156-502: Lindow Man , also known as Lindow II and (in jest) 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
312-557: A 2002 analysis of Dieck's work by German archaeologists concluded that much of his work was unreliable. Countering Dieck's findings of more than 1400 bog body discoveries, it seems that after a more recent study the number of bog body finds is closer to 122. The most recent bog bodies are those of soldiers killed in the wetlands of the Soviet Union during the Second World War. The preservation of bog bodies in peat bogs
468-537: A Bronze Age bog body is Cashel Man , from 2000 BC. The vast majority of the bog bodies that have been discovered date from the Iron Age , a period of time when peat bogs covered a much larger area of northern Europe. Many of these Iron Age bodies bear a number of similarities, indicating a known cultural tradition of killing and depositing these people in a certain manner . These Pre-Roman Iron Age people lived in sedentary communities and built villages. Their society
624-588: A Druid Prince provides an account of the circumstances surrounding Lindow Man's life and death, in part hypothesising that he had lived as a highborn, perhaps even as a druid who was sacrificed to the gods at the time of the Menai Massacre and Boudica ’s rebellion. Bog body 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
780-422: A beta particle (an electron , e ) and an electron antineutrino ( ν e ), one of the neutrons in the C nucleus changes to a proton and the C nucleus reverts to the stable (non-radioactive) isotope N . During its life, a plant or animal is in equilibrium with its surroundings by exchanging carbon either with the atmosphere or through its diet. It will, therefore, have
936-614: A bog body unusually buried with ornaments (seven glass beads and a bronze pin) was unearthed and subsequently given a Christian burial. By order of the Crown Prince Frederick , who was an antiquarian, the body was dug up again and sent to the National Museum of Denmark . According to the archaeologist P.V. Glob, it was "he, more than anyone else, [who] helped to arouse the wide interest in Danish antiquities" such as
1092-468: A combination of these methods. In some cases, the individual had been beheaded. In the case of the Osterby Man found at Kohlmoor, near Osterby , Germany, in 1948, the head had been deposited in the bog without its body. Usually, the corpses were naked, sometimes with some items of clothing with them, particularly headgear. The clothing is believed to have decomposed while in the bog for so long. In
1248-402: A copper-based pigment used for decoration, but it was later found to be the result of a reaction between the keratin in the hair and the acid of the peat bog. Dating Lindow Man is problematic as samples from the body and surrounding peat have produced dates spanning a 900-year period. Although the peat encasing Lindow Man has been radiocarbon dated to about 300 BC, Lindow Man himself has
1404-527: A decade. It was revised again in the early 1960s to 5,730 ± 40 years, which meant that many calculated dates in papers published prior to this were incorrect (the error in the half-life is about 3%). For consistency with these early papers, it was agreed at the 1962 Radiocarbon Conference in Cambridge (UK) to use the "Libby half-life" of 5568 years. Radiocarbon ages are still calculated using this half-life, and are known as "Conventional Radiocarbon Age". Since
1560-486: A different date. Early tests at different laboratories returned conflicting dates for the body; later tests suggested a date between 2 BC and 119 AD. There has been a tendency to ascribe the body to the Iron Age period rather than Roman due to the interpretation that Lindow Man's death may have been a ritual sacrifice or execution. Explanations for why the peat in which he was found is much older have been sought. Archaeologist P. C. Buckland suggests that as
1716-472: A domestic media sensation and received global coverage. Sparking excitement in the country's archaeological community, who had long expected such a find, it was hailed as one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the 1980s. A Q.E.D. documentary about Lindow Man broadcast by the BBC in 1985 attracted 10 million viewers. Lindow Man's official name is Lindow II, as there are other finds from
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#17327727028091872-423: A few years, but the surface waters also receive water from the deep ocean, which has more than 90% of the carbon in the reservoir. Water in the deep ocean takes about 1,000 years to circulate back through surface waters, and so the surface waters contain a combination of older water, with depleted C , and water recently at the surface, with C in equilibrium with the atmosphere. Creatures living at
2028-473: A fox-fur armband, Lindow Man was discovered completely naked. When he died, Lindow Man was suffering from slight osteoarthritis and an infestation of whipworm and maw worm . As a result of the decalcification of the bones and pressure from the peat under which Lindow Man was buried, his skull was distorted. While some preserved human remains may contain DNA, peat bogs such as Lindow Moss are generally poor for such
2184-408: A given sample stopped exchanging carbon – the older the sample, the less C will be left. The equation governing the decay of a radioactive isotope is: N = N 0 e − λ t {\displaystyle N=N_{0}\,e^{-\lambda t}\,} where N 0 is the number of atoms of the isotope in the original sample (at time t = 0, when
2340-547: A given sample will have decayed) is about 5,730 years, the oldest dates that can be reliably measured by this process date to approximately 50,000 years ago (in this interval about 99.8% of the C will have decayed), although special preparation methods occasionally make an accurate analysis of older samples possible. In 1960, Libby received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work. Research has been ongoing since
2496-400: A higher δ C than one that eats food with lower δ C values. The animal's own biochemical processes can also impact the results: for example, both bone minerals and bone collagen typically have a higher concentration of C than is found in the animal's diet, though for different biochemical reasons. The enrichment of bone C also implies that excreted material
2652-478: A lack of oxygen preserve but severely tan their skin. While the skin is well-preserved, the bones are generally not, due to the dissolution of the calcium phosphate of bone by the peat's acidity. The acidic conditions of these bogs allow for the preservation of materials such as skin, hair, nails, wool and leather which all contain the protein keratin. The oldest known bog body is the skeleton of Koelbjerg Man from Denmark, which has been dated to 8000 BC, during
2808-413: A mass of less than 1% of those on land and are not shown in the diagram. Accumulated dead organic matter, of both plants and animals, exceeds the mass of the biosphere by a factor of nearly 3, and since this matter is no longer exchanging carbon with its environment, it has a C / C ratio lower than that of the biosphere. The variation in the C / C ratio in different parts of
2964-492: A number of cases, twigs, sticks or stones were placed on top of the body, sometimes in a cross formation, and at other times, forked sticks had been driven into the peat to hold the corpse down. According to the archaeologist P. V. Glob, "this probably indicates the wish to pin the dead man firmly into the bog". Some bodies show signs of torture, such as Old Croghan Man , who had deep cuts beneath his nipples. Some bog bodies, such as Tollund Man from Denmark, have been found with
3120-407: A number of similarities, such as violent deaths and a lack of clothing, which has led archaeologists to believe that they were killed and deposited in the bogs as a part of a widespread cultural tradition of human sacrifice or executed as criminals. Bogs could have indeed been seen as liminal places positively connected to another world, which might welcome contaminating items otherwise dangerous to
3276-869: A paper in Science in 1947, in which the authors commented that their results implied it would be possible to date materials containing carbon of organic origin. Libby and James Arnold proceeded to test the radiocarbon dating theory by analyzing samples with known ages. For example, two samples taken from the tombs of two Egyptian kings, Zoser and Sneferu , independently dated to 2625 BC plus or minus 75 years, were dated by radiocarbon measurement to an average of 2800 BC plus or minus 250 years. These results were published in Science in December 1949. Within 11 years of their announcement, more than 20 radiocarbon dating laboratories had been set up worldwide. In 1960, Libby
