Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogel bomb here with a classic episode from our archives.
Speaker 1: In this one, we go deep into one of my
Speaker 1: favorite subjects, bogs, to dig into the question of why
Speaker 1: they're so specifically good at preserving human remains. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: lurinvogl bomb here. Bogs are pretty awesome as far as
Speaker 1: sweeping mudfields of dead buried plants go. They store the
Speaker 1: energy of generations of plants in their mass, which can
Speaker 1: be harvested as peat. They're also havens for mummies. Artifacts
Speaker 1: buried beneath bogs, including human bodies, may be kept in
Speaker 1: astonishingly good condition for thousands and thousands of years. They've
Speaker 1: all got stories to tell, and today we'll look at
Speaker 1: the weird science that makes their preservation possible. Common in cool,
Speaker 1: wet parts of the world, bogs are water logged grounds
Speaker 1: that form one decaying plant matter known as pete, accumulates
Speaker 1: in low lying areas. Bogs are usually found in cool
Speaker 1: climates and often in lake basins created by ice age
Speaker 1: glaciers that no longer get a steady flow of river
Speaker 1: or stream water. Over time, mosses cover the heap like
Speaker 1: a blanket, and in most cases, this mossy layer is
Speaker 1: primarily made of a mosque called sphagnum. Sphagnum moss has
Speaker 1: the power to transform an entire landscape. Water or dirt
Speaker 1: trapped beneath sheets of it will be cut off from
Speaker 1: the normal supply of oxygen from the atmosphere. Also, sphagnum
Speaker 1: soaks up calcium and magnesium, which makes the underlying soil
Speaker 1: and water mildly acidic. Since bacteria and fungi find those
Speaker 1: conditions inhospitable, the dead vegetation decomposes at a phenomenally slow rate.
Speaker 1: Instead of breaking down right away, it lingers piling up.
Speaker 1: Over time, masses of the botanical waste gradually turn into peat,
Speaker 1: a soggy, mud colored substance. Peat can be used as
Speaker 1: animal bedding and as a fossil fuel, which makes it
Speaker 1: an important commodity in places like the Irish Midlands and
Speaker 1: in Scotland, where it's the traditional fuel for fires that
Speaker 1: dry out grain to make Scotch whiskey, imparting smoke and
Speaker 1: its flavors along with that heat. But to archaeologists, pete
Speaker 1: is a lot less valuable than the human corpses that
Speaker 1: sometimes come with it. Bogs have long fascinated humans, not
Speaker 1: just for their fossil fuels. The spongy soil has intrigued
Speaker 1: people as far back as the Bronze Age. Many people
Speaker 1: died in these bogs or were placed there after their deaths,
Speaker 1: and these bog bodies, as theirre known, have been found
Speaker 1: all over the world. The wetlands of northwestern Europe, for instance,
Speaker 1: is a bog body hub. Hundreds of these corpses have
Speaker 1: turned up in Germany, England, the Netherlands, and neighboring countries.
Speaker 1: In twenty eleven, pete harvesters working in Ireland accidentally ran
Speaker 1: over a Bronze Age corpse with a milling machine. Dubbed
Speaker 1: the cashle Man. The harvester found all that was left
Speaker 1: of an adult male who probably died in his twenties.
Speaker 1: His body was riddled with injuries, including a broken arm
Speaker 1: and a nasty cut across the backside. Some of these
Speaker 1: may have been caused by the compressing weight of the
Speaker 1: bog moss above him or the blades of that milling device. Nevertheless,
Speaker 1: archaeologists have reason to suspect that the casual Man was
Speaker 1: a ritualized sacrifice victim. Other European bog bodies have displayed
Speaker 1: stab wounds, slit throats, and evidence of torture. Historians think
Speaker 1: that the local wetlands were once a hotbed for religious sacrifices.
Speaker 1: Carbon dating tells us the casual Man perished about four
Speaker 1: thousand years ago, seven centuries before King Tuton Common was born.
Speaker 1: To date, he's the oldest European bog body on record
Speaker 1: with intact skin. That's right, the corpse of somebody who's
Speaker 1: been dead for four millennia still has its skin attached.
