The 'Bitter' Death of Children: Health, Welfare and the Funerary Treatment of Infants and Young Children in Christian Anglo-Saxon Cemeteries

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Health and Welfare of Children in the Past" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper will discuss the burials of infants and young children in the earliest Christian cemeteries in Anglo-Saxon England (10th and 11th centuries CE). While in earlier pagan periods the burials of the very youngest members of communities are conspicuous by their paucity, the earliest Christian cemeteries have a much more representative complement of child burials. Yet the burials of such individuals are still notably distinct, with many being interred in clusters close to the walls of churches, or around, or even within, prominent adult burials, often those of males. In this paper we explore the reasons for this patterning, incorporating stable isotope evidence that appears to reveal different health and weaning experiences for infants buried in distinctive locations, which may help to explain their funerary treatment. We also argue that the form of the burials of children may have played a part in ensuring their welfare in the afterlife, and also the welfare of the communities among which they had lived and died.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Health and Welfare of Children in the Past   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23372