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#17327727028093432-413: A person's diet prior to their death. Unlike erosion that the teeth may undergo due to decay, dental caries are typically sharp and well-defined cavities that have a larger diameter than erosion that occurs after death. Significant rates of dental caries point to diets that are rich in carbohydrates and can lead archaeologists to differentiate between plant-based diets and protein-based diets (animal protein
3588-472: A possible laceration at the back of the head, ligature marks on the neck where a sinew cord was found, a possible wound on the right side of the neck, a possible stab wound in the upper right chest, a broken neck, and a fractured rib. Xeroradiography revealed that the blow on top of the head (causing the V-shaped cut) was caused by a relatively blunt object; it had fractured the skull and driven fragments into
3744-415: A profound impact on archaeology . In addition to permitting more accurate dating within archaeological sites than previous methods, it allows comparison of dates of events across great distances. Histories of archaeology often refer to its impact as the "radiocarbon revolution". Radiocarbon dating has allowed key transitions in prehistory to be dated, such as the end of the last ice age , and the beginning of
3900-476: A purpose, and it is unlikely that DNA could be recovered from Lindow Man. Lindow Man and Lindow III were found to have elevated levels of copper on their skin. The cause for this was uncertain as there could have been natural causes, although a study by Pyatt et al. proposed that the bodies may have been painted with a copper-based pigment. To test this, skin samples were taken from places likely to be painted and tested against samples from areas where painting
4056-433: A result, beginning in the late 19th century, there was a noticeable drop in the proportion of C in the atmosphere as the carbon dioxide generated from burning fossil fuels began to accumulate. Conversely, nuclear testing increased the amount of C in the atmosphere, which reached a maximum in about 1965 of almost double the amount present in the atmosphere prior to nuclear testing. Measurement of radiocarbon
4212-597: A sack, after which all candidates for sacrifice would withdraw a piece, with the one withdrawing the burnt piece being the one who would be sacrificed. They argued that Lindow Man was likely a high-ranking Druid who was sacrificed in a last-ditch effort to call upon the aid of three Celtic gods to stop a Roman offensive against the Celts in AD 60. Environment and situation are the crucial factors that determine how corpses decay. For instance, corpses will decay differently depending on
4368-529: A temperature lower than 4 °C at the time of deposition of the body. The subsequent average annual temperature must be lower than 10 °C. Moisture must be stable in the bog year-round: it cannot dry out. Sphagnum moss affects the chemistry of nearby water, which becomes highly acidic (a pH of roughly 3.3 to 4.5) relative to a more ordinary environment. The concentration of dissolved minerals also tends to be low. Dying moss forms layers of sediment and releases sugars and humic acids which consume oxygen. Since
4524-566: A wider understanding of well-preserved human remains, helping to develop new methods of analysis and investigation. The use of sophisticated techniques, such as computed tomography (CT) scans , has marked the investigation of the Lindow bodies as particularly important. Such scans allow the reconstruction of the body and internal examination. Of the 27 bodies recovered from lowland raised mires in England and Wales, only those from Lindow Moss and
4680-487: Is a lowland raised mire , a type of peat bog which often produces the best-preserved bog bodies, allowing more detailed analysis. Lowland raised mires occur mainly in northern England and extend south to the Midlands. Lindow Man is one of 27 bodies to be recovered from such areas. The preservation of bog bodies is dependent on a set of specific physical conditions, which can occur in peat bogs. A sphagnum moss bog must have
4836-418: Is a natural phenomenon and not the result of human mummification processes. It is caused by the unique physical and biochemical composition of the bogs. Different types of bogs can affect the mummification process differently: raised bogs best preserve the corpses, whereas fens and transitional bogs tend to preserve harder tissues such as the skeleton rather than the soft tissue. A limited number of bogs have
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4992-429: Is also referred to individually as a carbon exchange reservoir. The different elements of the carbon exchange reservoir vary in how much carbon they store, and in how long it takes for the C generated by cosmic rays to fully mix with them. This affects the ratio of C to C in the different reservoirs, and hence the radiocarbon ages of samples that originated in each reservoir. The atmosphere, which
5148-414: Is assumed to have originally had the same C / C ratio as the ratio in the atmosphere, and since the size of the sample is known, the total number of atoms in the sample can be calculated, yielding N 0 , the number of C atoms in the original sample. Measurement of N , the number of C atoms currently in the sample, allows the calculation of t , the age of the sample, using
5304-440: Is contaminated so that 1% of the sample is modern carbon, it will appear to be 600 years younger; for a sample that is 34,000 years old, the same amount of contamination would cause an error of 4,000 years. Contamination with old carbon, with no remaining C , causes an error in the other direction independent of age – a sample contaminated with 1% old carbon will appear to be about 80 years older than it truly is, regardless of
5460-428: Is depleted in C because of the marine effect, C is removed from the southern atmosphere more quickly than in the north. The effect is strengthened by strong upwelling around Antarctica. If the carbon in freshwater is partly acquired from aged carbon, such as rocks, then the result will be a reduction in the C / C ratio in the water. For example, rivers that pass over limestone , which
5616-400: Is depleted in C relative to the diet. Since C makes up about 1% of the carbon in a sample, the C / C ratio can be accurately measured by mass spectrometry . Typical values of δ C have been found by experiment for many plants, as well as for different parts of animals such as bone collagen , but when dating a given sample it is better to determine
5772-426: Is done by calibration curves (discussed below), which convert a measurement of C in a sample into an estimated calendar age. The calculations involve several steps and include an intermediate value called the "radiocarbon age", which is the age in "radiocarbon years" of the sample: an age quoted in radiocarbon years means that no calibration curve has been used − the calculations for radiocarbon years assume that
5928-479: Is given in the article List of bog bodies . Radiocarbon dating Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating ) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon , a radioactive isotope of carbon . The method was developed in the late 1940s at the University of Chicago by Willard Libby , based on
6084-459: Is less CO 2 available for the photosynthetic reactions. Under these conditions, fractionation is reduced, and at temperatures above 14 °C (57 °F) the δ C values are correspondingly higher, while at lower temperatures, CO 2 becomes more soluble and hence more available to marine organisms. The δ C value for animals depends on their diet. An animal that eats food with high δ C values will have
6240-465: Is little evidence of religious or ritual activity in the Iron Age period. What evidence does survive is usually in the form of artefacts recovered from peat bogs. Late Iron Age burials in the region often took the form of a crouched inhumation , sometimes with personal ornaments. Although dated to the mid-1st century AD, the type of burial of Lindow Man was more common in the pre-historic period. In
