When the Bough Breaks: Childhood Mortality and Burial Practice in Late Neolithic Atlantic Europe

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.

Who lived on the Swiss Plateau around 3300 BCE? Analyses of commingled human skeletal remains from the dolmen of Oberbipp

“…The evaluation of the MNI and an age‐at‐death assessment is therefore challenging. The MNI of 42 individuals is similar to other Middle to Late Neolithic collective burials (Table ) from Western Europe (Alt et al, ; Fernández‐Crespo & de‐la‐Rúa, ; Mack et al, ; Silva, ; Steuri, ; Watermann & Thomas, ) even though the number of individuals can vary greatly from site to site. The grave type (e.g., simple dolmen or passage tomb) and demographic factors certainly played a role how a collective grave was used.…”

“…The presence of all age categories from neonate to mature and possibly senile individuals (based on degeneration and obliteration of cranial sutures) could be observed in Oberbipp and is also described for other Swiss (Meyer & Alt, ), Spanish (Fernández‐Crespo & de‐la‐Rúa, ), and Greek (Papathanasiou, ) Neolithic burials. Adult individuals outnumber subadult individuals slightly, which is often seen for Neolithic multiple burials (Fernández‐Crespo & de‐la‐Rúa, ; Manifold, ; Watermann & Thomas, ). In addition, the average molar wear also indicates a population structure with a larger amount of Infans II to young adults, ≤35 years of age (Figure S).…”

“…Also, animal respectively human activity and intruding water should be considered as potential causes of immature bone loss in our case, as immature bones are smaller and lighter and therefore probably more prone to those influences. Another reason may be that (very) young children received different burials, such as special places apart from the rest of the community and can therefore be virtually absent from a skeletal assemblage (Manifold, ; Watermann & Thomas, ). In relation to the assumed lack of Infans I, the number of Infans II and juveniles appears to be relatively high.…”

Rituales y símbolos en el sepulcro colectivo de El Miradero (Villanueva de los Caballeros, Valladolid) = Rituals and symbols in the collective tomb of El Miradero (Villanueva de los Caballeros, Valladolid)

“…Esto no difiere mucho de otros sepulcros de la zona ni tampoco de conjuntos amplios como el analizado en tierras portuguesas, donde parece que se produce una selección entre los individuos no-adultos que se depositan en estas tumbas a consecuencia de la cual no todos reciben ese tratamiento funerario (Silva 2003: 57-8). Esta ausencia resulta marcada en el caso de los menores de cinco años, un grupo muy vulnerable a las enfermedades y en el que se producían numerosas defunciones de las que, sin embargo, no suele quedar evidencia en las tumbas neolíticas ni tampoco tendrían gran relevancia social para el grupo (Waterman y Thomas 2011).…”

Don't throw the baby teeth out with the bathwater: Estimating subadult age using tooth wear in commingled archaeological assemblages

“…Culturally, age is a crucial component of identity, and more precise age estimates can help to unpack the relationship between biological development, understandings of personhood, and cultural rites of passage (Kamp, ; Tung & Knudson, ; Waterman & Thomas, ). The two most common strategies for estimating the age of subadults using the dentition are dental eruption (the passage of teeth from the crypts and eruption through alveolar bone) and dental formation (the stage of development of tooth crowns and roots) (Halcrow, Tayles, & Buckley, ).…”