Latest / Spotlight English: Advanced / The Mystery of the Bog People (Advanced Program)

Transcript

The Mystery of the Bog People (Advanced Program) · Spotlight English: Advanced

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Patrick Woodward.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: And I'm Megan Nolette. Spotlight uses a special English method
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: matter where in the world they live.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: On Monday, May the eighth, nineteen fifty, the Hoygoth family
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: discovered the body of a man. They found him face
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: down in the water. The body's skin was brown and hard,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: like dried animal skin, and the body had a rope
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: around its neck. The body seemed so fresh that the
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Hoygoths believed he had just been killed. But when the
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: police came, they understood that it was not a job
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: for them. It was a job for historians. The body
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: the Hoygoths had found was over two thousand years old.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Soon researchers gave this man a name, the Tolland Man,
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: and as they studied him, he became more mysterious. It
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: was clear that someone had killed him. They had hung
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: him by the neck. He wore no clothes except for
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: his shoes and a small hat, but the way he
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: had been buried seemed respectful. There was evidence that they
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: had even closed his eyes. Researchers did not know why
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: he had been killed.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: People have discovered bodies like the Tolland Man's all over Europe.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: There were even some in North America. Most of them
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: are murder victims, and all of them were buried in
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: special wetlands called bogs. Today's spotlight is on the mystery
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: of these bog people.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: We do not know much about the people who hilled
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: the tall End Man. They lived in Denmark around five
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: hundred BCE. They had no written language. All we know
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: of them is the things they left behind. Researchers believe
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: that bogs were important to them. They may have been
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: places of religious worship. Joshua Levine is a writer at
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: Smithsonian Magazine. He explains.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: To the people who put him there, a bog was
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: a special place. Most of northern Europe lay under a
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: thick forest, but bogs did not. They were half earth,
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: half water, and open to the sky. They must have
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: seemed like doorways to another world.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Bogs may have been important for another reason. They kept
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: things fresh. Today we know the reason. A special plant
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: called Sphagnum moss is in bogs. Sphagnum contains chemicals called phenols.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: These natural chemicals slow down the decaying process. Bogs also
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: have little oxygen in their water. Most bacteria cannot grow there,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: so objects placed in bogs rarely decay. Researchers in Ireland
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: have even found butter made from cow's milk in bogs.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: The butter was still safe to eat. It was almost
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: two thousand years old.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: The people who killed the Tolland Man probably knew that
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: bogs could stop decay. They often placed other objects in bogs,
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: like swords. These may have been sacrifices to their gods.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Experts believe that the Tolland Man may have been a
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: sacrifice as well. The people who buried him did so
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: with special care. They put him in the bog in
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: a sleeping position. This shows he had a special place
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: in their society. Miranda Aldous Green is a teacher at
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: Cardiff University in Wales. She told NBC News.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: If you put a body in the bog, it would
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: not decay. It would stay between the worlds of the
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: living and the dead. Other bog bodies may have also
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: been sacrifices, but the way they died was very different.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Old krochhen Man is the name of a body found
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: in Ireland. He was probably a king or some kind
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: of ruler. He was very tall for the time and
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: had smooth hands.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: The old Krogin Man died from a knife to his chest.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: His killers then cut off his head. They cut his
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: body in half. They cut his chest in many places.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: Then they placed his body in the bog. Some researchers
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: believe he was killed because he failed to provide for
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: his people. The old Krogan Man may have angered these
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: people's gods. The people may have thought his death would
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: help them.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Other bog bodies may not have been so important. Some
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: may have been criminals killed for their crimes. Tacitus was
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: a writer who lived in the Roman Empire in the
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: first century CE. He often wrote about history and other cultures.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: He discussed how some people in Northern Europe manage their
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: criminals in his book Germania.
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: They hang cheets and deserters from trees. People who do
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: not want to go to war and who practice unlawful
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: sex are punished differently. They push these offenders into the
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: wet ground of a bog. They hold the criminals down
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: with large wooden fences.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Experts are not sure if Tacitus knew the truth, he
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: wrote down what other people told him. He never visited
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: Northern Europe, but his writings are some of the only
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: texts that experts have on these traditions.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: People have discovered bodies in bogs in Denmark, Ireland, Germany, England,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: the Netherlands, Poland, Norway, and Sweden. The National Museum of
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Ireland in Dublin hosts a display of some of these bodies.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: But Europe is not the only place where bog bodies exist.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Some have been found in North America, but these bodies
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: are very different from the ones found in Europe. Most
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: of the people in these sites died peacefully. The people
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: found there were ancient Native Americans. They may have buried
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: their dead in water.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: One place in Florida contained many skeletons, but the burial
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: place was more like a modern burial ground. People there
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: were buried with the things they had in life. There
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: were adults, teenagers, and even children. The Native Americans may
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: have also believed the bog was a special place, but
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: they had a different relationship with it than ancient Europeans.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: We may never fully know the stories of bog bodies.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: We may never know why people found in bogs died.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Some may have been sacrifices, some may have been criminals,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: some may have simply fallen in the bog and died.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: It is also possible they were buried by the people
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: who wanted to honor them. Perhaps these were places meant
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: to preserve a record of life.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: But whatever reason, these bodies save extremely important history. They
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: are so fresh that experts can test their DNA. We
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: can see what they ate on the day that they died.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: We can learn a lot from these small things. We
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: can learn what the weather was like in one year.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: We can learn what kinds of plants were growing. We
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: can even learn where these people traveled and the way
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: they interacted with their dead. We may not have writing
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: to explain their lives. We do not have their words
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: to speak about their culture. But for experts, these ancient
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: human bodies are like written records. Their study shines light
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: that allows us to see into the unknown lives of
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: the people who lived before us.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: What do you make of these bodies? Why do you
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: think they were killed? What do you want to know
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: about their cultures? You can leave a comment on our
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: website at www dot Spotlight English dot com. You can
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: also find us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and egg. Yes,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: you can also get our programs delivered directly to your
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Android or Apple device through our free official Spotlight English app.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: The writer and producer of this program was Dan Chrisman.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: The voices you heard were from the United Kingdom and
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: the United States. All quotes were adapted for this program
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: and voiced by Spotlight. This program is called The Mystery
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: of the Bog People.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: We hope you can join us again for the next
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Spotlight program. Goodbye,