6396-415: Is mostly composed of calcium carbonate , will acquire carbonate ions. Similarly, groundwater can contain carbon derived from the rocks through which it has passed. These rocks are usually so old that they no longer contain any measurable C , so this carbon lowers the C / C ratio of the water it enters, which can lead to apparent ages of thousands of years for both the affected water and
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6552-432: Is non-cariogenic). Dental enamel defects known as hypoplasias can also be seen in the analysis of teeth and can point towards malnutrition as well as diseases. Ground-penetrating radar can be used in archaeological investigation to map features beneath the ground to reconstruct 3D visualizations. For bog bodies, ground-penetrating radar can be used to detect bodies and artefacts beneath the bog surface before cutting into
6708-456: Is sometimes called) percolates into the rest of the reservoir. Photosynthesis is the primary process by which carbon moves from the atmosphere into living things. In photosynthetic pathways C is absorbed slightly more easily than C , which in turn is more easily absorbed than C . The differential uptake of the three carbon isotopes leads to C / C and C / C ratios in plants that differ from
6864-453: Is the main pathway by which C is created: n + 7 N → 6 C + p where n represents a neutron and p represents a proton . Once produced, the C quickly combines with the oxygen ( O ) in the atmosphere to form first carbon monoxide ( CO ), and ultimately carbon dioxide ( CO 2 ). C + O 2 → CO + O CO + OH → CO 2 + H Carbon dioxide produced in this way diffuses in
7020-565: Is usually needed to determine the size of the offset, for example by comparing the radiocarbon age of deposited freshwater shells with associated organic material. Volcanic eruptions eject large amounts of carbon into the air. The carbon is of geological origin and has no detectable C , so the C / C ratio in the vicinity of the volcano is depressed relative to surrounding areas. Dormant volcanoes can also emit aged carbon. Plants that photosynthesize this carbon also have lower C / C ratios: for example, plants in
7176-399: Is where C is generated, contains about 1.9% of the total carbon in the reservoirs, and the C it contains mixes in less than seven years. The ratio of C to C in the atmosphere is taken as the baseline for the other reservoirs: if another reservoir has a lower ratio of C to C , it indicates that the carbon is older and hence that either some of
7332-402: The C has decayed, or the reservoir is receiving carbon that is not at the atmospheric baseline. The ocean surface is an example: it contains 2.4% of the carbon in the exchange reservoir, but there is only about 95% as much C as would be expected if the ratio were the same as in the atmosphere. The time it takes for carbon from the atmosphere to mix with the surface ocean is only
7488-489: The C / C ratio in the atmosphere. This increase in C concentration almost exactly cancels out the decrease caused by the upwelling of water (containing old, and hence C -depleted, carbon) from the deep ocean, so that direct measurements of C radiation are similar to measurements for the rest of the biosphere. Correcting for isotopic fractionation, as is done for all radiocarbon dates to allow comparison between results from different parts of
7644-404: The δ C value for that sample directly than to rely on the published values. The carbon exchange between atmospheric CO 2 and carbonate at the ocean surface is also subject to fractionation, with C in the atmosphere more likely than C to dissolve in the ocean. The result is an overall increase in the C / C ratio in the ocean of 1.5%, relative to
7800-523: The Celts practised auguries on the entrails of human victims: on some bog bodies, such as the Weerdinge Men found in the northern Netherlands, the entrails have been partly drawn out through incisions. Modern techniques of forensic analysis now suggest that some injuries, such as broken bones and crushed skulls, were not the result of torture, but rather due to the weight of the bog. For example,
7956-640: The Drents Museum in Assen . Such reconstructions have also been made of the heads of Lindow Man (British Museum, London, United Kingdom), Grauballe Man , Girl of the Uchter Moor , Clonycavan Man , Roter Franz and Windeby I . Hundreds of bog bodies have been recovered and studied. The bodies have been most commonly found in the Northern European countries of Denmark , Germany ,
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#17327727028098112-699: The Great North Museum in Newcastle from August to November 2009 . The 2008–09 Manchester display, titled Lindow Man: A Bog Body Mystery Exhibition at the Manchester Museum , won the category "Best Archaeological Innovation" in the 2010 British Archaeological Awards, run by the Council for British Archaeology . Critics have complained that, by museum display of the remains, the body of Lindow Man has been objectified rather than treated with
8268-617: The Manchester Museum . Lindow Moss is a peat bog in Lindow, an area of Wilmslow, Cheshire, which has been used as common land since the medieval period. It formed after the last ice age , one of many such peat bogs in north-east Cheshire and the Mersey basin that formed in hollows caused by melting ice. Investigations have not yet discovered settlement or agricultural activity around the edge of Lindow Moss that would have been contemporary with Lindow Man, but analysis of pollen in
8424-620: The Mesolithic period. The oldest fleshed bog body is that of Cashel Man , which dates to 2000 BC during the Bronze Age. The overwhelming majority of bog bodies – including examples such as Tollund Man , Grauballe Man and Lindow Man – date to the Iron Age and have been found in northwest Europe, particularly Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Sweden, Poland, and Ireland. Such Iron Age bog bodies typically show
8580-599: The Neolithic and Bronze Age in different regions. In 1939, Martin Kamen and Samuel Ruben of the Radiation Laboratory at Berkeley began experiments to determine if any of the elements common in organic matter had isotopes with half-lives long enough to be of value in biomedical research. They synthesized C using the laboratory's cyclotron accelerator and soon discovered that the atom's half-life
8736-544: The Netherlands , Great Britain , and Ireland . In 1965, the German scientist Alfred Dieck catalogued more than 1,850 bog bodies, but later scholarship revealed that much of Dieck's work was erroneous, and the exact number of discovered bodies is unknown. Several bog bodies are notable for the high quality of their preservation and the substantial research by archaeologists and forensic scientists. A more complete list
8892-495: 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. Unlike most ancient human remains, bog bodies often retain their skin and internal organs due to the unusual conditions of the surrounding area. Combined, highly acidic water, low temperature, and
9048-417: The "pit-tanning" used on Grauballe Man, which took a year and a half, scientists settled on freeze-drying. In preparation, the body was covered in a solution of 15% polyethylene glycol 400 and 85% water to prevent it from becoming distorted. The body was then frozen solid and the ice vaporised to ensure Lindow Man did not shrink. Afterwards, Lindow Man was put in a specially constructed display case to control
9204-613: The 17th century; by 1995, the numbers had changed to 106 in England and Wales and 34 in Scotland. The remains covered a large time frame. In life, Lindow Man would have been between 5'6" and 5'8" (168 and 173 cm) tall and weighed about 132 pounds (60 kg). It was possible to ascertain that his age at death was around the mid-20s. The body retains a trimmed beard, moustache, and sideburns of brown hair, as well as healthy teeth with no visible cavities, and manicured fingernails, indicating he did little heavy or rough work. Apart from
9360-563: The 18th and 19th centuries, when such bodies were discovered, they were often removed from the bogs and given a Christian burial on consecrated church grounds in keeping with the religious beliefs of the community who found them, who often assumed that they were relatively modern. With the rise of antiquarianism in the 19th century, some people began to speculate that many of the bog bodies were not recent murder victims but were ancient in origin. In 1843, at Corselitze on Falster in Denmark,
