Bog
Archaeology

The anaerobic environment and presence of tannic acids within bogs can result in the remarkable preservation of organic material. Finds of such material have been made in Slovenia, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Russia, and the United Kingdom. Some bogs have preserved bog-wood, such as ancient oak logs useful in dendrochronology. They have yielded extremely well-preserved bog bodies, with hair, organs, and skin intact, buried there thousands of years ago after apparent Germanic and Celtic human sacrifice. Excellent examples of such human specimens include the Haraldskær Woman and Tollund Man in Denmark, and Lindow man found at Lindow Common in England. The Tollund Man was so well preserved that when the body was discovered in 1950, the discoverers thought it was a recent murder victim and researchers were even able to tell the last meal that the Tollund Man ate before he died: porridge and fish. This process happens because of the low oxygen levels of bogs in combination with the high acidity. These anaerobic conditions lead to some of the best-preserved mummies and offer much archeological insight into society as far as 8,000 years back. Céide Fields in County Mayo in Ireland, a 5,000-year-old neolithic farming landscape has been found preserved under a blanket bog, complete with field walls and hut sites. One ancient artifact found in various bogs is bog butter, large masses of fat, usually in wooden containers. These are thought to have been food stores of both butter and tallow.
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