The
excavation revealed a very special object – and axe, complete with a
shaft, which is very rare. (Photo: Moesgård Museum and Aarhus
University)
A Danish bog has been harbouring a terrifying secret for thousands of years.
Archaeologists
have spent all summer excavating a small sample of what has turned out
to be a mass grave containing skeletal remains from more than 1,000
warriors, who were killed in battle some 2,000 years ago.
“We found a lot more human bones than we had expected,” says Ejvind Hertz, curator at Skanderborg Museum.
The discovery of the many Iron Age bones has attracted international attention, partly because the body parts are macabre
per se,
but also because the bones are surprisingly well preserved.
Furthermore, the find confirms a Roman source’s description of the
Teutons’ atrocious war practices.
The site is located in the Alken Enge wetlands near Lake Mossø on the Jutland peninsula.
Bones reveal wounds from weapons
Some 2,000 years ago, the Alken
warriors are thought to have been sacrificed to some gods, which we’re
not very familiar with today.
At
this early stage, we can see that the bones have bite marks on them,
and parts of the joints have been gnawed off. So there’s no doubt that
predators have been in contact with the body parts.”
Ejvind Hertz, curator at Skanderborg Museum
The
bones ended up in the bog at a time when it wasn’t a bog; rather, it
was a small basin by Lake Mossø, created by a tongue of land jutting
into the lake.
The archaeologists have so far only excavated an
area of 80-90 square metres, although the site stretches over an area of
3,600 square metres.
Excavations in wetlands are very expensive,
since water needs to be constantly pumped out. Also, the finds are so
densely concentrated that it takes a long time to get through all the
layers.
The area that has so far been excavated contained bone
fragments from around 240 men aged between 13 and 45. The men’s bones
are marked by melee weapons such as swords and axes.
Meadow filled with dead warriors
The unexcavated basin in the
bog stretches over a huge area covering almost 40 hectare and is
believed to contain the remains of more than 1,000 warriors.
When
asked how the archaeologists can tell that this many warriors are buried
there, Hertz says: “We know that people who cut peat here in the 19th
and 20th centuries found bone fragments. We’ve also made test
excavations in the basin.”
This is the first time that something like this has been found in northern Europe.
Ejvind Hertz, curator at Skanderborg Museum
The
archaeologists did not find complete skeletons, only skeletal parts.
They can see that the bog contains many different individuals, since
humans have, for instance, only one left thighbone.
Dead warriors were left to rot on the battlefield
The army beneath the bog may have been defeated and killed in a battlefield located far away from Alken Wetlands.
Hertz
says that if this were the case, it must have been a massive logistical
task for Iron Age people to transport the bones to the lake.
The
researchers cannot say how this may have come about or where the battle
took place. Many of the archaeological finds in the area stem from
armies that came from afar.
But in principle, the battlefield may
have been located right next to the sacrificial site. The sacrifice,
however, occurred long after the battle.
“The bones have been
sacrificed months or even years after the warriors were killed. We won’t
know until the bones have been carefully analysed,” says the curator.
The
bones are completely fresh. Some DNA has been preserved, so we can get a
good profile of what Iron Age man looked like. An anthropological
analysis of the bones will provide us with a picture of their diet and
their physical appearance.
Ejvind Hertz, curator at Skanderborg Museum
“At
this early stage, we can see that the bones have bite marks on them,
and parts of the joints have been gnawed off. So there’s no doubt that
predators have been in contact with the body parts.”
Finds confirm tales of brutal warfare
The marks from the
predators’ bite indicate that the dead warriors were left to die and rot
on the battlefield, without anyone bothering to bury or even remove the
bodies.
This confirms parts of what a Roman source wrote about
war practices among Northern Europeans in the period around the time of
the birth of Christ.
One of the greatest historians of the Roman
Empire, Tacitus (56 AD – 120 AD) described the aftermath of the Roman’s
famous defeat in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD.
“In
the middle of the plain, bones lay either spread out or heaped,
depending on whether they had fled or resisted. Next to the bones lay
bits of spears and horse limbs, and there were also human heads nailed
to trees. In the nearby groves were barbarian altars in which they had
sacrificed tribunes and centurions of the first rank,” Tacitus wrote in
his
Annals.
We
also know from sources that when the Teutons won a battle, they killed
off all the surviving enemies, except for the few who managed to run
back to their home and tell of their defeat.
Very few weapons found in the grave
The sacrificed army was discovered in an area which has turned out to be brimming with archaeological treasures.
Here archaeologists have found around 15,000 objects – mainly weapons
sacrifices from the Iron Age. But carbon 14 analyses have revealed that
none of these finds could have been weapons belonging to the sacrificed
army in Alken.
The archaeologists cannot determine the nationality of
the slain warriors because they have found very few remains of weapons
in the grave.
Among the numerous bone fragments, they have only
found a few arrowheads, the remains of a shield and a very well
preserved axe, complete with a shaft, which is very rare.
An invaluable source of info about Iron Age man
The bones are
nevertheless invaluable: “This is the first time that something like
this has been found in northern Europe,” says Hertz.
The conditions for preservation in the Alken wetlands have been optimal, i.e. the atmosphere has been oxygen-free.
“The
bones are completely fresh,” he says. “Some DNA has been preserved, so
we can get a good profile of what Iron Age man looked like. An
anthropological analysis of the bones will provide us with a picture of
their diet and their physical appearance.”
The researchers are
nearing the completion of the current excavation project. In the coming
months, they will be analysing the many bones together with
international experts,
The project, titled ‘The army and post-war
rituals in the Iron Age – warriors sacrificed in the bog at Alken Enge
in Illerup Ådal’ is a collaboration between archaeologists and
geologists at Skanderborg Museum, Moesgård Museum and Aarhus University.
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Read the Danish version of this article at videnskab.dk
