Human remains have been found in peat bogs in European countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark and Sweden, some of which are fairly well preserved. So good that when they were found, the police opened investigations. Only after scientists carried out analyzes and established the age of these marsh bodies, the cases were closed.
The total number of such bodies found in the peat bogs of Europe reaches a thousand. All of them have been preserved in different ways. But almost all of them, unlike other ancient human remains, have well-preserved skin and even internal organs. This became possible due to the tanning properties of peat and low water temperature. Therefore, bodies have undergone such natural preservation and have been preserved for millennia. These marsh bodies are of great interest to scientists.
Bog people were found, as a rule, by workers and peasants who took part in the extraction of peat from local bogs. However, they did not always give due attention to their findings, did not notify anyone and simply left the bodies where they found. Therefore, a large number of ancient remains were irretrievably lost in the vastness of European peat bogs.
But even those remains that have been safely examined by scientists make it possible to establish that the majority of bog people lived about 2000 - 2500 years ago. But there is also an older find: one of them is a woman from Kölbjerg who died about 10,000 years ago. She belonged to the archaeological Mesolithic culture, the remains of which have been found on the territory of modern Denmark.
Thanks to the study of the digestive system of marsh people, it was even possible to establish what the last food they ate before death. An interesting discovery was the study of the digestive tract of a man from Tollund, in whose stomach the remains of porridge were found, consisting of forty types of different types of grains and seeds. Others found small bones and vegetables.
Historians were able to clarify and supplement knowledge and ideas about costumes corresponding to those eras by fragments of preserved clothing. A woman from Elling was also found in the vicinity of Denmark, who died in the Iron Age, but is one of the best-preserved bodies. So, according to her remains, it was even possible to restore the hairstyle that was on the woman at the time of her death. There was a rope around her neck, which also indicates the cause of death - hanging.
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The causes of death were completely different in each case: some of the swamp people simply drowned in the peat bogs, others as a result of a violent death. Some were executed for some wrongdoing, others were offered as sacrifices. Among the remains, bodies of completely different ages and social statuses were found: from sacrificed men and women to kings.
The Austerby man is not even a body, but just one skull of a man who died in the middle of the first century AD. The most interesting difference is the well-preserved hairstyle. It represents the hair piled up and tied over the right temple.
This hairstyle, as the ancient Roman historian Tacitus wrote, was worn by representatives of the Suevi tribe living in the territory of modern East Germany. Currently, the remains of marsh people are kept in various museums in Europe.