Offbeat: Peat Bog Man

When I was a wee lass in 9th grade, we had a social studies lesson on a newly discovered, mummified body found in a Scottish peat bog. (This was in 1978 or 79--yes, I am showing my age.) So I am familiar with the topic. Peat bog bodies have shown up every once in a while, so well preserved that in a few cases, local authorities actually thought they were dealing with a recent homicide.

For those of you unfamiliar with this subject, perhaps it's best to start at the beginning. What is a peat bog? We all know that you can purchase peat at a plant nursery, and that it helps fertilize your garden. From wikipedia, here's the definition of peat (yawn):

Peat forms when plant material, usually in marshy areas, is inhibited from decaying fully by acidic and anaerobic conditions. It is composed mainly of marshland vegetation: trees, grasses, fungi, as well as other types of organic remains, such as insects, and animal remains. Under certain conditions, the decomposition of the latter (in the absence of oxygen) is inhibited, and archaeologists often take advantage of this.

Peat layer growth and the degree of decomposition (or humification, transformation to humus) depends principally on its composition and on the degree of waterlogging. Peat formed in very wet conditions accumulates considerably faster, and is less decomposed, than that in drier places. This allows climatologists to use peat as an indicator of climatic change. The composition of peat can also be used to reconstruct ancient ecologies by examining the types and quantities of its organic constituents.

Under the proper conditions, peat is the earliest stage in the formation of coal.

Most modern peat bogs formed in high latitudes after the retreat of the glaciers at the end of the last ice age some 9,000 years ago. They usually grow slowly, at the rate of about a millimetre per year.
The peat in the world's peatlands has been forming for 360 million years and contains 550 Gt of carbon.

And here's where peat is found in huge quantities and is utilized as a resource, often burned as fuel (once again, from wiki):

Peat deposits are found in many places around the world, notably in Ireland, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Scotland, Northern England (Particularly in the Pennines), Wales, Poland, northern Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, New Zealand and in North America, principally in Canada, Michigan, Minnesota, the Florida Everglades, and California's Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The amount of peat is smaller in the southern hemisphere, partly because there is less land, but peat can be found in New Zealand, Kerguelen, Southern Patagonia/Tierra del Fuego and the Falkland Islands, Indonesia (Kalimantan (Sungai Putri, Danau Siawan, Sungai Tolak, Rasau Jaya (West Kalimantan), and Sumatra). Indonesia has more tropical peat land and mangrove forests than any other nation on earth, but Indonesia is losing wetlands by 100,000 hectares per year.^[2]

Approximately 60% of the world's wetlands are peat. About 7% of total peatlands have been exploited for agriculture and forestry.^{[citation needed]} Under proper conditions, peat will turn into lignite coal over geologic periods of time.

So, two weeks ago, a prehistoric human body was discovered in an Irish peat bog. If you haven't figured it out by now, peat has the uncanny ability to preserve tissue because of the lack of oxygen in its make-up. Finding these bodies allows scientists to study their compostion and discover what it was like to live back when the person was alive. Here's the story about the newly found peat bog body out of Ireland:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-14505730

The most famous peat bog body is that of  the "Tollund Man." He was mummified in almost-perfect condition. Check him out at the wiki link below. Read on! I guarantee you'll be the source of lively conversation this weekend at a barbecue, picnic, or cocktail party.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tollund_Man