Bog Bodies and Violence against the Individual

The Gaulish sanctuaries provide evidence for the killing, mutilation and display of large numbers of people, most likely in the context of violent conflict between communities defined by political or ethnic differences.

Bog bodies are found across a band of northern Europe stretching from northern Germany and southern Scandinavia in the east, to Ireland in the west (cross-cutting the supposed ethnic fault line between Celtic and Germanic societies), where the specific chemical conditions of the sphag­num-rich peat bogs promotes the survival of organic materials. It has become apparent through modern forensic analysis that many bog bodies represent individuals who were deliberately killed and deposited in cold, shallow pools within peat bogs, often in areas where peat was cut for fuel. Several of these bodies also show evidence suggestive of overkill or other forms of ritualised execution, although interpretations are complicated by the occurrence of ‘injuries' acquired post-mortem due to the pressure and movement of the peat. Despite this caveat, it seems clear that ritualised violence of various kinds caused the deaths and deposition of these individuals.

One recent find is Oldcroghan Man, dating to the fourth or third centuries bce, whose upper torso and arms were found in an Irish peat bog in 2003.^[904] The remains belonged to a man in his twenties who, at 1.98 metres tall, would have been an exceptional individual in his day. His height suggests that he was well nourished, which, along with his manicured nails, suggests high status.

Like Oldcroghan Man, the best-known British bog body, from Lindow Moss in Cheshire, was also a naked, well-nourished male in his twenties with manicured nails and a carefully trimmed beard.^[905] Although he died a few centuries after Oldcroghan Man, most likely during the first century ce, he too suffered a drawn-out death, receiving a series of axe blows to the head, then being garrotted with sufficient force to break his neck before having his throat cut. Any one of these injuries would have been sufficient to kill him. Other injuries to the body may have been caused post-mortem, by the movement of the surrounding peat, but it is possible that some of them too might have been deliberately inflicted.

Grauballe Man, found in Jutland and broadly contemporary with Oldcroghan Man, was also found naked and had had his throat slashed with such force as to almost decapitate him.^[906] Also in Jutland, the well-known Tollund Man^[907] was found with a noose around his neck; he had apparently been hanged elsewhere before being brought to the bog to be deposited in a shallow pool close to other bog bodies. In many cases, individuals had been deliberately pinned down in the water with stakes, sometimes penetrating their bodies, or held down under hurdles, and they had frequently had their heads fully or partially shaved. Occasionally only severed heads are found: one of these, known as Osterby Man, from north Germany, had his hair arranged in elaborate Suebian knots, again suggestive of high status.^[908]

There has been much debate over the motives underlying these killings.

The stripping naked of victims and the shaving of their hair seem designed to dehumanise and humiliate. They would presumably have involved the participation of more than one assailant. The structured sequence of injuries inflicted on several bog bodies (for example, the sequential bludgeoning, garrotting and throat-cutting of Lindow Man) is again suggestive of forma­lised performances involving multiple attackers.³⁸ Through the removal of

Ritual Violence and Headhunting in Iron Age Europe clothes and hair, victims were turned into something less than human, and symbolically cast out of the group, before being subject to ritualised killing by groups comprising either ritual specialists (Druids perhaps?) or selected members of the community. In such multiple killings, the group assumes responsibility for the death and no one individual can be held accountable.