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Tracing Childhood

Bioarchaeological Interpretations of the Human Past:


Local, Regional, and Global Perspectives

University Press of Florida


Florida A&M University, Tallahassee
Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton
Florida Gulf Coast University, Ft. Myers
Florida International University, Miami
Florida State University, Tallahassee
New College of Florida, Sarasota
University of Central Florida, Orlando
University of Florida, Gainesville
University of North Florida, Jacksonville
University of South Florida, Tampa
University of West Florida, Pensacola
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Tracing Childhood
Bioarchaeological Investigations
of Early Lives in Antiquity

Edited by
Jennifer L. Thompson, Marta P. Alfonso-Durruty,
and John J. Crandall

Foreword by Clark Spencer Larsen

University Press of Florida


Gainesville Tallahassee Tampa Boca Raton
Pensacola Orlando Miami Jacksonville Ft. Myers Sarasota
The publication of this book has been funded in part by a grant
from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Copyright 2014 by Jennifer L. Thompson, Marta P. Alfonso-Durruty, and John J. Crandall


All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America on recycled, acid-free paper

This book may be available in an electronic edition.

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System of Florida, comprising Florida A&M University, Florida Atlantic University,
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Contents

List of Figures vii


List of Tables ix
Foreword xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction. Children in Prehistory: Now Seen, Now Heard 1
Jennifer L. Thompson, John J. Crandall, and Marta P. Alfonso-Durruty

Part I. The Chosen Child


1. Death and the Special Child: Three Examples from the Ancient
Midwest 17
Della C. Cook, Andrew R. Thompson, and Amanda A. Rollins
2. Beyond Victims: Exploring the Identity of Sacrificed Infants and
Children at La Cueva de Los Muertos Chiquitos, Durango, Mexico
(AD 5711168) 36
John J. Crandall and Jennifer L. Thompson
3. Chinchorro Mortuary Practices on Infants: Northern Chile Archaic
Period (BP 70003600) 58
Vivien G. Standen, Bernardo T. Arriaza, and Calogero M. Santoro
4. The Other Burials at Torre de Palma: Childhood as Special Death in
a Medieval Portuguese Site 75
Sarah Holt, Stacey Hallman, Mary Lucas Powell, and Maia M. Langley

Part II. The Desecrated Child


5. The Bioarchaeology of the Homicide of Infants and Children 99
Simon Mays
6. Sense or Sensationalism? Approaches to Explaining High Perinatal
Mortality in the Past 123
Helen F. Gilmore and Sin E. Halcrow
7. A Disciplined Childhood in Nineteenth-Century New York City:
A Social Bioarchaeology of the Subadults of the Spring Street
Presbyterian Church 139
Meredith A. B. Ellis

Part III. The Working Child


8. Childhood, Colonialism, and Nation-Building: Child Labor in
Virginia and New York 159
Autumn Barrett
9. Little Helping Hands: Insights from Punta Teatinos, Chile 183
Marta P. Alfonso-Durruty and Jennifer L. Thompson
10. Children of the Working Class: Environmental Marginality and Child
Health at Black Mesa, Arizona (AD 9001150) 198
Debra L. Martin, Jennifer L. Thompson, and John J. Crandall

Part IV. The Cultured Child


11. Surviving Childhood: Health, Identity, and Personhood in the
Prehistoric American Southwest 219
Ann M. Palkovich
12. Tracing Tiwanaku Childhoods: A Bioarchaeological Study of Age and
Social Identities in Tiwanaku Society 228
Deborah E. Blom and Kelly J. Knudson
Conclusion. Little Bodies, Big Voices: The Lives of Children in the
Past 246
Marta P. Alfonso-Durruty, Jennifer L. Thompson, and John J. Crandall

List of Contributors 259


Index 263
Figures

1.1. Dental age versus long bone length 20


1.2. Suture closure, fractures, and unusual cranial proportions in a
Hopewell girl 22
1.3. Suture closure in a Late Woodland boy 25
1.4. Suture closure and mandibular trauma in a Late Woodland
child 27
2.1. Age-specific mortality for the La Cueva de Los Muertos Chiquitos
burials as a percentage of the total sample (N = 31) 46
3.1a. Body modeled in gray clay or black mummy of a fetus
(PLM-8 Site) 62
3.1b. Red mummy of a male infant (Morro-1 Site) 63
3.1c. Bandaged mummy, infant, undetermined sex (Morro-1 Site) 64
3.1d. Corded mummy, infant, undetermined sex (cranium is absent)
(Morro 1/5 Site) 64
4.1. Map of Torre de Palma and site location in Portugal 77
4.2. Map of the Basilica Precinct showing Apse 3 79
4.3. Tomb 9 (L 114) and Tomb 10 (L 113) 80
4.4. Plan of Apse 3 showing locations of Tombs 410 82
7.1. Neighborhood of the Spring Street Presbyterian Church 140
7.2. Bowed femorae and tibiae of Individual YYY 144
7.3. Flared and expanded metaphysis of tibia from Individual EEE 144
7.4. Porous and expanded rib from Individual EEE 145
7.5. Age-at-death distribution of the subadults of the Spring Street
Presbyterian Church 146
viii Figures

8.1. New York African Burial Ground Project subadult recordation


examples 170
8.2. New Yorks African Burial Ground: temporal analysis of MSM
relative frequencies in subadults 175
9.1. Location of Punta Teatinos in the Norte Chico region of Chile 186
9.2. Examples of pathological and traumatic conditions observed among
the subadults analyzed 191
12.1. Map of the South Central Andes 232
Tables

2.1. Summary of complete burials recovered from La Cueva de los


Muertos Chiquitos 45
3.1. Percentage of adults and subadults with artificial mummification at
various Chinchorro sites 65
3.2. Percentage of artificial mummification among subadults and adults
at several analyzed Chinchorro sites 66
3.3. Percentage of artificial mummification styles among subadults at
several analyzed Chinchorro sites 66
4.1. The burials in the Ermida de So Domingos, Torre de Palma 81
4.2. Tombs inside the Basilica at Torre de Palma: demography and tomb
type 84
5.1. Some Inca capacocha sites yielding mummified child remains 107
5.2. Demographic composition of some burials associated with historic
battles and from prehistoric mass graves where skeletons show
evidence of perimortal violence 112
7.1. Incidence of rickets in subadults 147
8.1. A comparison of Steckels (1996) labor statistics for enslaved
children in North America and free, indentured children in
nineteenth-century Virginia 172
8.2. Nineteenth-century Virginia indenture contracts by gender and race
173
8.3. Nineteenth-century Virginia indentured occupations by gender and
race 173
9.1. Comparison of dental ages with age assessments based on
postcranial measurements 189
x Tables

9.2. Number and percentage of individuals affected by pathological


conditions 190
9.3. Number and percentage of individuals with traumatic lesions 192
10.1. Frequency of porotic hyperostosis by age (vault/orbits) 207
10.2. Periosteal reactions by age 207
12.1. Chi-square of cranial modification by age range (010 years vs. 10+
years) 235
12.2. Chi-square of cranial modification by detailed age range 235
12.3. Chi-square of sex by Sr signature 236
12.4. Chi-square of cranial modification by Sr signature 236
12.5. Chi-square of cribra orbitalia by Sr signature 237
Foreword

Anthropology is the only social science to encompass the study of all peo-
ple, in all places, and in all times. Yet even in its broadly holistic and com-
parative view of humanity, children and childhood have not been part of
the disciplines comprehensive perspective on our species. A central reason
for the marginalization of the juvenile record, past and present, is that chil-
dren have been perceived as not being especially important players in so-
ciety. Bioarchaeologists have long recognized the considerable importance
of juvenile skeletal remains in understanding past populations, mostly for
interpreting health and well-being (Halcrow and Tayles 2011; Larsen 1999;
Lewis 2007). From the study of patterns of growth and development, physi-
ological stress, and chronic illness, juvenile skeletons present considerable
insights into human adaptive challenges and transitions. Moreover, health
conditions in the juvenile yearsespecially in infancypredict quality of
life and mortality in adulthood (Armelagos et al. 2009). The contributors
to this volume make clear that in addition to the rich reservoir of biological
data from human remains representing the physical lives of people, when
viewed in ethnographic, bioarchaeological, and archaeological contexts,
juvenile remains provide an extraordinarily broad record for addressing
hypotheses and answering questions about the roles of children in society.
Simply, juvenile remains recovered from archaeological contexts give a rich
perspective on the links between biology and society.
The contributors to this book focus on children not as passive players
but rather as central to understanding social behavior. The chapters dem-
onstrate fundamental insights into identity and personhood; variation in
how children are treated; and experiences of growing up, such as who may
or may not be included in sacrifice, who is subject to abuse and poor treat-
ment before and after death, and health outcomes for those whose life ex-
periences were positive and for those whose life experiences were negative.
xii Foreword

This book joins a new and exciting body of bioarchaeological scholar-


ship emphasizing childhood and the interplay between society and biology.
Once invisible, childhood now takes a central place in the archaeological
record in reconstructing and interpreting the physical and social lives of
children in the past, in all places and in all times.
Clark Spencer Larsen
Series Editor

Reference List
Armelagos, G. J., A. H. Goodman, K. N. Harper, and M. L. Blakey. 2009. Enamel Hypo-
plasia and Early Mortality: Bioarcheological Support for the Barker Hypothesis. Evo-
lutionary Anthropology 18: 26171.
Halcrow, S. E., and N. Tayles. 2011. The Bioarchaeological Investigation of Children and
Childhood. In Social Bioarchaeology, ed. S. C. Agarwal and B. Glencross, 33360. Wi-
ley-Blackwell, New York.
Larsen, C. S. 1999. Bioarchaeology: Interpreting Behavior from the Human Skeleton. Cam-
bridge University Press, Cambridge.
Lewis, M. E. 2007. The Bioarchaeology of Children: Perspectives from Biological and Forensic
Anthropology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Acknowledgments

This book idea came about as the result of a panel that was organized for
the American Anthropological Association (AAA) meetings and was spon-
sored by the AAA Children and Youth Interest group. The editors would
like to thank the AAA for that opportunity and all the participants of that
session, many of whom are contributors to this volume. We thank the De-
partment of Anthropology, UNLV, and the Anthropology and Social Work
Department at KSU for their support.

Dedications

Jennifer L. Thompson: My work is dedicated to my parents, Tom and Ma-


rie, for all my wonderful childhood memories, and to my husband, William
Sommerfield, for all his love and support.

Marta P. Alfonso-Durruty: I would like to dedicate my part to my parents,


Pilar and Cristin, who gave me life and have given me all.

John J. Crandall: I would like to dedicate my work on this volume to the


mothers in my life: Beth Crandall, Elizabeth Schulenberg, Vassa Neimark,
and especially Sandra Hunsinger.
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Introduction

Children in Prehistory
Now Seen, Now Heard

Jennifer L. Thompson, John J. Crandall,


and Marta P. Alfonso-Durruty

The archaeology of children is not just about children themselves but rather about
the relationships children have with their environment, their peers and members
of their family and community. Emphasizing the relationships children have with
the world around them, both natural and cultural, and acknowledging the diverse
contributions children can and do make in different cultural settings means that
the archaeology of childhood is not a discrete specialization that should be prac-
ticed by a few archaeologists.
Baxter 2005: 114

While other mammals progress, in an almost seamless fashion, from in-


fancy toward adulthood, our species is unique in that we are the only crea-
ture exhibiting a period following infancy where a youngster is freed from
breastfeeding but still dependent on others for provisioning and protection
(Bogin 1997, 1999, 2006, 2009). Childhood is at the core of our common
evolutionary history, as well as our individual socialization. Thus, child-
hood, as a universal life history stage, attracts wide scientific interest, being
that it is a phenomenon that exists at the intersection of biology, society
and culture (Ingold 2001). It is precisely because of this that anthropology
is well suited to study the emergence and impact of children throughout
time (Konner 2010; Lamb and Hewlett 2005; Lancy 2008). However, under-
standing the treatment and contribution of children outside modern West-
ern contexts has proven difficult as studies usually emphasize adult roles,
to the detriment of childrens contributions (Hirschfeld 2002), and focus
on how children are acculturated or shaped by others (LeVine 2007). Only
recently, following a wave of feminist theory in the 1990s, have scholars
2 J. L. Thompson, J. J. Crandall, and M. P. Alfonso-Durruty

turned toward understanding childrens impacts on the world as well as


how children and childhood (their lived experiences) have been shaped
through time and across cultures (e.g., Bird and Bliege Bird 2005; Lancy
2008; Sofaer Derevenski 2000).
While the term childhood has a particular meaning in evolutionary bi-
ology, as a life history stage unique to our species, the term child is used
in anthropology, particularly bioarchaeology, more broadly to encompass
all subadults (or non-adults) in a society. Thus, readers should not be sur-
prised to see these terms used variously throughout this volume. Life his-
tory theory tells us that we experience at least four stages of growth prior to
reaching adulthood: infancy, childhood, juvenility, and adolescence, each
with biological, psychological, and behavioral markers delimiting them
(Bogin 2009). However, living societies do not universally categorize non-
adult individuals in this way, with some societies simply dividing all their
members into people and non-people (Chapters 1 and 11). In other words,
these life stages are useful when they are used to assess the changing social
role of individuals over the life course or to gauge the likely competencies of
individuals at certain ages, since size, cognitive development, and manual
dexterity affect an individuals abilities (Chapter 9). In other cases these
stages are less useful tools for analyzing subadult roles in society. For that
reason, while recognizing childhood as a life history stage, this volume al-
lowed authors to use the terms child and children as a broad category that
could include all subadults (non-adults) or subgroups of them (e.g., infant,
child, juvenile, adolescent). Moreover, authors were not tasked with using
the same age ranges to define these subgroups. This approach allowed the
flexibility needed to interpret results within each unique historic or pre-
historic social, economic, and/or environmental setting. This means that
there is inevitably some variation in age categories and terminology be-
tween chapters, but there is internal consistency in the terms used within
each chapter.
Understanding subadult social identity, behavior, and treatment in the
past has proven challenging. Archaeologists have increasingly recognized
that children comprise a significant portion of all ancient communities
(Chamberlain 1997) and, given this, must have had some appreciable im-
pact on their social group and surroundings (Friedel 2002; Sofaer Der-
evenski 1997). Although bioarchaeology has contributed research on past
identities (Knudson and Stojanowski 2009), previous bioarchaeological
contributions to the study of childrens experiences, treatment, and agency
have been limited. The goal of this book is to remedy this by providing a
Introduction. Children in Prehistory: Now Seen, Now Heard 3

broad array of studies that integrate social theory, as well as historic, ethno-
graphic, bioarchaeological, and archaeological data to examine this critical
time in the human life course and enable a more nuanced understanding
of the experiences and contribution of subadults in the past.
Bioarchaeology has begun to move away from a past of descriptive os-
teological case studies to become a mature and robust subfield in anthro-
pology (Buikstra and Beck 2006; Larsen 1999). Within this context, the
bioarchaeology of children field has grown thanks to methodological ad-
vances in age, sex, ancestry, and health estimations (Baker et al. 2005; Lewis
2007; Latham and Finnegan 2010). These advances have revolutionized the
analytical value of subadult remains. In addition, the increasing emphasis
on the use of contextual data and social theory in bioarchaeological re-
search has led to multidisciplinary studies of individuals (although largely
of adults) that address questions of identity, environmental adaptation, vio-
lence, inequality, and symbolism (Baadsgaard et al. 2011; Bonogofsky 2011;
Gowland and Knsel 2006; Knudson and Stojanowski 2009; Martin et al.
2012; Rakita et al. 2005; Robbins Schugg 2011; Sofaer 2006).
This volume adds to that growing body of work by drawing on social
and evolutionary theory and by incorporating multiple lines of evidence to
interpret the lives of children (subadults) in the past. The chapters included
in this volume highlight the complex interplay of society and biology in the
construction of childhood. Such an integrative approach is an important
milestone for the development of bioarchaeological studies of childhood.

