Why Does Lindow Man Matter?

Abstract

The discovery of part of a human body at Lindow Moss, Cheshire, in 1984, provided Britain with an equivalent to the famous “'bog bodies” of Germany, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia, and its subsequent careful forensic analysis appeared to furnish valuable insights into the nature of Iron Age ritual practices. In particular, it served strongly to reinforce the belief that those practices contained a significant component of human sacrifice. Although not wholly without controversy, this interpretation has until recently remained the norm in general surveys of Iron Age or “'Celtic” religious attitudes and activities in Britain or northwestern Europe. During the 2000s it became appreciated that the evidence was a great deal more complex and open-ended than this orthodoxy acknowledged. “Lindow Man” has at least as much to tell us about the state of the discipline of archaeology at the opening of the twenty-first century, and the choices open to it, as he does about British prehistory.

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