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Diet and Radiocarbon Dating of Tollund Man: New Analyses of an Iron Age Bog Body from Denmark

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 November 2018

Nina H Nielsen Open the ORCID record for Nina H Nielsen [Opens in a new window] ,
Bente Philippsen Open the ORCID record for Bente Philippsen [Opens in a new window] ,
Marie Kanstrup  and
Jesper Olsen
Nina H Nielsen*
Affiliation:
Museum Silkeborg, Hovedgårdsvej 7, 8600Silkeborg, Denmark
Bente Philippsen
Affiliation:
Aarhus AMS Centre, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, 8000Aarhus C, Denmark Centre for Urban Network Evolutions (UrbNet), Aarhus University, Moesgård Allé 20, 8270Højbjerg, Denmark
Marie Kanstrup
Affiliation:
Aarhus AMS Centre, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, 8000Aarhus C, Denmark
Jesper Olsen
Affiliation:
Aarhus AMS Centre, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, 8000Aarhus C, Denmark Centre for Urban Network Evolutions (UrbNet), Aarhus University, Moesgård Allé 20, 8270Højbjerg, Denmark
*
*Corresponding author. Email: nhn@museumsilkeborg.dk.
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Abstract

Tollund Man is one of the most famous Iron Age bog bodies due to his well-preserved head. Since he was unearthed in 1950 in Bjældskovdal, Denmark, he has been subjected to several scientific investigations, but until now no attempts to reconstruct his general diet through isotope analyses have been conducted. Furthermore, previous radiocarbon (14C) analyses have only been able to date him broadly to the 3rd–4th century BC. In this study, stable isotope measurements (δ13C, δ15N) on bone collagen from Tollund Man’s femur and rib showed that the diet of Tollund Man was terrestrial-based and that the crops he ate probably were grown on manured fields. Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) 14C dates were obtained on both the <30kDa and >30kDa fractions of ultrafiltered collagen. Results showed that the ultrafiltration removed contamination from older substances from the burial environment. The femur was dated to 2330±23 BP, the rib to 2322±30 BP. These dates statistically agree with a previously published AMS 14C age on skin. By combining the new dates with the previous date of his skin it was possible to narrow down the age of Tollund Man to the period 405–380 cal BC (95.4% confidence interval).

Keywords

bog bodiescollagen extractionIron Ageradiocarbon datingstable isotopesTollund Man
Type
Methodological Advances
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 60 , Special Issue 5: 2nd Radiocarbon in the Environment Conference, Debrecen, Hungary, July 3–7, 2017 Part 2 of 2 and Radiocarbon & Diet 2 International Conference Aarhus, Denmark, June 20–23, 2017 , October 2018 , pp. 1533 - 1545
Copyright
© 2018 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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Footnotes

Selected Papers from the 2nd International Radiocarbon and Diet Conference: Aquatic Food Resources and Reservoir Effects, 20–23 June 2017, Aarhus, Denmark

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