A body preserved in a bog since the Iron Age still contains an undigested last meal

A natural mummy, named "Tollund Man", opens a window into what life was like in Europe 2400 years ago, reports the news of science gizmodo.

An incredibly well-preserved head of a man from Tollund. Image: ©A. Mikkelsen.

Re-analysis of the contents of the stomach belonging to a mummified man from the Iron Age gives a new understanding of his amazingly nutritious last meal and undermined state of health.

Tollund died around 400 BC. on the territory of the current Jutland peninsula in Denmark. He died by hanging, which is considered a ritual sacrifice. His body was kept in a Danish swamp for 2400 years, which allows us to analyze the contents of his stomach.

The new results, published in Antiquity, suggest that Tollund Man ate his last meal 12-24 hours before his death, and that it consisted of porridge and fish - the two main dishes in the Danish Early Iron Age. It was nutritious, probably tasty food, but Tollund was not in the best of health, having been infected with several parasites. The new study was conducted by archaeologist Nina Nielsen from the Silkeborg Museum in Denmark.

The well-preserved remains of Tollund were accidentally discovered in 1950. In the same year, a forensic medical examination was conducted, during which his digestive system and its contents were studied and documented by scientists. The autopsy revealed the ingredients of Tollund's last meal: barley, flax, "golden pleasure" seeds, pale persicaria seeds, and the remains of 16 other plant species.

"Since 1950, knowledge about plant macrofossils and methods of analyzing the contents of the intestines have improved significantly, we decided to re-examine the contents of the intestines of the Tollund man"

, Nielsen said in an electronic press release.

A new look at the human-Tollund digestive tract turned out to be a good idea. Mummies, preserved in a natural way, allow you to look into the past and reveal such details as the appearance of a person (which in this case, of course, is!), Clothing, health, diet and much more. In this case, Nielsen and her colleagues sought to better document what the man ate, determine how the food was prepared, and check the contents of his intestines for signs of illness. By evaluating the ingredients of the man's last meal, the team hoped to identify any unusual products associated with ritual sacrifice.

For the analysis, which was carried out from 2019 to 2020, the team analyzed material taken from the Tollund human colon, including macroscopic fossils, pollen, non-pollen palynomorphs (also known as NPPS - things like microscopic pieces of plants, spores and parasite eggs ), proteins and fats.

"We can now largely reconstruct the recipe for Tollund's last meal," Nielsen said. "The food was quite nutritious and consisted of barley porridge with seeds of pale persicaria and flax."

The main ingredients of Tollund's last meal (excluding fish) (indicated in their relative quantities: 1) barley, 2) pale peach, 3) flax, 4) black bindweed, 5) sand, 6) gold. pleasure, 7) fatty chicken, 8) corn spur, 9) nettle and 10) pansy eyes. Image: ©Museum Silkeborg

About 20 types of plants were found, but less than 1% of the total content, researchers believe, were just accidental ingredients. Protein analysis shows that fish was part of the meal, but it is not known whether fish was added to the porridge. An autopsy in 1950 did not find this ingredient. In addition, new data indicate that porridge was prepared in a clay pot.

"So we're getting very close to a specific situation in the past - you can almost imagine them sitting around the fireplace cooking barley porridge and fish," Nielsen said.

Tollund Man's last meal does not seem unusual and is probably a typical dish served in Northern Europe during the Iron Age. At the same time, the presence of pale persicaria seeds looks a little strange. Persicaria is a weed that grew together with barley and flax, but gathered together with grain. Its seeds were usually removed during threshing, but in this case, according to the study, threshing waste, including seeds, along with grains of sand and coal, which fell to the ground, were picked up and thrown into the porridge.

"At this point, we don't know if threshing waste was a normal practice in the Iron Age kitchen, or if this ingredient was only used in special cases, such as human sacrifice," Nielsen said.

Despite the extraneous ingredients, this meal was quite nutritious, providing Tollund with half a day's worth of calories.

"Our study shows that it may be useful to reanalyze the gut contents of a bog body stored in museum collections, and that combining analyzes of pollen, NPP, macrofossils, steroids, and proteins may provide additional useful data," the scientists conclude in their study.

"Our quantitative assessment and identification of various ingredients in Tollund's last meal at a new level of detail can be used for comparison in future projects."

Tollund was not in perfect health, as the team found signs of intestinal parasites, including hookworms, tapeworms and hookworms. He probably got infected with tapeworm cysts after eating raw or undercooked meat. Hookworms and hookworms are transmitted through eggs in human feces, so human Tollund infection can be caused by poor sanitation and/or poor hygiene. His multiple infections can also be a sign that people live with animals and have limited access to clean water.

So, many fresh ideas are revealed in the new article, and all this is provided by materials 2400 years old, placed in the ancient colon. But this is the essence of archaeology, in which scientists extract details from the smallest scraps of evidence. Like this study conducted at the beginning of this year, which describes in detail the strange path made by an ancient human skull with cracked skin.