| 89 – X-Ray Fluorescent Spectroscopy and its Application to the Analysis of Kayhausen Boy G. Granite, A. Bauerochse It took thirty years for the body to be reinves- tigated by expert forensic anthropologists and anatomists (HAYEN 1987, 27) and an- other almost fifty years for radiocarbon dat- ing and forensic investigations to take place during the second half of the 1990s involv- ing this unique example of an Iron Age child bog body (VAN DER SANDEN 1996, 93; PIEPER 2003, 110). With the discovery of the Moora Girl bog body in northwest Germany in 2005 (BAUER- OCHSE et al. 2008), scientific interest in bog people re-emerged and was the catalyst for the re-investigation of several corpses from the last century (HAAS-GEBHARD & PUESCHEL 2009; FANSA et al. 2010). Among the bodies reanalyzed were the Esterweger Dose Child (FANSA et al. 2010) and the Kayhausen Boy; two bog bodies from the Museum Natur und Mensch in Oldenburg. In this context, a new technique for elemental analysis: X-ray Fluo- rescence (XRF) spectroscopy was applied 1 (GRANITE & BAUEROCHSE 2010). This technique enables one to quantify the elemental com- position of both organic and inorganic sub- stances in the environment; in this research, skeletal bone and teeth, by performing non- invasive laboratory-grade presumptive anal- ysis on on-site testing samples. In skeletal analysis, this unit can determine geographic origin as well as disparity in early and late environmental habitation context of human and other animal remains. Currently, Strontium (Sr) is the most relia- ble element of interest in geographic origin and migration research, although some re- searchers have used other element ratios (BENTLEY 2004, 365-366; HODELL et al. 2004, 585-587). Strontium is of special interest be- cause it acts like Calcium (Ca), incorporat- ing into bone and tooth enamel at sites of increased bone formation (PRICE et al. 2004, Introduction Contextual understanding of the Northern European bog bodies is limited by the lack of written historical evidence and associated artifacts related to these corpses. Many of these corpses have been dated to the Bronze and Iron Ages; a time when written record was not the norm in Northern European so- cieties and documentation of burial intern- ment was non-existent (VAN DER PLICHT et al. 2004, 474-482). As a result, bog bodies are a select group of uniquely preserved mummies whose lives and deaths are full of mystery and are often based on mere speculation. One of these mysterious bog bodies is the Kayhausen Boy, a male child approximately seven years-old who was discovered with- in the Kayhausen bog (Oldenburg District, northwest Germany). He was found by a farmer in raised bog peat about 1.2 meters below the surface, repeatedly stabbed with his arms and legs bounded with cloth and a cape. After his recovery, the bog body was taken to the Oldenburg Museum, where first investigations were executed before he was placed within a container filled with ethyl- ene glycol. This was in an attempt to pre- serve the body in a sterilized liquid state; submerged as it was within its raised bog discovery site, but also to halt any deterio- ration from the natural bog preservation that had already occurred to the body in the bog (HAYEN 1964, 21). In addition, any disarticu- lated bone and/or bone fragments were put into separate containers also filled with eth- ylene glycol in an attempt to maintain their structural integrity and prevent any loss of skeletal material. There were also one lum- bar vertebra and several associated bone fragments that were dried and keep within a separate cardboard container.