Where Lindow Man was found



The Lindow Man

In 1984, a human foot was discovered in Lindow Marsh, a peat bog in Cheshire, England. This sparked the interest of archaeologist Rick Turner who conducted an investigation of the area and found traces of human remains. Only a portion of the body had survived the peat-cutting machines with only the top half in tact. The body was transported to the local hospital where 24 scientists began preserving and analysing the body.

Often bog bodies are so well preserved that they are often mistaken for recent deaths. Turner was convinced that the body was ancient and not a recent murder because it was found in 2.5 metres of undisturbed peat. However the coroner would not release the body until it was proven to be ancient. The body underwent Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (a form of radiocarbon dating) on some bone fragments and determined that the body was approximately 2,000 years old, dating back to the Celtic period.

PHYSICAL PROPERTIES

An autopsy of the Lindow Man began with a team of selected archaeologists, biologists, paleobotanists, chemists and other scientists.

• It was confirmed that the body was a male due to the shape of the bone in the upper eye socket, the defined mastoid bone (behind the ear) and his apparent facial hair.

• After 2,000 years of pressure from the heavy peat bog, the body was flattened making it very difficult to visualize what he looked like. The British Museum eventually created a reconstruction of the Lindow Man’s face using modern forensic methods of identifying murder victims.

• Forensic Anthropologists would generally determine the height of a human by studying the femur and tibia bones in the leg. Since the Lindow Man’s legs were lost, scientists used an alternative method of analysing the arm bone (humerus) to estimate his height. The Lindow Man was determined to be 1.69 metres tall.

• Judging by observation, the scientists believe the Lindow Man was well-built and in his prime around 25 years old at his time of death.

• The Lindow Man had healthy fingernails which were carefully manicured and his upper body muscles were evenly developed, indicating he was exempt from physical labour and perhaps of a high social standing. This notion is also reaffirmed by the healthy condition of his teeth.

CAUSE OF DEATH

• The Lindow Man was subjected to a long series of scientific and forensic tests under Dr. West who illustrated an image of the man’s death.

• An X-ray of his head revealed two fractures on the crown and base of his skull.

It is suggested that he was struck twice by a blunt object, most likely an axe.

This would not have been a fatal injury, but may have caused unconsciousness.

• A sinew rope was tightly twisted around his neck, blocking his windpipe and breaking two of his neck vertebrae. This is a clear indication of strangulation which is believed to be his cause of death.

• Several post-mortem injuries are also evident. A gash was found on the right side of his throat through the jugular vein. Most scientists would claim that his throat was slit (perhaps to drain his blood), however others believe it occurred naturally after his death. Lacerations were also found on his chest.

• The excessive violence of his murder provoked scientists and historians to question the motives of his killers.

• An analysis of the Lindow Man’s stomach content (well preserved) by

archaeobotanist Dr. Gordon Hillman discovered 20 grams of meat, cereal grains and tiny burnt fragments.

• Samples of the food were sent to Dr. Sales at London University who used electron spin resonance to determine the temperature the fragments were subjected to and thus how it was cooked. He confirmed that the charred grains were from bread. → Agricultural society, perhaps unrefined cooking skills.

• Archaeologist Anne Ross stated that according to Roman accounts (biased) of Celtic practices and ceremonies, a burnt oatmeal cake (bannock) was fed to sacrificial victims to ensure the success of summer crops. This may relate to the stomach contents of the Lindow Man.

• Ross also stated that the Celts considered the number three to be holy and worshipped three gods which each had their own method of sacrifice. Sometimes instead of sacrificing three people, the Celts would sacrifice one person to all the gods. This may explain the excessive injuries of the Lindow Man which in fact pertain to the sacrificial methods of the three gods (Blow to the head, Strangled & Drowned). The elaborate nature of the Lindow Man’s death still distinguishes him from other bog bodies.

• Ross concludes that the Lindow Man was a Druid (Celtic Priest). Traces of pollen from a mistletoe plant were discovered in his stomach. Druids often consumed a drink made from mistletoe pollen as it was believed to be healthy.

SOCIETY

• An examination of the Lindow Man’s hair released some valuable information. Firstly, it was unusual for the Lindow Man to have a beard as no other male bog body of his time had one.

• Scientists performed a scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis on the man’s facial hair which revealed he had “stepped ends” indicating his beard was trimmed with shears. Historians noted that scissors were very rare at the time and only attainable by the elite minority. This suggests that the Lindow Man was a distinguished and privileged member of society and that his society had different classes which were reflected in appearances.

