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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 1: show that digs deep into history every day of the week.

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Speaker 1: I'm Gabe Lucier, and in this episode, we're talking about

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Speaker 1: the startling discovery of what might be the best preserved

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Speaker 1: prehistoric body in the world. As a warning, today's episode

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Speaker 1: includes descriptions of violence which some listeners may find disturbing.

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Speaker 1: The day was May eighth, nineteen fifty two brothers stumbled

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Speaker 1: upon a well preserved corpse in a peat bog near

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Speaker 1: silk aboard, Denmark. They'd been out cutting pete to burn

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Speaker 1: as fuel when they unearthed what appeared to be a

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Speaker 1: recent murder victim. The brothers, Emil and Vigo Hogar were

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Speaker 1: aware that a young schoolboy had recently gone missing in Copenhagen,

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Speaker 1: and they feared that the body in the bog, which

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Speaker 1: was fairly short in height, might be his. The police

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Speaker 1: thought the same thing at first, but after realizing there

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Speaker 1: were no signs of recent digging in the bog, they

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Speaker 1: referred the case to archaeologists at the Silkebor Museum. It

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Speaker 1: was soon discovered that while the man had indeed been killed,

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Speaker 1: his death was far from recent. In fact, it had

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Speaker 1: occurred more than two thousand years earlier. The unique properties

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Speaker 1: of the peat bog had naturally preserved his body, including

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Speaker 1: his facial features, vital organs, and even his fingerprints. Named

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Speaker 1: for the village of the brothers who found him, the

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Speaker 1: Tolland Man is one of dozens of bog bodies that

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Speaker 1: have been uncovered in wetlands across the United Kingdom and

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Speaker 1: northern Europe since the nineteenth century. Most of them date

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Speaker 1: back to the Iron Age, prior to Roman contact in

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Speaker 1: the first century a d and the vast majority, including

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Speaker 1: the Talland Man, show signs of ancient violence. In nineteen fifty,

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Speaker 1: famed archaeologist Peter Wilhelm Globe moved the Talland Man to

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Speaker 1: the National Museum of Denmark for further study. In autopsy

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Speaker 1: revealed he had been hung to death, as suggested by

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Speaker 1: the leather noose that was still wrapped around his neck.

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Speaker 1: Radiocarbon dating indicated that the man had died at some

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Speaker 1: point between four h five and three eighty BC, and

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Speaker 1: he was between thirty and forty years old at the

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Speaker 1: time of his passing. The five foot three inch corpse,

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Speaker 1: which was short even for his era was buried in

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Speaker 1: the nude, except for a wool and sheepskin cap and

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Speaker 1: a wide belt around his waist. Someone had carefully arranged

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Speaker 1: his body in a sleeping position and then laid him

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Speaker 1: to rest beneath a thick layer of pete, a spongy

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Speaker 1: material formed by the partial decomposition of vegetation and other

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Speaker 1: organic matter. There are several theories regarding the circumstances of

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Speaker 1: the Talon Man's death. Some researchers have suggested he was

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Speaker 1: a criminal who was executed and buried apart from his

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Speaker 1: fellow citizens, as a form of punishment. Another option is

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Speaker 1: that he was murdered as vengeance for some perceived slight

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Speaker 1: a practice known to happen in Northern Europe at the time. However,

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Speaker 1: if he had merely been executed as punishment, he likely

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Speaker 1: would have been cremated or buried in a grave, as

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Speaker 1: was the case with other criminals. And while a murderer

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Speaker 1: may have disposed of a body in a bog, it's

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Speaker 1: unlikely they would have taken the time to arrange the

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Speaker 1: body and close the mouth and eyes. Those signs of

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Speaker 1: care are why most experts now believe that the Talon

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Speaker 1: man was a victim of human sacrifice. The farmers of

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Speaker 1: the era were known to take part in religious rituals

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Speaker 1: that involved leaving sacrifices of food, weapons, and sometimes even

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Speaker 1: humans in the local bogs. According to Professor Globe, the

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Speaker 1: bodies were likely meant as offerings to the pre Christian

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Speaker 1: goddess Nrthus, who was associated with peace and prosperity. As

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Speaker 1: for why they were left in bogs, some researchers think

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Speaker 1: the areas may have been seen as sacred supernatural sites,

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Speaker 1: as they were neither land nor water. Of course, we

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Speaker 1: can't say for certain, as the early dwellers of the

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Speaker 1: Jutland Peninsula didn't leave behind a written record. It's unclear

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Speaker 1: what motivated their religious rituals, or if they were even

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Speaker 1: aware of the bog's preservative powers. Whether the killers intended

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Speaker 1: it or not, the bog turned their sacrifices into natural mummies.

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Speaker 1: The high acidity, low oxygen, and cool temperatures of the

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Speaker 1: wetlands preserved many of their bones and soft tissues, and

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Speaker 1: while those conditions ultimately cured and discolored their skin and

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Speaker 1: finger inns, the body's decomposition was otherwise stalled by chemical

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Speaker 1: interactions produced by decaying Sphagnum moss, a major component of pete.

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Speaker 1: There are a lot of variables in peat bogs, so

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Speaker 1: not every body buried in one has been preserved to

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Speaker 1: the same degree. The Taland Man is widely considered to

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Speaker 1: be the best preserved prehistoric body found thus far. In

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Speaker 1: stark contrast to the dried out mummies of ancient Egypt,

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Speaker 1: he still had identifiable facial features, including stubble on his

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Speaker 1: chin and a faint smile on his lips. The Tolland

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Speaker 1: man also had an intact brain, albeit a shrunken one,

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Speaker 1: and his stomach and intestines were in such good shape

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Speaker 1: that researchers were able to determine the last meal he

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Speaker 1: ate before his death. In case you're curious, it wasn't

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Speaker 1: anything fancy, just some porridge made from flax seed and

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Speaker 1: barley and a few pieces of fish. Additional bog bodies

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Speaker 1: have surface the discovery of the Talland Man, but they

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Speaker 1: aren't found as often these days due to a sharp

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Speaker 1: decline in the usage of pete for fuel production. That said,

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Speaker 1: a handful of bog bodies have been found in Ireland

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Speaker 1: since the year two thousand and those specimens, along with

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Speaker 1: ones found decades ago still have a lot to tell

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Speaker 1: us about life in the Iron Age of Europe. As

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Speaker 1: for the Taland Man himself, his body is on display

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Speaker 1: at the Silkabor Museum in Denmark, though it's worth noting

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Speaker 1: that because of poor preservation techniques at the time of

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Speaker 1: his discovery, most of his body is now a replica.

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Speaker 1: The only parts of him that remain in their original

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Speaker 1: state are the head, the feet, and the right thumb.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, he looks a little worse for wear these days,

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Speaker 1: but he's still more put together than most of us

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Speaker 1: will be twenty four hundred years from now. I'm gay

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Speaker 1: Blues Yay, and hopefully you now know a little more

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Speaker 1: about history today than you did yesterday. If you'd like

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Speaker 1: to keep up with the show, you can follow us

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Speaker 1: on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDI HC Show, and

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Speaker 1: send them my way by writing to this Day at

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Speaker 1: iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to Kasby Bias for producing the show,

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Speaker 1: and thanks to you for listening. I'll see you back

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Speaker 1: here again tomorrow for another day in History Class