Dead People in the Bogs: Network Report

Abstract

resemble us living human beings and they are occasionally linked with violent deaths. Some interpretations suggest they were outcasts or sacrificial victims, others that they were simply victims of drowning. In October 2009 a workshop on the theme ‘Dead People in the Bogs’ was held at Stockholm University. The overall aim was to work out where future research into bog bodies would go, and where the research is for the moment. The format of the workshop was a series of short lectures illustrating different aspects of research, followed by small group discussions around three themes. The first theme, from paper-bodies to the study of complex human remains, dealt with issues of source-criticism and how the material should be approached in order to secure a stable platform for interpretation. Research has through the years focused on the phenomena of bog bodies, however, recent studies have shown that the current record is not at all reliable. Earlier researchers might have been too lax in their source criticism, accepting far more bog bodies than there is evidence for. The material needs to be critically re-examined. The question is what would such a critical survey contain and what would a renewal of the sources involve? The second theme was focussed on how we can form the questions in order to develop new fields of research. This theme was called ‘Turning People into Bodies: Natural Processes, Violence, Forgetting and Remembering’. What is the meaning of the variability in the treatment of the dead? Are all wetlands the same, or do they have different meanings? Who among the dead were forgotten and who remembered? Journal of Wetland Archaeology 10, 2011, 152–153