• The Lindow Man is the best evidence archaeologists have of Celtic human sacrifices. The investigation of his death confirms the practices the Celts undertook for sacrificial ceremonies, from the burnt bread to the various methods of sacrifice for each god. It also introduced the possibility of the Celts combining all methods of sacrifice into one individual.

• The Lindow Man reflects the condition of the elite classes of Celtic society. It is evident that privileged Celts were very healthy (good teeth and physically unharmed) and they shared elaborate deaths.

• It is also apparent that the Lindow Man lived in a very agrarian society as shown in the high level of cultivated grains in the Lindow Man’s stomach content and the recorded annual sacrifices for successful crops.

• The distinction of the Lindow Man from other bog bodies of his time shows the clear social class stratification of the Celtic civilisation.

• Examined by more than 50 experts, archaeological science has revealed a wealth of knowledge about the Lindow Man and his society. The discovery of the Lindow Man has sparked a major interest in the historical value of bog bodies and ancient human remains.

[pic]Where Lindow Man was found

[pic] The reconstructed head of Lindow Man

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|Location of Lindow Moss in Great Britain |

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|Carbon Dating |

|When an organism dies, replenishment of |

|14C stops. The percentage of 14C steadily |

|decreases at a known rate. The longer the |

|organism is dead, the less 14C remains. |

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Lindow Man's Last Meal

The Lindow Man's stomach contained sphagnum moss spores; crushed wheat, bran, and barley grains; and mistletoe pollen. Electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy showed that he had eaten burnt griddlecake before he died. ESR can determine thermal decomposition in organic matter by detecting atoms with unpaired electrons. When food is cooked, the reactions that take place create molecules with unpaired electrons. The food's molecular structure changes according to the intensity of the heat. From ESR spectra, it is possible to estimate the highest temperature the food reached while being cooked: boiled, 100 ýÿC; baked, 200ýÿ300 ýÿC; or hotter, if burned.

The Acid Test

The Lindow bodies did not rot in the peat bog. Normally a dead body is broken down by bacteria in a �C; baked, 200�300 �C; or hotter, if burned.

The Acid Test

The Lindow bodies did not rot in the peat bog. Normally a dead body is broken down by bacteria in a process called putrefaction. It didn't happen in this case because of three important factors: The water in the bog was anaerobic (no free oxygen), which prevented bacteria from growing; it was highly acidic (around pH 4), which preserved the Lindow Man's skin, hair, and fingernails; and it was extremely cold, which refrigerated his body and arrested decay.

Bogs are unbalanced ecosystems, they produce more vegetation than they decompose, causing a buildup of material called peat. Peat is made up of these partially decayed plants; humic and fulvic acids produced by this decay; and small amounts of insects, algae, yeasts, and fungi. This plant accumulation prevents oxygen from reaching deeper water.

There are different types of bogs, depending on weather and terrain, but most form in basins that have little or no drainage because the underlying bedrock is impermeable. As the water level rises, vegetation growing along the bank drowns and decays, forming soils that dam incoming streams. With no flowing water, the soil becomes waterlogged. Floating vegetation, primarily sphagnum moss, spreads over the water like an insulating blanket. Sphagnum moss extracts positively charged ions, such as calcium and magnesium, from water in the soil and releases hydrogen ions. Because the hydrogen ions are not flushed by flowing water, the environment becomes extremely acidic.

Lindow Man's Last Meal

The Lindow Man's stomach contained sphagnum moss spores; crushed wheat, bran, and barley grains; and mistletoe pollen. Electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy showed that he had eaten burnt griddlecake before he died. ESR can determine thermal decomposition in organic matter by detecting atoms with unpaired electrons. When food is cooked, the reactions that take place create molecules with unpaired electrons. The food's molecular structure changes according to the intensity of the heat. From ESR spectra, it is possible to estimate the highest temperature the food reached while being cooked: boiled, 100 degrees C; baked, 200degrees 300 degrees C; or hotter, if burned.

Body Discovered

On May 13, 1983, Andy Mould and Stephan Dooley were working the shredder at the Lindow Moss Peat Company in Cheshire County, England. It was their job to watch for rocks or large pieces of wood that might jam the shredder. They spotted what appeared to be a burst football and, picking it up, joked that it might be a dinosaur's egg. As they handled it, the peat that was stuck to the "egg" began to fall away. Curious, they hosed it off, and it became clear that the object was a human skull. Hair clung to the scalp, the left eyeball was still intact, and brain tissue was visible inside the cranial cavity. They called the police.

