The Egyptians are well known for their funeral practise of mummify the dead , normally achieved by removing the organ and then wrapping the organic structure tightly in bandages , a process that preserves the corpses for yard of years . Butit now seemsthat at around the same time , people far away in northwesterly Europe were doing a alike thing .
The damp climate of Britain might not seem like a great seat for preserving the numb , as organic textile breaks decay quickly in wet surroundings . But during the Bronze Age it seems people handle to get around this , mayhap by smoking bodies over a fireor purposefully place them in peat bogs . The evidence comes from the microstructure of os dating as far back as 4,000 B.C.E , all that now stay of these ancient mummies .
distrust of the mummification practise happening in Bronze Age Britain was raised when researcher learn two entombment in Cladh Hallan , Scotland . Carbon dating showed that the bones had not been buried for perchance hundreds of years after the person died . This made them inquire just how widespread the custom might have been .
But there ’s a problem . Unlike in dryer climates , once a consistence has been mummify and then swallow in wetter expanse like northerly Europe , due to the dampish environs all that often survives are the bones . So the researcher determine out to discover a way to tell the dispute between castanets from someone who had been buried direct away , and those from a mummy .
When bodies decompose , the bacterium that were once living in the bowel burst out and start to prey off the remains . When the microorganisms reach the bones , they rust their means through them , lead secernate - tale channels . dry gangrene discontinue this outgrowth from pass off , intend that the bones stay inviolate . Tom Booth and his team from theUniversity of Sheffieldfound that by using microscopic bone analysis , they could place the presence or absence seizure of these channels , which would indicate whether the eubstance had been mummified . Their inquiry is to be published in the journalAntiquity .
They then looked at museum collections of over 300 bones see from around 6,000 years ago to the forward-looking day . They obtain that while only around 3%of the bones from the Neolithic period present evidence of saving , almost one-half of those from the Bronze Age appear to have been mummied . From Kent in the south to Cladh Hallan in the Frederick North , it seems that mummification in Bronze Age Britain was a common practise .
But rather than enclose them in bandage , or burying them in a ironic desert , the team suspect that the bodies were instead smoke over a fire or keep in a peat bog . The reasons behind this ritualistic saving , however , remain obscure . Many societies throughout story have conserve the dead , but for a all-encompassing variety of understanding . Booth speculatesthat , rather bizarely , the bodies may have been smoke then observe in the house and fetch out during dispute over land possession , so multitude could prove their ancestors had worked on the land . Or maybe there were more spiritualistic intellect , as some of the torso studied seem to have been cobbled together from multiple citizenry .
Either way , the research gives a rare insight into the funerary practises of ancient Britons , the lives of which very piddling is known about . The researchers go for next to use their microscopical bone analysis to remains regain across the rest of Europe , and find out just how far-flung the practise was .