A Brief History of Childhood Studies

Even the earliest ethnologies mention children when documenting rites


of passage, training, or family life (Green and Beckwith 1924; Laidler 1922;
Malinowski 1913). However, the inclusion of children in these accounts is
often tied to adults lives. It was not until the 1950s and later that cultural
anthropologists began formulating explicit theories that highlighted bio-
logical and cultural aspects of childhood (Goodwin 1990; Mead 1955; Mead
and Wolfenstein 1955; Scheper-Hughes 1990). The current focus on chil-
dren has arisen from the realization that children are active contributors in
their own socialization and within society (Ginsburg and Rapp 1995; Lancy
2008; Scheper-Hughes and Sargent 1998). These more recent studies, along
with the emergence of feminist theory, helped focus attention on the ex-
periences of both women and children in prehistory and provide the bases
from which to trace childhood in the past.
4 J. L. Thompson, J. J. Crandall, and M. P. Alfonso-Durruty

Children, however, became a mainstream topic of archaeological re-


search only relatively recently (Roveland 1997). In fact, when children are
included, most archaeological discussions revolve around burial treat-
ment, demographic reconstructions, and miniature artifacts (Roveland
2001). Archaeologists typically use children to explain uninterpretable
artifacts and usually see them as distorting factors in site formation pro-
cesses. These early assumptions about children resulted in children being
deemed archaeologically unknowable (Baxter 2000). More recently, how-
ever, archaeologists have questioned this assumption and have reconsid-
ered the place of children in archaeology (e.g., Crown 2002; Kamp 2001,
2002; Lillehammer 2000; Sofaer Derevenski 2000). Current discussions
focus on the relationships between children and their caregivers, children
as demographic components, and childrens transitions across rites of pas-
sage. These and other diverse approaches to childrens agency and treat-
ment have demonstrated the ability of researchers to formulate a complex
picture of childrens lives in the past.
These cultural analyses of children (subadults) are accompanied by a
renewed interest in children by biological and evolutionary anthropologists
(e.g., Konner 2010; Schaffer and Kipp 2006). Evolutionary scholars have
shown that childhood is a unique stage in human life history (Bogin 1997)
that had a major impact in shaping human cognition and social behavior
(Hrdy 2011; Moll and Tomasello 2010). Children, unlike infants, are not
breastfed and can be provisioned and cared for by members of the community
who are not the mother. Cooperative breeding enables flexible families and
communities that are capable of producing offspring more quickly than any
other primate. This unique reproductive strategy likely evolved fairly re-
cently (Thompson and Nelson 2011), yet has resulted in a variety of various
social arrangements across the world that are not seen in other species and
have significant implications for understanding why various individuals in
a given group behave the way they do (Bogin 2009). For example, recent
work by Gray and Anderson (2010) shows how the emergence of childhood
is linked with shifts in male behavior, mating strategies, and parenting.
Crittenden and colleagues (2009) demonstrate that children are important
economic contributors who provide food to others and assist their commu-
nities through subsistence activities. These studies highlight recent work
that is bringing children to the forefront of discussions about the evolution
of modern human sociality, family structure, and social behavior.
Recent osteological syntheses highlight the growing and broad toolkit
that bioarchaeologists have to analyze the skeletonized remains of subadults
Introduction. Children in Prehistory: Now Seen, Now Heard 5

(Baker et al. 2005; Lewis 2007). Osteologists continue to advance available


methods, integrating population genetic analyses, biogeochemical analy-
ses, and traditional macroscopic techniques into one major toolkit that
can assess life history at both the individual and population level (Chapter
12; Larsen 1999). Bioarchaeologists have begun to recognize the potential
of children (or subadults) to address important research questions in the
past (e.g., Halcrow and Tayles 2008; Perry 2005). As a result, bioarchaeolo-
gists have broadened their focus beyond using childrens remains as simply
indicators of prehistoric health (e.g., Cohen and Armelagos 1984; Cohen
and Crane-Kramer 2007; Steckel and Rose 2002) to investigate other as-
pects of childrens biology and social experiences, including, for example,
studies of dental and skeletal development and cross-species patterns of
childrens growth (Hoppa and Fitzgerald 1999; Thompson et al. 2003) and
osteological patterns of skeletal abuse (Love et al. 2011; Ogden 2000). This
brief sketch does not exhaust the broad range of topics addressed in the an-
thropological literature regarding children and childhood, but it certainly
shows the increasing attention children are receiving (see the Conclusion of
this volume for a more detailed history of the field). What remains unpub-
lished is a synthetic, bioarchaeologically grounded work on children in the
past that is informed by this, and other work. It is the goal of this volume
to fill such a gap.

Tracing Children Bioarchaeologically

In this volume, the bioarchaeology of children goes beyond the causes of


death, demographic profiles, reconstructions of health status, and associ-
ated grave goods. It is our vision that the bioarchaeology of children field
can expand to address questions regarding the role of children in society,
their identities, and their relationships and engagement within their com-
munities and environment. As noted earlier, this means that the authors in
this volume used terminology, methods, and theories appropriate to the
specific context, region, and time of the childrens burials they were analyz-
ing. These different approaches consider childhood through the lenses of
materiality, embodied identity, and/or personhood, for example. The re-
sulting chapters, together, demonstrate the rich diversity of thought and
methodology in the bioarchaeology of childhood field. To provide cohe-
sion to the volume, the contributions were divided into four parts each fo-
cused around varying dimensions of childrens experiences in the past. Part
I, The Chosen Child, presents research that documents the experiences
6 J. L. Thompson, J. J. Crandall, and M. P. Alfonso-Durruty

of children whom society has selected for exceptional social treatment. In


each case study, contextual information, ethnography, and careful interpre-
tation of the mortuary record are used to illustrate the ways children are
key actors in various social institutions. These studies highlight the lived
experiences, deaths, and mortuary treatments of children who lived and/
or died because of an aspect of their biology that made them conspicuous
or atypical in some way. In Chapter 1, Cook and colleagues highlight the
variable nature of childrens mortuary treatment in North America. They
present an analysis of children whose uncommon cranial growth and su-
ture fusion patterns would have been visible and likely laden with social
meaning. They show that these childrens unique bodies were key crite-
ria used to determine their treatment and death and argue, convincingly,
that some of these special children may have served as slaves or died vio-
lent deaths that are otherwise rare in the ancient Midwest. Chapter 2, by
Crandall and Thompson, examines children who died through ritual child
sacrifice. Rather than focusing on simply documenting the practice, the
authors argue that bioarchaeology can examine sacrificial assemblages to
understand which children were most at odds for being included in such
rituals. In this way, ritual sacrifice assemblages provide archaeologists with
a window through which it is possible to understand the personhood and
social perception of children of different ages in the past. The authors show
that young infants and the ill are especially valued among the Ancestral
Tepehuan for inclusion in ritual sacrifice assemblages. Like Cook and col-
leagues in Chapter 1 and Palkovich in Chapter 11, the authors suggest that
the liminal personhood of the ill and the newborn resulted in special lives
and deaths for some children in the past. Chapter 3, by Standen and col-
leagues, contextualizes an analysis of the remains of subadult Chinchorro
mummies from Chile. Through the construction of biological profiles,
they show that young children and fetuses are included in mummification
rituals. Rather than being a component of inclusion in social rituals, as in
the previous two chapters, age among the Chinchorro does not exclude
infants and fetuses from ritualized mortuary treatment. The authors also
remind us that gender ideologies intersect with other beliefs during ritual
practices. The genital modeling that occurs during mummification high-
lights the ways that children are afforded gendered identities, even at young
ages, by the hunter-gatherers who once lived on the coasts of Chile. Finally,
Chapter 4, by Holt and colleagues, concludes Part I with an investigation
of the mortuary treatment of infants at Torre de Palma in Portugal. They
Introduction. Children in Prehistory: Now Seen, Now Heard 7

highlight the ways in which infant burial practices shed light on concepts
of otherness and liminality. Contextualizing the burial of various groups
of infants within the larger framework of medieval Catholic theology, they
show that childrens religious identities shape how and where they are bur-
ied with liminal children of young ages being buried in repurposed spaces
that were not originally intended for burial. Like the other authors in Part I,
Holt and colleagues highlight the cultural flexibility that defines childrens
experiences at death. They creatively use mortuary and osteological data to
tease out the identities of children whose treatment at death is exceptional
and highlight the unique lives faced by these youngsters. Whether these
children were living as slaves in the ancient Midwest, struggling to survive
malnutrition in northern Mexico, dying young in ancient Chile, or being
buried on unconsecrated but formalized cemetery space in medieval Por-
tugal, their identities are united around their unique treatment at death.
Using mortuary, contextual, and osteological data, we can examine the cul-
tural beliefs that shape mortuary behavior. These chapters center childrens
remains and experiences within such an analytical framework and allow
the chosen children of the past to stand out yet again.
Part II of this volume, The Desecrated Child, examines the abuse, so-
cial ostracism, oppression, inequality, and resulting trauma, ill health, and
death faced by children in the past. These case studies richly document the
array of social institutions and mechanisms through which inequality was
reproduced. These chapters clearly show that children both are impacted
and impact these systems of oppression. Further, these chapters provide
critical overviews of major issues in the archaeology of social identity. Is-
sues of child sacrifice, infanticide, religious and social control, slavery, and
child labor are discussed with children used as a lens through which we
can understand the social experience of these societal ills. In each case,
centering childrens experiences within these rich contexts does more than
document child abuse and maltreatment. Each case study demonstrates
how childhood is a key stage where inequality and the social order are
reproduced. In Chapter 5, Mays provides a much-needed synthesis of the
ways subadults have been killed cross-culturally and through time. Rather
than focus only on the killing of infants, his bioarchaeological review in-
cludes children (subadults) of all ages. This broad view highlights the va-
riety of struggles that children faced in the past. His chapter provides new
insights into the ways children suffer at the hands of warring adults, parents
desperate to abandon unwanted offspring, and/or communities willing to
8 J. L. Thompson, J. J. Crandall, and M. P. Alfonso-Durruty

extinguish the lives of the young for religious and political reasons. Chapter
6, beyond providing a synthetic overview of the ways children have suf-
fered in the past, also questions the methodological and interpretive work
being done on childrens death. Gilmore and Halcrow critically address the
identification of infanticide in the archaeological record. They remind us
that the abuse of children and the performative killing of the young, while
sensational, may not have been as common in the past as archaeologists
might think. They question the ways in which infanticide has been identi-
fied and remind us that infant mortality was much higher in the past than
it is today. Through challenging simple demographic models of infanticide,
they invite other scholars to carefully assess the ills of life that resulted in
the death of youngsters in the past. Chapter 7, in which Ellis examines the
lives of nineteenth-century children living in low-income New York City,
wraps up Part II. This chapter examines the ways that children suffer not
only in death but also during life. Through contextually situating her data
on rickets from the Springstreet Presbyterian Church Cemetery, Ellis dem-
onstrates that political inequality, religious ideology, and social disciplining
structured childrens lives and health in New York during the nineteenth
century. Her chapter highlights the ways in which children are both agents
and subjects of inequality and surveillance. This juxtaposition provides a
rich history of the social contributions made by children in the past and
reminds us that social control never entirely silences the oppressed. In
breathing new life into the death and desecration of children in the past,
these scholars make a robust contribution to larger anthropological discus-
sions of violence, social inequality, and politics.
Part III, The Working Child, looks at both childrens economic con-
tributions and/or how their health has been impacted by the economy of
their social group. For example, in Chapter 8, Barrett focuses on the expe-
riences of children whose bodies carry the traces of labor and reflect the
struggles of slaves living in Virginia and New York during the Colonial
era. Using historical documents and bioarchaeological analysis, Barrett
provides a biohistory of the lives of children who were literally worked
to the bone. Barrett uses her analysis of ossified musculoskeletal tissue to
situate childrens economic contributions and experiences as slave laborers
within the larger discourses of racism and the nature of childhood that
shaped the social experiences of Colonial young. Chapter 9, by Alfonso-
Durruty and Thompson, looks for evidence of social and economic transi-
tions in forager children from the late Archaic period of central Chile. In
Introduction. Children in Prehistory: Now Seen, Now Heard 9

their study, Alfonso-Durruty and Thompson found that childrens shifting


roles through childhood, and their transition to adulthood, are embod-
ied in their skeletal remains. This study integrates life history stages with
social transition. While most discussions of prehistoric health are often
monolithic and emphasize the difference in health profiles between hunter-
gatherers and agriculturalists (Cohen and Armelagos 1984), this chapter
emphasizes childhood experiences as being a child, but also as a process of
becoming something elsean adult. In Chapter 10, Martin and colleagues
analyze the social experiences and health of children in the marginal des-
erts and mesas of the American Southwest. They examine rates of cribra
orbitalia and porotic hyperostosis as a way to understand the health expe-
riences of children who live in working-class, rural communities. This
work provides a much-needed complement to past archaeological research
that has overemphasized the experiences of elites and communities found
at more densely populated and socially stratified sites, such as Chaco Can-
yon and Grasshopper Pueblo. Through a discussion of childrens health at
Black Mesa, the cultural buffers used by working-class rural communities
to minimize child mortality are revealed, enriching our comprehension of
the lives of those who lived in everyday communities in the past.
Part IV, The Cultured Child, addresses issues regarding childrens
changing identity as they transition from childhood into adulthood. Chap-
ter 11, by Palkovich, examines childrens shifting personhood among the
Ancestral Pueblo at Arroyo Hondo. Her work shows the utility of using
ethnography and the voices of indigenous communities to understand
the social experiences of children in the past. Palkovich identifies cases of
violent death in which children were seen as incomplete and potentially
dangerous because of their liminal identities. In contextualizing such vio-
lence, Palkovich highlights the fluidity of personhood throughout Pueblo
childhood and shows the ways childrens experiences are always interwo-
ven with larger cultural understandings of personhood and aging. Chapter
12, by Blom and Knudson, takes us to South Americas Middle Horizon, a
period characterized by the emergence and influence of Tiwanaku. From
their work we gain insight into the ways in which Tiwanaku childrens so-
cial identities shift across the life course. The authors use ethnographic and
biochemical data to understand the lives of migrant children living in and
around Tiwanakus political centers, which oversaw the lives of communi-
ties around Lake Titicaca. They illustrate the utility of integrating osteologi-
cal and ethnographic data in order to understand how childrens identities
10 J. L. Thompson, J. J. Crandall, and M. P. Alfonso-Durruty

are the intersectional products of cultural understandings of age, gender,


and ethnicity. Together, these chapters point to the ways in which culture
shapes the social identities and dynamic roles that children have had in
human history.
Overall, the chapters in this book explore how children become per-
sons, take on social roles and economic responsibilities, and develop iden-
tities that are shaped by the ways in which they were treated. These contri-
butions are a step forward into broader questions of childrens involvement
within larger economic and political systemseither as passive individuals
or as agents actively altering the community or landscape. In this manner,
the study of children in the past sheds light not only on population health
but also on the dynamic biological, social, and ecological factors that im-
pact and shape patterns of morbidity and mortality. Further, these contri-
butions demonstrate the diversity of ways in which the study of children
and childhood intersects with other perennial anthropological questions.
As previously discussed, bioarchaeology is ideally situated to answer these
questions because of its integrative approach, cross-cultural perspective,
and unique time depth (Buikstra et al. 2011). Bioarchaeology can thus pro-
vide a highly contextualized picture of ancient childhoods (Halcrow and
Tayles 2008) that illustrate the complexity and variability of childrens lived
experiences while also breathing new life into the experiences of both non-
adult and adult individuals and the social collective in the past.

