DOCSLIB.ORG

Bog Body Drenthe the Yde Girl in the Raised Bog of Drenthe

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Bog Body Drenthe the Yde Girl in the Raised Bog of Drenthe What? Reconstruction of the living environment of Bog body Drenthe the Yde Girl in the raised bog of Drenthe. Why? There was a time when more than half of the Netherlands was covered in raised bogs. At most, five per cent of that remains today. Researchers are examining how these raised bogs were used for centuries and how we can conserve the last of the raised bogs, an important part of the country’s heritage. Who? Roy van Beek, Wageningen University & Cold case solved Research in collaboration with the Faculty of Geosciences at Utrecht University and the ADC, an archaeological research and cultural heritage centre. Where? The vicinity of Yde in North Drenthe. Result? after 2,000 years The Yde Girl was probably killed close to her A cadaver with a half-shaved head, strangled and She was barely sixteen in 1897 was about sixty meters in diameter and home near a bog about sixty metres in dumped in a pond. Presumably the Yde Girl, the when she was strangled no more than a metre or two deep. When the diameter and no more than a metre or two deep. She was probably tried for a crime or Netherlands’ most famous bog body, was killed by her and thrown into a pond. land was reparcelled in the 20th century, it shif- offered as a sacrifice to the gods. own fellow villagers. These are the findings of a new Two thousand years later the ted and filled with sand, but this area is still visi- environmental analysis of the scene of the crime, Yde Girl was found again. The bly damp in the fields. An analysis of the ancient more than 2,000 years after the deed was committed. girl, who was approximately pollens in the soil has revealed that the bog was TEXT: MARION DE BOO IMAGE: DRENTS MUSEUM 1.40 metres tall, was wearing a surrounded by spots of fairly open deciduous fo- worn-out woollen cape, had a braided, woollen rest with oak, beech, hornbeam and linden, in- strangulation band around her neck and a stab terspersed with heath and grassland, raised wound near her left collarbone. Half of her long, bogs and streams. reddish-blond hair had been shaved off. Wage- ningen archaeologist and raised bog expert Roy Diverse landscape van Beek and his colleagues reconstructed the The closest farm could not have been more than Yde Girl’s living environment and suspects that a kilometre from the site. Every couple of kilome- the perpetrators were people from her own villa- tres, there were small hamlets in the landscape ge. with no more than twenty to thirty inhabitants. There were burial grounds near most villages. On Close to home the higher sand ridges were networks of fields Contrary to what you may expect, the murder separated by earthen walls (referred to as Celtic didn’t take place in a vast, inhospitable, remote fields). Cows and sheep grazed in the damp peat bog marsh, where the spirits of wise women stream valleys. Three enclosed ‘strongholds’ roam in the mist at ungodly hours. In fact, it pro- were also found around the site, but they’re so bably happened close to home, about a kilome- small that their purpose is more likely to have tre away, in a half-open cultural landscape that been spiritual than military. ‘We weren’t able to the then inhabitants had already tamed and put identify any differences in status at the houses to intensive use. ‘Members of the public were and the burial sites,’ says Van Beek. ‘Presumably probably present, but not many, because there this concerned an egalitarian society. There was simply wasn’t enough room in this place,’ conclu- probably some cooperation between the villa- des Van Beek. ges, because it must have taken great effort to build all those Celtic fields and other fortificati- Broader picture ons.’ Hundreds of bog bodies have been found in nor- thwestern Europe, usually during peat extrac- Sacrifice to the gods The bog body of the Yde Girl tion, 48 of which were discovered in the Nether- So the key question remains: Why was the Yde as it was found by two peat cutters in 1897. Researcher lands. Some were given a posthumous burial Girl killed. ‘We still don’t know for certain,’ says Roy van Beek became after being discovered and some simply vanis- Van Beek. ‘Presumably the decision was made at fascinated by these kinds of hed. Others are now on exhibition at the Drents the local level, by several villages in unison. She finds at a young age. ‘I Museum in Assen. ‘You could fill your bookcase may have been tried for adultery or another cri- already wanted to be an with works about bog bodies,’ says Van Beek. me. Or perhaps she was a sacrifice to the gods, archaeologist as a small boy in Salland,’ says Van Beek, ‘They describe their clothing, their diseases, their which was most common in times of unrest, war now an expert in raised bogs. last suppers, the ritual artefacts that were found and disease. The one doesn’t preclude the other, ‘I was always looking for with them in the marshes. But no one has ever by the way, because criminals were sometimes fragments. When I was about painted a broader picture. How did these people offered to the gods as well and thrown into the fourteen, there was a live, what kind of a society was it? A good land- bog after being killed.’ It’s striking that there are fantastic European exhibition about bog bodies scape analysis can provide answers to some of no other known archaeological finds from this in the Drents Museum in these questions.’ bog. Nor can we say with any certainty that the Assen. They’re so appealing Yde Girl really did live in the Yde area. ‘Prehistoric because the acidic peat Peat cutters people were more mobile than was previously preserves them so well. Van Beek and his colleagues’ reconstruction re- thought. For example, it turns out that an archer People from thousands of years ago! I was completely veals that the bog in Drenthe where two peat found near Stonehenge was actually from the fascinated. My parents cutters, to their dismay, discovered the Yde Girl Alps,’ says Van Beek. thought it was a bit strange.’ Research on the care that vulnerable elderly people need led to the Attaching transmitters to great knots has resulted establishment of WijkKliniek (‘Neighbourhood Clinic’) with 24 beds. Elderly in the discovery of 25 new foraging areas of these 24 people with acute medical problems can go there for help 24/7. www.nwo.nl/24 birds in Southeast Asia alone. www.nwo.nl/25 25.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Exploring the Potential of the Strontium Isotope Tracing System in Denmark
    Danish Journal of Archaeology, 2012 Vol. 1, No. 2, 113–122, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21662282.2012.760889 Exploring the potential of the strontium isotope tracing system in Denmark Karin Margarita Frei* Danish Foundation’s Centre for Textile Research, CTR, SAXO Institute, Copenhagen University, Copenhagen, Denmark (Received 1 October 2012; final version received 14 November 2012) Migration and trade are issues important to the understanding of ancient cultures. There are many ways in which these topics can be investigated. This article provides an overview of a method based on an archaeological scientific methodology developed to address human and animal mobility in prehistory, the so-called strontium isotope tracing system. Recently, new research has enabled this methodology to be further developed so as to be able to apply it to archaeological textile remains and thus to address issues of textile trade. In the following section, a brief introduction to strontium isotopes in archaeology is presented followed by a state-of-the- art summary of the construction of a baseline to characterize Denmark’s bioavailable strontium isotope range. The creation of such baselines is a prerequisite to the application of the strontium isotope system for provenance studies, as they define the local range and thus provide the necessary background to potentially identify individuals originating from elsewhere. Moreover, a brief introduction to this novel methodology for ancient textiles will follow along with a few case studies exemplifying how this methodology can provide evidence of trade. The strontium isotopic system the strontium isotopic signatures are not changed in – from – Strontium is a member of the alkaline earth metal of a geological perspective very small time spans, due to Group IIA in the periodic table.
