By: Elana Spivack

What Bog Bodies Reveal About Ancient Human Life

These human remains pulled from peat wetlands offer insight into often violent human history.

The head of Grauballe Man, bog body

De Agostini via Getty Images

Published: June 04, 2025

Last Updated: June 04, 2025

Every ecosystem has its own mythology, but bogs are especially intriguing. Beyond their unique ecology, these peaty wetlands hold secrets about the past that humans have been digging through for centuries. Sometimes, that digging yields secrets in the form of human remains.

Understanding how bogs can so effectively preserve human remains—down to the undigested contents of a stomach—first requires an understanding of bob systems. Bogs are just one type of wetland, according to Roy van Beek, an associate professor of landscape archaeology at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. The most famous sort are raised bogs, which sit higher than the surrounding ground and are fed by rainwater. This composition renders them extremely acidic and nutrient-poor, or oligotrophic. Constantly saturated with water, little can survive here.

Vegetation called sphagnum moss decays and compresses into a fibrous brown material called peat, which creates a cold, anoxic substrate. Without oxygen, a bog “prohibits bacteria to do their work,” van Beek says, which results in a preserved body called a bog mummy.

“Raised bogs are places where we see the survival of material that doesn't normally survive in dry land context,” says Melanie Giles, a professor of European prehistory at the University of Manchester and author of Bog Bodies: Face to Face With the Past. “That includes things like skin and hair [and] nails.”

There are about 2,000 known bog mummies and skeletons throughout Europe, according to a 2003 paper published in the journal Antiquity by van Beek and co-authors. Though, van Beek adds, he believes “the actual number is a lot higher.” Most of the recovered bodies belonged to people who apparently met violent ends, from hanging to bludgeoning to beheading.

Below are some notable bog bodies found over decades—and what they revealed.

1.

Tollund Man

These remains, recovered in Denmark’s Bjældskovdal bog, are the best preserved to date. Discovered by two brothers in 1950 in the village of Tollund, this body was so well preserved that the pair called the police. However, radiocarbon dating revealed that Tollund Man actually died around 350 B.C., during the early Iron Age. Analysis revealed Tollund Man was about 40 years old when he died, and before he perished by hanging, he’d eaten a soup containing dozens of different seeds.

Tollund Man, Bog Body at Silkeborg Museum, Denmark

Ancient bronze statue of Tollund Man, a bog body from the Iron Age, at the Museum Silkeborg in Denmark.

Tim Graham / Contributor

2.

Koelbjerg Man

Discovered in 1941 in Denmark, these remains carry the distinction of belonging to the oldest bog body ever found. Dated to about 8,000 B.C., this well-preserved partial skeleton includes a skull, fragmented pelvis and parts of both upper and lower limbs. The body’s gender had been debated since initial analysis, according to a 2017 paper published in the Danish Journal of Archaeology, but was confirmed to be male through full genomic mapping. He was likely in his late 20s at the time of death. There are no signs of violence on his remains, so it's possible he fell into the bog and drowned.

3.

Roter Franz

This skeleton of a young man was found near Neu Versen in Germany in 1900. The remains earned the nickname Roter Franz, meaning Red Franz, because of its ginger hair, beard and eyebrows. It’s not that in life he had red hair, but rather “that is actually part of this tanning process” in the bog, according to Giles.

Chains of carbohydrates called polysaccharides react with sphagnic acid that comes from decaying sphagnum moss, she explains. This leads to another process known as a Maillard reaction, which creates a brownish color. “This gives bog bodies their peculiarly smoky, peaty color,” Giles says. “And also it tends to turn hair a slight reddish color.”

Analysis suggests Roter Franz was killed after his throat was slit, he also suffered from an arrow wound and a broken shoulder.

4.

Weerdinge Couple

In rare instances, more than one body surfaces at once. The Weerdinge couple, who are about 2,000 years old, according to a 2004 paper published in the Journal of Archaeological Sciences, were not only discovered together, but shared an intimate pose with one figure appearing to gently cradle the other, smaller one. The larger figure’s pelvis was still intact and was identified as a male’s, and the smaller figure was deemed female. The pair was discovered in 1904 in the Netherlands.

“People thought that it was some kind of a couple, like a man and wife, who ended up there,” van Beek says. But follow-up research revealed that they were actually both male. “You have some kind of image which you based on a prehistoric society, which then turns out to be misleading because you're biased by your own views.”

One of the men had a large wound on his chest, through which his intestines had spilled out. Some suggest this points to a ritualistic purpose for the killing.

5.

Worsley Man

On August 18, 1958, a man in Manchester named John Connolly came across a “partially fleshed skull,” Giles describes in her book Bog Bodies. Some hair and a deformed right ear accompany the cranium. Worsley Man is thought to have belonged to a man between the ages of 24 and 40.

Worsley Man is “what we would call a cold case,” Giles says. Four investigations have attempted to place this severed head firmly in history and understand his cause of death. Giles is part of the fourth program, which began in 2018. Radiocarbon dating from this investigation traces his life to when Romans occupied much of Britain between A.D. 131 and 251.

“We've been able to use modern forensic techniques to reinvestigate,” Giles says.

Bog Pool at Highfield Moss

Bog Pool at Highfield Moss, an example of a bog where centuries-old bodies have been recovered.

Sabena Jane Blackbird / Alamy Stock Photo

6.

Ballymacombs More Woman

This bog body was found more recently in 2023, in Northern Ireland and was first thought to be a male between ages 13 and 17. But in February 2025, National Museums Northern Ireland announced that these remains actually belonged to a female between the ages of 17 and 22. The announcement came following a year-long investigation by archaeological and forensic researchers across Europe. Her remains are over 2,000 years old, dating back to the Iron Age. She had been about 5 foot 6 inches, though the recovered corpse lacks a head, which we know had been cut off from marks on her neck.

She and Worsley Man are proof that bogs hold remains and mysteries yet to be discovered.

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About the author

Elana Spivack

Elana Spivack is a journalist with bylines in Scientific American, Slate, Popular Science and more. She lives in New York City with her tuxedo cat.

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Citation Information

Article title
What Bog Bodies Reveal About Ancient Human Life
Website Name
History
Date Accessed
June 06, 2025
Publisher
A&E Television Networks
Last Updated
June 04, 2025
Original Published Date
June 04, 2025

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