may have been convicted criminals, of a persecuted group persecuted, or otherwise seen as different and unfit for burial within the community. This may have been people with disabilities or conditions not understood in the day, or who died of disease.  Unlike misadventure or discreet disposal bodies, the land is of significance to the bodies in these cases. The 1000 year interval between the end of the Iron Age and the beginning of the Middle Ages saw the violent dissolution of social structures through the Roman invasion and the spread of Christianity. Altered, yet still persists, the belief of wetlands as places of power, strangeness, and distinctness.

- RITUAL -

Looking back further, we come to bodies intentionally interred in wetlands before changed attitudes towards those lands became widespread with Christianisation. A proportion of these internments differ in style to other non-wetland internments, sometimes suggesting a ritualistic nature to their deaths. The breadth of interpreted “intentional/ritualistic” internments date from the Early Neolithic to the end of the Iron Age across Europe, so offering insight into the ways early man viewed life, death and the world. Intentional burying of the dead is a significant and defining cultural development in human evolution, implying complex social behaviour and the formation of belief systems. How, with what we theorise about various attitudes towards peatlands, might we interpret these bodies? Perhaps we can broadly split these internments into two subcategories. 

Firstly, there are cases where internments are not suggestive of nonnormative ritual - the theory that internment in bogs was practical for certain cases. Wetlands were expansive and near to settlements, and there was no need to expend energy14 conducting cremation as was more common in early human societies, or a burial with grave goods. The people interred in this way may have been outcasts or people who had died in unusual ways, or the community they belonged to may simply not have had the resources to spare at the time of their death. There are however, some burials that appear more normative, with the grave goods as to be expected for the time. This may be due to burials unknowingly being made close to wetlands, the land changing over time, or because something was known of the preservative nature of that environment, giving longevity to the dead. Some of these burials are touching, speaking to the universal human experience. In Derrymaquirk, Ireland, the remains of a young woman and child dating from the early Iron Age were found in an oval grave filled with twigs, pieces of dog and ruminant bone, and a handle or haft made of antler. A large block of wood was placed as a headboard for the bodies and a flat oval stone placed over her pelvis15. Though the bog may have been chosen as a burial place to protect the community from unusual disease or death, it is clear that they were laid to rest with care.

Finally there are the bodies that stand apart from other intentional internements in their signs of violent and ritualised death. The theory of ritualised sacrifice compares the bodies to other depositions: human figures, animal remains, agricultural tools, food, jewellery and objects of everyday life, weapons etc. Whilst some of these depositions may have been simple disposal, loss or safekeeping, many appear to be offerings made in ritual. The powerful and other-worldly status wetlands held in prehistoric societies may have led to ritual internment as part of the reciprocal relationship between land and people. The degree of violence inflicted on many of these bodies, particularly from the Iron Age, might be indicative of a culture where the more violent and elaborate the death, the more powerful the sacrifice and therefore appeal to higher powers. Research has suggested that increased cases (and greater indicated violence) of human sacrifice in the latter Iron Age could be due to social instability following the Roman invasion. Despite the broader pattern of violent deaths, it is difficult to determine violence done to bog bodies as punitive or ritualistic in nature, especially when seeking to understand ancient societies16. The person’s suffering may not have been the objective. Some bodies show evidence suggesting pain management through psychoactive substances, and research has demonstrated that some injuries would have led to a quick loss of consciousness thus reducing suffering, and many of the extensive injuries were inflicted after loss of consciousness or death. Whilst Roman authors interpreted these people as bloodthirsty savages, the role sacrifice held in these societies and how the people whose bodies are found viewed their death is surely more nuanced.

bog memory

Bog is a keeper: pollen and other organic matter within peat cores let us visualise ancient landscapes, mapping species population through time. Fragments of ash and charred wood recall camp fires and clearances. Through the bodies held by bog we meet our early species and enter their worlds. Even after Christianity spread throughout Britain and Ireland, people still buried others in bogs. The new beliefs excluded some of the community from consecrated ground, and they were laid down in that remembered, between-place. 

Of the many references to bog bodies throughout written history, only the records remain. Once extracted, the bodies are irreparably damaged - we lose them. As fragile as the bodies, peatlands too are destroyed by disturbance and exploitation. 80% of those in Britain and Ireland are degraded, and whilst work is being done to protect and reverse the damage here, challenges remain. Worldwide only 17% of wetlands are protected. Rapidly degrading, particularly in the Global South where the extraction under capitalism is centred, what they store is released - vital carbon sinks turned into vast emitters.

In a future we don’t outsource our exploitation to some out-of-sight-out-of-mind part of our Earth. We don't cut peat or drain marshes - we find fewer bog bodies.

lie unchanged, suspended as prayer:

The universal restoration of these lands as hallowed-strange-nature. Our renewed reciprocity, respect.

notes

1. Heaney was himself captured, writing many “bog poems” in his lifetime. Here from his opening address for the 1996 exhibition ‘Face to Face with Your Past’, at Silkeborg Museum in Denmark
2. Bog Bodies: Face to Face with the Past, Giles 2020, Manchester University Press
3. Globally, peatlands hold 30% of CO2 despite covering only 3% of the Earth. UK peatlands hold as much CO2 as the combined forests of the UK, Germany and France.
4. The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sr. A.C. Doyle
5. A particular type of bog, mainly found in westerly, wetter and cooler climates. 20% of the world's blanket bog, now greatly degraded, is in Britain and Ireland.
6. Bronze Age fuel: the oldest direct evidence for deep peat cutting and stack construction?, Branigan, Edwards & Merrony 2002, Cambridge University Press
7. See the work of the Avalon Marshes Partnership
8. to date: 500 documented in Ireland alone. Genomic analysis of Irish bog butter, Mattiangeli et al. 2020, Journal of Archaeological Science: reports
9. Preservation of fish by embedment in Sphagnum moss, peat or holocellulose: experimental proof of the oxopolysaccharidic nature of the preservative substance and of its antimicrobial and tanning action, Painter et al. 2001, Innovative Food Science & Emerging Technologies
10. a fantastically interesting topic of its own - what was lost or deposited in wetlands
11. Koelbjerg Man, Denmark dated 8000ya
12. Did he fall or was he pushed? Some unresolved questions about Lindow Man, Briggs 1995, Bog Bodies: New Discoveries and New Perspectives. 
13. Bog Bodies: Face to Face with the Past, Giles 2020, Manchester University Press
14. Bodies were buried shallowly or staked down in water
15. Through Nature to Eternity: The Bog Bodies of Northwest Europe, van der Sanden 1996, Batavian Lion International
16. Towards an Archaeology of Pain? Assessing the Evidence from Later Prehistoric Bog Bodies, Chapman et al. 2019, Oxford Journal of Archaeology.