Post by Joanna on Oct 2, 2015 14:49:29 GMT -5
Mummification Common in Bronze Age Britain
Mummification may have been a common burial technique back in Bronze Age Britain a new report has claimed. Archaeologists from the University of Sheffield, with help from the University of Manchester and University College London, have analyzed several ancient burial sites across the UK and come to the conclusion that mummifying the dead was actually the norm in the Britain of old. The University of Sheffield's Department of Archaeology found some Bronze Age Britons were mummified using a similar technique as that in pre-historic Yemen and consistent with a partially mummified body found in Ireland.
Dr. Tom Booth of the Department of Earth Sciences at London's Natural History Museum, undertook microscopic analysis of the remains as he looked to compare the remains of various Bronze Age bodies with those from Yemen and Ireland. The wet British climate is unfavorable for the preservation of bodies and if they were buried outside a preservative environment such as a bog, then they would have lost their preserved tissue. Booth explained: "The problem archaeologists face is finding a consistent method of identifying skeletons that were mummified in the past – especially when they discover a skeleton that is buried outside of a protective environment. To help address this, our team has found that by using microscopic bone analysis archaeologists can determine whether a skeleton has been previously mummified even when it is buried in an environment that isn't favorable to mummified remains. We know from previous research that bones from bodies that have decomposed naturally are usually severely degraded by putrefactive bacteria, whereas mummified bones demonstrate immaculate levels of histological preservation and are not affected by putrefactive bioerosion."
A previous investigation had led researchers to the conclusion that bodies discovered in the Outer Hebrides were not consistent with mummified remains because there were signs of bacterial bioerosion. However, new technology has allowed researchers to look closer and use microscopic analysis to examine the bodies and they found they are in fact consistent with the mummification techniques used, according to the study published in Antiquity. Booth said: "Our research shows that smoking over a fire and purposeful burial within a peat bog are among some of the techniques ancient Britons may have used to mummify their dead. Other techniques could have included evisceration, in which organs were removed shortly after death,” he continued. “The idea that British and potentially European Bronze Age communities invested resources in mummifying and curating a proportion of their dead fundamentally alters our perceptions of funerary ritual and belief in this period."
Source: Sean Martin, International Business Times, October 1, 2015.