Though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death: Co-Burials and Identity in Pre-Modern Northern Finland

Summary

This paper specifically addresses the cultural construction of children’s age and identity by examining the textiles and burial clothing from a series of pre-Modern mummified children’s burials recovered from beneath church floors in northern Finland.

During the pre-modern era, children’s burials in pre-modern Finland take one of three forms: (1) alone, in individual coffins (2) in association with other burials but still in their own coffin (3) co-burial, in the same coffin as others. This project specifically considers the temporal, geographic, and religious variations which impact these burials.

Pre-Modern Finnish identities; of "child" and "adult", "male" and "female" are explored through the detailed analysis of the garments with which these children were interred. This also offers the opportunity to consider what childhood meant vis-a-vis adult society, particularly in cases of co-burial. The roles to into which children were encultured, and the unique boundary between "dead" and "alive" are explored through role identity theory, socialization theory and material and technological choice in the funerary textiles and manner of burial.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21606