Little Artefacts: Rethinking the Constitution of the Archaeological Infant

Abstract

The following paper seeks to reconsider traditional and often comfortable approaches towards understanding infants, the infant body and infancy in archaeological contexts. In doing so, the paper considers the nature of the body, and draws upon a wide range of resources, including the wider anthropological record, child development theory and the social sciences. The paper speci fically seeks to identify the constitution of infancy in the past. Infancy has generally not bene fited from the recent attention afforded to older children in the archaeological record. Rather, infancy has become bounded by osteological methodology and terminology, and a limited range of associated archaeological interpretations. While recognising the importance of the biological approach, the paper seeks to challenge osteological control over the infant body and argue that bodies are never only biological in nature. The authors build upon recent research into human objecti fication in Iron Age southern England, and provide a case study of difference, relating to the treatment of liminal and objecti fied infant bodies in the Classic period Maya lowlands. The paper concludes by considering the future of infant research, suggesting that archaeologists must become more critical when exploring the archaeology of infancy and when working with the remains of past infants, who, despite being dead, continue to be alive with social agency.

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