9516-414: The 1960s to determine what the proportion of C in the atmosphere has been over the past 50,000 years. The resulting data, in the form of a calibration curve , is now used to convert a given measurement of radiocarbon in a sample into an estimate of the sample's calendar age. Other corrections must be made to account for the proportion of C in different types of organisms (fractionation), and
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#17327727028099672-680: The Early and Middle Archaic period in the Americas . The peat at the Florida sites is loosely consolidated and much wetter than in European bogs. As a result, the skeletons are well preserved, but skin and most internal organs have not been preserved. An exception is that preserved brains have been found in nearly 100 skulls at Windover Archaeological Site and in one of several burials at Little Salt Spring . Textiles were also preserved with some of
9828-474: The Iron Age collection at the British Museum , the importance of Lindow Man lies more in how he lived rather than how he died, as the circumstances surrounding his demise may never be fully established. As the peat was cleaned off the body in the laboratory, it became clear that Lindow Man had suffered a violent death. The injuries included a V-shaped, 3.5-centimetre (1.4 in) cut on top of his head;
9984-458: The Iron Age, humans have used the bogs to harvest peat , a common fuel source. On various occasions throughout history, peat diggers have come across bog bodies. Records of such finds go back as far as the 17th century, and in 1640 a bog body was discovered at Schalkholz Fen in Holstein , Germany. This was possibly the first-ever such discovery recorded. The first more fully documented account of
10140-477: The Otherworld, often of neck-rings , wristlets or ankle-rings made of bronze or more rarely gold . The archaeologist P. V. Glob believed that these were "offerings to the gods of fertility and good fortune." It is therefore widely speculated that the Iron Age bog bodies were thrown into the bog for similar reasons and that they were therefore examples of human sacrifice to the gods. Explicit reference to
10296-399: The actual calendar date, both because it uses the wrong value for the half-life of C , and because no correction (calibration) has been applied for the historical variation of C in the atmosphere over time. Carbon is distributed throughout the atmosphere, the biosphere, and the oceans; these are referred to collectively as the carbon exchange reservoir, and each component
10452-463: The amount of C it contains begins to decrease as the C undergoes radioactive decay . Measuring the proportion of C in a sample from a dead plant or animal, such as a piece of wood or a fragment of bone, provides information that can be used to calculate when the animal or plant died. The older a sample is, the less C there is to be detected, and because the half-life of C (the period of time after which half of
10608-418: The appropriate correction for the location of their samples. The effect also applies to marine organisms such as shells, and marine mammals such as whales and seals, which have radiocarbon ages that appear to be hundreds of years old. The northern and southern hemispheres have atmospheric circulation systems that are sufficiently independent of each other that there is a noticeable time lag in mixing between
10764-405: The area: Lindow I (Lindow Woman) refers to a human skull, Lindow III to a "fragmented headless body", and Lindow IV to the upper thigh of an adult male, possibly that of Lindow Man. After the discovery of Lindow Man, there were no further archaeological excavations at Lindow Moss until 1987. A large piece of skin was found by workmen on the elevator on 6 February 1987. On this occasion,
10920-438: The atmosphere might be expected to decrease over thousands of years, but C is constantly being produced in the lower stratosphere and upper troposphere , primarily by galactic cosmic rays , and to a lesser degree by solar cosmic rays. These cosmic rays generate neutrons as they travel through the atmosphere which can strike nitrogen-14 ( N ) atoms and turn them into C . The following nuclear reaction
11076-547: The atmosphere, is dissolved in the ocean, and is taken up by plants via photosynthesis . Animals eat the plants, and ultimately the radiocarbon is distributed throughout the biosphere . The ratio of C to C is approximately 1.25 parts of C to 10 parts of C . In addition, about 1% of the carbon atoms are of the stable isotope C . The equation for the radioactive decay of C is: 6 C → 7 N + e + ν e By emitting
11232-421: The atmospheric C / C ratio has not changed over time. Calculating radiocarbon ages also requires the value of the half-life for C . In Libby's 1949 paper he used a value of 5720 ± 47 years, based on research by Engelkemeir et al. This was remarkably close to the modern value, but shortly afterwards the accepted value was revised to 5568 ± 30 years, and this value was in use for more than
11388-498: The back garden of their bungalow, which was on the edge of the area of mossland where peat was being dug. The garden had been examined but no body was found. When Reyn-Bardt was confronted with the discovery of the skull from Lindow Moss, he confessed to the murder of his wife. The skull was later radiocarbon dated , revealing it to be nearly 2,000 years old. "Lindow Woman", as it became known, dated from around 210 AD. This emerged shortly before Reyn-Bardt went to trial, but he
11544-425: The biosphere, gives an apparent age of about 400 years for ocean surface water. Libby's original exchange reservoir hypothesis assumed that the C / C ratio in the exchange reservoir is constant all over the world, but it has since been discovered that there are several causes of variation in the ratio across the reservoir. The CO 2 in the atmosphere transfers to the ocean by dissolving in
11700-464: The body's state of decay. This is the case for the wound in the upper right chest and the laceration on the back of the skull. The cut on the right of the neck may have been the result of the body becoming bloated, causing the skin to split, but the straight edges of the wound suggest that it may have been caused by a sharp instrument, such as a knife. The ligature marks on the neck may have occurred after death. In some interpretations of Lindow Man's death,
11856-513: The body, it was re-covered with peat. The complete excavation of the block containing the remains was performed on 6 August. Until it could be dated, it was moved to the Macclesfield District General Hospital for storage. As the body of Malika Reyn-Bardt had still not been found, it was initially thought possible the body might be hers, until it was determined to be male, and radiocarbon dated. The owners of
12012-536: The bog bodies. After the Haraldskær Woman was unearthed in Denmark, she was exhibited as having been the legendary Queen Gunhild of the Early Mediaeval period. This view was disputed by the archaeologist J. J. A. Worsaae , who argued that the body was Iron Age in origin, like most bog bodies, and predated any historical persons by at least 500 years. The first bog body that was photographed
12168-459: The bog during the winter or early spring when the water temperature is cold – i.e., less than 4 °C (39 °F). This allows bog acids to saturate the tissues before decay can begin. Bacteria are unable to grow rapidly enough for decomposition at temperatures under 4 °C. The bog chemical environment involves a completely saturated acidic environment, where considerable concentrations of organic acids, which contribute most to
12324-464: The brain. Swelling along the edges of the wound indicated that Lindow Man had lived after being struck. The blow, possibly from a small axe, would have caused unconsciousness, but the victim could have survived for several hours afterwards. The ligature marks on the neck were caused by tightening the sinew cord found around his neck, possibly a garrotte or necklace. It is not possible to confirm whether some injuries took place before or after death, due to
12480-490: The burials, the oldest known textiles in Florida. A 7,000-year-old presumed peat pond burial site, the Manasota Key Offshore archaeological site, has been found under 21 feet (6.4 m) of water near Sarasota. Archaeologists believe that early Archaic Native Americans buried the bodies in a freshwater pond when the sea level was much lower. The peat in the ponds helped preserve the skeletons. Ever since
