Last meal of ancient human sacrifice victim 'Tollund Man' revealed in exquisite detail

The well-preserved head of Tollund Man, who lived about 2,400 years ago.

(Image credit: Photo by A. Mikkelsen; Nielsen, NH et al (2021); Antiquity Publications Ltd.)

Shortly before his violent death in 400 B.C., a man — whose remains are known as Denmark's famous bog body "Tollund Man" — ate a meal of porridge and fish, a new study finds.

Tollund Man also had several parasitic infections from whipworms and mawworms, as well as the first reported case of tapeworm ever found in an ancient body preserved in a bog, said the researchers, who made the finding by studying a piece of Tollund Man's colon.

But it soon became apparent that the Tollund Man had lived long ago and that the low-oxygen environment of the peat bog had preserved his remains. Over the years, studies have found that he died between 405 B.C. and 380 B.C., at the beginning of the Danish early Iron Age, and that he was between 30 and 40 years old when he died in a possible human ritual sacrifice. Tollund Man had been hanged and placed in a sleeping position in a peat pit — an "extraordinary treatment" given that most dead people from that time and place were cremated and buried on dry land, the researchers wrote in the study.

By looking at a previously cut and preserved piece of Tollund Man's large intestine, the team found that the 1951 study was fairly accurate but had missed a few things, including the proportions of the meal's ingredients. The new analysis showed that by weight, the porridge was 85% barley (Hordeum vulgare), 9% a weed called pale persicaria (Persicaria lapathifolia) and 5% flax (Linum usitatissimum). The remaining 1% included a variety of seeds, including those from the weed corn spurrey (Spergula arvensis), the mustard family plant gold of pleasure (Camelina sativa) and three wetland plants: marsh willowherb (Epilobium palustre), compact/soft rush (Juncus conglomeratus/effusus) and marsh violet (Viola palustris). In addition, the team found pollen from barley, grasses and open dryland plants.

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Except for the fish, here are the foods that Tollund Man ate and their respective quantities: 1) Barley, 2) pale persicaria, 3) flax, 4) black-bindweed, 5) sand, 6) gold-of-pleasure, 7) fat hen, 8) corn spurrey, 9) hemp-nettles and 10) field pansy.(Image credit: Museum Silkeborg; Nielsen, NH et al (2021); Antiquity Publications Ltd.)

Usually, when farmers clean and sieve grain, the small weed seeds that were collected alongside it, such as those from pale persicaria, fall out, Nielsen said. But it appears that in Tollund Man's case, this waste material — including tiny bits of charcoal, charred food crust (indicating the porridge had been cooked in a clay vessel) and sand grains — was added to the porridge, possibly as a ritual practice, she said.

"Our interpretation of Tollund Man was that he was ritually sacrificed," Nielsen said. "At this time in the Iron Age, it was common to use wetlands for ritual activities." An earlier analysis revealed that though Tollund Man likely died from suffocation, his neck wasn't broken. Perhaps a number of rituals took place before Tollund Man was hanged, including the consumption of his last meal, she said.

Laura is the managing editor at Live Science. She also runs the archaeology section and the Life's Little Mysteries series. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Scholastic, Popular Science and Spectrum, a site on autism research. She has won multiple awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association for her reporting at a weekly newspaper near Seattle. Laura holds a bachelor's degree in English literature and psychology from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in science writing from NYU.