
Why do many corpses found in Europe’s peat bogs show signs of violent death? - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/27/dark-matter/the-curious-case-of-the-bog-bodies
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gozur88
I don't find the thesis convincing. Bogs sound like a "gateway to the
spiritual world" in the same way the Hudson River is for American gangsters -
a great place to stash a body you don't want found. Particularly the guy whose
throat was slit.

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ChuckMcM
I would disagree with this analysis. Since the bog is so successful at
preserving the remains it would be a horrible place for "gangsters" or anyone
murdering someone else, to dump a body. A body which years later would still
be recognizable as the victim.

The notion of it being a "cheap" way to bury people which was unlikely pass
disease along to the village and would be nominally odorless is more
compelling to me. You need look no further than a modern equivalent in New
York
([http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/15/nyregion/new-y...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/15/nyregion/new-
york-mass-graves-hart-island.html?_r=0)).

So I am more likely to believe that it contains people who the elders
dispatched or perhaps died in a crime without any family to claim.

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gozur88
>I would disagree with this analysis. Since the bog is so successful at
preserving the remains it would be a horrible place for "gangsters" or anyone
murdering someone else, to dump a body. A body which years later would still
be recognizable as the victim.

Except nobody would find it unless you put it near somewhere inhabited. Surely
the fact they were there for thousands of years is a testament to that.

~~~
eric_h
I don't think the two hypotheses are mutually exclusive. A place well suited
to a ritual burial (for the reasons of not attracting carion feeders or
otherwise not poisoning resources normally used) would also be well suited to
burying victims that people would want to hide.

To me, a bog seems like a place that would leave little trace on the surface
relatively shortly after a burial. It would, as a result, serve just as well
as a means of symbolically "sending someone to another realm" as it would
concealing a murder.

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CamperBob2
(Shrug) Seems like someone who's about to die peacefully of old age or disease
would be inclined to do it somewhere other than a peat bog.

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vorotato
Why? Because how many times have you fallen into a peat bog and couldn't get
out?

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waqf
Misleading title: the tagline asks the question but the article does not
attempt to answer it.

I think we should in this case use the original title "Why _Do_ So Many […]?"
instead of rephrasing it to be an indirect question.

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KineticLensman
The article doesn't try to give a single definitive answer; instead it lists
some of the probable causes for a range of different cases. Which is fine by
me.

But I agree that the title here is unrepresentative is of the real article,
noting that "Why do so many corpses found in Europe’s peat bogs show signs of
violent death?" is actually the subheading of the article's real title: "The
Curious Case of the Bog Bodies".

