Man from New England

Man from New England in the permanent exhibition of the State Museum for Nature and Man

The man of New England is a Migration Period bog body , created in 1941 in Tarbarg , part of Lengener Moores , about 500 m northwest of the Westersteder hamlet of New England (in the publications and New England ) in Lower Saxony found. The remains are listed under inventory no. OL 5810 shown alongside other bog bodies in the permanent exhibition of the State Museum for Nature and Humans in Oldenburg .

Finding circumstances

The man from New England was discovered on May 27, 1941 by the daughter of the farmer and innkeeper Friedrich Kloppenburg while mining peat in the raised bog . She showed her father a bone found in the freshly cut peat wall . Kloppenburg suspected a human bone, stopped his work and notified the community leader , who informed the authorities. The medical officer who was called and a police officer uncovered the body, severely damaging the abdomen. On the same day, the shop steward of the Oldenburg Museum happened to find out about the find from the medical officer and drove to the site. There he had the find covered with boards to protect it from drying out. Economist Siemers arrived the next day and hid the bog corpse with boards inserted in a 15 cm thick block . The find was stored in a cool stable in the nearest inn until it was transported to the museum in Oldenburg on May 30th.
Reference: 53 ° 18 ′ 29.3 "  N , 7 ° 52 ′ 56.6"  E Coordinates: 53 ° 18 ′ 29.3 "  N , 7 ° 52 ′ 56.6"  E

Preservation

Since the museum was unable to obtain suitable preservatives due to the war situation , the bog body was dried in a cool room , which led to a significant shrinkage of the remains and a further blackening of the skin, which has contracted into long bulges on the arms and legs.

Findings

The man from New England was lying on his back in the white peat at a depth of about 20 to 35 cm below the surface of the bog. His head was pointing south-southwest, the head turned slightly to the left. The legs were slightly bent and the knees bent to the right. The arms lay along the sides of the chest and the forearms across the abdomen and left clear impressions in it. When the body was found, no additions or items of clothing were observed, and a microscopic examination of peat samples from several folds of skin did not reveal any remains of clothing, so that the body was very likely laid down without clothing.

Reference

Peat samples taken next to the site showed that the peat layer was 193 cm thick up to the sandy bottom. The top 50 cm consisted of white peat, with a layer of black peat underneath. There were no traces of the body being buried or covered with moss or peat. The profile of the site revealed that the man was sunk in a wet ditch and quickly embedded in the peat. The renewable on this point formed a peat with immediately surrounding the reference heather -covered Bulte . Based on changes in the past peat fire cultivating the reference dried together with the embedded remains of a man, which caused the observed in the recovery of the body dark skin color.

Anthropological Findings

The age of the man was estimated to be around 40 to 50 years without detailed anatomical examination. His body is flattened by the layers of peat above it, and his skull is somewhat dented and torn. The scalp is largely intact from the neck to the eye area . The mouth is open and stubble of a mustache about 10 mm long was visible on the upper lip. The forehead and the upper skull are exposed, only on the back of the head a tuft of about 10 cm long scalp hair remained , which had taken on a red color due to the storage in the acidic moor environment . The skin of the bog body is dry, leathery and hard. It was already darkly discolored when it was recovered, which can be attributed to the dried-up peat layer in which it was embedded. This dark discoloration was intensified by the subsequent dry preservation. The skin covering is largely preserved, especially on the back and chest. It has passed on the head, the right upper arm and the left forearm, and in the abdomen it has been largely destroyed by the forensic medical examination at the site. Fat and muscle tissue as well as internal organs were largely gone. As a result of the drying process, the skin had become detached from the bones, especially in the thigh area. The left hand is well preserved with the forearm, the bed of the thumbnail is clearly visible, but the fingernails are missing . The right hand is mostly skeletal, but the bones are still held together by remains of skin. The man's legs were still completely intact when they were found, but they are now partially skeletonized and surrounded by larger, adherent scraps of skin.

Cause of death

Due to the relatively large-scale damage to the corpse, neither injuries caused during lifetime nor the cause of death could be identified.

Dating

According to the results of a pollen analysis of the peat samples in the 1940s, the time of death of the man was between AD 100 and AD 400. More recent studies of a hair and skin sample using ¹⁴ C dating showed the death of the man between AD 140 and AD 320 more precisely with a large match. An age of 1800 ± 50 BP was determined for the skin  sample and 1755 ± 50 BP for the hair sample, which combined results in a calibrated age of 1790 ± 50 BP for both dates.

interpretation

Since the peat layer above the corpse was dug up undocumented during the forensic rescue, it was no longer possible to clarify with certainty whether the dead person was buried in the moor. However, the finder Kloppenburg announced that the peat layer above was undisturbed, which would indicate that the dead body was sinking into the still liquid moor. The pronounced rest position of the man, especially his arms, indicate that he had already died and was carefully laid down in the moor. Accidental death in the moor is unlikely with this posture.

literature

• Frank Both, Mamoun Fansa (Ed.): Fascination Moor Corpses: 220 Years of Moor Archeology . Zabern, Philipp von, Darmstadt 2011, ISBN 978-3-8053-4360-2 , p. 79-86 .
• 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 , pp. 32, 81 (Dutch, original title: Vereeuwigd in het veen . Translated by Henning Stilke).
• Hajo Hayen : The bog bodies in the museum on the dam . In: Publications of the State Museum for Natural History and Prehistory Oldenburg . tape 6 . Isensee, Oldenburg 1987, ISBN 3-920557-73-5 , p. 64-67 .

Web links

• New England. City of Westerstede, accessed on December 6, 2011 (brief overview of the history of the find). 
• Äbbel: Man from New England ( bog body ). Photo community , accessed December 6, 2011 (photo of the face). 
• James M. Deem: New England Man. In: Mummy Tombs. Retrieved December 6, 2011 (website aimed at children). 

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Frank Both, Mamoun Fansa (ed.): Fascination Moor Corpses: 220 Years of Moor Archeology . Zabern, Philipp von, Darmstadt 2011, ISBN 978-3-8053-4360-2 , p. 79 .
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Hajo Hayen : The bog bodies in the museum on the dam . In: Publications of the State Museum for Natural History and Prehistory Oldenburg . tape 6 . Isensee, Oldenburg 1987, ISBN 3-920557-73-5 , p. 64-67 .
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Falk Georges Bechara: Histological, electron microscopic, immunohistological and IR spectroscopic investigations on the skin of 2000 year old bog corpses . Dissertation. Ruhr University, Bochum 2001, p. 34-36 ff . ( ruhr-uni-bochum.de [PDF; accessed on May 4, 2011]).
4. ↑ Johannes van der Plicht, Wijnand van der Sanden , AT Aerts, HJ Streurman: Dating bog bodies by means of ¹⁴ C-AMS . In: Journal of Archaeological Science . tape 31 , no. 4 , 2004, ISSN  0305-4403 , p. 471–491 , doi : 10.1016 / j.jas.2003.09.012 (English, ub.rug.nl [PDF; 388 kB ; accessed on June 2, 2010]).