A re - analysis of the belly content belong to a naturally mummified Iron Age man is providing new insights into his astonishingly nutritious final meal and compromised state of wellness .
Tollund Man died around 400 BCE in what is now the Jutland peninsula of Denmark . He died by hang , in what is believed to be a ritual sacrifice . His body was conserve in a Danish peat bog for 2,400 years , allow for an analysis of his tum contents .
The newfindings , published in Antiquity , suggest Tollund Man ate his final repast some 12 to 24 hours before his death and that it lie of porridge and fish — both common bag during the Danish Early Iron Age . It was a nutritious , potential tasty repast , but Tollund Man was not in the undecomposed of wellness , as he was infected with several parasites . The new research was led by archaeologist Nina Nielsen from the Silkeborg Museum in Denmark .
The incredibly well-preserved head of Tollund Man.Image: A. Mikkelsen
The well - preserved cadaver of Tollund Man were accidentally find in 1950 . A forensic depth psychology was carried out the same twelvemonth , in which his digestive system — along with its contents — were studied and document by scientist . The post-mortem revealed the ingredients of Tollund Man ’s final repast — barleycorn , flax , gold - of - joy source , seeds of pale persicaria , and the remnants of 16 other plant species .
“ Since knowledge of plant life macrofossils and the methods for analyze gut contents have meliorate greatly since 1950 , we decide to re - investigate the intestine contents of Tollund Man , ” Nielsen articulate in an emailed printing press release .
Revisiting Tollund Man ’s digestive parcel with novel eyes prove to be a saucy estimate . course preserved mummies offer a singular glimpse into the past tense , break details like a person ’s physical appearance ( sure as shooting the case here ! ) , wearable , health , diet , among other thing . In this case , Nielsen and her colleagues seek to good document what the man ate , determine how the food was educate , and stop his gut capacity for signs of disease . By quantify the ingredients of the man ’s final repast , the squad was hoping to flag any unusual nutrient relate to ritual sacrifice .
The main ingredients—not including the fish—in Tollund Man’s last meal (shown in their relative quantities: 1) Barley, 2) pale persicaria, 3) flax, 4) black-bindweed, 5) sand, 6) gold-of-pleasure, 7) fat hen, 8) corn spurrey, 9) hemp-nettles and 10) field pansy.Image: Museum Silkeborg
For the analysis , which took place from 2019 to 2020 , the squad analyzed materials taken from Tollund Man ’s gravid intestine , including macrofossils , pollen , non - pollen palynomorphs ( also known as NPPS — these are thing like microscopic bits of plants , spores , and bollock of parasite ) , protein , and fat .
“ We can now reasonably much reconstruct the recipe of the last meal of Tollund Man , ” pronounce Nielsen . “ The meal was quite nutritious and comprise of a barleycorn porridge with some semen from pale persicaria and flax . ”
Some 20 works metal money were detected , but at less than 1 % of the full message , the researchers figure these were merely resultant ingredients . The protein analysis suggest Pisces was part of the repast , but it ’s not live if the fish was tot up to the porridge . The autopsy from 1950 fail to detect this component . Also , the novel evidence suggests the porridge was cook in a clay pot .
“ In this way , we get very closelipped to a specific situation in the past — you’re able to almost envisage how they were sit by the fireplace prepare the barley porridge and the fish , ” said Nielsen .
Tollund Man ’s last meal does not seem to be anything out of the average , and it ’s probable congresswoman of a typical dish served in northerly Europe during the Iron Age . That say , the front of seeds from pallid persicaria was consider to be a bit strange . Persicaria is a grass , and it grow alongside barley and flax but was harvested together with the grains . Its seeds were typically remove during threshing , but in this case , the threshing wastefulness that fell to the ground — seeds included — along with grains of sand and charcoal , was clean up and thrown into the porridge , according to the research .
“ As for now , we do n’t know whether the use of threshing waste in the Iron Age cuisine was normal practice session or whether this ingredient was only used at special occasions like human sacrifices , ” Nielsen note .
Despite the extraneous ingredients , this meal was quite nutritious , provide Tollund Man with half a twenty-four hour period ’s Charles Frederick Worth of calories .
“ Our study show that it can be good to re - analyse bog body gut contents hive away in museum ingathering , and that combining pollen , NPP , macrofossil , steroid and protein analyses can yield further useful data point , ” conclude the scientist in their study . “ Our quantification and recognition of the unlike ingredient in Tollund Man ’s last meal at a new tier of detail can be used for comparison in future projects . ”
Tollund Man was not in perfect health , as the team chance grounds of intestinal parasite , specifically whipworm , tapeworm , and mawworm . He likely got infect with cestode cyst after consume sensitive or undercooked sum . Whipworm and mawworm are transmit by ballock in human the skinny , so Tollund Man ’s transmission could be due to poor sanitation and/or poor hygiene . His multiple infections could also be a sign of the zodiac of multitude living close together with animal and limited admittance to sporty urine .
So , plenty of refreshed insights revealed in the raw theme , and all provided by 2,400 - yr - sure-enough material overeat into an ancient large intestine . But such is the essence of archaeology , in which scientists tease out detail from the tiniest scraps of grounds . Likethisresearch from earlier this year , detailing the strange trek taken by an ancient , defleshed human skull .
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