Conclusion

The chapters in this volume integrate skeletal and contextual data with so-
cial theory drawn from archaeology, ethnography, and historical research
to give voice to the children of the past. By highlighting the complexity
and variability in childhood experiences through the ancient world, we
can achieve a more detailed understanding of children in antiquity. Each
of the chapters in each themed part presents the methods and data used in
analyzing children from a particular time or region of the world, but most
importantly these chapters position the data and interpretations within a
broader theoretical framework, which is the aim of bioarchaeology. By do-
ing so, this volume goes beyond the mere reporting of skeletal data.
We chose not to organize the book by region or by time period because
we think this would detract from the theoretical focus of the volume. The
cases presented show that bioarchaeology, as an interdisciplinary science,
Introduction. Children in Prehistory: Now Seen, Now Heard 11

can make important and unique contributions to childhood studies. Bioar-


chaeology can successfully address complex questions about past childrens
lives, experiences, and impact on their community. Using these multiple
lines of evidence and nuanced interpretation of the available data, the chil-
dren of the past are finally seen and heard.

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I
The Chosen Child
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1
Death and the Special Child
Three Examples from the Ancient Midwest

Della C. Cook, Andrew R. Thompson, and Amanda A. Rollins

Older children present some of the most fascinating and frustrating prob-
lems in paleopathology. Children at age 5 years and older experience rela-
tively low mortality in all human populations. Human mortality curves
are at their lowest in the age range 5 to 14 years, and the heterogeneity of
causes of death in this interval is high. Cause of death is often related to
behavioral factors in older children; hence one expects some deaths of oth-
erwise healthy children to result from accidents or interpersonal violence.
For example, only 7 of 94 deaths recorded among the Dobe !Kung occurred
in this age interval, among them one from exposure and one from burns
(Howell 1979). In contrast, deaths of children with chronic disabilities may
well be overrepresented in the age range 5 to 14 years. Older children in tra-
ditional societies begin to take on adult tasks and social roles, making mor-
tality in this age interval an interesting window on the transition from de-
pendency to productivity, both within the family and in the community at
large. Social expectations for the transition from childhood to adolescence
may complicate the intrinsic frailty that is a feature of many developmen-
tal syndromes. The few traditional societies that have been studied with
regard to disability suggest that people with behavioral deficits may sur-
vive into older childhood. For example, the needs of a microcephalic child
with behavioral deficits forced her Dobe !Kung family to leave the foraging
way of life (Howell 1979), and Andean peasants structured work activities
to accommodate children profoundly handicapped by endemic cretinism
(Greene 1977). Several remarkably handicapped older children have been
reported in ancient populations (e.g., Buikstra et al. 1990; Charlier 2008;
Dickel and Doran 1989; Formicola 1995; Kilgore et al. 1998; Pedersen and
Anton 1998; Richards 1985). Paleopathology that focuses on developmental
18 D. C. Cook, A. R. Thompson, and A. A. Rollins

defects can thus provide an enriched view of the social identities of these
ancient children.
Studies of skeletal evidence of developmental defects in large, well-
preserved skeletal collections from Woodland and Mississippian sites in
Illinois have yielded several adults with chronic conditions that are likely
to have had an impact on their social identity (Cook 2007; Osterholtz et al.
2001; Morse 1969; Wilbur 2000). Building on these studies, we have chosen
to look closely at children with early suture closure and small crania. Do
these children share a genetic syndrome? If so, how did it affect their lives?
West-central Illinois is particularly appropriate for this inquiry be-
cause several large groups of burial mounds and cemeteries represent the
Hopewell or Middle Woodland, Late Woodland, and Mississippian periods
in a small segment of the Illinois Valley and the adjacent Mississippi Valley.
These sequential chronological units are thought by most archaeologists
to represent a continuous local population moving from a horticultural
system stressing oily and starchy seed domesticates as well as wild foods
toward heavy reliance on maize. Hopewell (150 BC to AD 400) is charac-
terized by elaborate mortuary practices suggesting social distinctions and
by long-distance trade in raw materials and artifacts that provided grave
goods for the honored dead. Late Woodland (AD 400900) communities
were locally focused and mortuary practices were simple. While the Mis-
sissippian period in the Midwest is dominated by the spectacular Cahokia
polity with its social stratification, long-distance trade and craft specializa-
tion, and highly differentiated mortuary practices, Mississippian commu-
nities in west-central Illinois were relatively small, marginal, and egalitar-
ian, and the region was largely depopulated after AD 1200 (see Cook 2007).

Materials and Methods

Well-preserved skeletal series from Woodland and Mississippian mound


groups from west-central Illinois were evaluated for early suture closure in
children. Sites included were Pete Klunk, Koster, Schild and Yokem mound
groups, all housed at Indiana University and the subject of many previous
studies. Premature suture closure was observed at these sites in 3 of 155
children in the age range 5 to 14 years. One of these cases was recovered
from an unusual context that may support a diagnosis of behavioral defi-
cits, and all three children had survived trauma. We describe each child and
evaluate them with regard to stature, age, craniometrics, and trauma using
data from previous studies of the populations from which they are derived.
Death and the Special Child: Three Examples from the Ancient Midwest 19

Under normal circumstances, age determination in children can rely on


the relative stability of dental development, while sex is difficult to assess
prior to puberty. Age and sex determination in individuals with congenital
anomalies is doubly challenging because the anomaly may alter develop-
mental timing.
We have relied on Lewiss (2007) relatively optimistic account of skeletal
sex differences in childhood, omitting assessment of the orbit, which is
not useful in sexing adult skeletons in this population and unreliable in
known-sex remains (Husmann and Samson 2011). We have supplemented
Lewiss advice with a dental metric method developed for these specific
populations by one of us (ART) who has examined sexual dimorphism
in the dentition of the larger regional series from which these three cases
derive. A stepwise discriminant analysis using buccolingual (BL) and me-
siodistal (MD) dental crown measurements identified the canine as the
best predictor of sex in skeletons from Schild and Yokem for whom sex had
been confidently determined from the cranium, mandible, and os coxae in
earlier studies (Droessler 1981). Sex was estimated correctly using dental
measurements on an average of 82.3 percent for males and 78 percent for
females from the reference sample using the various discriminant equa-
tions developed for this study (Thompson forthcoming).
Assessing age for height in later childhood is difficult because the tim-
ing of adolescence is so variable, with regard to both sex and individual
variability. One of us (AAR) looked at dental age as a predictor of long
bone length using a sample of 23 juveniles from the region with intact long
bones. Measurements from the left side of the skeleton were used except
when the left was unavailable. None of the three cases we present here
stands out as showing reduced stature (figure 1.1).

Klunk 11C40-92

Description

A childs skull from the Hopewell component of the Pete Klunk mound
group in west-central Illinois was identified as unusual by Elizabeth Pen-
nefather-OBrien during her research on discrete traits because it shows
early suture closure. The sagittal suture is closed from bregma to lambda,
and no trace of the suture remains from vertex to lambda. This anomaly
had not been noticed previously, and the highly fragmented skull had not
been reconstructed. An error in labeling prevented an appreciation of this
persons constellation of pathological features until one of us (DCC) made
Figure 1.1. Dental age versus long bone length.
Death and the Special Child: Three Examples from the Ancient Midwest 21

a systematic search for the missing postcranial elements. However, some-


one who must have noticed pathological changes in the long bones had
sectioned a femur prior to 1973. Unfortunately, there are no records of this
earlier study. The basicranium, vertebrae, left tibia, most epiphyses, hands,
and feet are now missing, although the field report describes this child as a
complete, flexed skeleton (Perino 1968).

Age, Sex, and Stature


Crown formation of the third molars is complete with some root forma-
tion; all other permanent teeth are erupted with fully formed roots, consis-
tent with an age of 12 to 15 years (Moorrees et al. 1963). Dental metrics show
that 11C40-92 is predicted as female with 97.5 percent probability.
The distal humeral epiphyses are closed, and the proximal epiphyses of
the ulnae are closing. The triradiate cartilage is not fused, but the ischium
and pubis are united at the inferior ramus. The sciatic notch is wide and the
chin is exceptionally poorly developed. On the other hand, the auricular
surface is not elevated (Lewis 2007). With some caution, this is a female
about 14 years of age. The left ulna length (lacking distal epiphysis) is 201
mm, corresponding to a stature of 140 cm or 55 inches (Krogman 1962),
although adult stature would have been greater.

Pathology
The skull is long, or dolichocephalic, without the sharp midline keel char-
acteristic of scaphocephaly. There is complete closure of the pars obelica
and pars lambdica of the sagittal suture and partial closure with postmor-
tem breakage of the remainder without scaphocephaly, although the skull
is long and low. Endocranial features are poorly marked. Frontal sinuses
are very small. Despite longstanding fusion of the posterior portion of the
sagittal suture, falciform impressions are limited. This would suggest that
there was no increased intracranial pressure, as reflected in what radiolo-
gists call a beaten-copper appearance resulting from extensive develop-
ment of deep falciform impressions (Tuite et al. 1996).
Tibias are bowed and bone density is low, suggesting mild rickets or
other metabolic disease. All long bones show diffuse, evenly distributed
periosteal new bone formation. Distinctive features of endemic cretinism
are absent (Fierro-Benitez et al. 1974). There is no cribra orbitalia, porotic
hyperostosis, or sphenoid porosity that would point to nutritional deficien-
cies, an expectation if this were nutritional rickets.
22 D. C. Cook, A. R. Thompson, and A. A. Rollins

Figure 1.2. Suture closure, fractures, and unusual cranial proportions in a Hopewell girl.

Clinical models for syndromic and non-syndromic craniosynostosis


suggest several possible diagnoses (Currarino 2007; DeLeon and Richts-
meier 2009). One plausible candidate is hypophosphatemic rickets. This
condition accounts for both the synostosis and the long bone pathology.
This condition has been identified previously in an ancient European child
whose burial has many unusual features suggesting a distinctive social
identity (Formicola 1995). Kilgore and colleagues (1998) have suggested
pituitary insufficiency in a male slightly taller than 11C40-92 who also pre-
sented premature closure of the sagittal suture.
DeLeon and Richtsmeier (2009) expected to find an elevated degree of
asymmetry in children with sagittal synostosis, although their small clini-
cal series failed to confirm their expectations. The Klunk girl is strikingly
asymmetrical in several discrete traits as well as in the size of the orbits.
There is asymmetrical dental reduction, with agenesis of the lower left third
molar and corresponding reduction of the mandible. The left orbit is mark-
edly smaller than the right, which may be the result of trauma rather than
developmental disturbance. The difference is so striking that one wonders
whether the left eye was lost early in life, perhaps before 4 years of age when
the eye reaches adult size (Moss and Young 1960). The nasal process of the
left maxilla has a healing fracture, and there is new bone formation in the
roof of the left orbit. The left ulna and radius have irregular bony reaction
in excess to that on the right, and their medullary cavities are filled with fi-
brous bone. A time-of-death fracture line extends from the left frontal boss
to the sagittal suture. All three anterioposterior fracture lines on the frontal,
as well as the transverse and diagonal fractures visible on the parietals, are
soil-stained as dark as are the suture margins, and the inner table is bent
inward and split away from the diploe, visible here inside the angular defect
Death and the Special Child: Three Examples from the Ancient Midwest 23

in the right frontal boss (figure 1.2). The time-of-death interval in paleopa-
thology is wide and fraught with problems in interpretation; however, the
other healed and healing injuries provide support for the inference that
these skull fractures constitute fatal trauma. This girl is a trauma recidivist
(Judd 2002) and a likely victim of child abuse, as injuries in many stages of
healing are a present-day criterion for abuse (Walker et al. 1997).

Context
The circumstances of the burial of 11C40-92 were unusual. The adolescent
girl was interred semiflexed and head-to-foot in the fill of a subfloor pit that
contained an extended, elderly male, 11C40-93. He had been buried face
down and a fire had been built over his legs. When the grave was filled a
second fire was built over both, and the grave was then covered with lime-
stone slabs (Perino 1968). There were no grave goods.
Double burial, flexed burial, prone burial, and cremation are all uncom-
mon at this site and in Illinois Hopewell mortuary practices in general.
Subfloor pits were the most common location for burial at Klunk and the
adjacent Gibson mounds, and have not been seen as an attribute of marked
status; however, burials 92 and 93 are one of sixteen adult male/subadult
pairs at the two sites, most of them buried in more restricted locations
than subfloor pits (Buikstra 1976: 40). These attributes may suggest that
both the girl and the adult had unusual social identities. Interestingly, a
14-year-old microcephalic male from the Late Woodland Riviere au Vase
site in Michigan was also buried head-to-foot in the grave fill of an adult
male (Morse 1969: plate 24), although this childs cranium is quite different
in shape, and no premature suture closure is described. A second subfloor
pit at the Pete Klunk mound group contained an adult male, 11C40-12, bur-
ied on its side, the left arm missing, overlain by a 10- to 12-year-old male,
11C40-13, similarly head-to-foot, but extended and supine (Perino 1968:
103).
The unusual circumstances of the girls grave together with her history of
trauma invite speculation. Perhaps her relationship to the adult male with
whom she was buried was that of captive or slave, and perhaps the relation-
ship exploited her disabilities. Such scenarios are unfortunately common
worldwide, as well as in the ethnographic record for North America (Cam-
eron 2009), and evidence for battering has been advanced as a criterion for
recognizing captivity or slavery in the past (Hatch 2012). A reviewer sug-
gests that the adult male might have been a relative or caretaker, but these
24 D. C. Cook, A. R. Thompson, and A. A. Rollins

scenarios fail to explain the unusual features of his burial or the trauma
observed in the girl.