12636-454: The calibration curve (IntCal) also reports past atmospheric C concentration using this conventional age, any conventional ages calibrated against the IntCal curve will produce a correct calibrated age. When a date is quoted, the reader should be aware that if it is an uncalibrated date (a term used for dates given in radiocarbon years) it may differ substantially from the best estimate of
12792-435: The carbon exchange reservoir means that a straightforward calculation of the age of a sample based on the amount of C it contains will often give an incorrect result. There are several other possible sources of error that need to be considered. The errors are of four general types: In the early years of using the technique, it was understood that it depended on the atmospheric C / C ratio having remained
12948-500: The carbon exchange reservoir, but because of the long delay in mixing with the deep ocean, the actual effect is a 3% reduction. A much larger effect comes from above-ground nuclear testing, which released large numbers of neutrons into the atmosphere, resulting in the creation of C . From about 1950 until 1963, when atmospheric nuclear testing was banned , it is estimated that several tonnes of C were created. If all this extra C had immediately been spread across
13104-495: The constant creation of radiocarbon ( C ) in the Earth's atmosphere by the interaction of cosmic rays with atmospheric nitrogen . The resulting C combines with atmospheric oxygen to form radioactive carbon dioxide , which is incorporated into plants by photosynthesis ; animals then acquire C by eating the plants. When the animal or plant dies, it stops exchanging carbon with its environment, and thereafter
13260-647: The correct conditions for preservation of mammalian tissue. Most of these are located in colder climates near bodies of salt water. For example, in the area of Denmark where the Haraldskær Woman was recovered, salty air from the North Sea blows across the Jutland wetlands and provides an ideal environment for the growth of peat . As new peat replaces the old peat, the older material underneath rots and releases humic acid , also known as bog acid. The bog acids, with pH levels similar to vinegar, preserve human bodies in
13416-435: The date of the sample. Samples for dating need to be converted into a form suitable for measuring the C content; this can mean conversion to gaseous, liquid, or solid form, depending on the measurement technique to be used. Before this can be done, the sample must be treated to remove any contamination and any unwanted constituents. This includes removing visible contaminants, such as rootlets that may have penetrated
13572-527: The discovery of a bog body was in 1780 at a peat bog on Drumkeragh Mountain in County Down , Ireland; it was published by Elizabeth Rawdon, Countess of Moira , the wife of the local landowner. Such reports continued into the 18th century: for instance, a body was reportedly found on the Danish island of Fyn in 1773, whilst the Kibbelgaarn body was discovered in the Netherlands in 1791. Throughout
13728-494: The early 20th century hence gives an apparent date older than the true date. For the same reason, C concentrations in the neighbourhood of large cities are lower than the atmospheric average. This fossil fuel effect (also known as the Suess effect, after Hans Suess, who first reported it in 1955) would only amount to a reduction of 0.2% in C activity if the additional carbon from fossil fuels were distributed throughout
13884-401: The entire carbon exchange reservoir, it would have led to an increase in the C / C ratio of only a few per cent, but the immediate effect was to almost double the amount of C in the atmosphere, with the peak level occurring in 1964 for the northern hemisphere, and in 1966 for the southern hemisphere. The level has since dropped, as this bomb pulse or "bomb carbon" (as it
14040-543: The environment , maintaining the temperature at 20 °C (68 °F) and the humidity at 55%. Lindow Man is held in the British Museum . Before the remains were transferred there, people from North West England launched an unsuccessful campaign to keep the body in Manchester. The bog body has been on temporary display in other venues: at the Manchester Museum on three occasions, April to December 1987 , March to September 1991 , and April 2008 to April 2009 ; and at
14196-424: The equation above. The half-life of a radioactive isotope (usually denoted by t 1/2 ) is a more familiar concept than the mean-life, so although the equations above are expressed in terms of the mean-life, it is more usual to quote the value of C 's half-life than its mean-life. The currently accepted value for the half-life of C is 5,700 ± 30 years. This means that after 5,700 years, only half of
14352-471: The errors caused by the variation over time in the C / C ratio. These curves are described in more detail below . Coal and oil began to be burned in large quantities during the 19th century. Both are sufficiently old that they contain little or no detectable C and, as a result, the CO 2 released substantially diluted the atmospheric C / C ratio. Dating an object from
14508-486: The fatal injury, whether caused by the sinew cord tightening around the neck or by blows to the back of the head. After death, Lindow Man was deposited into Lindow Moss face down. Archaeologist Don Brothwell considers that many of the older bodies need re-examining with modern techniques, such as those used in the analysis of Lindow Man. The study of bog bodies, including those found in Lindow Moss, has contributed to
14664-908: The former is much easier to measure, and the latter can be easily derived: the depletion of C relative to C is proportional to the difference in the atomic masses of the two isotopes, so the depletion for C is twice the depletion of C . The fractionation of C , known as δ C , is calculated as follows: δ C 13 = ( ( C 13 C 12 ) sample ( C 13 C 12 ) standard − 1 ) × 1000 {\displaystyle \delta {\ce {^{13}C}}=\left({\frac {\left({\frac {{\ce {^{13}C}}}{{\ce {^{12}C}}}}\right)_{\text{sample}}}{\left({\frac {{\ce {^{13}C}}}{{\ce {^{12}C}}}}\right)_{\text{standard}}}}-1\right)\times 1000} ‰ where
14820-422: The fractured skull of Grauballe Man was at one time thought to have been caused by a blow to the head. However, a CT scan of Grauballe Man by Danish scientists determined his skull was fractured due to pressure from the bog long after his death. A number of skeletons found in Florida have been called "bog people". These skeletons are the remains of people buried in peat between 5,000 and 8,000 years ago, during
14976-526: The grains present revealed his diet to be mostly of cereals . He probably ate slightly charred bread, although the burning may have had ritual significance rather than being an accident. Some mistletoe pollen was also found in the stomach, indicating that Lindow Man died in March or April. One of the conclusions of the study was that the people buried in Lindow Moss may have had a less varied diet than their European counterparts. According to Jody Joy, curator of
15132-487: The ground, peat fell off the object and revealed it to be a human foot. The police were called and the foot was taken away for examination. Rick Turner , the Cheshire County Archaeologist , was notified of the discovery and succeeded in finding the rest of the body, which later became known as Lindow Man. Some skin had been exposed and had started to decay, so to prevent further deterioration of
15288-454: The initial C will remain; a quarter will remain after 11,400 years; an eighth after 17,100 years; and so on. The above calculations make several assumptions, such as that the level of C in the atmosphere has remained constant over time. In fact, the level of C in the atmosphere has varied significantly and as a result, the values provided by the equation above have to be corrected by using data from other sources. This
15444-404: The inner tree rings do not get their C replenished and instead only lose C through radioactive decay. Hence each ring preserves a record of the atmospheric C / C ratio of the year it grew in. Carbon-dating the wood from the tree rings themselves provides the check needed on the atmospheric C / C ratio: with a sample of known date, and a measurement of
