Stoneyisland Man is the name given to a

bog body A bog body is a human cadaver that has been naturally mummified in a peat bog. Such bodies, sometimes known as bog people, are both geographically and chronologically widespread, having been dated to between 8000 BC and the Second World War. Fi ...

discovered in the Stoneyisland Bog, Gortanumera,

County Galway County Galway ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Northern and Western Region, taking up the south of the Provinces of Ireland, province of Connacht. The county population was 276,451 at the 20 ...

, Ireland on 13 May 1929.

Discovery

Turf Sod is the upper layer of turf that is harvested for transplanting. Turf consists of a variable thickness of a soil medium that supports a community of turfgrasses. In British and Australian English, sod is more commonly known as ''turf'', ...

-cutters James Dolphin, Thomas Rodgers and John Spain uncovered a human skeleton while working on Dolphin's bank, located towards the centre of Stoneyisland Bog. It was first thought to be the remains of a Mr. Ward of Ballyshrule who had been missing for some time, but it was later revealed to be over five thousand years old. "It was found lying on its back within a few inches of the

marl Marl is an earthy material rich in carbonate minerals, Clay minerals, clays, and silt. When Lithification, hardened into rock, this becomes marlstone. It is formed in marine or freshwater environments, often through the activities of algae. M ...

, at the base of the bog, beneath of uncut turf. The skeleton was intact with the arms outstretched at right angles to the body. No implements were found with the skeleton, but Mr. Dolphin said at the time that they had previously found tree stumps and ashes at higher depths in the bog. He also claimed to have found a

dugout canoe A dugout canoe or simply dugout is a boat made from a hollowed-out tree. Other names for this type of boat are logboat and monoxylon. ''Monoxylon'' (''μονόξυλον'') (pl: ''monoxyla'') is Greek''mono-'' (single) + '' ξύλον xylon'' (tr ...

at a depth of , while cutting turf in another part of the bog on a previous occasion. Mr. T. Shea, who was in charge of a section of the

Ordnance Survey The Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see Artillery, ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of ...

, operating in the district at the time, examined the remains. He excavated the skeleton and had it examined by Professor Shea of the Anatomical Museum, University College, Galway."

Conclusions of Professor Shea

Professor Shea's conclusions were that "the body ^{ic/sup> had not sunk slowly down from an originally higher level in the bog, but was lying in the position and at the level where it originally lay". He believed that the outstretched arms indicated that the person had drowned, sank to the bottom of what was then a lake, and the bog grew over it.

His further conclusions were that the body was of a man, aged about forty, in height. "The lower jaw and teeth, and a large number of the limbs bones were peculiar to prehistoric skeletons in Western Europe. The period of the skeleton was further determined by the degree of flattening of some of the arm and leg bones which are characteristic of skeletons of Neolithic

The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...
man."

Pollen and peat analysis dated the remains to sometime after 4500 BC. Several radiocarbon dating

Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for Chronological dating, determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of carbon-14, radiocarbon, a radioactive Isotop ...
s dated the remains between 3320–3220 BC.

See also

* List of bog bodies

This is a list of bog body, bog bodies grouped by location of discovery. Bog bodies, or bog people, are the naturally Mummy, preserved corpses of humans and some animals recovered from peat bogs. The bodies have been most commonly found in the nor ...

Books

*

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stoneyisland Man
1929 archaeological discoveries
Archaeological sites in County Galway
Bog bodies
Celtic archaeological sites
Deaths by drowning
People from County Galway
Pre-Roman Iron Age
Human remains (archaeological)}