An international team of scientists recently completed a comprehensive analysis of the remains of a body extracted from a peat bog in Denmark. Using DNA testing, plus various types of chemical analysis of the bones and teeth of this so-called “bog body,” the researchers have uncovered some surprising and fascinating facts about the life of the 5,000-year-old Vittrup Man, a victim of ancient ritual sacrifice who was removed from his watery tomb by peat harvesters more than a century ago.
Dated to approximately 3,300 to 3,100 BC, the Vittrup Man was previously believed to have been a lifelong resident of ancient Denmark. But in a paper just published in the journal PLOS ONE, the scientists who carried out the study clarified that this assumption is incorrect. In fact, their research proves that the Vittrup Man was actually born somewhere along the northern coast of either Norway or Sweden, quite a distance away from the bog near the Danish village of Vittrup where his skeletal remains were deposited.
Genetic testing of the skeleton’s ancestral heritage firmly established the region of northern Scandinavia as the Vittrup Man’s true birthplace, which suggests that he was an immigrant who joined a Danish farming community after migrating southward, presumably sometime during adulthood. This means he completed a rather remarkable and unusual life journey, one that ended in premature death in a ritual designed to appease ancient deities worshipped by the Danish people of Neolithic times.
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