Klunk 11C43-8

Description

The bundle burial of an adolescent male with three infants (11C43-9A, B, C)


from the Late Woodland component of the Pete Klunk mound group also
shows complete closure of the pars verticis and pars obelica of the sagittal
suture.

Age, Sex, and Stature


This adolescent boy has fully formed premolar and second molar roots,
but the third molars are not yet erupted and their root length approximates
crown height. These features are consistent with a dental age from 13 to 18
years. The distal epiphyses of the humeri are fused, as is one epicondylar
epiphysis, and the triradiate cartilage is partially ossified. In a male this
suggests an age in the older part of the wide dental age estimate, indicating
that this boy may be somewhat older than the demographic category that
is our focus here.
Skeletal features are clearly male in 11C43-8. The bony chin is strongly
bilateral, even though the skull is remarkably thin-walled and the mastoids
and supraorbital ridges are still juvenile in form. The sciatic notch and pu-
bic body are male in form. Dental metrics on the most sexually dimor-
phic measurement, mandibular canine BL, classify 11C43-8 as male with 53
percent probability, an ambiguous result. However, three other equations
(using the mandibular canine MD, maxillary canine BL, and all three di-
mensions together) classify him as male with 78 percent, 78 percent, and
82 percent probabilities, respectively. There is a septal aperture in the left
humerus, a very unusual feature in males in this population.
The left ulna length (lacking distal epiphysis) is 247 mm, corresponding
to a stature of 163 cm or 64 inches (Krogman 1962: 155), although adult
stature would have been greater.

Pathology
Apart from the early suture closure, the most striking pathology in this boy
is abundant fine porosity in the sphenoid and temporal fossa, suggestive of
scurvy (Bauder 2009), but lacking the mandibular and maxillary lesions
that would support this diagnosis. There is cribra orbitalia, but the vault
Death and the Special Child: Three Examples from the Ancient Midwest 25

Figure 1.3. Suture closure in a Late Woodland boy.

bones are not thickened, and on the contrary they are remarkably thin. The
molars are large and unusually complicated. Five of eight erupted molars
and one of three recovered premolars are carious, and one premolar has
been lost antemortem, an exceptional caries experience for this population.
There is a 5 cm healing bone bruise visible as periosteal new bone on the
anteriomedial aspect of the left tibia. While it is tempting to attribute this
injury to interpersonal violence, a bumped shin or other trivial accident is
more parsimonious. There is poorly consolidated new bone at both distal
interosseous ligament attachments on the fibulas and tibias, and there is
increased vascularity throughout the postcranial skeleton. The vertebrae
and sternum are poorly ossified, and remodeling scarscribrous resorp-
tion areas in areas where the ends of the diaphysis must be narrowed as
the bone growson the neck of the femur and elsewhere are prominent
(figure 1.3).

Context
As in the first case, the context of 11C43-8 is unusual in that this adoles-
cent comes from a multiple burial: the bones of an infant and an adoles-
cent bundled together, found on the original ground surface beneath the
mound (Perino 1973b: 84). Perino does not describe this bundle further.
The erstwhile infant was discovered to be three neonates in the lab.
In west-central Illinois there is little evidence for defleshing or expo-
sure of corpses, and bundle burials are thought to be the result of primary
burial followed by a lengthy period of decomposition, often in specially
constructed tombs or charnel structures. The level of completeness of all
four skeletons is typical of articulated skeletons from Perinos excavation,
and there is no evidence for weathering, defleshing, or dismemberment.
Bundle burials were likely produced through natural decomposition in a
26 D. C. Cook, A. R. Thompson, and A. A. Rollins

primary burial location, then gathered and moved to a permanent grave.


Perhaps this Late Woodland boys relationship to the infants who accom-
panied him in death once mirrored that of adult Hopewell males to the
children with whom they are frequently buried: typically extended in the
same body axis orientation and supine. We regret that the field documenta-
tion on this bundle burial is so incomplete.

Koster Mound 5-27

Description

A 6- to 7-year-old child from the Late Woodland Koster mound group


has complete union of the sagittal suture and partial closure of the coronal
sutures. Again, the skull is dolichocephalic but not scaphocephalic. This
skeleton shows less pathological change than the older children, but there
is evidence for anemia, and muscle markings are poorly developed. There
is nothing distinctive about the burial context.

Age, Sex, and Stature


Central incisors and first molars are erupted, and the maxillary lateral in-
cisors are erupting. Crown formation of the second permanent molars is
just complete, although the enamel remains chalky, consistent with an age
of 5 to 7 years (Moorrees et al. 1963), with the eruption status favoring the
older end of this range.
The bony chin has bilateral prominences and the inferior border is an-
gulated at the canine. Gonion is everted, but the mandibular angle is quite
open. The sciatic notch is narrow, and the auricular surface is not elevated;
thus most of these features suggest that this child is a boy (Lewis 2007).
However, there is a septal aperture in the left humerus, a very unusual fea-
ture in males in this population and an unusual feature at this age, suggest-
ing that this is a girl. Dental metric study of KM5-27 shows that this child
predicted as female with 62.2 percent probability using the BL diameter of
the maxillary canine. Other (less accurate) dimensions were examined in
an effort to improve the assessment, but results were inconsistent for KM5-
27; some predicted female, others predicted male. Because sex is unclear,
we have not attempted to estimate stature.

Pathology
The most noteworthy pathological change in this individual is chalky en-
docranial bone mounded up along the sagittal sulcus, on both the frontal
Death and the Special Child: Three Examples from the Ancient Midwest 27

Figure 1.4. Suture closure and mandibular trauma in a Late Woodland child.

and the parietals. This deposit is amorphous and light in color rather than
fibrous or woven. The entire sagittal suture is fused, as is the medial half of
both coronal sutures, with no evidence of the suture line remaining. Again
the fused sutures are flat, producing dolichocephaly without scaphoceph-
aly. There is a perforation between the right external auditory canal and
the jugular notch. This suggests otitis media or a vascular anomaly. There
is fine, porotic bone on the external surfaces of both petrosals and the right
jugular notch. Similarly, the chalky endocranial bone might be taken to
reflect meningitis (Schultz 2001), although the new bone in both locations
is well consolidated, and the diagnosis of meningitis from dry bone is con-
troversial. Falciform impressions are not unusually marked except in the
temporal fossae, suggesting that there was no increase in intracranial pres-
sure following on the early suture closure.
The Koster child shows cribra orbitalia together with considerable po-
rosity of the alveolar and facial bones. Developing premolar and second
molar crowns are chalky and hypoplastic, and earlier-forming enamel is
somewhat discolored. Marked hypoplasia is unusual in west-central Illinois
and suggests a prolonged period of ill health prior to death in this child.
Frailty or susceptibility to early mortality (Armelagos et al. 2009; Bennike
et al. 2005; Wood et al. 1992) has been demonstrated in these populations
with regard to dental developmental disturbances (Cook and Buikstra
1979), but not with regard to evidence for anemia or scurvy (Bauder 2009).
Dental asymmetry is slight (figure 1.4).
In addition to the asymmetrical septal aperture, there is a bone spur into
the sternoclavicular ligament on the right but not on the left. Postcranial
elements are very gracile overall, but there is no plastic change suggestive
of rickets.
There is a healing bone bruise visible as periosteal new bone on the buc-
cal aspect of the right mandible and the right zygomatic. No corresponding
28 D. C. Cook, A. R. Thompson, and A. A. Rollins

changes are present on the left side, and several layers of woven bone are
visible in the lesion. While one healing injury does not support a diagnosis
of child abuse, this facial injury is interesting in the light of the more exten-
sive injuries seen in the adolescent girl.

Context
This child was buried tightly flexed in a shallow individual grave and lacked
grave goods (Perino 1973a). This is the most common pattern for Late
Woodland period burials in the region and is in no way remarkable.

Craniology

Just how anomalous are these three individuals? A diagnosis of a syn-


dromea condition affecting several systemswould be supported by
evidence for postcranial growth retardation with respect to dental devel-
opment, but these three children appear to be of normal stature for age (see
figure 1.1). Evaluating brain size is more difficult, because none of these cra-
nia is complete enough for accurate direct measurement of cranial capacity
and because brain size in growing children is difficult to evaluate. On the
one hand, small brain size might be explained away as a normal conse-
quence of small adult body size (Hrdlika 1939), an explanation that is also
undermined by our evidence for normal growth. On the other hand, the
lack of evidence for compensatory skull growth or increased intracranial
pressurethat is to say, either scaphocephaly or the pronounced falciform
impressions that radiologists refer to as a beaten-copper appearancesug-
gests that slowed brain growth may be responsible for early suture closure
and the constellation of evidence for ill health we present here.
Richards (1985) presents a useful approach to answering these questions
through craniometric analysis, but his target is a 3-year-old microcephalic,
for whom a comparison sample of normal children of similar age is eas-
ily found. Because few children die in the age range of 5 to 14 years and
because growth in this interval is highly variable, we have chosen adults as
our comparison sample. We used Z-score analysis as a means of identifying
dysmorphic features that can be then interpreted as pathological following
models developed for clinical use (Ward et al. 2000), in which a Z-score of
magnitude 2 or more is the criterion for dysmorphology.
For the Hopewell girl, comparison of measurements from this skull in
the first column with young adult female crania from the region (Droessler
1981: table 17) permits a Z-score analysis:
Death and the Special Child: Three Examples from the Ancient Midwest 29

Glabello-opisthocranion length 168 mm Z=0.90


Cranial breadth 118 mm Z=3.76
Auricular height 106 mm Z=2.65
Minimum frontal breadth 92 mm Z=0.96
Cranium 11C40-92 is clearly abnormally narrow and low, particularly
given the expectation that internal growth of the cranial vault is largely
complete by 6 years of age. If the clinical criterion for microcephaly is a
head circumference of two standard deviations below normal (Ashwal et
al. 2009), this girl qualifies, since all four vault dimensions are substantially
reduced and two are reduced by more than two standard deviations. Her
cranial capacity by direct measurement using mustard seed is 880 cubic
centimeters, but this is an overestimate because several sutures are sepa-
rated and most of the cranial base is missing and the resulting space was
occupied by the seeds.
Similarly, for the Late Woodland boy, comparison of the measurements
from this skull with young adult male crania from the region (Droessler
1981: table 16) permits a Z-score analysis:
Glabello-opisthocranion length 180 mm Z=0.14
Cranial breadth 148 mm Z= +1.71
Auricular height 117 mm Z=0.57
Basion-bregma height 138 mm. Z=0.79
Minimum frontal breadth 96 mm Z= +0.33
Cranium 11C43-8 is small when compared with young adult males, as
one might expect in an adolescent lacking the robust features of adulthood.
The vault is narrow, but the Z-score does not reach the 2.0 value that would
label this person as dysmorphic.
The Late Woodland child with extensive early suture closure presents
difficulties because its sex is uncertain and it is quite young. We recognize
that comparing such a young individual, with yet some cranial growth re-
maining, to adults is problematic, but it does allow some general statements
to be made about cranial shape. Comparison of the measurements from
this skull with both young adult females and young adult males yields these
Z-scores:
Glabello-opisthocranion length 164 mm Zm=2.69 Zf=0.15
Cranial breadth 137 mm Zm=0.18 Zf= +0.94
Auricular height 114 mm Zm=0.01 Zf= +0.10
Minimum frontal breadth 94 mm Zm=1.03 Zf=0.20
30 D. C. Cook, A. R. Thompson, and A. A. Rollins

Cranium KM5-27 is short compared with those of young adult males,


unsurprisingly, and somewhat wider than those of most young adult fe-
males. Perhaps the lower magnitude of Z-scores for comparison with
adult females supports the argument that this child was a girl, or perhaps
this reflects its age. Despite the fusion of the sagittal suture and parts of
the coronal sutures, there is no striking evidence for dysmorphology or
microcephaly.
None of these children has the bifronto-occipital type of artificial cranial
deformation presented as characteristic of Illinois Hopewell by Neumann
(1942). Neither do they conform to the pattern of obelionic cranial de-
formation as seen in the Southwest (Nelson and Madimenos 2010), even
though the early suture closure in all three cases includes the obelionic
region and developmental stasis of this region might be expected as a con-
sequence of or a contributor to early suture closure.