15600-439: The laboratory and successfully demonstrated the preservation process, albeit over shorter time frames than the 2,500 years that Haraldskær Woman's body has survived. Most of the bog bodies discovered showed some aspects of decay or else were not properly conserved. When such specimens are exposed to the normal atmosphere, they may begin to decompose rapidly. As a result, many specimens have been effectively destroyed. As of 1979,
15756-560: The land where Lindow Man was found donated the body to the British Museum, and on 21 August it was transported to London. At the time, the body was dubbed "Pete Marsh" by Middlesex Hospital radiologists, a name subsequently adopted by local journalists, as was the similar "Pete Bogg". The find was announced to the press during the second week of the investigation. As the best-preserved bog body found in Britain, its discovery caused
15912-407: The latter half of the 20th century, scholars widely believed that bog bodies demonstrating injuries to the neck or head area were examples of ritual sacrifice. Bog bodies were associated with Germanic and Celtic cultures, specifically related to head worship. According to Brothwell, Lindow Man is one of the most complex examples of " overkill " in a bog body, and possibly has ritual meaning as it
16068-472: The living. More recent theories postulate that bog people were perceived as social outcasts or "witches", as legal hostages killed in anger over broken treaty arrangements, or as victims of an unusual death eventually buried in bogs according to traditional customs. The German scientist Alfred Dieck published a catalogue of more than 1,850 bog bodies that he had counted between 1939 and 1986, but most were unverified by documents or archaeological finds; and
16224-478: The low pH of bog waters, and aldehydes are present. Layers of sphagnum, which are compacted layers of irregular mosses and other peat debris, and peat assist in preserving the cadavers by enveloping the tissue in a cold immobilizing matrix, impeding water circulation and any oxygenation. An additional feature of anaerobic preservation by acidic bogs is the ability to conserve hair, clothing and leather items. Modern experimenters have been able to mimic bog conditions in
16380-510: The neighbourhood of the Furnas caldera in the Azores were found to have apparent ages that ranged from 250 years to 3320 years. Any addition of carbon to a sample of a different age will cause the measured date to be inaccurate. Contamination with modern carbon causes a sample to appear to be younger than it really is: the effect is greater for older samples. If a sample that is 17,000 years old
16536-521: The number of specimens that have been preserved following discovery was 53. The oldest bog body that has been identified is the Koelbjerg Man from Denmark, which has been dated to 8000 BC, during the Mesolithic period. Around 3900 BC, agriculture was introduced to Denmark, either through cultural exchange or by migrating farmers, marking the beginning of the Neolithic in the region. It
16692-420: The ocean surface have the same C ratios as the water they live in, and as a result of the reduced C / C ratio, the radiocarbon age of marine life is typically about 400 years. Organisms on land are in closer equilibrium with the atmosphere and have the same C / C ratio as the atmosphere. These organisms contain about 1.3% of the carbon in the reservoir; sea organisms have
16848-635: The organism from which the sample was taken died), and N is the number of atoms left after time t . λ is a constant that depends on the particular isotope; for a given isotope it is equal to the reciprocal of the mean-life – i.e. the average or expected time a given atom will survive before undergoing radioactive decay. The mean-life, denoted by τ , of C is 8,267 years, so the equation above can be rewritten as: t = ln ( N 0 / N ) ⋅ 8267 years {\displaystyle t=\ln(N_{0}/N)\cdot {\text{8267 years}}} The sample
17004-413: The peat suggests there was some cultivation in the vicinity. Once covering over 600 hectares (1,500 acres), the bog has now shrunk to a tenth of its original size. It is a dangerous place and an 18th-century writer recorded people drowning there. For centuries, the peat from the bog was used as fuel, and it continued to be extracted until the 1980s, by which time the process had been mechanised. Lindow Moss
17160-485: The peat. Forensic facial reconstruction is one technique used in studying the bog bodies. Originally designed for identifying modern faces in crime investigations, this technique is a way of working out the facial features of a person by the shape of their skull. The face of one bog body, Yde Girl , was reconstructed in 1992 by forensic pathologist Richard Neave of Manchester University using CT scans of her head. Yde Girl and her modern reconstruction are displayed at
17316-440: The plants and freshwater organisms that live in it. This is known as the hard water effect because it is often associated with calcium ions, which are characteristic of hard water; other sources of carbon such as humus can produce similar results, and can also reduce the apparent age if they are of more recent origin than the sample. The effect varies greatly and there is no general offset that can be applied; additional research
17472-419: The police left the investigation to the archaeologists. Over 70 pieces were found, constituting Lindow III. Although the bone was not as well preserved as that of Lindow Man, the other tissues survived in better condition. The final discovery was that of Lindow IV on 14 June 1988. Part of a left leg and buttocks were found on the elevator, from a site just 50 feet (15 m) west of where Lindow Man
17628-478: The practice of drowning slaves who had washed the cult image of Nerthus and were subsequently ritually drowned in Tacitus' Germania , suggesting that the bog bodies were sacrificial victims may be contrasted with a separate account ( Germania XII), in which victims of punitive execution were pinned in bogs using hurdles. Many bog bodies show signs of being stabbed , bludgeoned , hanged or strangled , or
17784-413: The pre-existing Egyptian chronology nor the new radiocarbon dating method could be assumed to be accurate, but a third possibility was that the C / C ratio had changed over time. The question was resolved by the study of tree rings : comparison of overlapping series of tree rings allowed the construction of a continuous sequence of tree-ring data that spanned 8,000 years. (Since that time
17940-405: The ratios in the atmosphere. This effect is known as isotopic fractionation. To determine the degree of fractionation that takes place in a given plant, the amounts of both C and C isotopes are measured, and the resulting C / C ratio is then compared to a standard ratio known as PDB. The C / C ratio is used instead of C / C because
18096-438: The remains of Worsley Man have survived, together with a shoe from another body. The remains have a date range from the early 1st to the 4th centuries. Investigation into the other bodies relies on contemporary descriptions of the discovery. The physical evidence allows a general reconstruction of how Lindow Man was killed, although some details are debated, it does not explain why he was killed. In North West England, there
18252-570: The respect due to the dead. This is part of a wider discussion about the scientific treatment of human remains and museum researchers and archaeologists using them as information sources. British archaeologist and anthropologist Don Brothwell ’s The Bog Man and the Archaeology of People provides an account of the modern scientific techniques employed to conserve and analyse Lindow Man. Celtic history, language and lore scholar Anne Ross and archaeological chemist Don Robins's The Life and Death of
18408-480: The rope used to strangle them still around their necks. Similarly to Tollund Man, Yde Girl , who was found in the Netherlands and was approximately 16 years old at her time of death, has a woollen rope with a sliding knot still tied around her neck. Yde Girl's remains showed evidence indicating that she had sustained trauma prior to her death. Aside from the rope preserved around her neck indicating strangulation, near her left clavicle there are marks indicating that she
