Brainteaser
Photograph courtesy Andreas Bauerochse
Fractured by modern peat-harvesting machinery, Moora’s skull also bears ancient fractures caused by blunt-force trauma, the scientists concluded.
Other evidence of a hard life include signs of chronic malnutrition—probably due to yearly winter food shortages—and a curved spine. None of these health problems were fatal, however, and the cause of Moora’s death is still unknown.
No signs of clothing were found along with her body, but “if she wore clothes made of cotton or something similar, it would have been destroyed by the bog acid,” Bauerochse said.
The team doesn’t think Moora was purposely buried in the bog, because no jewelry or other artifacts were found and because Iron Age cultures typically cremated their dead.
(Related: “Murdered ‘Bog Men’ Found With Hair Gel, Manicured Nails.”)
Published February 2, 2011