Man from Koelbjerg

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The man from Koelbjerg ( known as Frau von Koelbjerg until 2016 ) is the oldest known bog body and at the same time the oldest human bone find in Denmark . It dates to the time of the Maglemose culture around 8000 BC. The find was determined to be female and was known to Ms. von Koelbjerg for more than 75 years, but recent studies have confirmed the male gender. The remains are kept in the archaeological museum in the Møntergården manor in Odense .

Finding circumstances

In 1941 , peat cutters found a human skull and some bones in the small Kesselmoor Grøftebjergmosen near Koelbjerg in Assens Municipality on the Danish island of Funen . The teacher A. Nielsen from Koelbjerg reported the find to the Fyns Stiftsmuseum by telephone . The museum staff were only able to reconstruct the original position of the bones based on the statements made by the peat cutters. Accordingly, the skull and two other bones were 2.5 meters deep, but the majority of the bones were at a depth of 3 to 3.5 meters and a distance of seven to eight meters in an east-southeast direction. A thighbone had been found another two meters to the east-southeast. Location: 55 ° 24 ′ 13 ″  N , 10 ° 7 ′ 59 ″  E Coordinates: 55 ° 24 ′ 13 ″  N , 10 ° 7 ′ 59 ″  E

Investigation results

The skeleton was not completely found. The anthropological examination of the bones revealed that the man was about 155 cm tall and 20 to 25 years old. There are no signs of disease or malnutrition on the bones, and the preserved teeth of the originally complete set of teeth also show no pathological changes such as caries . A δ 13 C isotope analysis showed that the man mainly fed on land plants and animals and that marine animals such as fish or mussels hardly played a role in his diet. The results of the strontium analysis showed that the man grew up on the island of Fyn. A DNA analysis did not yield any usable results. The few traces of DNA found probably stem from contamination by previous workers. The distribution of the bones over a larger area is explained by the fact that the man may have drowned in the lake and - while his soft tissues decomposed - continued to float for a while in the open water. It was only after much of its soft tissue had passed that the remaining bones were enclosed in the silting lake.

In July 1941, a pollen analysis was carried out on a peat sample from the interior of the skull. The bog corpse could be dated to the time of the Maglemose culture around 8000 BC. In October 1943, a drill sample was taken at the site for further investigations. A 14 C examination in 1983 confirmed the dating to the time of the Maglemose culture.

Revising the sex determination

After the skull was found in 1941, it was determined to be female, which was sometimes doubted. The find was subsequently referred to as "Frau von Koelbjerg" and was known internationally by this name for more than 75 years. In the context of a series investigation carried out in 2016/2017 at the Center for Geogenetics of the Natural History Museum in Copenhagen to determine the sex of around 100 prehistoric skeletal finds, however, two samples from a tooth of the skull were determined independently of one another by means of DNA analysis as male .

More finds

Remnants of settlements from the Maglemose culture have been found about 2.5 km to the southwest, near the Nerverkær Bog. The man from Koelbjerg may have lived in this settlement.

The “ Frau von Österöd ” in Bohuslän ( Sweden ), discovered in 1903 and dated in 2007, is an approximately 10,200 year old skeleton .

See also

literature

  • Kurt Brøste, Knud Fischer-Møller: Koelbjerg Skeleton. Et Fund fra tidlig Maglemosetid . In: Aarbøger for nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie . 1943, ISSN  0084-585X (Danish).
  • Karsten Kjer Michaelsen: Politics bog om Danmarks oldtid . Copenhagen 2002 ISBN 87-567-6458-8 , pp. 164-165
  • Jørgen Troels-Smith: Geologisk Datering af Koelbjerg-Skelettet . In: Aarbøger for nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie . 1943, ISSN  0084-585X (Danish).
  • Wijnand van der Sanden : Mummies from the moor. The prehistoric and protohistoric bog bodies from northwestern Europe . Batavian Lion International, Amsterdam 1996, ISBN 90-6707-416-0 (Dutch, original title: Vereeuwigd in het veen . Translated by Henning Stilke).

Web links

  • Koelbjerg Woman. In: Bodies of the Bogs. Archaeological Institute of America, accessed November 30, 2011 (English, woman's clothing and a photo of the corpse).
  • Peter KA Jensen: Koelbjerg. In: Menneskets oprindelse og udvikling. Archived from the original on November 26, 2015 ; Retrieved January 24, 2016 (Danish, location map).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Koelbjergkvinden fra Danmark. National Museum of Denmark , archived from the original on March 6, 2005 ; Retrieved September 9, 2012 (Danish).
  2. ↑ Koelbjerg. In: Fund og Fortidsminder. Kulturarvsstyrelsen, accessed on November 30, 2011 (Danish, data sheet in the Danish central register of cultural history).
  3. ↑ Fyn - midt i verden. In: http://museum.odense.dk . Odense Bys Museer, accessed April 3, 2017 (Danish).
  4. ↑ http://www.pkaj.dk/koelbjerg_kort.asp ( Memento from November 26, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) and http://www.kulturarv.dk/fundogfortidsminder/Lokalitet/141623
  5. ↑ a b Den ældste dansker skifter køn. In: http://museum.odense.dk . Odense Bys Museer, accessed April 3, 2017 (Danish).
  6. ↑ Karen Lerbech Pedersen: Ny DNA-forskning: Danmarks ældste lig skifter køn fra kvinde til mand. DR.dk, April 2, 2017, accessed April 3, 2017 (Danish).
  7. ^ Karl-Göran Sjögren: Kvinnan från Österöd i Bohuslän. Undersökningar av Sveriges äldsta bevarade skelett . ( PDF [accessed September 25, 2014]).
personal data
SURNAME Man from Koelbjerg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Bog corpse
DATE OF BIRTH around 8000 BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH around 8000 BC Chr.
Place of death near Koelbjerg , Denmark