18564-415: The same over the preceding few thousand years. To verify the accuracy of the method, several artefacts that were datable by other techniques were tested; the results of the testing were in reasonable agreement with the true ages of the objects. Over time, however, discrepancies began to appear between the known chronology for the oldest Egyptian dynasties and the radiocarbon dates of Egyptian artefacts. Neither
18720-456: The same proportion of C as the atmosphere, or in the case of marine animals or plants, with the ocean. Once it dies, it ceases to acquire C , but the C within its biological material at that time will continue to decay, and so the ratio of C to C in its remains will gradually decrease. Because C decays at a known rate, the proportion of radiocarbon can be used to determine how long it has been since
18876-410: The same way as fruit is preserved by pickling . In addition, peat bogs form in areas lacking drainage and hence are characterized by almost completely anaerobic conditions. This environment, highly acidic and devoid of oxygen, denies the prevalent subsurface aerobic organisms any opportunity to initiate decomposition . Researchers discovered that preservation also requires that the body is placed in
19032-412: The sample since its burial. Alkali and acid washes can be used to remove humic acid and carbonate contamination, but care has to be taken to avoid removing the part of the sample that contains the carbon to be tested. Particularly for older samples, it may be useful to enrich the amount of C in the sample before testing. This can be done with a thermal diffusion column. The process takes about
19188-500: The sinew is a garrotte used to break the victim's neck. However, Robert Connolly, a lecturer in physical anthropology, suggests that the sinew may have been ornamental and that ligature marks may have been caused by the body swelling when submerged. The rib fracture may also have occurred after death, perhaps during the discovery of the body, but is included in some narratives of the Lindow Man's death. The broken neck would have proven
19344-436: The stratigraphy of the peat appears undisturbed, Lindow Man may have been deposited into a pool that was already some 300 years old. Geographer K. E. Barber has argued against this hypothesis, saying that pools at Lindow Moss would have been too shallow, and suggests that the peat may have been peeled back to allow the burial and then replaced, leaving the stratigraphy apparently undisturbed. Lindow Man's last meal
19500-405: 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. On 13 May 1983, two peat workers at Lindow Moss, Andy Mould and Stephen Dooley, noticed an unusual object—about the size of a football—on the elevator taking peat to the shredding machine. They removed the object for closer inspection, joking that it
19656-401: The surface water as carbonate and bicarbonate ions; at the same time the carbonate ions in the water are returning to the air as CO 2 . This exchange process brings C from the atmosphere into the surface waters of the ocean, but the C thus introduced takes a long time to percolate through the entire volume of the ocean. The deepest parts of the ocean mix very slowly with
19812-590: The surface waters, and as a result water from some deep ocean areas has an apparent radiocarbon age of several thousand years. Upwelling mixes this "old" water with the surface water, giving the surface water an apparent age of about several hundred years (after correcting for fractionation). This effect is not uniform – the average effect is about 400 years, but there are local deviations of several hundred years for areas that are geographically close to each other. These deviations can be accounted for in calibration, and users of software such as CALIB can provide as an input
19968-422: The surface waters, and the mixing is uneven. The main mechanism that brings deep water to the surface is upwelling, which is more common in regions closer to the equator. Upwelling is also influenced by factors such as the topography of the local ocean bottom and coastlines, the climate, and wind patterns. Overall, the mixing of deep and surface waters takes far longer than the mixing of atmospheric CO 2 with
20124-474: The time of death, Lindow Man was a healthy male in his mid-20s, and may have been of high social status as his body shows little evidence of having done heavy or rough physical labour during his lifetime. There has been debate over the reason for his death; his death was violent and perhaps ritualistic. The recovered body has been preserved by freeze-drying and is on permanent display at the British Museum , although it occasionally travels to other venues such as
20280-446: The time of discovery whether a body had been buried in a bog for years, decades, or centuries. However, modern forensic and medical technologies (such as radiocarbon dating ) have been developed that allow researchers to more closely determine the age of the burial, the person's age at death, and other details. Scientists have been able to study the skin of the bog bodies, reconstruct their appearance and even determine what their last meal
20436-478: The tree-ring data series has been extended to 13,900 years.) In the 1960s, Hans Suess was able to use the tree-ring sequence to show that the dates derived from radiocarbon were consistent with the dates assigned by Egyptologists. This was possible because although annual plants, such as corn, have a C / C ratio that reflects the atmospheric ratio at the time they were growing, trees only add material to their outermost tree ring in any given year, while
20592-404: The two. The atmospheric C / C ratio is lower in the southern hemisphere, with an apparent additional age of about 40 years for radiocarbon results from the south as compared to the north. This is because the greater surface area of ocean in the southern hemisphere means that there is more carbon exchanged between the ocean and the atmosphere than in the north. Since the surface ocean
20748-434: The value of N (the number of atoms of C remaining in the sample), the carbon-dating equation allows the calculation of N 0 – the number of atoms of C in the sample at the time the tree ring was formed – and hence the C / C ratio in the atmosphere at that time. Equipped with the results of carbon-dating the tree rings, it became possible to construct calibration curves designed to correct
20904-465: The varying levels of C throughout the biosphere (reservoir effects). Additional complications come from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil, and from the above-ground nuclear tests performed in the 1950s and 1960s. Because the time it takes to convert biological materials to fossil fuels is substantially longer than the time it takes for its C to decay below detectable levels, fossil fuels contain almost no C . As
21060-430: The weather, the way they are buried, and the medium in which they are buried. Peat slows the decay of corpses. It was feared that, once Lindow Man was removed from that environment, which had preserved the body for nearly 2,000 years, the remains would rapidly start to deteriorate, so steps were taken to ensure preservation. After rejecting methods that had been used to maintain the integrity of other bog bodies, such as
21216-497: The ‰ sign indicates parts per thousand . Because the PDB standard contains an unusually high proportion of C , most measured δ C values are negative. For marine organisms, the details of the photosynthesis reactions are less well understood, and the δ C values for marine photosynthetic organisms are dependent on temperature. At higher temperatures, CO 2 has poor solubility in water, which means there
21372-402: Was "extravagant" for a straightforward murder. Archaeologists John Hodgson and Mark Brennand suggest that bog bodies may have been related to religious practice, although there is division in the academic community over this issue. In the case of Lindow Man, scholars debate whether the killing was murder or done as part of ritual. Anne Ross , an expert on Iron Age religion, proposed that the death
21528-512: Was a dinosaur egg. Once the peat had been removed, their discovery turned out to be a decomposing, incomplete human head with one eye and some hair intact. Forensics identified the skull as belonging to a European woman, probably aged 30–50. Police initially thought the skull was that of Malika Reyn-Bardt, who had disappeared in 1960 and was the subject of an ongoing investigation. While in prison on another charge, her husband, Peter Reyn-Bardt, had boasted that he had killed his wife and buried her in