The police were intrigued by the discovery. When the preliminary forensic report found that the skull was that of a European female between the ages of 30 and 50, the police arrested Peter Reyn-Bardt for murdering his wife some 20 years earlier. Faced with what appeared to be irrefutable evidence, Reyn-Bardt confessed that he had killed his wife, dismembered her, and buried her in the Lindow Moss bog. Subsequently, the Oxford University Research Laboratory for Archaeology analyzed the skull by using a dating technique involving radioactive 14C and determined that the skull was not Mrs. Reyn-Bardt's but that of a woman who had died about 1,750 years earlier. Based on the strength of his confession, however, Mr. Reyn-Bardt was convicted of murder.

More Body Parts Found

On August 1, 1984, Andy Mould was again scrutinizing the peat as it moved toward the shredder. He grabbed what he thought was a large piece of wood and tossed it toward his partner where it fell hard on the ground, exposing a well-preserved human foot.

The next morning Rick Turner, a Cheshire County archaeologist, began a search of the area. Walking along an uncut section of the bog, Turner noticed a flap of skin jutting from a wall of peat. The skin, coffee-colored with visible pores, was flexible except for the tip that had been exposed to the air for several months. Turner wondered whether it was Mrs. Reyn-Bardt or another ancient body.

Turner's discovery brought a team of scientists to the Lindow Moss. Turner was convinced that the body was ancient because it was resting in undisturbed peat 2.5 m below the bog's original surface. The police were not so sure.

On August 6, the team began to trim away the peat. The remains occupied a small space, 0.7 m by 0.55 m, and Turner feared that only a portion of the body had survived the peat-cutting machines. The team slid a sheet of plywood under the block of peat containing the body, lifted it out, protected it in plastic sheeting, and drove it to the mortuary at a nearby hospital. The coroner placed it in a refrigerated box kept at 4 degrees C, the standard morgue temperature.

The autopsy was conducted by London's British Museum, but the coroner would not release the body until it was proven to be ancient. Researchers at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, using accelerator mass spectrometry, a technique of radiocarbon dating that isolates and counts 14C atoms, tested some bone fragments. On August 17, they announced that the body was at least 1,000 years old. More careful analysis later revealed that it was about 2,000 years old from Celtic times.

Autopsy

On September 24, a team of archaeologists, chemists, surgeons, and others began the autopsy. They started with the flap of skin Rick Turner had first spotted. Using small brushes, scrapers, and squirts of distilled water, they cleared away the peat, removing the excess water with a dental vacuum. As Turner suspected, the lower body had been chopped off by the peat-digging equipment. However, the upper intestines and stomach survived, their contents preserved by the bog's high acidity.

When the face was cleaned, they knew for certain that the body was that of a male the shape of the bone in the upper eye socket, the prominent mastoid bone (the bump behind the ear), and the beard were male traits. His head slumped downward, facing his right shoulder. The right arm, in good condition, was outstretched, with four well-manicured nails. The left forearm, in poor condition, was frayed above the wrist, exposing bone. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis of the beard and moustache hairs revealed "stepped" ends, indicating they had been trimmed with shears and not with a single blade. He was naked, except for a fur armband. The fur was short (510 mm), ginger-coloured, and round it was fox fur. His upper body muscles were developed evenly on both sides which suggested, along with his well-groomed appearance, that he had done no manual labour.

The vital clues they discovered are summarised below:

1. Head reconstructed from skull measurements, revealing bulging brow, deep-set eyes

2. Crowns of molar teeth shorn off by impact of blows to skull

3. Reddish beard roughly cut before death

4. Fox-fur arm band

5. Closing of skull sutures reveals victim's age

6. Two adjoining scalp lacerations indicate use of heavy weapon - probably an axe - to deliver blows from above and behind

7. Smooth hands, manicured fingernails

8. Pollen analysis shows Lindow Man was dropped face first into water a metre deep - suggesting a symbolic drowning

9. Blood group 'O' identifies victim as a Celt

10. Fracture at base of skull caused by blunt instrument

11. Animal sinew garotte with triple knots

12. Slight deformations in spine indicate mild arthritis

13. Stomach contents reveal victim's last meal to be a burnt bannock or griddle cake

14. Lower body sheared off during a previous peat extraction

15. Leg severed during peat-cutting reveals onset of mild osteo-arthritis

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