Discussion/Conclusion

Placing these three children in the various contexts that can illuminate
their short lives must begin with diagnosis. It is tempting and parsimo-
nious to attribute these three cases to a single syndrome. Archaeologists
conceptualize Woodland populations as localized and evolving through
time. While these three cases might be separated by as much as a thousand
years, as part of a continuous local population they might be members of
a kindred expressing a particular gene in succeeding generations. In addi-
tion, many of the candidate syndromes have diverse underlying causes. For
example, hypophosphatemic rickets can result from causes such as renal
failure or the recessive X-linked syndrome discussed shortly (Farrow and
White 2010). The website Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man lists fifty
syndromes characterized by hypophosphatemia (June 6, 2012).
Isolated sagittal synostosis is uncommon rather than rare (DeLeon and
Richtsmeier 2009). While it is often viewed as non-syndromic in contrast to
coronal closure, which is a feature of several defined syndromes (Pederson
and Anton 1998), sagittal closure is accumulating a literature that suggests
genetic causes. A possible diagnosis in all three cases is perhaps X-linked
hypophosphatemic rickets, accounting for both the suture closure and the
subtle postcranial changes but not strongly associated with behavioral defi-
cits (Currarino 2007; Murthy 2009); however, this identification would be
more likely if the children were all male and if their midline palatal sutures
were closed. Nutritional rickets is also associated with early suture closure
Death and the Special Child: Three Examples from the Ancient Midwest 31

(Inman et al. 2008), but climate and dietary reconstructions for Woodland
societies in Illinois make this diagnosis unlikely, and none of the three cases
shows marked long bone deformity, marked enamel hypoplasia, or rib or
femur changes that one would expect in nutritional rickets.
The evidence for mild microcephaly argues strongly that these early
suture closure cases constitute a syndrome that also features alterations
of bone metabolism. Microcephaly is associated with more than 500 syn-
dromes and greatly increases risk of epilepsy, sensory deficits, and cogni-
tive deficits (Ashwal et al. 2009). Perhaps all three children had functional
impairments not directly visible in the skeleton.
The archaeological context of the girl is particularly interesting. Middle
Woodland society has been seen as largely pacific, although this general-
ization has been questioned, while Late Woodland remains from much of
Eastern North America show evidence for warfare and raiding (Seeman
2007). The prone burial position of the adult companion of the girl sug-
gests that both were unusual people. Eastern North American ethnohistory
abounds with accounts of captives who were incorporated into their new
group through more or less normative practices of slavery, adoption, mar-
riage, or renaming as rebirth (Cameron 2009; Hatch 2012). Even if such
practices were viewed as normal, behavior of both the captive and the cap-
tor may have been subject to more scrutiny and sanction than otherwise.
On the one hand, Buikstras (1976: 34) dismissiveor perhaps rhetorical or
even tongue-in-cheeksuggestion that Hopewell child/adult male double
burials might be interpreted as the grisly spectre of human sacrifice, and
on the other Formicolas (1995, 2007) argument that elaborately buried Up-
per Paleolithic children with debilitating syndromes may have been labeled
as deviant and singled out for sacrifice, set the broadest possible limits for
interpretation. At minimum the observation that all three of these unusual
children suffered trauma well before their deaths suggests that they may
not have died of natural causes. However, the Hopewell girl is the only one
of the three with evidence for perimortem trauma.
A final context in which these three children should be examined is the
larger question of uncommon pathological conditions and the fossil re-
cord. The controversies surrounding the interpretation of the Flores homi-
nid have called attention to the variety of conditions that result in moderate
microcephaly (Henneberg et al. 2010; Hershkovitz et al. 2007; Obendorf
et al. 2008). Similarly, the survival to 10 years of age of a Middle Pleisto-
cene hominid with craniosynostosis and signs of intracranial pressure has
been interpreted as evidence for conspecific care (Gracia et al. 2009, 2010).
32 D. C. Cook, A. R. Thompson, and A. A. Rollins

Literature on the paleopathology of these conditions is skimpy, perhaps


because they are necessarily case studies and because their diagnosis is dif-
ficult (Charlier 2008; Richards 1985; Wilbur 2000). Mild microcephaly is a
relatively common condition with diverse underlying causes. So is prema-
ture suture closure. Both should be more widely and routinely reported in
paleopathology. We ought to share our interesting cases more widely and
look at them carefully and critically for contextual information that can test
inferences about disability and compassion and social support. Such infer-
ences are controversial (DeGusta 2002; Dettwyler 1991), but they allow us
to explore social and symbolic aspects of childhood and childhood illness
in the past that are not otherwise visible.

Acknowledgments

We thank Cheryl Munson for assistance with photography. The senior au-
thor credits the Georgia Department of Education for emphasizing that
both ends of the normal distribution are special in their own ways.

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2
Beyond Victims
Exploring the Identity of Sacrificed Infants and Children
at La Cueva de Los Muertos Chiquitos, Durango, Mexico
(AD 5711168)

John J. Crandall and Jennifer L. Thompson

Mortuary analyses of collections found throughout Mesoamerica have


highlighted many ways in which the living, including infants and children,
are killed, buried, and subsequently treated by past societies (e.g., Fitzsim-
mons and Shimada 2011). The treatment of subadults (including infants,
children, juveniles, and adolescents) around and after the time of their
death is notably variable in ancient Mesoamerica. Subadult burials range
from simple interments in the ground to the sacrifice and elaborate burial
of groups of individuals in remote caves, at the feet of temples, and even in
the walls and floors of compounds and homes in ancient towns. Scholars
have increasingly focused on the ritual sacrifice of subadults in Mesoamer-
ica as a way to understand the complex social lives of these ancient peoples
and their religious practices and beliefs. These studies have set the stage
for an investigation of the social and biological identities of those being
sacrificed as well as those doing the sacrificing.
Researchers have identified the practice of infant and child sacrifice, typ-
ically of individuals under age 10, throughout northern and central Mexico
(Crandall et al. 2012b; Lopez Lujan 2005; Pijoan and Mansilla 1990, 1997;
Sugiyama 2005), and more specifically among the Olmec (e.g., Follensbee
2006), the Maya (Ardren 2011; Geller 2011), at Teotihuacan (Serrano San-
chez 1993), and throughout South America (Gaither et al. 2008; Klaus et al.
2010; Tung and Knudson 2010; Andrushko et al. 2011). Interest in human
sacrifice, however, has focused not on the individuals being sacrificed, but
in most cases on the causality and impacts of such rituals in relation to the
Sacrificed Children at La Cueva de Los Muertos Chiquitos, Durango, Mexico 37

local ecology and various aspects of a societys cultural system (e.g., Harner
1977). Special attention has been given to the ways in which sacrifice is
used to expand and maintain the control of empires (e.g., Carrasco 1999;
Sugiyama 2005; Tung and Knudson 2010) and how sacrifice fits into larger
religious systems (Schultz 2010). Often young victims of sacrifice are sim-
ply referred to as children with little attention focused on their specific
identities or the biological age cohorts into which they cluster.
An alternative approach would be to ask: Do different communities pre-
fer infants for sacrifice over older children? Are subadults with diseases
valued as key participants in such rituals? Answering these and similar
other questions will not only add to our knowledge of the context and role
of ritual sacrifice in the past but also help us understand the lived iden-
tities and experiences of the subadults chosen for such rituals. Further,
such an analysis would provide data regarding the social treatment of less
spectacularly buried subadults by unraveling cultural notions of social age,
identity, personhood, and liminality. Recently, the unique identities and
liminal role of subadultsparticularly infantsin sacrifice rituals has been
emphasized by scholars (see Geller 2011 and Chapter 5). This scholarship
and other bioarchaeological analyses of childhood (e.g., Chapters 1 and 11)
have increasingly recognized the ways that the bodies of infants, children,
and other subadults and their treatment, reflect the social identity of those
individuals and the perception of different age classes in the past. The ritu-
als, religious beliefs, and political systems that subadults are a part of are
literally embodied biologically and/or reflected in their treatment at and
after their physical death (Buikstra et al. 2011; Sofaer 2006).
Bioarchaeologists can reconstruct the lives of these individuals by fo-
cusing on the lived identities and experiences of sacrificed infants and
children. By using evidence from patterns in skeletal data and identifying
which individuals and life stages are most associated with mortuary ritu-
als, the details of actors in such rituals can be reconstructed. This infor-
mation can shed new light on the religious practices of past peoples and
allow cross-cultural research to unravel the social and ecological factors
that put different members of a community at the center of such violent
rituals. Here, data from a bioarchaeological analysis of a Tepehuan burial
cave in Durango, Mexico, is used to reconstruct the identities of sacrificed
subadults (including pre-weaned, weaning, and post-weaned individuals
mostly older than age 10) during the Loma San Gabriel cultural phase (AD
6601430). In particular, we provide evidence of patterning in age-at-death
profiles and disease profiles that reflect the unique role of sick children and
38 J. J. Crandall and J. L. Thompson

infants in Tepehuan sacrificial rituals. We show that, like the Maya, the
Tepehuan exhibit religious ideologies that gave preference to liminal indi-
vidualsthe ill and youngfor inclusion in religious rituals. In doing so,
we highlight the ways that bioarchaeology can reconstruct how subadults
of different ages and health statuses acquire unique social identities or per-
sonhood (see Chapter 11). We also link these identities to the biocultural
factors that shape the lived experiences, deaths, and treatment after death
of these subgroups of children. Additionally, we provide new insight into
the complexity of ritual practices in what is now northern Mexico and add
to what little is known of Tepehuan mortuary practices (e.g., Crandall et al.
2011a).

Context: The Loma San Gabriel Tepehuan

The Loma San Gabriel period Tepehuan were a semi-agricultural group


that emerged out of early Archaic communities in northern Mexico and
are typified by simple plainware and brownware. They lived in hamlets and
villages of varying sizes found near rivers and in valleys throughout the
region (Foster 2000). Early research regarding the cultural complexity of
inhabitants of prehistoric northern Mexico suggests that communities were
composed of simple foragers who were adopting agriculture (Wilcox et al.
2008). The region was seen as a vast empty sea within which more com-
plex communities to the north and south simply moved through in order
to tradenamely turquoise and obsidian (Mathien and McGuire 1986).
A growing body of research since the 1980s has challenged assumptions
about northern Mexicos lack of cultural complexity. It is now well under-
stood that Loma San Gabriel communities were located in the center of a
trade network bridging Central America with the four corners region of the
American Southwest as well as linking eastern and western Mexican com-
munities in which ritual goods, craft specialists, and trade are intertwined
(Kelley 1986; Wells and Davis-Salazar 2007; Wilcox et al. 2008). Evidence
of ideological and religious exchange with communities known to practice
ritual sacrifice to the south has also been documented (Schaafsma 1999).
Research examining the cultural similarities between the pre-Hispanic
American Southwest and Mesoamerica has yielded a breadth of icono-
graphic and artifact data documenting the cultural complexity and belief
system of those living in northern Mexico. Tlaloc imagery is one of the
most well-studied sets of iconography in Mesoamerica. The Tlaloc Com-
plex consists of an ideological system in which ritual imagery and use of
Sacrificed Children at La Cueva de Los Muertos Chiquitos, Durango, Mexico 39

water containers, sacred landscape symbolism, sacred funerary bundles,


masked effigies, and mortuary practices of sacrifice and burial bundling
are linked in a cultural package that is found in central Mexico and as far
north as the peripheries of corn agricultural communities in the ancient
Southwest (Townsend 1992; Schaafsma 1999).
Considering the Tlaloc Complex in analyses of Mesoamerican sacrifice
assemblages is important because the identities of sacrificed individuals,
particularly infants and children, are entangled with other rituals and sym-
bolism belonging to this larger ideological system. In her analysis, Schaafs-
ma (1999) traces the spread of Tlaloc imagery in rock art and material cul-
ture and suggests that amphibians, bundle burials, and associations between
corn agriculture, infant and child sacrifice, and ritual systems of exchange
are a regional phenomenon in both the Southwest and Mesoamerica. Un-
derstanding how subadult identities are shaped by association with this
complex provides a place to start unraveling the ways in which Tepehuan
childhood was a precarious time for youngsters in ancient Mesoamerica.
Mortuary archaeology is key to examining the role of ritual and religious
systems. Unfortunately, little is known about Tepehuan mortuary programs
regarding subadults, and a lack of systematic bioarchaeology in the former
Chichimec Sea of northern Mexico has not helped resolve this problem.
In a recent review of the archaeology of Ancestral Tepehuan territories in
Durango, Foster (2000: 201) critiques past researchers who have portrayed
the cultures of the time period examined here as lacking social and eco-
nomic complexity. The more recent work Foster summarizes, however,
does little to address ideological complexity, and no mortuary archaeology
syntheses are available for the region.
Anecdotal evidence from the work of Foster and Gorenstein (2000) sug-
gests variability in the mortuary treatment of subadults. While most Chal-
chiuites and Loma San Gabriel phase villages of the Ancestral Tepehuan are
simple, a few ceremonial sites have been identified, particularly in areas of
culture contact such as the Rio Ramos area just south of La Cueva de Los
Muertos Chiquitos (Foster 2000). Typical burials, among both historic and
Ancestral Tepehuan, consist of simple interments of individuals wrapped
in blankets who accumulate near village structures in an attritional fash-
ion (Pennington 1969). These sites differ from La Cueva de Los Muertos
Chiquitos as well as one other site, Can del Molino, where individuals
are found clustered in multiple burials, with a number of imported grave
goods, often associated with what meet Schaafsmas descriptions of Tlaloc
effigies found regionally (Schaafsma 1999). Whether these sites are always
40 J. J. Crandall and J. L. Thompson

sacrificial in nature remains poorly understood. Historic and colonial doc-


uments of Tepehuan religious life suggest that assemblages such as the one
discussed in this chapter are consistent with ritual sacrifice of infants and
children and support the notion that other sites in the region, such as Ca-
n del Molino, be investigated more carefully for evidence of this ritual
practice.
A combination of archaeological work increasingly oriented toward
community politics and historical research in northern Mexico suggests a
more complex picture of social relations than previously imagined. Char-
lotte Gradie (2000), in documenting Tepehuan raiding and violence from
pre-contact through to the Tepehuan Revolt of 1616, summarizes these new
understandings of Tepehuan ritualized warfare and raiding. Some archae-
ologists argue that evidence of defensive architecture, a skull rack at a site
called El Cerro do Huistle, and endemic warfare led to the formation of
warriors and ritual specialists who successfully oversaw the domination of
neighboring polities (see Gradie 2000). Sacrifice is linked to these larger
institutions of raiding and culturally sanctioned violence and religious en-
gagement with supernatural forces that ensured community success.
Historic sources support Gradies reinterpreted prehistory for the An-
cestral Tepehuan. Andres Perz de Ribas, a seventeenth-century Jesuit,
recorded in his writings that children served as sacrificial offerings when
plagues occurred (Perz de Ribas [1644] 1968: 155). For example, Perz de
Ribas writes, When sickness spreads among them, in order to free a spe-
cific person or persons from it, they would kill one or more children so that
through these innocents the disease would be consumed (Perz de Ribas
[1645] 1999: 583). While many might dismiss Perz de Ribass numerous
accounts of human sacrifice, Reff and others (in Perz de Ribas [1645] 1999)
have argued that the Jesuit was a responsible scholar.
Colonial accounts shed great light on the archaeological signatures of
sacrifice we might expect to find at La Cueva de Los Muertos Chiquitos.
Ritual specialists associated with such rites were documented to have wor-
shipped anthropomorphic figurines of stone or other materials that com-
monly figured amphibians or aquatic animals, such as fish or snakes, as
motifs (Perz de Ribas [1645] 1999: 97). Such idols were noted to be housed
in caves or at the tops of hills or mountain peaks and were documented to
have been associated with various extralocal grave goods deposited across
the life of the shaman and used repeatedly by communities who saw spirits
attached to such sites. Thus, as seen across Mesoamerica, Tepehuan cave
Sacrificed Children at La Cueva de Los Muertos Chiquitos, Durango, Mexico 41

