LINDOW MANCHESTER

The findings of the study of Lindow Man's body were sensational. Not only had he suffered blows to the head, there was also evidence of a ligature around the neck and a cut to the throat, although some archaeologists have questioned the evidence. To add to the heady mix there was also some mistletoe. A great deal has been made of the presence of just a few grains of mistletoe pollen but, as Jody Joy, Curator of the Iron Age at the British Museum, has pointed out, this was well within EU toxicity guidelines and wouldn't have affected Lindow Man! The question of the significance of the mistletoe is symptomatic of the heated debates that characterised the interpretation about Lindow Man right from the start. The fact that he appears to have been naked apart from a fox skin armband, suggested to some that he was the victim of a robbery or a mugging. Others interpreted the trio of injuries as an act of human sacrifice in honour of three Celtic gods. Anne Ross and Don Robins in The Life and..