Human sacrifices?
In the Egtved Girl’s grave lay a bundle containing the burnt bones of a 5-6-year-old child. Given the Egtved Girl’s age it cannot have been her own child. Perhaps it was a child who had been sacrificed? From another of the female graves of the Bronze Age we also know of a possible human sacrifice. South of Skelde at Broagerland in Southern Jutland a female grave from the Early Bronze Age was investigated in the 1980s. The body of a woman with fine grave goods was found. At the foot end lay burnt bones from an adult – perhaps her personal slave who was killed and cremated when the woman died? Possible human sacrifices are known from a few contemporary graves of the Early Bronze Age.
