Speaker 1: Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Patrick Woodward.
Speaker 2: And I'm Megan Nolette. Spotlight uses a special English method
Speaker 2: of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no
Speaker 2: matter where in the world they live.
Speaker 1: On Monday, May the eighth, nineteen fifty, the Hoygoth family
Speaker 1: discovered the body of a man. They found him face
Speaker 1: down in the water. The body's skin was brown and hard,
Speaker 1: like dried animal skin, and the body had a rope
Speaker 1: around its neck. The body seemed so fresh that the
Speaker 1: Hoygoths believed he had just been killed. But when the
Speaker 1: police came, they understood that it was not a job
Speaker 1: for them. It was a job for historians. The body
Speaker 1: the Hoygoths had found was over two thousand years old.
Speaker 2: Soon researchers gave this man a name, the Tolland Man,
Speaker 2: and as they studied him, he became more mysterious. It
Speaker 2: was clear that someone had killed him. They had hung
Speaker 2: him by the neck. He wore no clothes except for
Speaker 2: his shoes and a small hat, but the way he
Speaker 2: had been buried seemed respectful. There was evidence that they
Speaker 2: had even closed his eyes. Researchers did not know why
Speaker 2: he had been killed.
Speaker 1: People have discovered bodies like the Tolland Man's all over Europe.
Speaker 1: There were even some in North America. Most of them
Speaker 1: are murder victims, and all of them were buried in
Speaker 1: special wetlands called bogs. Today's spotlight is on the mystery
Speaker 1: of these bog people.
Speaker 2: We do not know much about the people who hilled
Speaker 2: the tall End Man. They lived in Denmark around five
Speaker 2: hundred BCE. They had no written language. All we know
Speaker 2: of them is the things they left behind. Researchers believe
Speaker 2: that bogs were important to them. They may have been
Speaker 2: places of religious worship. Joshua Levine is a writer at
Speaker 2: Smithsonian Magazine. He explains.
Speaker 3: To the people who put him there, a bog was
Speaker 3: a special place. Most of northern Europe lay under a
Speaker 3: thick forest, but bogs did not. They were half earth,
Speaker 3: half water, and open to the sky. They must have
Speaker 3: seemed like doorways to another world.
Speaker 1: Bogs may have been important for another reason. They kept
Speaker 1: things fresh. Today we know the reason. A special plant
Speaker 1: called Sphagnum moss is in bogs. Sphagnum contains chemicals called phenols.
Speaker 1: These natural chemicals slow down the decaying process. Bogs also
Speaker 1: have little oxygen in their water. Most bacteria cannot grow there,
Speaker 1: so objects placed in bogs rarely decay. Researchers in Ireland
Speaker 1: have even found butter made from cow's milk in bogs.
Speaker 1: The butter was still safe to eat. It was almost
Speaker 1: two thousand years old.
Speaker 2: The people who killed the Tolland Man probably knew that
Speaker 2: bogs could stop decay. They often placed other objects in bogs,
Speaker 2: like swords. These may have been sacrifices to their gods.
Speaker 2: Experts believe that the Tolland Man may have been a
Speaker 2: sacrifice as well. The people who buried him did so
Speaker 2: with special care. They put him in the bog in
Speaker 2: a sleeping position. This shows he had a special place
Speaker 2: in their society. Miranda Aldous Green is a teacher at
Speaker 2: Cardiff University in Wales. She told NBC News.
Speaker 1: If you put a body in the bog, it would
Speaker 1: not decay. It would stay between the worlds of the
Speaker 1: living and the dead. Other bog bodies may have also
Speaker 1: been sacrifices, but the way they died was very different.
Speaker 1: Old krochhen Man is the name of a body found
Speaker 1: in Ireland. He was probably a king or some kind
Speaker 1: of ruler. He was very tall for the time and
Speaker 1: had smooth hands.
Speaker 2: The old Krogin Man died from a knife to his chest.
Speaker 2: His killers then cut off his head. They cut his
Speaker 2: body in half. They cut his chest in many places.