    [Show full text]
  • Development Management Policies and Designations Addendum (Proposed Main Modifications)
    A fairer city Salford City Council Publication Salford Local Plan: Development Management Policies and Designations Addendum (Proposed Main Modifications) Draft for approval (January 2021) This document can be provided in large print, Braille and digital formats on request. Please telephone 0161 793 3782. 0161 793 3782 0161 000 0000 Contents PREFACE ............................................................................................................................................. 4 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 9 CHAPTER 3 PURPOSE AND OBJECTIVES ........................................................................................... 14 • Strategic objective 10 ..................................................................................... 14 CHAPTER 4 A FAIRER SALFORD ........................................................................................................ 15 Policy F2 Social value and inclusion............................................................................. 16 CHAPTER 8 AREA POLICIES ............................................................................................................... 18 Policy AP1 City Centre Salford ............................................................................................. 19 CHAPTER 12 TOWN CENTRES AND RETAIL DEVELOPMENT ............................................................. 24 Policy TC1 Network of designated centres ....................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • G5 Mysteries Mummy Kids.Pdf
    QXP-985166557.qxp 12/8/08 10:00 AM Page 2 This book is dedicated to Tanya Dean, an editor of extraordinary talents; to my daughters, Kerry and Vanessa, and their cousins Doug Acknowledgments and Jessica, who keep me wonderfully “weird;” to the King Family I would like to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of some of the foremost of Kalamazoo—a minister mom, a radical dad, and two of the cutest mummy experts in the world in creating this book and making it as accurate girls ever to visit a mummy; and to the unsung heroes of free speech— as possible, from a writer’s (as opposed to an expert’s) point of view. Many librarians who battle to keep reading (and writing) a broad-based thanks for the interviews and e-mails to: proposition for ALL Americans. I thank and salute you all. —KMH Dr. Johan Reinhard Dario Piombino-Mascali Dr. Guillermo Cock Dr. Elizabeth Wayland Barber Julie Scott Dr. Victor H. Mair Mandy Aftel Dr. Niels Lynnerup Dr. Johan Binneman Clare Milward Dr. Peter Pieper Dr. Douglas W. Owsley Also, thank you to Dr. Zahi Hawass, Heather Pringle, and James Deem for Mysteries of the Mummy Kids by Kelly Milner Halls. Text copyright their contributions via their remarkable books, and to dozens of others by © 2007 by Kelly Milner Halls. Reprinted by permission of Lerner way of their professional publications in print and online. Thank you. Publishing Group. -KMH PHOTO CREDITS | 5: Mesa Verde mummy © Denver Public Library, Western History Collection, P-605. 7: Chinchero Ruins © Jorge Mazzotti/Go2peru.com.
    [Show full text]
  • Questions and Clues About Life and Death in Iron Age Europe
    R E S O U R C E L I B R A R Y V I D E O Bog Bodies Bog bodies—mummified corpses still intact 2,000 years after their death—offer questions and clues about life and death in Iron Age Europe. G R A D E S 9 - 12+ S U B J E C T S Chemistry, Earth Science, Geography, Human Geography, Social Studies, World History For the complete videos with media resources, visit: http://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/bog-bodies/ Most bog bodies are victims. Violently killed thousands of years ago, the corpses of men, women, and children have been naturally preserved by the unique chemistry of Northern Europe’s bogs. Today, archaeologists and anthropologists are acting as crime-scene investigators. They’re using knowledge of chemistry, geology, and human behavior to better understand the circumstances that led to these gruesome deaths. Watch this four-minute video from the National Geographic Channel, then discuss the questions in the Questions tab. Questions What are some differences between Europe’s bog bodies and their more glamorous cousins, Egyptian mummies? Bog bodies are “accidental mummies,” preserved by the natural chemistry of the bog. Egyptian mummies, on the other hand, were intentionally preserved in a complicated process developed over time by experts. Another difference between bog bodies and Egyptian mummies is the bodies themselves. Bog bodies are anonymous victims of ritual sacrifice. Egyptian mummies are mostly royalty or high-ranking officials honored with fantastic splendor. Archaeologists are challenging the second assumption, however. According to one expert quoted in National Geographic magazine, all the bog bodies discovered in Ireland “were buried on borders between ancient Irish kingdoms.
