Palaeolithic Pests and Neolithic Nightmares: Were Prehistoric Children Really as Bad as You Think?

When you picture a prehistoric child, what do you see?

Popular culture and biological evidence have influenced our belief that children in prehistory were unruly, temperamental and ultimately extremely violent. There have been two interesting articles published this month that aim to shed light on prehistoric childhood.

A research team from PALAEO (Centre forHuman Palaeoecology and Evolutionary Origins) and the Department of Archaeology at York recently offered a new and distinctive perspective which suggests that Neanderthal children experienced strong emotional attachments with their immediate social group. This research results from an investigation into Neanderthal burial sites which suggests that children’s graves were generally more elaborate graves than those of older individuals.

“The traditional view sees Neanderthal childhood as unusually harsh, difficult and dangerous. This accords with preconceptions about Neanderthal inferiority and an inability to protect children epitomising Neanderthal decline. Our research found that a close attachment and particular attention to children is a more plausible interpretation of the archaeological evidence, explaining an unusual focus on infants and children in burial, and setting Neanderthal symbolism within a context which is likely to have included children.” Said Dr Spikins from the research team involved in the project.

A second paper, published as an advance article in  European Journal of Archaeology and titled Ageing, Childhood and Social Identity in the Early Neolithic of Central Europe, also challenges the traditional preconception of prehistoric children. In this case focusing on the children of the Neolithic Linearbandkeramik culture, the article argues that Neolithic children could have played an active role in their communities from a young age and visits the discovery of handmade tools, particularly smaller versions of axes or ‘grave goods’ that could be found in the child graves. These tools suggest that not only did children play an active role in their communities from a young age but also suggest an acknowledged engagement with the process of growing and learning into adulthood.

Read Ageing, Childhood and Social Identity in the Early Neolithic of Central Europe here >

Digging Deeper: Magic for the Dead? The Archaeology of Magic in Later Medieval Burials



Female burial at St Helen's Fishergate, York

Every now and then 'Can you dig it?' digs deep into the Maney Publishing online archive to highlight articles from past issues that proved to be very popular with our subscribers. In light of next week's International Medieval Congress in Leeds, I chose 'Magic for the Dead? The Archaeology of Magic in Later Medieval Burials', published in Medieval Archaeology (Volume 52, 2008) it was the winner of the 2008 Martyn Jope Award. This paper examines patterns in the placement of apotropaic objects and materials in high- to late-medieval burials in Britain (11th to 15th centuries). It was written by Professor Roberta Gilchrist, Head of the School of Human and Environmental Sciences at the University of Reading.

It develops an interdisciplinary classification to identify: (1) healing charms and protective amulets; (2) objects perceived to have occult natural power; (3) 'antique' items that were treated as possessing occult power; and (4) rare practices that may have been associated with the demonic magic of divination or sorcery. Making comparisons with amulets deposited in conversion-period graves of the 7th to 9th centuries it is argued that the placement of amulets with the dead was strategic to Christian belief, intended to transform or protect the corpse. The conclusion is that material traces of magic in later medieval graves have a connection to folk magic, performed by women in the care of their families, and drawing on knowledge of earlier traditions. This popular magic was integrated with Christian concerns and tolerated by local clergy, and was perhaps meant to heal or reconstitute the corpse, to ensure its reanimation on judgement day, and to protect the vulnerable dead on their journey through purgatory.

The following is an excerpt from the article's introduction:

Silver half penny of Edward III

"Archaeologists have been reluctant to consider how medieval people expressed supernatural and spiritual beliefs through the material practices of life and death. A rare contribution on this theme was Ralph Merrifield’s The Archaeology of Ritual and Magic, in which he diagnosed a ‘ritual phobia’among historical archaeologists. With the advent of a more scientific, processual archaeology in the 1970s and 1980s, the study of magic — with its superstitious and folkloric connotations — was relegated to the archaeological fringe. The topic has retained some currency in the study of conversion-period burials of the 7th to 9th centuries, although even in this context magic has been dismissed as superstitious ritual, rather than examined in relation to sacred beliefs."

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