The postmortem exposure interval of an Iron Age human bone assemblage from Alken Enge, Denmark Lene Mollerup a, ⁎, Anna Katarina Ejgreen Tjellden b,c , Ejvind Hertz a , Mads Kähler Holst d,e a Museum Skanderborg, Adelgade 5, DK-8660 Skanderborg, Denmark b Department of Geoscience, Aarhus University, Høegh-Guldbergs Gade 2, DK-8000 Aarhus, Denmark c Department of Archaeological Science and Conservation, Moesgaard Museum, Moesgård Allé 15, DK-8270 Højbjerg, Denmark d Department of Archaeology, Aarhus University, Moesgård Allé 20, DK-8270 Højbjerg, Denmark e Department of Archaeology, Moesgaard Museum, Moesgård Allé 15, DK-8270 Højbjerg, Denmark abstract article info Article history: Received 14 October 2015 Received in revised form 3 June 2016 Accepted 10 June 2016 Available online 29 June 2016 Periods of exposure of corpses are a well-known phenomenon associated with battlefields and other conflict-re- lated contexts involving numerous individuals. The identification and characterisation of these periods of expo- sure are often central to the interpretation of the sites. As such, damage to the bones may be a valuable source of information in this respect. The focus of this study is on estimating the exposure sequence of an Iron Age assemblage of 2335 human bones recovered from Alken Enge, Denmark, by examining the damage patterns caused by scavenging animals. The pre- historic deposition of these bones in the lake, in an anaerobic, non-corroding environment, has resulted in their preservation to an exceptional degree, allowing detailed taphonomic studies of the postmortem exposure inter- val prior to deposition. The anthropological analyses are supported by histological analysis of bone micromorphology. Patterns of animal damage on the Alken Enge bones are consistent with gnawing on proximal and distal ends of long bones and fresh breaks caused by large scavenging animals such as wolves and domestic dogs. The lack of rodent gnawing, fractures in dry and weathered bones and the absence of evidence for bacterial attack, together with the presence of framboidal pyrite, suggest that the bones were subjected to limited subaerial exposure, dis- membered and partly defleshed before being deposited in the lake in prehistory. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Battlefield Human deposition Postmortem interval Scavenging animals Taphonomy 1. Introduction Conflict-related depositions of human remains are known from sev- eral European prehistoric sites (Stadler et al., 2004; Jantzen et al., 2011; Redfern and Chamberlain, 2011; Thorpe, 2013). Both practical and ritual aspects imply that these finds often have complex depositional histo- ries, whereby the bodies of fallen warriors were subjected to varying pe- riods of exposure and to various forms of treatment prior to final deposition. This applies in various ways to some of the largest Iron Age sites, such as Ribemont-sur-Ancre, Gournay-sur-Aronde both in France and the early Roman-period site of Kalkriese in Germany (Lejars, 2001, 2014; Brunaux et al., 2003; Grosskopf, 2007; Wilbers-Rost and Rost, 2009). The Alken Enge site, in central Jutland, Denmark, represents a new, recently excavated example of the deposition of the remains of a large contingent of supposes warriors, where these remains appear to have a complex pre-depositional history. The bones have been radiocarbon- dated to the early 1st century CE (Holst et al., forthcoming)(Fig. 1). The site was first noticed in the 1800s, when numerous disarticulated human bones were uncovered during peat digging and drainage work over a 40 ha area in the Alken Enge meadows (Fig. 1). Since 2009, an interdisciplinary research project has been engaged in the excavation and analysis of the human remains in the meadows, fo- cusing on one of the presumed main concentrations within the com- plex. The wetlands were originally part of a lake, Mossø (extent today 2 × 10 km), and the finds are concentrated along the shores of the lake as they were in the Roman Iron Age, and particularly by a channel between two lake basins (Søe et al., forthcoming). This is also the area that has been the main target of the project's excavations. A total of 2335 human bones or bone fragments have been recovered from the site, and the minimum number of individuals (MNI), based on the left femora, is 82. A range of established methodologies have been used to determine the sex and skeletal age of the individuals (Buikstra and Uberlaker, 1994; Bass, 1995; White and Folkens, 2000; Ubelaker, 1999). The Alken Enge assemblage appears to represent an entirely male population and most of the bones, 1613 in total, are of young adults and adults between 20 and 40 years of age. Subadults, less than 20 years of age, are represented by 106 bones, and mature individuals, between 40 and 60 years of age, are represented by 28 bones, whereas Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 10 (2016) 819–827 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: lmo@skanderborgmuseum.dk (L. Mollerup). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2016.06.021 2352-409X/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jasrep