    [Show full text]
  • Strontium Isotope Investigations of the Haraldskær Woman
    ArcheoSciences Revue d'archéométrie 39 | 2015 Varia Strontium isotope investigations of the Haraldskær Woman – a complex record of various tissues Analyse des isotopes du strontium de la Femme de Haraldskær – un dossier complexe de tissus divers Karin Margarita Frei, Ulla Mannering, T. Douglas Price and Rasmus Birch Iversen Electronic version URL: https://journals.openedition.org/archeosciences/4407 DOI: 10.4000/archeosciences.4407 ISBN: 978-2-7535-4778-0 ISSN: 2104-3728 Publisher Presses universitaires de Rennes Printed version Date of publication: 31 December 2015 Number of pages: 93-101 ISBN: 978-2-7535-4776-6 ISSN: 1960-1360 Electronic reference Karin Margarita Frei, Ulla Mannering, T. Douglas Price and Rasmus Birch Iversen, “Strontium isotope investigations of the Haraldskær Woman – a complex record of various tissues”, ArcheoSciences [Online], 39 | 2015, Online since 31 December 2017, connection on 21 September 2021. URL: http:// journals.openedition.org/archeosciences/4407 ; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/archeosciences.4407 Article L.111-1 du Code de la propriété intellectuelle. Strontium Isotope Investigations of the Haraldskær Woman – A Complex Record of Various Tissues Analyses des isotopes du strontium de la Femme de Haraldskær – un dossier complexe de tissus divers Karin Margarita Freia, Ulla Manneringb, T. Douglas Pricec and Rasmus Birch Iversend Résumé : Bog bodies form a unique group of archaeological human remains which offer unparalleled insight into the past. Unlike most ancient human remains, bog bodies have preserved their skin and other soft tissues through natural tanning processes in the bogs. We present the first comprehensive strontium isotope investigation of the Haraldskær Woman and her garments, dated to the Scandinavian Pre-Roman Iron Age (500-1 BC).
    [Show full text]
  • The Iceman, Mummies, and Bog Bodies from Around the World
    The Iceman, Mummies, and Bog Bodies From Around the World Social Studies Grade 6 What is a Mummy? A mummy, to put it bluntly, is an old dead body. But unlike a skeleton or a fossil, a mummy still retains some of the soft tissue it had when it was alive— most often skin, but sometimes organs and muscles, as well. This tissue preservation can happen by accident or through human intervention but, in either case, it occurs when bacteria and fungi are unable to grow on a corpse and cause its decay. How are Mummies Made? Historically, quick drying has been the most common method of mummification, since bacteria and fungi cannot grow where there is no water. Mummies can be dried in the sun, with fire or smoke, or with chemicals. Since most bacteria and fungi cannot live in sub-freezing temperatures, permanent freezing can also produce a mummy. Placing a body in an oxygen-free environment, such as a peat bog, will cause mummification also, because the microorganisms cannot live without air. Another way to create a mummy is to bury it in soil containing chemicals that kill bacteria and fungi. Why are Mummies Made? Some of the world's best known mummies were created accidentally, when a body's final resting place happened to prevent the natural process of decay. But many cultures around the world have sought to mummify their dead on purpose. The process of artificially preserving a dead body is called "embalming," and the methods used are as varied as the cultures themselves.
    [Show full text]
  • Bog Bodies' Unveiled in Ireland
    PAST Peeblesshire Archaeological Society Times Winter 2005 Iron Age 'bog bodies' unveiled in Ireland Archaeologists have unveiled two Iron Old Croghan Man, as it has become The Clonycavan man was a young Age 'bog bodies' which were known, was missing a head and lower male no more than 5ft 2in tall. found in the Republic of Ireland. The limbs. It was discovered by workmen Beneath his hair, which retains its bodies, which are both male and clearing a drainage ditch through a peat unusual ‘raised’ style, was a massive have been dated to more than 2,000 bog. wound. This had been caused by a years ago, probably belong to the heavy cutting object that smashed victims of a ritual sacrifice. Although the police were open his skull. Chemical analysis of initially called in, an inspection by the the hair showed that Clonycavan In common with other prehistoric bog state pathologist confirmed man's diet was rich in vegetables in bodies, they show signs of having been that this was an archaeological case. the months leading up to his death, tortured before their deaths. Both bodies were subsequently taken suggesting he died in summer. It also to the National Museum of Ireland in revealed that he had been using a Details of the finds are to be Dublin. Over the last 18 months, an type of Iron Age hair gel; this appears outlined in a BBC Timewatch international team of experts has been to have been composed of vegetable documentary to be screened examining the bodies to learn when plant oil mixed with a resin on BBC2 on Friday, January 20 and how they lived and died.