sites are ritual spaces that bridge the realms of superhuman forces with the
world in which Ancestral Tepehuan lived.
Tepehuan mortuary treatments include simple burials as well as sacri-
fice assemblages that prominently feature children. Campbell Penningtons
ethnography documents the continued practice of infant and child sacrifice
linked to agricultural ceremonies (Pennington 1969). He also notes that
sacrifice rarely involved traumatic injuries that we might observe in dry
bone. He writes, children were thrown into flooding streams in order to
make the water subside, and . . . they were also cast into streams in order to
cure sick people (Pennington 1969: 68). Thus, an ideology of child sacrifice
has a hold in the region from ancient into recent times. Caves overlooking
fertile farming areas and villages seem to hold sway in other religious con-
texts across Mesoamerica as well. In sum, reconstructions of the Tepehuan
mortuary program during the use of the site discussed here include the
possibility of ritual sacrifice of subadults as an option to be explored with
existing data. Evidence of such practices have yet to be confirmed using ar-
chaeological data but, if found, would link Tepehuan burial practices to the
larger networks of Tlaloc worship and artwork found across the Southwest
and Mesoamerica that are associated with child sacrifice in other locales.
At the heart of this Tlaloc Complex region lies La Cueva de Los Muertos
Chiquitos. The 10-by-20-m grotto overlooks the mountains and plateaus of
the Rio Zape region in what is now Durango, Mexico (Foster 1984). A large
amount of botanical materials, pot sherds, wood carvings, shell beads from
the Gulf of Mexico, shell pendants, turquoise inlays, coprolites, quids, and
worked obsidian has been recovered from the site and has been discussed
elsewhere (Brooks and Brooks 1978; Brooks et al. 1985). Aptly named Cave
of the Little Dead Ones, the site contains a number of burials that exhibit
unusual mortuary treatment compared to typical Tepehuan interments
(Pennington 1969). Two assemblages of burials were found beneath two
adobe floors. The uppermost floor was laid down shortly after the inter-
ment of the second group of burials. Subadult remains from both layers
were found bundled on reed mats (petates), wrapped in cloth shrouds, and
placed within pots (ollas) near a ceremonial platform. Burial placement ex-
hibits evidence of collective, intentional placement in rows perpendicular
to the cave entrance (Brooks and Brooks 1978). The bundling and adobe
floors facilitated excellent preservation of biological tissues. The careful
preparation, placement, and enclosure of the remains stand out as mortu-
ary features not yet found with burials at other sites to our knowledge. An
42 J. J. Crandall and J. L. Thompson

initial report of the skeletal remains from the site suggests collective burial
was likely the result of a prehistoric epidemic (Brooks and Brooks 1978).
A recent reanalysis has suggested the assemblage better reflects the result
of at least two sacrificial events involving two groups of young children
(Crandall et al. 2012b).
The structural remains of the cave include a midden that provides evi-
dence of habitation (Brooks et al. 1985). Beneath this, two adobe floors
capped off two burial areas, each containing infant and child burials elabo-
rately placed above the disturbed, partial secondary burials comprising at
least two sets of adult individuals. During excavation, the remains of at least
sixteen individuals were recovered from these areas (Brooks and Brooks
1978). Radiocarbon dates, obtained from macrobotanicals from the same
part of the cave as the burials, range from AD 571 to AD 1168 (Brooks et
al. 1962; Kaplan and Lynch 1999). Pottery styles observed at the site, how-
ever, date as late as AD 1150 (Foster 2002). We lack a detailed record of the
stratigraphy, which makes it difficult to associate these dates with excava-
tion units, burials, or cave features. In spite of these limitations, it is clear
that the two adobe floors were created at different times (Foster 2002). The
floors provide evidence of at least two separate interment events and reuse
of the cave as a burial site prior to a period of habitation.
Richard Brooks and colleagues (1985) undertook a preliminary analy-
sis of the archaeological evidence with the purpose of understanding the
context of the burials found at the site. Human coprolites from the site re-
main under investigation by several researchers (Jimenez et al. 2012; Rein-
hard et al. 1987; Tito et al. 2008). Our reanalysis of the skeletal collection,
using more up-to-date bioarchaeological methods, has provided new and
clear evidence of at least two occurrences of ritual child sacrifice during the
Loma San Gabriel phase (Crandall et al. 2012b).
Evidence of ritual sacrifice from the site was based on a number of fac-
tors including the collective burial of multiple elaborately bundled children
and infants on two different occasions; the inclusion of food offerings and
exotic grave goods such as turquoise and obsidian objects; the presence
of a possible platform ritual space; and the use of adobe in capping off
mortuary areas (see Brooks et al. 1985; Crandall et al. 2012b). Skeletal data
reveal an age distribution that is not consistent with other forms of kill-
ing or death that could explain such a large assemblage of children (see
Chapters 5 and 6). In addition, the remains of infants and children at the
site exhibited almost no evidence of animal gnawing or other destruc-
tive taphonomic changes. Bundle burials were also partially mummified,
Sacrificed Children at La Cueva de Los Muertos Chiquitos, Durango, Mexico 43

suggesting immediate burial after death, which is consistent with ethno-


graphic accounts of Tepehuan ritual child sacrifice (see Pennington 1969).
Because Tepehuan sacrifice includes death by suffocation, by either bury-
ing individuals alive or drowning them, no trauma was expected nor was it
observed on subadult remains. Together, these data provide both biological
and contextual evidence of the ritual sacrifice of children at the site. Given
that at least thirty-one individuals were buried at the site, it is possible that
the cave represented a ritual space used by a large population center nearby
or by multiple smaller communities living in the Occidental Sierra Madre
mountain range of northern Durango.
A detailed examination of those buried at the site provides insights re-
garding the identities of the children transformed in death, likely by ritual
sacrifice. By highlighting their identities, we can move past notions of sac-
rificed individuals as faceless victims and gain a more holistic under-
standing of the complexity of religious beliefs and practices of the Loma
San Gabriel Tepehuan. This also helps us understand some of the varied
experiences and roles of children in these growing agricultural communi-
ties in the center of a vast trade network spanning the North American
Southwest and Mesoamerica that linked communities ideologically but
also economically.

Materials and Methods

The burials excavated at La Cueva de Los Muertos Chiquitos are currently


housed in the Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada, Las
Vegas. Assessment of these remains included a standard osteological in-
ventory and paleopathological observations following Buikstra and Ube-
laker (1994), Lewis (2007), and Reitz and Wing (2008). Age estimation was
based on patterns of dental development whenever possible (Moorrees et
al. 1963a, 1963b). Long bone diaphyseal growth (Ubelaker 1989) was used
to estimate age at death when no teeth were present. Because juvenile skel-
etons do not always exhibit reliable macroscopic patterns of sexual dimor-
phism, sex was not estimated for any of the subadult remains.
Bony changes resulting from disease processes were diagnosed, when
possible, following Grauer (2008) and Ortner (2003). Individuals were ex-
amined for any evidence of perimortem trauma, periosteal lesions, and
porous changes to the skull and eye orbits, although lesions across the en-
tire skeleton were documented. When possible, a differential diagnosis was
obtained for patterns of abnormal bony change in consultation with clinical
44 J. J. Crandall and J. L. Thompson

literature and reference texts (e.g., Brickley and Ives 2008; Ortner 2003).
Both complete burials and disturbed elements were evaluated when sur-
faces were present. The results from complete and disturbed elements are
presented separately.
Contextual data was gathered from published sources, including those
summarized previously and discussed next. An early attempt to integrate
these data with skeletal data can be found in the work of Crandall and col-
leagues (2011b, 2012b). In this chapter, however, we provide a more thor-
ough summary of age-at-death distributions and pathological bony lesions
with an eye toward identifying the patterns of age and health that would
have been visible and given social meaning during the individuals life.
We argue that these factors ultimately led to the childrens involvement in
ritual sacrifice and burial at the cave site. Unlike a representative sample,
data obtained by this assemblage does not reflect disease or death patterns
due solely to ecological causes. Sacrifice involves a culturally sanctioned
ritual in which individuals are selected for inclusion (Schultz 2010). Thus,
the skeletal assemblage reflects the cultural factors that helped decide who
ended up being sacrificed. Patterns of age at death and disease are there-
fore interpreted as part of the individuals embodied social identities rather
than indications of community health. This approach provides a neces-
sary counterbalance to other scholarship that currently makes broad claims
about regional health patterns based on data from La Cueva de Los Muer-
tos Chiquitos without considering the burial context and bioarchaeological
evidence of child sacrifice (e.g., Jimenez et al. 2012; Reinhard et al. 1987).

Results

Age at Death
A summary of osteological observations of complete burials is presented
in table 2.1. In total, a minimum of thirty-one individuals were interred
at the La Cueva de Los Muertos Chiquitos site as indicated by the num-
ber of sided femurs and mandibles present. Nineteen primary burials and
twelve additional partial, disturbed burials comprise the assemblage, with
infants dominating. At least two middle-aged (~3545) adults are present
and are likely females based on the cranial and pelvic morphology. These
burials are secondary and are likely the individuals above whom the bun-
dled subadults were interred (as described in Brooks and Brooks 1978). The
Sacrificed Children at La Cueva de Los Muertos Chiquitos, Durango, Mexico 45

Table 2.1. Summary of complete burials recovered from La Cueva de los Muertos Chi-
quitos
Lab ID Field ID Series Unit Dental Age Femur Length Scurvy Mats Pillow
1 3 D 299 0.6 115.02 - Yes -
2 - - - Adult - - - -
3 2 D 297 0.8 118.69 - - -
4 14 D 297B - 78.63 Yes - -
5 5 D 301 0.45 78.35 Yes Yes -
6 4 D 300 0.45 102.39 Possible Yes Yes
7 2A D 298 0.19 148.79 - - -
8 6 D 302 0.25 74.48 Yes Yes -
9 1A/C D 296 1.5 125.92 - - -
10 - - - Adult - - - -
11 11 Z 713 0.175 73.65 Yes Yes -
12 3 Z 715 6 168.5 Yes - -
13 - - - 8.5 - - - -
14 - - - 0.65 121.39 - Yes -
15 7 Z 719 0.25 72.33 Yes - -
16 5 Z 717 0.65 123.57 - - -
17 - - - 6 - - Yes -
18 - - - - 82.44 Possible Yes -
19 8 Z 722 - 96.18 - Yes -

remaining burials include nineteen individuals up to age 1, three individu-


als over age 1 up to age 5, and seven individuals over age 5 but under age
18. A summary of the age profile of the burial assemblage is presented in
figure 2.1.
Following Brickley and Ives (2006), who divided the infancy stage into
two categories (young and old infants), we further divide infants into three
categories: young infant (birth to 6 months), middle infants (over 6 months
to 1.5 years) and old infants (over 1.5 years to 2 years). Considering only
the complete burials at the site, twelve infants are present. Of these, six are
young infants, five died during middle infancy, and one died during old
infancy. Age estimations of the less complete burials from the site identi-
fied an additional three young infants and three middle infants. In total,
50 percent of the eighteen infants at the site were below 6 months of age
at the time of death, 44 percent died during middle infancy, and only 1
(6 percent) died during older infancy.
46 J. J. Crandall and J. L. Thompson

Figure 2.1. Age-specific mortality for the La Cueva de Los Muertos Chiquitos burials as a
percentage of the total sample (N = 31).

Pathology
A number of pathological conditions were observed. These include dental
caries, non-specific periosteal reactions, and cribra orbitalia in more than
42 percent of the assemblage. Seven individuals exhibited at least three cra-
nial skeletal lesions and one postcranial skeletal lesion indicative of scurvy,
such as scorbutic lesions on the ectocranial surface of the lateral sphenoid
bone, inferior to the coronoid process of the mandible, and lesions on the
scapulae superior and inferior to the acromion spine. Of particular inter-
est is the fact that the symptoms of the disease are so widespread on the
bones of these individuals and the lesions more severe than seen in previ-
ously identified cases of scurvy in the ancient Americas (Crandall et al.
2011a, 2011b). Additional individuals exhibited skeletal evidence of possible
scurvy including lesions on the sphenoid, which are seen as most diag-
nostic when considered in concert with lesions across other areas of the
body (Ortner 2003). Following both Brickley and Ives (2008) and Geber
and Murphy (2012) lesions were recorded on both complete and incom-
plete burials. The lesions are widespread and quite severe and indicate that
infants (and likely mothers) faced great nutritional stress prior to being
sacrificed and interred at the site. All of the burials listed in table 2.1 with
scurvy exhibit cranial and postcranial lesions consistent with the disorder.
Sacrificed Children at La Cueva de Los Muertos Chiquitos, Durango, Mexico 47

Differential diagnosis criteria and lesion patterning among all La Cueva de


Los Muertos Chiquitos burials can be found in the work of Crandall and
colleagues (2011a, 2012a) and Crandall et al. (forthcoming).

Bundled Together: Associations between Age, Funerary Bundles,


and Illness

Because stratigraphic context is lacking for the burials recovered from La


Cueva de Los Muertos Chiquitos, it is difficult to reassociate burials with
grave goods. It is possible, however, to reassociate these individuals with
the woven reed mats, fine blankets, and fabric and pillows used to bundle
them before their burial. We investigated the patterning of various skeletal
conditions by age and in relation to the presence of funerary bundles, in
order to see if certain subadults received more elaborate mortuary prepara-
tion because of their age at death or health status.
Of the eighteen complete burials recovered from the site, eight were
buried on mats and in blankets. Individuals found with mats are younger
overall than individuals without mats. The average age of individuals with
mats is 1.13 years, compared to an average age at death of 8.88 years for in-
dividuals without mats. This finding suggests that younger individuals were
more likely to receive elaborate bundling before burial. Eighty-seven per-
cent of burials interred on mats exhibited pathological lesions consistent
with evidence of scurvy, while only 50 percent of individuals without mats
had them. This difference in funerary treatment suggests that more visibly
ill individuals were given more elaborate treatment. This is bolstered by the
fact that the infants exhibiting the most severe lesions, as well as other con-
ditions such as dental caries and cribra orbitalia, are buried with not only
mats but the most elaborate blankets, a Tepehuan ritual dancing belt, and
an elaborate pillow made of multiple kinds of fiber and wood. Subadults
with mats were also more stunted and are the only individuals to exhibit
dental caries (Crandall et al. 2011b).
Taken together, these findings suggest that the youngest, most under-
nourished and diseased individuals are accorded the most elaborate burials
and are not only adorned with shell jewelry and interred alongside food
offerings and other grave goods, but are also most carefully bundled and
interred with the most elaborate textiles and mats.
48 J. J. Crandall and J. L. Thompson

