Mummification was commonplace in Bronze Age Britain

First study to indicate that mummification may have been widely practised throughout Bronze Age Britain Archaeologists use microscopic bone analysis to compare British skeletons with known mummies Research paves the way for discovery of other ancient civilisations that mummified their dead Bronze Age Brits practised exotic, novel and bizarre funerary rituals - Ancient Britons may have intentionally mummified some of their dead during the Bronze Age, according to archaeologists at the University of Sheffield. The study is the first to provide indications that mummification may have been a wide-spread funerary practise in Britain. Working with colleagues from the University of Manchester and University College London, Dr Tom Booth analysed skeletons at several Bronze Age burial sites across the UK. The team from the University of Sheffield's Department of Archaeology found that the remains of some ancient Britons are consistent with a prehistoric mummy from northern Yemen and a partially mummified body recovered from a sphagnum peat bog in County Roscommon, Ireland. Building on a previous study conducted at a single Bronze Age burial site in the Outer Hebrides, Dr Booth used microscopic analysis to compare the bacterial bioerosion of skeletons from various sites across the UK with the bones of the mummified bodies from Yemen and Ireland. Archaeologists widely agree that the damp British climate is not favourable to organic materials and all prehistoric mummified bodies that may be located in the UK will have lost their preserved tissue if buried outside of a preservative environment such as a bog.