    [Show full text]
  • Celtic Clothing: Bronze Age to the Sixth Century the Celts Were
    Celtic Clothing: Bronze Age to the Sixth Century Lady Brighid Bansealgaire ni Muirenn Celtic/Costumers Guild Meeting, 14 March 2017 The Celts were groups of people with linguistic and cultural similarities living in central Europe. First known to have existed near the upper Danube around 1200 BCE, Celtic populations spread across western Europe and possibly as far east as central Asia. They influenced, and were influenced by, many cultures, including the Romans, Greeks, Italians, Etruscans, Spanish, Thracians, Scythians, and Germanic and Scandinavian peoples. Chronology: Bronze Age: 18th-8th centuries BCE Hallstatt culture: 8th-6th centuries BCE La Tène culture: 6th century BCE – 1st century CE Iron Age: 500 BCE – 400 CE Roman period: 43-410 CE Post (or Sub) Roman: 410 CE - 6th century CE The Celts were primarily an oral culture, passing knowledge verbally rather than by written records. We know about their history from archaeological finds such as jewelry, textile fragments and human remains found in peat bogs or salt mines; written records from the Greeks and Romans, who generally considered the Celts as barbarians; Celtic artwork in stone and metal; and Irish mythology, although the legends were not written down until about the 12th century. Bronze Age: Egtved Girl: In 1921, the remains of a 16-18 year old girl were found in a barrow outside Egtved, Denmark. Her clothing included a short tunic, a wrap-around string skirt, a woolen belt with fringe, bronze jewelry and pins, and a hair net. Her coffin has been dated by dendrochronology (tree-trunk dating) to 1370 BCE. Strontium isotope analysis places her origin as south west Germany.
    [Show full text]
  • The Lindow Man Exhibition at the Manchester Museum
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Dokumenten-Publikationsserver der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Courting controversy - the Lindow Man exhibition at the Manchester Museum BRYAN SITCH Abstract The discovery of the well-preserved body of a 2,000 year old man at Lindow Moss near Wilmslow, Manchester, UK, in 1984 provided archaeologists and forensic scientists with a veritable time capsule of evidence concerning life during the late Iron Age and early Roman period. Not only was the body of considerable antiquity, but the forensic examination established that the man had suffered a violent death. He had been hit on the head, apparently garrotted and had his throat cut (the so-called ‘Triple Death’) in what appears to have been a ritual sacrifice to the gods. Exhibitions about Lindow Man, as the body came to be known, were held at the Manchester Museum in 1987 and 1991 to widespread acclaim. This article discusses the approach taken by the museum in its most recent exhibition about Lindow Man (April 2008-April 2009) which proved to be unexpectedly controversial. Acknowledging alternative interpretations of Lindow Man’s death, and changing attitudes towards human remains in society, the Museum adopted a polyvocal approach to the exhibition. Eight specially-selected contributors shared their personal thoughts and theories about the dead man. These included a forensic scientist, peat diggers involved in the discovery, a landscape archaeologist, a member of the local community, a Pagan and museum curators from both the British Museum and the Manchester Museum. Personal items belonging to each of the contributors appeared alongside more conventional museum exhibits in order to explore the different meanings that Lindow Man has for different people.