Discussion

La Cueva de Los Muertos Chiquitos represents one of the first synthetic


bioarchaeological analyses undertaken in northern Mexico. The site pre-
sents a number of interpretive challenges for understanding the lives,
health, and identities of the communities who used it. As has been men-
tioned, little comparative bioarchaeological work is available for reference.
Historical, archaeological, and colonial evidence all provide a baseline from
which to infer ritual sacrifice of infants and children at the site. Given that
stratigraphic information was sometimes lacking, however, regional infor-
mation on childrens personhood and comparative case studies from the
Maya provide additional support that at least some subadults at the site
were sacrificed (discussed shortly). Trauma need not be present in identi-
fying sacrifice, particularly in cultural contexts where descendant groups
and neighboring communities did not kill victims using sharp or blunt
force trauma. Further, identification of sacrifice is not the end goal of bioar-
chaeological analysis. Reconstruction of the lives and biocultural identities
of the presumed victims, witnesses, and performers of sacrifice through
multiple lines of evidence can contribute to larger discussions of anthropo-
logical topics, such as the nature of childrens identity and social treatment
cross-culturally. Here, we demonstrate that approach on an assemblage that
demonstrates multiple signs of being used, at least for the primary infant
and child burials which we focus on in this chapter, as a burial ground for
subadult sacrifice victims.
In evaluating ritual infant child sacrifice, it has become increasingly
clear from anthropological and bioarchaeological studies that these acts
must be understood within their specific cultural context (Geller 2011). At
the same time, however, there is abundant evidence that the practice is
regionally widespread throughout Mesoamerica. Some similarities exist in
the ritual treatment of subadults throughout the region that are worth not-
ing. One of these notions is the concept that personhood arrives late for
individuals in this region. Hamman (2006: 222) has argued that the forma-
tion of not-yet-full-human youngsters into fully-formed adult humans
is not complete until age 12 or 13 across all pre-Columbian Mesoamerican
cultures. Among the Maya, this has been demonstrated (Geller 2011) and
holds true with what Joyce (2000) has uncovered among the Aztec. The
large number of children below age 12 who were given collective burial in
La Cueva de Los Muertos Chiquitos is consistent with other Mayan and
Aztec cases and can also be seen to suggest that Tepehuan subadults are not
Sacrificed Children at La Cueva de Los Muertos Chiquitos, Durango, Mexico 49

accorded individual identities prior to adolescence. For the Aztec, younger


individuals were seen as precious and unmodified raw materials that
could be transformed through ritualseither into offerings to supernatural
beings through sacrifice or into adults through rites of passage occurring
later in life (Joyce 2000). Subadulthood, for Mesoamerican youngsters in
general, is seen as precarious, with childrens lives seen as most precious.
Infants and young children were, in fact, so precious that they were used
in rituals as offerings to supernatural beings as if they too were special raw
materials, such as the obsidian, shell, and turquoise also found at La Cueva
de Los Muertos Chiquitos.
In this study, age and skeletal lesion patterns, as well as congruence in
patterning between funerary textiles, skeletal lesions, and age-at-death
data, all suggest that for the Tepehuan the youngest and most physiologi-
cally stressed and undernourished were the most precious children of all,
even if sacrifice might not have been the cause of the death for all indi-
viduals. The collective burial of children in groups, and associations with a
tortoise effigy, suggest that sacrifice is likely and that it cannot be ruled out
as a valid explanation for the formation of the assemblage.
Age-at-death patterns from the site highlight the high prevalence of in-
fants present. That these children are most often ill and more commonly
buried with elaborate textiles is noteworthy given that young infants are
typically buffered from undernutrition-related deaths as a result of breast-
feeding. Given this, the high prevalence of diseased infants found at the site
is worth considering in a regional perspective as well. Among the Maya,
Ardren (2011: 133) has recently argued that infants were the subject of sacri-
fice more commonly because of their proximity to the ancestors and god
due to their lack of fully formulated personhood. Throughout Mayaland,
infant mortality is high (e.g., Storey 1992) and ethnographic work suggests
that infants are liminal, fragile individuals whose soul is fluid and at risk of
loss or transformation at any moment (Vogt 1970). Thus, for Ardren (2011;
see also Lally and Ardren 2008), infants are chosen for sacrifice because
of their proximity to the world of the dead and the liminal, fluid nature of
their soul; this is reflected in age-at-death distributions at Mayan sacrifi-
cial sites. Burial assemblages from sites exhibit exceptionally high rates of
skeletal indicators of physiological stress and subadult mortality rates that
are higher than regional averages as well (Berrelleza and Balderas 2006;
Crandall et al. 2013).
Ill children might also be seen as closer to the dead given these paleo-
pathological data. In light of the visibility of long-term vitamin C deficiency,
50 J. J. Crandall and J. L. Thompson

it is likely that such an affliction would be given symbolic meaning by past


societies. Data from La Cueva de Los Muertos Chiquitos reflects a similar
pattern to the Mayan cases summarized earlier, and ethnographic stud-
ies of the Tepehuan show the important ritual role of infants in practices
such as their cremation and later scattering across agricultural fields dur-
ing planting season, and their preferential use as sacrificial offerings over
older children (Pennington 1969). Colonial records noting similar patterns
were discussed earlier. Together, these provide evidence for a long-standing
ideology regarding the liminal nature of infants and the power of their re-
mains in rejuvenating crops and restoring balance with supernatural forces.
Data from La Cueva de Los Muertos Chiquitos also highlights the role
that disease ideologies played in marking certain Tepehuan individuals as
closer to death than others and thereby as better candidates for sacrifice.
Brickley and colleagues (2009) estimate a mean frequency of scurvy of 1.37
worldwide from the Global History of Health Project. Why then, do seven
of eighteen infants (37 percent of individuals older than age 10 at death)
exhibit evidence of scurvy at this site? Here again, cultural rather than eco-
logical factors are relevant because it is clear that not all individuals are at
risk of getting ill. We suggest elsewhere (Crandall et al. forthcoming) that
the high prevalence of lesions associated with chronic scurvy in this as-
semblage is congruent with ethnohistoric documentation of seasonal sacri-
fices that occurred during times when food shortages would be most likely
(Pennington 1969; Perz de Ribas [1644] 1968). Though undernutrition was
present, not all individuals buried with the elaborate child burials suffered.
In fact, 58 percent of individuals from the site exhibit no evidence of nutri-
tional stress. Additionally, no linear enamel hypoplasia, a common indica-
tor of survived physiological stress, is documented among the collection.
The lack of widespread evidence of regular seasonal undernutrition ex-
perienced by the whole community suggests at least two possible explana-
tions. Either individuals selected for sacrifice are members of the commu-
nity who are most extremely undernourished because of biological factors,
or they are members of the community whose social identities limit their
access to foods rich in vitamin C and other micronutrients needed for the
proper uptake and use of ascorbic acid in the body. Biological factors that
may explain the patterning of scurvy-related lesions include the possibility
that individuals with lesions experienced more stressed immune systems,
had greater than average difficulty absorbing nutrients, experienced co-oc-
curring illnesses such as parasitic infection, or simply suffered more severe
Sacrificed Children at La Cueva de Los Muertos Chiquitos, Durango, Mexico 51

or chronic undernutrition that may also be due to inadequate breastfeeding


or attempts at weaning too early.
Alternatively or additionally, these individuals could have been victims
of Tepehuan raids documented in Colonial times (Gradie 2000). If so, they
may represent a marginal class of individuals who experienced limited ac-
cess to nutritious foods or suffered higher disease risks than the rest of
the community from living in a more parasite-ridden environment with
poorer-quality water, greater risk of bacterial infection, or other factors
that inhibit vitamin C uptake (see Brickley and Ives 2008). What is clear is
that there must have been some variation in the experiences of mothers,
infants, and young children that resulted in the patterns of scurvy found at
the site. Overall, though, the high prevalence of the disease highlights the
ways in which the ill and undernourished were most commonly used in
ritual sacrifices by the Loma San Gabriel phase Tepehuan. The lack of bony
indicators of chronic stress among the rest of the assemblage suggests that
scurvy, whether seasonal or otherwise, was not an experience shared by all
in the community.

Conclusion

Sociocultural factors shape how diseases and illnesses are perceived and
how ill individuals are treated (Marsteller et al. 2012). We tentatively suggest
that the high prevalence of scurvy, found only among young infants (usu-
ally protected by nutritionally dense breast milk), is the result of cultural
rather than ecological filters, which shape the constitution of the sacrifice
assemblage. Whether childrens health was impacted in preparation for
ritual sacrifice or simply reflects the communitys preference for children
who represent the most-ill portion of the community is unclear. However,
the great illness represented by the abnormal bony lesion prevalence of
this assemblage is associated with the cultural treatment and perception of
this subgroup of children. Crude subadult mortality, periosteal lesion, and
scurvy prevalence rates are so drastically different from the regional health
profiles of ancient Mesoamerica that it is unlikely that subadult health in
Zape reflects any portion of the variation in health status in a typical prehis-
toric community (Crandall et al. 2013). Like the Maya and Aztec, the Loma
San Gabriel Tepehuan appear to place special value on a childs particular
social age and health, and that made them more likely to be chosen for
sacrifice and collective burial at cave sites such as La Cueva de Los Muertos
52 J. J. Crandall and J. L. Thompson

Chiquitos. Evidence of disease ideologies and complex ritual sacrifice of


the ill and young among Loma San Gabriel communities has not previously
been reported.
Iconographic and material evidence of sacrifice are common through-
out the greater North American Southwest and Mesoamerica (Schaafsma
1999). La Cueva de Los Muertos Chiquitos provides possible evidence of
the adoption of Tlaloc iconography and ritual practices among the Loma
San Gabriel Tepehuan. Tlaloc worship involves rituals that link the dead
with supernatural forces and the renewal of crops.
Sites associated with Tlaloc worship include items symbolic of fertility
and agricultural renewal (Townsend 1992). These items consist of bundle
burials symbolic of packages to be deposited in the underworld, water,
maize, other foods, artifacts depicting animals and zoomorphic figurines
that experience cyclical rebirth (namely amphibious reptiles, such as croco-
diles, turtles, and snakes), and high-quality ritual objects (Schaafsma 1999).
La Cueva de Los Muertos Chiquitos contained these same offerings also
found in association with a wooden turtle effigy (Brooks and Brooks 1978).
Together, the material culture, location, and architecture of the cave pro-
vide material evidence of active engagement with Tlaloc among the Loma
San Gabriel Tepehuan. Other documentary and archaeological evidence
from the region includes the presence of a Tlaloc effigy at another Loma
San Gabriel site, Can de Molino (Foster 2002) and documentation of
other likely ritual cave sites nearby (e.g., Sauer and Brand 1932).
In this chapter, however, we have documented systematic evidence of
ritual sacrifice and the treatment of children that is consistent with regional
ritual worship of with Tlaloc and other related deities. While similar to
these other cultures, Tepehuan sacrifice appears unique in that other cul-
tures do not show a consistent preference for the use of infants in sacrifice
events as is documented here.
Contextualized bioarchaeological analysis not only can reconstruct evi-
dence of ritual behavior but also captures the shifting, complex identities of
individuals across the life course (see Agarwal and Glencross 2011; Knud-
son and Stojanowski 2008; Chapter 7). At La Cueva de Los Muertos Chi-
quitos, such bioarchaeological reconstruction suggests that these subadults,
rather than being faceless victims, were deemed socially valuable and pre-
cious (though perhaps not people; see Ardren 2011) rather than worth-
less sacrifices. It is because of their high value as either sacrifice victims
or youths lost to disease that they received the elaborate burial, bundling,
and adornment. By shedding light on the unique and specific age-related
Sacrificed Children at La Cueva de Los Muertos Chiquitos, Durango, Mexico 53

and disease factors that impacted the various experiences of infant life and
death among the Loma San Gabriel Tepehuan, we can reconstruct and re-
gionally situate the complexity of social identity and religious ideologies
among this ancient community. Such work reminds us that childrens (sub-
adults) identities, social roles, and importance are never universal. The
identities and social treatment of subadults should be not only approached
culture by culture, to understand how their experiences are each unique,
but also examined regionally to understand how childhood is impacted
by the religious and political-economic systems of the larger community
and locale in which youngsters grow up and die.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Richard Brooks for his support of this re-
analysis and gracious access to unpublished field notes and site maps. We
would also like to thank Debra Martin for her mentorship and considerable
help with this project and Krystal Hammond for her fruitful suggestions.
We are also grateful to the Graduate and Professional Student Association
at UNLV and Angela Peterson and her family for their generous financial
support and inspiration.

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3
Chinchorro Mortuary Practices on Infants
Northern Chile Archaic Period (BP 70003600)

Vivien G. Standen, Bernardo T. Arriaza,


and Calogero M. Santoro

In this chapter we discuss the complex mortuary patterns, social implica-


tions, and values surrounding infants and children (this includes fetuses
and newborns) in early Andean Chinchorro communities. The Chinchorro
were hunters, fishers, and gatherers who inhabited the coast of northern
Chile from BP 7000 to BP 3600 and developed early and complex mum-
mification processes for their dead. In this context, we sought answers to
the following questions: Did all infants receive the complex Chinchorro
mortuary treatment? Was this treatment different from or similar to that
given to adults? Are there segregated spaces for infants at burial sites? Was
infant ornamentation similar to that of adults? Did infant burials bear the
same type of associated artifacts? Answers to these questions will allow us
to assess attitudes toward infants and children in this particular culture.
The seminal work of Lillehammer (1989) opened a new window to infant
mortuary studies in archaeology. Since then, substantial contributions have
been made on this topic, mainly in the Old World (Chapa 2003; Lilleham-
mer 2000; Sofaer 1994) and in North American archaeology (Baxter 2005;
Kamp 2001; Park 2010). In South America, however, contributions to the
archaeology of children are still scarce (Politis 1998). Compared to the mea-
ger archaeological data, ethnographic analyses show that among hunters
and gatherers, infants play an important role in the production of material
goods; they generate cultural materials and are active social agents within
human groups (Lillehammer 1989; Politis 1998; Park 2010).
Childhood studies in archaeology have been approached from two per-
spectives: (a) indirectly, through the study of material culture (Lilleham-
mer 1989; Sofaer 1994; Politis 1998; Park 2010), and (b) directly, through
Chinchorro Mortuary Practices on Infants: Northern Chile Archaic Period 59

the study of remains and funerary contexts. The first approach includes
objects produced by children for children, by adults for children, and adult
recycled objects used in childrens games (Park 2010). The second approach
includes bioarchaeological methods that encompass the study of bodies
(i.e., paleopathology), mortuary treatments, and offerings associated with
infants. This chapter will focus on mortuary practices performed on infants
and children (including fetuses and newborns).
As Kaulicke (1997) argued, the funerary context is the only archaeologi-
cal instance where the individuals themselves are the protagonists. Men,
women, children, and infants emerge not as objects but rather as subjects,
expressing the material aspect of the funerary rites to which they were
subjected. However, the ethnography of hunters and gatherers shows that
individuals who die within a few days of birth and have not undergone cer-
tain rites of initiation are not always assigned a name or given a mortuary
ritual, since they are not full members of their society (Hertz [1907] 1960;
Lvy-Bruhl [1927] 2003). In contrast, the archaeological data show that in
prehistory, infant funerary rituals received special attention, such as those
reported by Einwgerer and colleagues (2006), for the European Upper
Paleolithic. In the Andes, during the Archaic period, both on the coast and
in the highlands, there is a particular mortuary treatment given to infants.
In the La Paloma site (on the central coast of Peru), Quilter (1989) points
out that infants bear a larger number of associated objects compared to
adults. In Telarmachay (puna of Junn), infants were found with ornaments
such as beads for necklaces and bone earrings (Julien et al. 1981). However,
none of the early sites in South America showed Chinchorro-style burial
practices. These practices included complex procedures on the bodies of
infants and children (including fetuses and newborns) (Allison et al. 1984;
Aufderheide et al. 1993; Bittmann 1982; Uhle 1917). In historic Europe, by
contrast, a death during pregnancy or during childbirth was considered a
bad omen; therefore, fetuses and newborns were hidden instead of being
recognized socially (Scott 1992).

