Tollund Man so well preserved guts reveal alarming last meal from 2,400 years ago

A miraculous study of a 2,400-year-old corpse, referred to as the Tollund Man, has found out exactly what this ancient person's final meal was.

The mysterious story of the Tollund Man has been the centre of mass fascination for archaeologists, scientists and, well, pretty much everyone else since the remains were first discovered in a Danish bog back in 1950.

The naturally mummified corpse - who was found with a leather noose around his neck - is believed to be man who once lived during the fifth century BC, during the period characterised as the Pre-Roman Iron Age.

While many questions surrounding the Tollund Man are still left unanswered after seven decades since its discovery - there have been a few findings that researchers can settle on.

While researchers at the time looked at the well preserved grains and seeds, they did not study the very fine fraction of the material itself.

Using new analysis of plant macrofossils, pollen, non-pollen palynomorphs, steroid markers and proteins found in his gut - the experts were able to deduce what Tollund Man consumed 12-24 hours before he was killed.

The study, published in the journal Antiquity, reveals: "He ate a porridge containing barley, pale persicaria and flax, and probably some fish."

So, there you have it, the fossil find of last century's final meal was nothing more than a bowl of porridge.

"Proteins and eggs from intestinal worms indicate that he was infected with parasites," the study adds.

What made the find so alarming, however, was the presence of the pale persicaria seeds, as such seeds were usually removed from the grain as threshing waste.

It's true that researchers have remained fairly iffy on the exact circumstances of Tollund Man's death over the decades, but experts 'tend to agree that [his] killing was some kind of ritual sacrifice to the gods,' according to journalist Joshua Levine via Smithsonian magazine.

The study explains: "Although the meal may reflect ordinary Iron Age fare, the inclusion of threshing waste could possibly relate to ritual practices."

So, while it is still a theory, it's widely considered that the corpse is believed to have been the victim of a brutal religious sacrifice.

Therefore, discovering the seeds in the porridge can potentially confirm decades of theories attempting to figure out Tollund Man's cause of death.

The researchers noted that this re-analysis 'illustrates that new techniques can throw fresh light on old questions and contribute to understanding life and death in the Danish Early Iron Age'.