    [Show full text]
  • “Singled out for Loss”: Narrating Lost American Origins, 1925-1991
    “Singled Out for Loss”: Narrating Lost American Origins, 1925-1991 Megan Elizabeth Haury Charlottesville, Virginia M.A., Georgetown University, 2004 B.A., University of Virginia, 2001 A Dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English University of Virginia December, 2015 ii © Copyright By Megan Elizabeth Haury All Rights Reserved December 2015 iii Abstract “‘Singled Out for Loss’: Narrating Lost American Origins, 1925-1991” argues that narratives of American national origin, far from Being static, singular historical experiences, reflect a process of constant and continuing revision. Twentieth century authors map transnational foundations of America through the construction of narratives formally and thematically centered on loss, which highlight the unstable nature of national origin itself, and offer a deep ambivalence aBout Both national identity and loss itself. Even in the act of restoring forgotten histories of origin that tie America to elsewhere materially, narratively, and culturally, the texts maintain an aesthetic of loss in an attempt to resist reinscribing the power dynamics of linear history and American myth that they hope to destaBilize. William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! (1936), Maxine Hong Kingston’s China Men (1980), Willa Cather’s The Professor’s House (1925), and Agha Shahid Ali’s A Nostalgist’s Map of America (1991) plot a diverse experience of American spaces, each text restoring violent and troubling histories to the origins of America. Whether in the novel, memoir, or through poetry, narrating lost histories undermines the staBility of national identity by questioning the singularity of founding America and the authenticity of claims for ancestry.
    [Show full text]
  • Bog Bodies Are the Most Recognisable Faces of Prehistoric Peoples from Northern Europe, Giving Them International Stature
    1 Introduction 1 Once upon a time, these heads and limbs existed in order to express and embody the needs and impulses of an individual human life. They were the vehicles of dif- ferent biographies and they compelled singular attention, they proclaimed ‘I am I’. Even when they were first dead, at the moment of their sacrifice or atrocity, their bodies and their limbs manifested biography and conserved vestiges of personal identity: they were corpses. But when a corpse becomes a bog body, the personal identity drops away; the bog body does not proclaim ‘I am I’; instead it says some- thing like ‘I am it’ or ‘I am you’. Like the work of art, the bog body asks to be con- templated; it eludes the biographical and enters the realm of the aesthetic. (Heaney 1999: 4) The matter of the bog Bog bodies are the most recognisable faces of prehistoric peoples from northern Europe, giving them international stature. Their preserved remains are the result of a unique natural phenomenon that provides archaeologists with unparalleled insights into the lives and deaths of people from the past. Aspects of appearance, dress, disease and trauma can be examined in ways that are simply not possible for the majority of skeletonised and cremated human remains from prehistory. This book will argue that there is no more powerful archaeological lens through which to view not just daily life in later prehistory but also conflict, customs, beliefs and relations with the environment. Through a synthesis of new discoveries and novel analytical techniques deployed on existing remains, alongside original archival, folkloric and landscape research, it will present the most up-t o- date study of these remains.
    [Show full text]
  • An Exploration Into the Biocultural Importance of Bog Bodies Reilly Boone Western Kentucky University, [email protected]
    Western Kentucky University TopSCHOLAR® Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Honors College at WKU Projects Spring 2019 Natural Mummies of Northern Europe: An Exploration into the Biocultural Importance of Bog Bodies Reilly Boone Western Kentucky University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/stu_hon_theses Part of the Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Boone, Reilly, "Natural Mummies of Northern Europe: An Exploration into the Biocultural Importance of Bog Bodies" (2019). Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects. Paper 800. https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/stu_hon_theses/800 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by TopSCHOLAR®. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors College Capstone Experience/ Thesis Projects by an authorized administrator of TopSCHOLAR®. For more information, please contact [email protected]. NATURAL MUMMIES OF NORTHERN EUROPE: AN EXPLORATION INTO THE BIOCULTURAL IMPORTANCE OF BOG BODIES A Capstone Project presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Bachelor of Science with Honors College Graduate Distinction at Western Kentucky University By Reilly S. Boone May 2019 ***** CE/T Committee: Doctor Darlene Applegate, Chair Doctor Jean-Luc Houle Doctor Christopher Keller Copyright by Reilly S. Boone 2019 ii This thesis is dedicated to Mrs. Perryman: thank you for giving a name to my interest in other ways of life. Without you I would have struggled to find a way to balance the cultural and biological fields I adore. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the professors in the Department of Folk Studies and Anthropology, especially Dr. Darlene Applegate and Dr. Jean-Luc Houle, for their encouragement throughout my time at WKU and for providing me with opportunities to experience the field of anthropology to the fullest extent.
    [Show full text]