Editing Bog body (section)

===Iron Age===
[[File:Windeby_I_upper-body.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.2|[[Windeby I]], the body of a teenage boy, found in Schleswig, Germany]]
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 [[Wetlands and islands in Germanic paganism|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 was hierarchical. They were [[agriculture|agriculturalists]], raising animals in captivity as well as growing crops. In some parts of northern Europe, they also [[fishing|fished]]. Although independent of the [[Roman Empire]], which dominated southern Europe at this time, the inhabitants traded with the Romans.{{Sfn|Glob|1969|pp=121-125}}

For these people, the bogs held some sort of liminal significance, and indeed, they placed into them [[votive offering]]s intended for the Otherworld, often of [[Torc|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."{{Sfn|Glob|1969|pp=136}} 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.<ref>{{cite news |last=Vergano |first=Dan |title=Bog bodies baffle scientists |work=USA Today |access-date=14 December 2011 |url=https://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/columnist/vergano/2011-01-16-bog-bodies_N.htm |date=16 January 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120916124731/http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/columnist/vergano/2011-01-16-bog-bodies_N.htm |archive-date=16 September 2012}}</ref> Explicit reference to the practice of drowning slaves who had washed the [[cult image]] of [[Nerthus]] and were subsequently ritually drowned in Tacitus' ''[[Germania (book)|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.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Miranda |last=Green |url=http://www.ffzg.unizg.hr/arheo/ska/tekstovi/ritual_victims.pdf |title=Humans as Ritual Victims in the Later Prehistory of Western Europe |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110721102734/http://www.ffzg.unizg.hr/arheo/ska/tekstovi/ritual_victims.pdf |archive-date=21 July 2011 |journal=Oxford Journal of Archaeology |year=1998 |volume=17 |number=2 |page=169–190 [177, 179] |doi=10.1111/1468-0092.00057 }}</ref>

Many bog bodies show signs of being [[Stabbing|stabbed]], [[bludgeon (weapon)|bludgeoned]], [[hanged]] or [[strangle]]d, or 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, Rendsburg-Eckernförde|Osterby]], Germany, in 1948, the head had been deposited in the bog without its body.{{Sfn|Glob|1969|pp=116-117}}

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.{{Sfn|Glob|1969|pp=107}} In 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".{{Sfn|Glob|1969|pp=105}} 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 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.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=van Beek |first1=R |last2=Candel |first2=JHJ |last3=Quik |first3=C |last4=Bos |first4=JAA |last5=Gouw-Bouman |first5=MTIJ |last6=Makaske |first6=B |last7=Maas |first7=GJ |date=1 July 2019 |title=The landscape setting of bog bodies: Interdisciplinary research into the site location of Yde Girl, The Netherlands |journal=The Holocene |language=en |volume=29 |issue=7 |pages=1206–1222 |bibcode=2019Holoc..29.1206V |doi=10.1177/0959683619838048 |issn=0959-6836 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Yde Girl's remains showed evidence indicating that she had sustained trauma prior to her death.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Murray |first=Carrie Ann |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IB0iDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA211 |title=Diversity of Sacrifice: Form and Function of Sacrificial Practices in the Ancient World and Beyond |publisher=SUNY Press |year=2016 |isbn=978-1-4384-5996-7 |language=en}}</ref> Aside from the rope preserved around her neck indicating strangulation, near her left clavicle there are marks indicating that she was also subjected to sharp force trauma.<ref name=":1" /> 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 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.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Mummytombs.com |url=http://www.mummytombs.com/bog/weerdinge.htm |url-status=dead |website=www.mummytombs.com |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100402125838/http://www.mummytombs.com/bog/weerdinge.htm |archivedate=2 April 2010}}</ref>

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.<ref name="Lange"/> For example, 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.<ref name="Lange" />