Little is known of the 'living burials' of the Neolithic period except what has been passed down by oral tradition. In some tellings, they were a punishment for terrible transgressions, while others paint them as an honorable, though tragic means by which a tribesman too old or infirm to hunt might have 'his spirit returned to the wild'.

Those chosen by the tribe to undergo the ceremony would be given over to the tribe shaman. Their body would be cleansed and prepared. They would then be ritualistically dismembered, alive. Their limbs or, in some cases much of their body, would be amputated, before they were sewn inside the hide of an animal - a mighty wolf for some, a lowly calf or sheep for others. As the tales go, the resulting half-animal would be cast out, to dwell in the wild beyond the tribe's sight.

It was long presumed that these stories were merely a recounting of tribes disposing of burdensome members in a manner made palatable by spiritual trappings. Clearly, none could survive such a process, even with the benefits of 21st-century medicine. The discovery of the immaculately preserved bog body known as the Wolfman of Koelbjerg has caused a major rethink of both history and medical science, particularly in the fields of human-animal xenografts. From the waist up, the body is of a man of middling age, powerfully built, born some 6,000 years ago. But from the waist down, the cadaver has the limbs and internal organs of a she-wolf.

This is no crude butchery either, performed on a deceased corpse. The surgery shows finesse, with canine femurs set neatly into a human pelvis, and with major arteries and the digestive tract perfectly connected. Most startling of all, the disparate bones of the spine and soft tissues are healed together, which could only indicate that this... man lived for many years following the surgery.

A full archeological and biomedical survey is now being conducted in the region, with some species of local plants being highlighted for their remarkable properties in wound healing and immunomodulation.