Iron Age communities sacrificed people to bogs for agricultural fertility

Evidence

This preservative effect yielded a stunning find for peat cutters who unearthed perfectly preserved bodies from a peat bog in Denmark two thousand years after burial. Archeological studies revealed these were the remains of Tollund people, Iron Age villagers known as the Bog People. Burial in the bog was no accident. Evidence suggests that these people were sacrificed in agricultural rituals, life offered up in exchange for a bountiful harvest. Their faces are surprisingly serene and their presence speaks the understanding that life is renewed only through death. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss, 457

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Directly supports and extends ‘On Sacrifice’ with the Tollund Bog People as another European bog-body case, adding the harvest-fertility motive shared with Lindow Man.
• XREF: connects to: Waterlogged bog peat preserves organic material largely unchanged for centuries — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural…, 456; Pre-agricultural societies attributed to women a mystical power over fertility and crops — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 173

Broader Connections

• Pre-agricultural societies attributed to women a mystical power over fertility and crops #expands (0.72) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 173