Last Meal of History's Most Famous 'Bog Body' Hints at Human Sacrifice

[Warpy]

That's similar to what scientists found in the early 1950s, when the body was first unearthed in what is now modern Denmark. But unlike past analyses, this one has also noticed a few new ingredients, like the fatty proteins of fish as well as remnants of threshing waste, which comes from separating grain.

That's an intriguing discovery, as a recent analysis of another bog body, known as the Grauballe Man, has also turned up a surprisingly large quantity of threshing waste no noticed before.

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-reconstruct-the-last-meal-of-a-man-mummified-2400-years-ago

I've always though this was a ritual killing because of the way the body was arranged. Criminals were bludgeoned, stabbed, and/or garroted and dumped face down, often with willow sticks making sure they wouldn't come back up. Tollund Man was arranged on his side in a fetal position, as though he was asleep.

I do rather cut to the chase on the threshing waste, though. It was most likely an indication of a very poor harvest, the waste added into the porridge to supply bulk to starving people. It would also explain his death and the reverent way his body was arranged.

[rampartc]

1. there is no doubt that human sacrifice was practiced in european prehistory

(see sir j g frazer's "new golden bough&quot i am skeptical that the threshing waste proves much more than the inefficiency of primitive threshing methods.

[Warpy]

2. Considering they haven't found it in other foods

or fire remains, that is unlikely. Threshing and winnowing have existed pretty much the same way since the neolithic in the Middle East. These people were Iron Age, they certainly knew what they were doing. The only reason to include a large amount of chaff in a porridge is to increase bulk, to help people feel full even though the nutritional content had been drastically lowered. I just don't think it would have been a ceremonial mixture. They used other things for that.