Speaker 2: Then they placed his body in the bog. Some researchers
Speaker 2: believe he was killed because he failed to provide for
Speaker 2: his people. The old Krogan Man may have angered these
Speaker 2: people's gods. The people may have thought his death would
Speaker 2: help them.
Speaker 1: Other bog bodies may not have been so important. Some
Speaker 1: may have been criminals killed for their crimes. Tacitus was
Speaker 1: a writer who lived in the Roman Empire in the
Speaker 1: first century CE. He often wrote about history and other cultures.
Speaker 1: He discussed how some people in Northern Europe manage their
Speaker 1: criminals in his book Germania.
Speaker 4: They hang cheets and deserters from trees. People who do
Speaker 4: not want to go to war and who practice unlawful
Speaker 4: sex are punished differently. They push these offenders into the
Speaker 4: wet ground of a bog. They hold the criminals down
Speaker 4: with large wooden fences.
Speaker 2: Experts are not sure if Tacitus knew the truth, he
Speaker 2: wrote down what other people told him. He never visited
Speaker 2: Northern Europe, but his writings are some of the only
Speaker 2: texts that experts have on these traditions.
Speaker 1: People have discovered bodies in bogs in Denmark, Ireland, Germany, England,
Speaker 1: the Netherlands, Poland, Norway, and Sweden. The National Museum of
Speaker 1: Ireland in Dublin hosts a display of some of these bodies.
Speaker 1: But Europe is not the only place where bog bodies exist.
Speaker 1: Some have been found in North America, but these bodies
Speaker 1: are very different from the ones found in Europe. Most
Speaker 1: of the people in these sites died peacefully. The people
Speaker 1: found there were ancient Native Americans. They may have buried
Speaker 1: their dead in water.
Speaker 2: One place in Florida contained many skeletons, but the burial
Speaker 2: place was more like a modern burial ground. People there
Speaker 2: were buried with the things they had in life. There
Speaker 2: were adults, teenagers, and even children. The Native Americans may
Speaker 2: have also believed the bog was a special place, but
Speaker 2: they had a different relationship with it than ancient Europeans.
Speaker 1: We may never fully know the stories of bog bodies.
Speaker 1: We may never know why people found in bogs died.
Speaker 1: Some may have been sacrifices, some may have been criminals,
Speaker 1: some may have simply fallen in the bog and died.
Speaker 1: It is also possible they were buried by the people
Speaker 1: who wanted to honor them. Perhaps these were places meant
Speaker 1: to preserve a record of life.
Speaker 2: But whatever reason, these bodies save extremely important history. They
Speaker 2: are so fresh that experts can test their DNA. We
Speaker 2: can see what they ate on the day that they died.
Speaker 2: We can learn a lot from these small things. We
Speaker 2: can learn what the weather was like in one year.
Speaker 2: We can learn what kinds of plants were growing. We
Speaker 2: can even learn where these people traveled and the way
Speaker 2: they interacted with their dead. We may not have writing
Speaker 2: to explain their lives. We do not have their words
Speaker 2: to speak about their culture. But for experts, these ancient
Speaker 2: human bodies are like written records. Their study shines light
Speaker 2: that allows us to see into the unknown lives of
Speaker 2: the people who lived before us.
Speaker 1: What do you make of these bodies? Why do you
Speaker 1: think they were killed? What do you want to know
Speaker 1: about their cultures? You can leave a comment on our
Speaker 1: website at www dot Spotlight English dot com. You can
Speaker 1: also find us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and egg. Yes,
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Speaker 1: Android or Apple device through our free official Spotlight English app.
Speaker 2: The writer and producer of this program was Dan Chrisman.
Speaker 2: The voices you heard were from the United Kingdom and
Speaker 2: the United States. All quotes were adapted for this program
Speaker 2: and voiced by Spotlight. This program is called The Mystery
Speaker 2: of the Bog People.
Speaker 1: We hope you can join us again for the next
Speaker 1: Spotlight program. Goodbye,