Infant Health and Burial Practices in Late Prehistoric and Contact Period Kiyyangan, Ifugao

Summary

Infant death in Ifugao villages has only been viewed through a lens of modern ethnography. Recent excavations at the Old Kiyyangan Village site have revealed new information on the resource base, trade networks and impact of outside groups on the prehistoric and early historic Ifugao. This work has produced a small sample (16) of individuals who died at, or around, full term to the age of two years. The age, health, and mortuary profiles of these skeletons will be presented and placed into context. These skeletal remains appear to be the product of cemetery subdivision that places adults and juveniles in one location and fetal and infant remains in another. The age-at-death estimates for these individuals range from 26 weeks in utero to 1.5 years. Fetal and infant remains are subjected to either jar or open interment in a pattern that may reflect ritualized beliefs, health status or both. Skeletal lesions were recorded from all infant skeletons. These lesions are most likely caused by nutrition-related diseases. This study establishes new information for Cordillera prehistoric and colonial period burial practices and fits into the larger Southeast Asian sample of high mortality in the late period of gestation and early infancy.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Cross-cultural encounters/entanglements in Island Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific

Keywords

Spatial Coverage