Bogged down: Human preservation and decomposition. Using forensic scoring methods to assess three bog bodies from Denmark, England & Ireland.

Abstract: This work looks at three case studies from bog body research in Denmark, England and Ireland in order to investigate the variation of human decomposition in different depositional environments and the application of forensic methods to the area of bog body research in archaeology. The work attempts to assess the chosen case studies using an established forensic scoring method by Heaton et al (2010) and discusses the possible benefits of using an appropriately adapted scoring method for bog body research. The work discusses the importance of increasing the general knowledge of the human body itself and human decomposition or human taphonomy in archaeology, as well as contextual knowledge regarding the depositional environment itself. Our field constantly strives to develop knowledge of the human past and to build on our understanding and interpretations of the lives of past peoples, which also inevitably includes the process of death and any associated burial practices and/or other mortuary traditions. This paper concludes that that there is a considerable variation in both the availability of adequate training opportunities in forensic techniques in archaeology and in terms of the analyses carried out on bog body remains. In order to effectively excavate, analyse and develop interpretations from human remains, this paper concludes that all practicing archaeologists should have at least a basic understanding of the human bodies through which those lives (and deaths) took place and how the preservation and decomposition of those bodies and the material culture they leave behind can vary considerably dependent on the composition of the depositional environment. The work concludes that the creation of a bog body research database and a specific bog body scoring method through which to assess bog bodies and decomposition in archaeology could be useful, and proposes a further wide-scale quantitative research project to assess whether this could indeed prove beneficial in practice.