21684-499: Was a very remote place in those days, an unlikely place for an ambush or a murder". According to Anne Ross, a scholar of Celtic history and Don Robins, a chemist at the University of London , Lindow Man was likely a sacrifice victim of extraordinary importance. They identified his stomach contents as including the undigested remains of a partially burned barley griddle cake of a kind used by the ancient Celts to select victims for sacrifice. Such cakes were torn into fragments and placed in
21840-514: Was also subjected to sharp force trauma. Yde Girl, and other bog bodies in Ireland, had the hair on one side of their heads closely cropped, although this could be due to one side of their head being exposed to oxygen for a longer period of time than the other. Some of the bog bodies seem consistently to have been members of the upper class: their fingernails are manicured, and tests on hair protein routinely record good nutrition. Strabo records that
21996-474: Was an example of human sacrifice and that the " triple death " (throat cut, strangled, and hit on the head) was an offering to several different gods. The wide date range for Lindow Man's death (2 BC to 119 AD) means he may have met his demise after the Romans conquered northern England in the 60s AD. As the Romans outlawed human sacrifice, such timing would open up other possibilities. This conclusion
22152-411: Was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this work. In nature, carbon exists as three isotopes . Carbon-12 ( C ) and carbon-13 ( C ) are stable and nonradioactive; carbon-14 ( C ), also known as "radiocarbon", is radioactive. The half-life of C (the time it takes for half of a given amount of C to decay ) is about 5,730 years, so its concentration in
22308-465: Was convicted on the evidence of his confession. A year later, a further discovery was made at Lindow Moss, just 820 feet (250 m) southwest of the Lindow Woman. On 1 August 1984, Andy Mould, who had been involved in the discovery of Lindow Woman, took what he thought was a piece of wood off the elevator of the peat-shredding machine. He threw the object at Eddie Slack, his workmate. When it hit
22464-418: 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. Dating the body has proven problematic, but it is thought that he was deposited into Lindow Moss, face down, sometime between 2 BC and 119 AD, in either the Iron Age or Romano-British period. At
22620-558: Was during the early part of this Neolithic period that a number of human corpses that were interred in the area's peat bogs left evidence that there had been resistance to its introduction. A disproportionate number of the Early Neolithic bodies found in Danish bogs were aged between 16 and 20 at the time of their death and deposition, and suggestions have been put forward that they were either human sacrifices or criminals executed for their socially deviant behaviour. An example of
22776-417: Was emphasised by historian Ronald Hutton, who challenged the interpretation of sacrificial death. Connolly suggests that as Lindow Man was found naked, he could have been the victim of a violent robbery. Joy said, "The jury really is still out on these bodies, whether they were aristocrats, priests, criminals, outsiders, whether they went willingly to their deaths or whether they were executed – but Lindow
22932-586: Was far longer than had been previously thought. This was followed by a prediction by Serge A. Korff , then employed at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia , that the interaction of thermal neutrons with N in the upper atmosphere would create C . It had previously been thought that C would be more likely to be created by deuterons interacting with C . At some time during World War II, Willard Libby , who
23088-528: Was found, it was estimated that 41 bog bodies had been found in England and Wales and 15 in Scotland. Encouraged by the discovery of Lindow Man, a gazetteer was compiled, which revealed a far higher number of bog bodies: over 85 in England and Wales and over 36 in Scotland. Prior to the discovery of the bodies in Lindow Moss, British bog bodies had been a relatively neglected subject compared to European examples. The interest caused by Lindow Man led to more in-depth research of accounts of discoveries in bogs since
23244-485: Was found. Nearly three months later, on 12 September, a right thigh was discovered in the peat on the bucket of a digger. The proximity of the discovery sites, coupled with the fact that the remains were shown to come from an adult male, means that Lindow IV is probably part of Lindow Man. Lindow Man marked the first discovery in Britain of a well-preserved bog body; its condition was comparable to that of Grauballe Man and Tollund Man from Denmark . Before Lindow Man
23400-728: Was from their stomach contents since peat marsh preserves soft internal tissue. Radiocarbon dating is also common as it accurately gives the date of the find, most usually from the Iron Age. For example, Tollund man of Denmark, whose remains were recovered in 1950, has undergone radiocarbon analyses that place his death date to around the 3rd or 4th century. More modern analyses using stable isotope measurements have allowed scientists to study bone collagen collected from Tollund Man to determine his diet as being terrestrial-based. Their teeth also indicate their age at death and what type of food they ate throughout their lifetime. Dental caries, which are cavities within teeth, can direct archaeologist toward
23556-482: Was hierarchical. They were agriculturalists , raising animals in captivity as well as growing crops. In some parts of northern Europe, they also fished . Although independent of the Roman Empire , which dominated southern Europe at this time, the inhabitants traded with the Romans. For these people, the bogs held some sort of liminal significance, and indeed, they placed into them votive offerings intended for
23712-510: Was originally done with beta-counting devices, which counted the amount of beta radiation emitted by decaying C atoms in a sample. More recently, accelerator mass spectrometry has become the method of choice; it counts all the C atoms in the sample and not just the few that happen to decay during the measurements; it can therefore be used with much smaller samples (as small as individual plant seeds), and gives results much more quickly. The development of radiocarbon dating has had
23868-403: Was preserved in his stomach and intestines and was analysed in some detail. It was hoped that investigations into the contents of the stomach would shed light on the contemporary diet, as was the case with Grauballe Man and Tollund Man in the 1950s. The analysis of the contents of the digestive system of bog bodies had become one of the principal endeavours of investigating such remains. Analysis of
24024-612: Was the Iron Age Rendswühren Man , discovered in 1871, at the Heidmoor Fen, near Kiel in Germany. His body was subsequently smoked as an early attempt at conservation and put on display in a museum. With the rise of modern archaeology in the early 20th century, archaeologists began to excavate and investigate bog bodies more carefully and thoroughly. Until the mid-20th century, it was not readily apparent at
24180-785: Was then at Berkeley, learned of Korff's research and conceived the idea that it might be possible to use radiocarbon for dating. In 1945, Libby moved to the University of Chicago , where he began his work on radiocarbon dating. He published a paper in 1946 in which he proposed that the carbon in living matter might include C as well as non-radioactive carbon. Libby and several collaborators proceeded to experiment with methane collected from sewage works in Baltimore, and after isotopically enriching their samples they were able to demonstrate that they contained C . By contrast, methane created from petroleum showed no radiocarbon activity because of its age. The results were summarized in
24336-424: Was unlikely. It was found that the copper content of the skin of the torso was higher than the control areas, suggesting that the theory of Pyatt et al. may have been correct. However, the conclusion was ambiguous as the overall content was above that expected of a male, and variations across the body may have been due to environmental factors. Similarly, green deposits were found in the hair, originally thought to be
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