ince the 18th century, hundreds of incredibly well-preserved human cadavers have been discovered in the peat bogs of Northern Europe. These bodies have been forensically dated to as far back as 8,000 BCE. The famous “Tollund Man,” discovered in 1950 by two Danish farmers in a small town in Denmark, lived in the Pre-Roman Iron Age of the 3rd century BCE. He was so well preserved that the contents of his stomach were used to establish when he lived.
Despite the different demographic makeup of these corpses in terms of age, sex, and social standing, there is one mysterious and unexplained commonality in their composition. They seem to have been deliberately executed and placed in the bogs, with no explanation as to why this method of disposal would be utilized. Researchers speculate that perhaps they were sacrifices or social outcasts.
