From the Mesolithic to the Second World War: The Oldest and Youngest Bog Bodies
Most European Bog bodies date to the Iron Age and early Roman period, with dates falling between 500BC and as late as 100AD. However, there are exceptions to this rule. Like the Florida bog bodies, the oldest bog body in the world survives only as a skeleton. He is Koelbjerg man who was discovered in Denmark in 1941. Formerly thought to be a woman, just a few of Koelbjerg man’s bones and his skull remain. However, the remains indicate a healthy, well-nourished individual who had lived in the same area of the bog all his life and had died sometime in the Mesolithic era in around 8000BC.
In 2011, a peat cutter discovered the oldest known fully fleshed bog body in the Cashel Bog, in County Laois, Ireland. His naked body was found in the middle of the bog, safely squashed beneath two meters of peat. This compression explains his less than impressive appearance which has been likened to a ‘squashed leather holdall.” Although a peat-threshing machine damaged his torso, Cashel man’s arms and legs were in perfect condition, and fragments of his teeth, jaw, and hair were retrieved. These indicate that whoever deposited Cashel Man in the bog did so in 2000BC during the European Bronze Age, one of only two bodies known from that period.
However, bog bodies are not necessarily a thing of the past. In 1998, the mummified remains of Russian fighter pilot, Boris Lazarev were discovered in a swamp. On February 21, 1943, Boris’s plane was one of a group that had set off from a Soviet military airbase in Chupa to attack the Luftwaffe. Boris was shot down during the mission and his plane- and body- plummeted into the swampland below. There, thanks to the anaerobic conditions and the gasoline and oil from Boris’s plane, the unlucky pilot’s body was perfectly preserved- all except for his feet, which the force of the crash severed at the ankles.
All of the bog bodies discussed so far are male. However, not all of the bog people were men- or indeed adults.