Articlebronze2011

WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS: CHILDHOOD MORTALITY AND BURIAL PRACTICE IN LATE NEOLITHIC ATLANTIC EUROPE

51 citations0/0 files storedOxford Journal of Archaeology

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Archaeological and Geological Studies Ancient and Medieval Archaeology Studies Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies

Abstract

Summary Towards the end of the fifth millennium BC, a new funerary tradition developed in Iberia and elsewhere in Atlantic Europe involving the use of megalithic tombs and natural or artificially constructed caves for the collective burial of the dead. Ancestor worship has been the most common theoretical framework used to explain this Neolithic burial tradition, despite demographic information which indicates that these burials house the remains of a significant percentage of children and adolescents. Using data from Late Neolithic (3500–2500 BC) tombs in south‐western Iberia as a departure point, in this paper we suggest that by reconsidering the impact that childhood mortality had upon burial and grave visitation practices in Neolithic communities, archaeologists can gain valuable phenomenological information which will allow for a more robust, multivocal interpretative approach.

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References

1994A Phenomenology of Landscape: Places, Paths and Monuments 1992The Osteological Paradox: Problems of Inferring Prehistoric Health from Skeletal Samples [and Comments and Reply]1992Engendering Archaeology: Women and Prehistory 2001Cultures of Relatedness: New Approaches to the Study of Kinship 2007Biological Anthropology of the Human Skeleton 1969Ethnography and archaeological interpretation of funerary remains 1998The Significance of Monuments: On the Shaping of Human Experience in Neolithic and Bronze Age Europe 2002Why Don't Anthropologists Like Children?

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