Bog Bodies in a Macro Perspective. A Spatial Study of Early Iron Age Scanian Bog Skeletons and Their Cultural Roles as Seen Through the Liminality Perspective

Abstract: This thesis was written with the aims to better understand the spatial relation between the Scanian iron Age bog bodies and the archaeological remains within the surrounding landscape, which in turn would lead to a new theory of understanding the cultural and social aspects of the bog body phenomenon, specifically by applying the liminality perspective. This was done by approaching the material through a wider macro perspective, as opposed to the normally individual-focused micro perspective most used in the bog body research. By applying the spatial perspective as the method, while analysing the relations between the bog body find sites (the key sites), and the archaeological remains within the surrounding landscape (the selected areas), certain spatial patterns emerged which displayed a change through time, and a rather low presence of contemporary archaeological remains within these areas during the recorded peak of the bog body phenomenon. Which may indicate that the people of this time viewed these special places in a certain way, different to the rest of the landscape. Thus, leading to the conclusions that these places, may have been regarded as not belonging to neither the world of the living nor the dead, which in turn may indicate that the people deposited there may have served a secondary liminal purpose to being sacrificial offerings.