Say they were all sacrificed as part of some religious ceremony? could it be that they were just getting rid of some toe rags at the time.

Always its dig up a fossilised pea and derive from it that it was a offer to the gods, rather than someone loosing it behind the iron age cold storage unit.

presumably there’s billions of people in the ground. Most of them were just chucked in as an afterthought.

‘Oops, bill has pegged it overnight. Stick him in that skip that’s almost full. It’ll be fine.’

Oh I mean hands tied behind their back, throat cut etc it’s got to be an offer to the gods rather than getting rid of the local mass murderer and throwing them in an unproductive portion of land.

Have an interest in all sorts of prehistoric stuff – mainly the architecture (not an expert by any means though), and suspect that ‘ritual’ explanations are often way less prosaic than the actual truth.

Temples vs marketplaces.
Ceremonial pathways vs transport networks.
Feasting sites vs workers’ camps.
Etc.

Having said that, the ideas about water being a ‘pathway’ between worlds are fairly compelling and would go some way to explaining the bog bodies and other ‘treasure’ deposits.

OP
Basically because they tend to be of high status (eat well, good clothing, nails etc) and that they are ‘overkilled’. The overkilling seems to show a tendency to spill blood persumably into the water (see below)
Iron Age folk were also obsessed with water and chucking decommissioned items in.

I’ll have to remember ‘overkilling’. it’s going to be my word of 2014.

Tots overkilled that strava seg etc.

“Time Team” syndrome – “here’s a little lump of stone – it could have been a part of a magnificent marble palace with gilded statues of unicorns, fountains gushing rainbow coloured wine and naked virgins on every chaise longue”. Yes, it could. But maybe it’s just a piece of stone and you’re just a washed up comedy actor.

One of my department teaches archaeology, and her prosaic way of describing it is;

If something you dig up makes no sense it is religious!

The clause “you dig up” is redundant in that sentence. (-:

It’s odd, isn’t it. I can only assume it’s a ‘best guess’ based on other findings.

as said above the bog bodies are often notably high status compared to other bodies,
Im sure that the people knew the bodies would be preserved in the bog, not how youd dispose of a murderer, more in line with mummification

bodies found elsewhere arent so posh, but still fascinating http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96tzi_the_Iceman

as for the time team thing Drj; you are talking bobbins

id say that rubbish tips were probably the biggest source of archaeological finds, its just that they dont warrant a TV documentary

I took part in a local (roman)dig this summer,^^^ this was in the rubbish tip
was really interesting and gave you a great understanding of how archaeologists can infer what was there from the tiniest clues

for example we found several section of hypocaust tile we decided that meant that theres probably a building of at least modest status nearby as only the rich could afford central heating at that time in britain

If something you dig up makes no sense it is religious!

Theres a tendency to conflate ritualistic with religious. There a plenty of places, objects and occasions in any age that contribute nothing to the basic needs to feed, clothe and shelter ourselves but are part of our lives anyway.

If you were picking through the remains of our civilisation now – how would you distinguish between a cathedral, a theatre, a nightclub and a football stadium? Abstracted from our day to day life they’re the same enough in form to be considered to all have the same function

How would you also distinguish between the lines in the nascar desert and convoluted bumpy paths leading from forestry commission carparks taking the longest possible route back to the same carpark, marked with blue, red and black arrows? How do you explain the motives of people riding round and round in circles, returning to be ritually anointed with cake and coffee and then ritually complain that they have to pay for it. 🙂

How do you explain the motives of people riding round and round in circles

As an ex/occasional archaeologist, I am liking this thread. 🙂

for example we found several section of hypocaust tile we decided that meant that theres probably a building of at least modest status nearby as only the rich could afford central heating at that time in britain

There could be any number of reasons why that bit of tile ended up there. Maybe a child liked it and brought it with them on their journey from rome?

what I didnt mention is that its all about context, along with bits of posh pottery like that above and fragments from several different hypocaust tiles, other nondescript building rubble, several pieces of roof tile as well as the fact that brentford is the 1st point inland that you can ford the thames etc

drj obviously needs to watch time team a bit more closely!

There were far more bits of pottery in the form of jars and kitchenware etc than souveniers.

Anyway – it’s safe to assume that archaeologists of 20 years have probably thought about it a bit more than you who’s watched a couple of TV shows.

There were far more bits of pottery in the form of jars and kitchenware etc than souveniers.

Anyway – it’s safe to assume that archaeologists of 20 years have probably thought about it a bit more than you who’s watched a couple of TV shows.

Is this aimed at me?

@kimbers – you may be right. Us geophysicists tend to roll around clutching our sides for a bit when Tony Robinson talks about “geofiz” so perhaps I miss something 🙂

Is this aimed at me?

No, at the OP!

Re Time Team – its problem is that it’s telly, and the TV company needs a programme to show out of each dig. When they find **** all you can see how strained the show is, but when they do find loads the show is much better.

@kimbers – you may be right. Us geophysicists tend to roll around clutching our sides for a bit when Tony Robinson talks about “geofiz” so perhaps I miss something

Sounds like geophysicists are amazingly easily entertained.

Having worked for TT and have mates that still do i know that there were some pretty bad ‘discussions’ over the years regarding TT overplaying finds. Archaeologists never ever like to say “this was a..” But production companies do.
Notice how over the years the programme has gone from pure Archaeology to almost a Baldrick history story.
Im lead to believe this is why the original presenters left.
Mick Aston RIP

For all its faults would we be having this discussion without TT?

Problem with the UK and most of northern Europe is the lack of texts, if you look at the Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Assyrian etc etc. you have a mix of texts, inscriptions and archaeology. If you accept that that the histories are incomplete and always a writers opinion, then look at the ground it can answer many questions. In the UK their is a paucity of text, what you have cassius dio and a couple of others isn’t exactly balanced. Druids, human sacrifice, these are recorded, whether it is true or Roman slander of barbarians, well….

When you get into the Roman Era and post roman there are texts that can be related to finds, which helps with the context.

But context is everything, after all it is for the most part all that exists.

You can see why the likes of Time Team often speculate; it’s light entertainment, if they went “well, we found some lumps of stone and a bit of pottery” every week, no-one would watch. So instead they try and guess extrapolate out what might have been. A few stones -> a series of small walls -> a pigsty for the nearby farm. Very difficult to prove them wrong.

There may have been people all over the place but bogs have a tendency to preserve things really well hence why we find them there and not elsewhere.

I know Time Team comes under some stick and that they probably do go over the top a bit, but at least it is an attempt to popularise archaeology and to get people interested in a time when TV in general seems to be aimed at people that do not want to think.

I would rather watch TT than the American dross on Discovery (although some of it does to draw me in) and I think that Time Team did make TV producers realise there is a market for programmes of this nature and more seemed to have followed in recent years.

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

bogs aren’t the only place to find preserved organic finds.

Ive always known the banks were full of shite.

Reading the wiki “Paleoscatologist Andrew Jones…..”

Is that really a job, a career after years of study and research. Must be a laugh being introduced at parties.

I want to see TimeTeam 2913, where they will dig up an old playstation4 and say “ah, clearly a religous relic, we have here, used to worship the digital gods”……. 😉

Sadly time teams been axed now and it was by far the biggest funded unit in the country

The governments also changed the law requiring an archaeological survey before new build works 🙁