Stoneyisland man

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Scheme of the preserved bones.
Red indicates slightly fragmented, blue indicates heavily fragmented skeletal parts

The Stoneyisland Man is a Neolithic bog body , which in 1929 Moor Stoneyisland Bog at Gortanumera in Irish County Galway was discovered. The man is Ireland's oldest known bog body to date.

Find

The turf cutters James Dolphin, Thomas Rodgers and John Spain met on May 13 in 1929 work on Dolphins plot, near the center of the Stoneyisland-Bogs, on a human skeleton . At first, they suspected they had the remains of a Mr. Ward from Ballyshrule who had been missing for some time. The skeleton was about 3 meters deep under an undisturbed layer of peat and only a few centimeters above the bog bottom. The back of the head is said to have had contact with the reason. According to Dolphins, no other objects were found on the skeleton. He also announced that he had previously come across remains of ashes from former fireplaces , tree trunks and charcoal residues in higher moor layers , and the remains of a dugout canoe in another area of ​​the moor, about 1.5 meters deep .
Location of the Stoneyisland Bog: 53 ° 5 ′ 2 ″  N , 8 ° 17 ′ 41 ″  W Coordinates: 53 ° 5 ′ 2 ″  N , 8 ° 17 ′ 41 ″  W

Finding

The Stoneyisland man was lying on his back with his arms drawn at right angles across his torso. The skeleton was complete. T. Shea, who worked for the UK's Ordnance Survey in the area, completely excavated the skeleton and sent it to the University College Galway Museum of Anatomy for further study . Based on the anatomical examination of Shea, it is about 40 years old, with a height of about 157 cm. The joints showed signs of wear due to heavy physical activity. The teeth were very badly chewed . Shea observed numerous characteristic similarities to other prehistoric skeletal finds from Western Europe on the lower jaw, teeth and extremity bones. He further concluded that the body did not slowly sink into a bog, but that the man drowned in the then still open lake, sank to the bottom, and was only later overgrown with bog by the silting lake.

Dating

The find was dated from 4500 to 2000 BC by Mr. White of Queen's University of Belfast , using a pollen analysis of the peat layer . The 14 C dates on four samples were in the range between 6200 and 5170 BP (4250 to 3220 BC), with three current samples in the range between 5270 and 5170 BP (3320 to 3220 BC) and thus one slightly more recent Confirm the age of the find.

literature

  • Shea: Report on the Human Skeleton found in Stoney Island bog, Portumna . In: Galway Archaeological and Historical Society (Ed.): Journal . No. 15 , 1931, p. 73–79 (English, first publication).
  • John Joe Conwell: Lickmolassy by the Shannon: A History of Gortanumera & Surrounding Parishes . Ed .: Gortumera Historical Society. Ireland 1998, ISBN 0-9534776-0-6 , pp. 3–5 (English).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d R. C. Turner, CS Briggs: The Bog Burials of Britain and Ireland . In: IM Stead, JB Bourke, Don Brothwell (Eds.): Lindow Man - The Body in the Bog . British Museum Publications, London 1986, ISBN 0-7141-1386-7 , pp. 153-154, 156, 193 (English).
  2. ↑ a b c Shea: Report on the Human Skeleton found in Stoney Island bog, Portumna . In: Galway Archaeological and Historical Society (Ed.): Journal . No. 15 , 1931, p. 73–79 (English, first publication).
  3. ↑ Determined with Ordonance Survey Ireland
  4. ^ 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. 189 (Dutch, original title: Vereeuwigd in het veen . Translated by Henning Stilke).
personal data
SURNAME Stoneyisland man
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Stoneyisland Man (English)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Irish bog corpse
DATE OF BIRTH between 3400 BC BC and 3250 BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH between 3350 BC BC and 3220 BC Chr.
Place of death near Gortanumera , Ireland