Jührdenerfeld Man

The Jührdenerfeld Man is a bog body found in Jührdenerfeld, a village in the district of Bockhorn, Lower Saxony in Germany. Today it rests at the State Museum for Nature and Man in Oldenburg as Inventory No. OL 5933.

Discovery

The individual now known as the Jührdenerfeld Man was discovered on 19 November 1934 in a raised bog, a type of bog fed mainly by rainwater, near Jührdenerfeld in the municipality of Bockhorn, Lower Saxony, northwestern Germany. His remains were uncovered by peat cutter Heinrich Stöfer while he was digging a drainage ditch.

He lay in a natural hollow in the peat beneath three pointed wooden stakes. Each was about long and approximately as thick as a person's arm. One lay lengthwise over him. The other two lay across him, one at the level of his arms and the other at his pelvis, with their ends wedged into the sides of the hollow. The stakes were made from alder and rowan.

During his recovery, boards were carefully pushed beneath his remains so that he could be lifted from the peat in one piece. He was then carried to the nearby school in Jührdenerfeld, where he was kept until he could be transported to the museum in Oldenburg. He was taken to what is now the State Museum for Nature and Man the day after his discovery.

The man was discovered mostly unclothed, but he was covered with a wool cloth and a sheepskin shoulder cloak. There are many other cloaks found similarly with the Elling Woman, Kayhausen Boy, Haraldskaer Woman, and the Dröbnitz Girl. His clothing was possibly made out of linen or other plant fibres that perished due to the acids in the bog.

Dating According to pollen analysis, the time of death was around 400 BCE to 1 BCE. Newer radiocarbon dating investigation with various samples from the body could narrow this date range down. A sample from the skin showed a range of 170 BCE–45 BCE, while a hair sample showed 55 BCE–25 BCE.