It was a misty day in August 1984. Andy Mould and Eddie Slack were cutting peat from a bog in Lindow Moss, England. Suddenly, the men froze. A human foot was sticking up out of the peat!
The men called the police. But the police weren’t needed. What they needed was an archaeologist instead. Lindow Man, as he came to be called, had been dead for about 2,300 years.
Lindow Man was not a complete surprise to scientists. About 2,000 bodies have been found in European bogs, one as early as 1450. Most have been dated to between 800 B.C. and A.D. 400.
These bodies had not rotted in the peat. They were preserved, almost like they’d been frozen. How is that possible? Peat grows in mud that doesn’t have much oxygen but has a lot of acid. Those conditions are great for preserving flesh.