Speaker 1: And this isn't a fluke. Lots of bog bodies retain
Speaker 1: some or all of their original skin. The talland Man,
Speaker 1: a twenty three hundred year old corpse recovered from a
Speaker 1: Denmark peat bog in nineteen fifty, has skeletonized hands, but
Speaker 1: elsewhere his skin is so well preserved that little details
Speaker 1: like the wrinkles on his forehead are still visible. Although
Speaker 1: the talland Man's skin didn't rot away, the mummification process
Speaker 1: did change its appearance and texture. Like the man and
Speaker 1: lots of other bog bodies, he sports leathery, dark brown skin.
Speaker 1: Some of them also have preserved hair that was dyed
Speaker 1: red after death. This is most likely caused by a
Speaker 1: recently discovered polymer called sphagnin, which seeps out of dead
Speaker 1: sphagnum moss if you think of leather. It's made through
Speaker 1: a process called tanning that strengthens the bonds between some
Speaker 1: of the natural fibers in animal hides. As a tanning agent,
Speaker 1: sphagnin has the same effect on human skin, rendering it
Speaker 1: tough and tea colored. Sphagnin also binds with nitrogen, which
Speaker 1: bacteria need to survive, so by removing nitrogen from the environment,
Speaker 1: spagnin helps prevent the spread of microorganisms that would normally
Speaker 1: be breaking down human and animal remains. And Furthermore, sphagnin,
Speaker 1: along with the acid that it turns into, pulls calcium
Speaker 1: right out of dead bodies. Bones get weakened in the process.
Speaker 1: Although spagnin does a fine job of preserving skin, its
Speaker 1: calcium thievery isn't great for skeletons. Mummies have been found
Speaker 1: in certain bogs with soft, extra flimsy bones that are
Speaker 1: about Astarte's cardboard and that have been distorted by heavy peat.
Speaker 1: But that's assuming the decalcification process doesn't altogether eliminate bones.
Speaker 1: Lots of bog bodies have been found missing bones, and
Speaker 1: some of the mummies are totally boneless. The latter are
Speaker 1: basically human shaped bags of leathery skin wrapped around some
Speaker 1: pickled organs. Not all bogs are so hostile to bones, though.
Speaker 1: The water's acidity level varies from bog to bog, and
Speaker 1: this impacts corpse preservation. Archaeologists have discovered that in really
Speaker 1: acidic peat bogs, the resident mummies have lots of skin
Speaker 1: and soft tissue and weak or non existent bones. But
Speaker 1: there are some boggy places with relatively alkaline water. Here
Speaker 1: the environment pretty much has the opposite effect on corpses.
Speaker 1: A take, for example, the wind Over Archaeological Site, a
Speaker 1: peat bottomed pond in Florida that became the final resting
Speaker 1: place for dozens of Native Americans between seven and eight
Speaker 1: thousand years ago. Skeletal remains from one hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: eight people have turned up in the peat. A large
Speaker 1: deposit of crushed up snail shells lying to the pond
Speaker 1: supplies the water with magnesium and calcium carbonates that makes
Speaker 1: the water more alkaline, neutralizing the sphagnen to an extent.
Speaker 1: Instead of mummified skin bags the bog is rife with
Speaker 1: naked bones and skeletons a bear as they are on
Speaker 1: the outside, the ancient bones had a big surprise in
Speaker 1: store for scientists. Brain tissue was found in more than
Speaker 1: ninety of the windover pond skulls, making them extra fascinating
Speaker 1: fines by the way bonus fact of the episode. Most
Speaker 1: carnivorous plants, such as sundews and pitcher plants grow in
Speaker 1: bog soils, which tend to be nutrient poor. Eating animal
Speaker 1: prey is a strategy that helps them obtain vital nutrients.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article peat bogs are
Speaker 1: freakishly good of preserving human remains on how stuffworks dot Com.
Speaker 1: Written by Mark Mancini. Brain Stuff its production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio in partnership with house stuffworks dot Com and
Speaker 1: is produced by Tyler Klain. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
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