The Chinchorro

The Chinchorro were hunters, fishers, and gatherers who settled at the
mouth of the small rivers that drain into the Pacific Ocean off the coast
of northern Chile and southern Peru (Arriaza 1995; Standen et al. 2004).
Because of the cold Humboldt Current that runs along the western coast
of South America, the marine ecosystem is extraordinarily rich in diversity
60 V. G. Standen, B. T. Arriaza, and C. M. Santoro

and abundant in resources for prehistoric human societies (fish, shellfish,


mammals, and seabirds). This condition favored Chinchorro adaptation to
a marine lifestyle (Arriaza 1995). Their settlements showed extensive shell
middens of 4 to 6 m of accumulated debris from the daily activities of life
by the sea, with evidence of an intense exploitation of marine resources
complemented with land resources (Arriaza 1995; Bird 1943; Muoz and
Chacama 1982; Schiappacasse and Niemeyer 1984; Standen et al. 2004).
Bioarchaeological evidence drawn from Chinchorro sites suggests that
a process of increasing complexity and semisedentary lifestyle began on
the coast during the Middle Archaic period (BP 7000). As residential pat-
terns became semisedentary, the degree of technological specialization in-
creased, and middens with burials of mummified bodies appeared (Schiap-
pacasse and Niemeyer 1984). In addition to artificially mummified bodies,
small artistic effigies representing the human body and other mortuary
treatments are observed. The mummies were made out of raw clay, earth
dyes, wood, and fiber and could not have been transported over great dis-
tances without the risk of damaging them. Therefore, the practice of artifi-
cial mummification further supports the reduced mobility of these groups.

Materials and Methods

Sample
We analyzed 142 bodies with artificial mummification from fourteen Chin-
chorro burial sites in northern Chile. The sites located on the coast of Arica,
Camarones and Patillos, date to BP 70003600. The majority of the sites
are exclusively cemeteries and they are located next to the shell midden
areas. In other cases the bodies were found immersed in the middens. This
modality suggests the intention of depositing the deceased in spaces next
to where they carried out or performed their daily activities.

Mortuary Analysis
We analyzed the mortuary patterns shown among infants and adults in or-
der to explore whether there were differences between age groups. Funerary
context variables such as type of primary or secondary burial, individual
or collective interment, body position and body orientation (sacro-vertex),
were also analyzed. We then analyzed the type, quantity, and quality of of-
ferings associated with the bodies, and lastly, we analyzed the postmortem
clothing and ornaments associated with both infants and adults.
Chinchorro Mortuary Practices on Infants: Northern Chile Archaic Period 61

Age and Sex Categories


Biological age estimations in Chinchorro mummies are usually constrained
by the elements that firmly cover the skeleton: mats, clay, furs, and so forth.
These elements hinder macroscopic, nondestructive observations of the
skeletons and teeth. Observations were possible when a breakage or an
opening in the mummy exposed the teeth and part of the skeleton. Fol-
lowing the recommendations of Buikstra and Ubelaker (1994) for imma-
ture skeletons, the following traits were analyzed: dental calcification and
eruption, development and fusion of epiphyses, and unification of primary
ossification centers in different bones. In other cases, age was roughly es-
timated from the dimensions of the mummies. The adults ages were esti-
mated from the morphological changes in the pubic symphysis (Brooks
and Suchey 1990), the medial epiphysis of the clavicle, the iliac crest, and
the eruption of the third molar, to distinguish the young adults from the
older ones (Buikstra and Ubelaker 1994). This was complemented with the
obliteration of the cranial sutures, degenerative processes such as osteoar-
thritis, and the level of dental abrasion, with caution, since it is known that
they were strongly influenced by cultural patterns.
The bodies were classified by age as adults or subadults as broad cat-
egories of analysis. Subadults were classified as fetuses, newborns, infants
(birth to 6 years), children (7 to 12 years), and juveniles (13 to 17 years).
A second category of analysis was sex. Assigning a sex to immature skel-
etons is problematic, because the sexual characteristics in the skeleton are
expressed after individuals reach their full development and maturity (Buik-
stra and Ubelaker 1994). However, in the case of the Chinchorro mummies,
a modeling of female and male genitals gave clear signs of sexual differen-
tiation in adults and infants. Adult women also showed breast shapes in the
clay that covered their remains. While these biological features, culturally
emphasized by the Chinchorro, were decisive in determining the sexual
identity of individuals, this obviously depended on the degree of conserva-
tion of the mummy.

Mortuary Treatments

The analysis of the mortuary treatments reveals the complexity of post-


mortem interventions performed on individuals who died at an early age.
Not only infants and children but also fetuses and newborns were deli-
cately defleshed and their fragile and tiny bodies reconstituted from their
62 V. G. Standen, B. T. Arriaza, and C. M. Santoro

tiny skeletons using various mummification styles that included (a) bodies
modeled in clay or black mummies, (b) red mummies, (c) corded mum-
mies, (d) bandaged mummies, and (e) mud-coated mummies (Arriaza
1995). We will briefly outline the procedures used for each mummification
practice next.

Bodies Modeled in Clay or Black Mummies (BP 70004800)


Using the clay modeling style of mummification, the little bodies were
skinned, defleshed, and eviscerated, leaving the small skeletons free from
soft tissue. Then small twigs were placed parallel to the long bones of the
extremities and the spine, to strengthen the fragile bone structure. Sub-
sequently, a thin vegetal mat was carefully wrapped around the twigs and
bones. Then, the group in charge of the mortuary ritual covered this new
structure (bone/stick/reed mat) with a wet paste of gray clay, following the
natural anatomy, to carefully model the complete body; thus, the small
body recovered most of its original volume. Afterward, the human skin
was replenished with the whitish/gray modeling clay. Finally, the body was
painted black with manganese (figure 3.1a).
The scalp was skinned and the brain was extracted. The cavity was filled
with clay, fiber, or skin (of camelid and seabird). A clay mask was modeled
over the tiny bones of the face, delicately delineating the facial features of
the nose, mouth, and eyes, which were marked with horizontal or circular
incisions, as if the individual were alive. Finally, the facial skin was replaced
and painted black. A layer of black clay was placed over the skull, and a
short wig made of human hair was attached (Arriaza and Standen 2008).

Figure 3.1a. Body modeled in gray clay or black mummy of a fetus. Mummy is wearing a
fringed skirt (absence of the upper extremities) (PLM-8 Site).
Chinchorro Mortuary Practices on Infants: Northern Chile Archaic Period 63

Red Mummies (BP 47003700)


In the case of red mummies, the small and fragile bodies were eviscerated
through incisions in the abdomen and thoracic cavities. The muscles were
partially removed through incisions at the groin, knees, ankles, shoulders,
and elbows. After introducing little twigs to strengthen the bone structure,
the small bodies were stuffed with vegetable fiber, fur (camelid), seabird
skin, and earth dyes (oxides). The incisions were sutured with needles
made of cactus thorns, using tendon strands or vegetable threads.
After the soft tissue was extracted from the head and the brain was re-
moved, the cranial cavity was filled with the same elements used to fill
the body. On the facial bones, a delicate black clay mask modeled the fa-
cial features: eyebrows, eyes, nose, and mouth. Lastly, a wig of human hair
was attached to the little body using a manganese paste and subsequently
painted red (iron oxide). The facial mask could be red or black (Arriaza
and Standen 2008). In this way the reconstituted volume, shape, colors, and
facial features brought the little bodies to life (figure 3.1b).

Other Styles of Mummification


Other styles of mummification include bandaged mummies (BP 4000),
which are similar to red mummies (Arriaza 1995), though they differ pri-
marily in that the skin was cut into strips and repositioned in the way of a
bandage (figure 3.1c). The style of corded or wrapped mummies (BP 3800
3600) differs from red mummies by the presence of an external wrap with
thin cords (camelid or vegetable fiber) at the level of the trunk and limbs
(figure 3.1d) (Llagostera 2003). Finally, the intervention known as mud-
coated mummies (BP 4600) is the simplest of them all. It is characterized
by the evisceration of the thorax and the presence of a layer of mud on the
skin of the body (Arriaza 1995).

Figure 3.1b. Red mummy of a male infant. Mummy is wearing a wig and a pelvic belt as a
pubic cover (Morro-1 Site).
64 V. G. Standen, B. T. Arriaza, and C. M. Santoro

Figure 3.1c. Bandaged mummy, infant, undetermined sex (Morro-1 Site).

Figure 3.1d. Corded mummy, infant, undetermined sex (cranium is absent). Mummy is
wearing a fringed skirt, remains of a wig, a tiny fishing net, and a bone artifact used to
detach mollusks (Morro 1/5 Site).

Results

Age, Sex, and Mortuary Treatment


The demographics of artificially mummified individuals show that sub-
adults are the most commonly represented ones. Of 142 mummified bod-
ies, 70.4 percent (n = 100) were subadults (this includes fetuses, newborns,
infants, children, and juveniles), while 29.6 percent (n = 42) were adults
(table 3.1). This provides clear evidence of a high incidence of infant mor-
tality and an emphasis on treatment and mortuary rituals for these age
groups (table 3.2). Among subadults (N = 100), the highest percentage cor-
responded to infants (61 percent), followed by fetuses (17 percent), new-
borns (11 percent), children (6 percent), and juveniles (5 percent). Among
the mummification styles, red mummies (54 percent) and black mummies
Table 3.1. Percentage of adults and subadults with artificial mummification at various Chinchorro sites
Adults Subadults Subadults for categories of age
Fetuses Newborns Infants Children Juveniles
Sites N % N % N % N % N % N % N %
Chacalluta 4 0 0 1 100 0 0 0 0 1 100 0 0 0 0
Quiani Bird 0 0 1 100 0 0 0 0 1 100 0 0 0 0
Camarones 17 0 0 3 100 0 0 0 0 3 100 0 0 0 0
Camarones 14 0 0 4 100 0 0 1 25 3 75 0 0 0 0
Chinchorro 1 0 0 3 100 0 0 0 0 3 100 0 0 0 0
Maestranza 1 1 12.5 7 87.5 2 28.6 2 28.6 3 42.9 0 0 0 0
Patillos 1 14.3 6 85.7 0 0 2 33.3 4 66.6 0 0 0 0
Morro 1/5 3 17.6 14 82.4 1 7.1 0 0 9 64.3 3 21.4 1 7.1
Morro Uhle 3 20.0 12 80.0 0 0 1 8.3 11 91.7 0 0 0 0
Morro 1 11 28.9 27 71.1 4 14.8 3 11 16 59.2 2 7.4 2 7.4
Maderas Enco 1 33.3 2 66.6 0 0 1 50.0 0 0 0 0 1 50
PLM-8 15 50.0 15 50.0 10 66.6 1 6.6 3 20 1 6.6 0 0
Camarones 15D 6 54.5 5 45.5 0 0 0 0 4 80.0 0 0 1 20.0
Macarena 1 100 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
42 100 17 11 61 6 5
66 V. G. Standen, B. T. Arriaza, and C. M. Santoro

Table 3.2. Percentage of artificial mummification among subadults and adults at


several analyzed Chinchorro sites
Sitea Percentage Subadults Percentage Adults
Chacalluta 4 100.0 0.0
Quiani Bird 100.0 0.0
Camarones 17 100.0 0.0
Camarones 14 100.0 0.0
Chinchorro 1 100.0 0.0
Maestranza 1 87.5 12.5
Patillos 82.4 17.6
Morro 1/5 82.4 17.6
Morro Uhle 80.0 20.0
Morro 1 71.1 28.9
Maderas Enco 66.6 33.3
PLM-8 50.0 50.0
Camarones 15D 45.5 54.5
Macarena 0.0 100.0
Note: a. Listed with percentage of subadults in descending order.

Table 3.3. Percentage of artificial mummification styles among subadults at sev-


eral analyzed Chinchorro sites
Mummification Style %
Red mummies 54
Modeled mummies 30
Corded mummies 8
Bandaged mummies 2
Mud-coated mummies 1
Unclassified mummies 5

(30 percent) predominated, followed by corded mummies (8 percent),


bandaged mummies (2 percent), mud-coated mummies (1 percent), and
(5 percent) unclassified mummies (because of the bad conservation that
they presented, it was not possible to classify the mummies in any defined
style) (table 3.3). In 23 of the 100 subadults, it was possible to identify sex
(by genital modeling). The males represented 73.9 percent (17/23) and fe-
males 26.1 percent (6/23). The small male bodies in this subsample triple
the female bodies.
Chinchorro Mortuary Practices on Infants: Northern Chile Archaic Period 67

When we analyzed the age distribution by site, the same pattern is re-
peated. That is, most of the bodies with artificial mummification corre-
spond to predominantly male infants. Among the mummification styles,
red and black mummies are more frequent.

Interment of Infants in the Burials


The burial position of the body is the same for infants and adults: extended
supine position with the upper limbs parallel to the lateral sides of the
trunk, legs parallel to each other, and the head aligned with the axis of the
trunk. Often, the bodies are buried parallel to each other, forming multiple
or collective burials ranging from three to nine individuals. Each funer-
ary set also shares the same sacro-vertex orientation of the body (Standen
1997). There is a tendency for the smallest bodies, as well as fetuses and
newborns, to be placed over the chest (breasts) of adult women. In contrast,
children are located between bodies of adults, whether men or women.

Funerary Offerings Associated with Infants


The artificially mummified Chinchorro bodies show few funerary offer-
ings. These are mostly utilitarian artifacts used in hunting, fishing, and
gathering: harpoons, fishing hooks, fishing lines, stone weights, and fish-
ing nets (figure 3.1d). The distribution of the type and quality of these items
does not differ substantially across age groups. Sometimes, in the case of
multiple burials, it is difficult to associate the offerings with a particular
body. However, there is some tendency for fishing equipment such as fish-
ing hooks, stone weights, and fishing lines to be associated with infants and
adult women (Standen 2003). The only artifacts that have not been associ-
ated to infants are harpoons and spear throwers, which are associated with
adults and juveniles, both men and women.

Infant Clothing
In the Chinchorro burial sites, it is common to find little bodies of infants,
with fringed skirts and loincloths in situ at the pelvis (figures 3.1a, b, d).
This type of clothing is no different from that worn by adults. Child and
adult clothes were made with the same techniques and raw materials (plant
or camelid fiber). They differ only in size, although there is a trend for
adult women to wear fringed skirts, whereas men are commonly dressed
in loincloths (Standen 2003). Another ornamental element used by the
Chinchorro was the cephalic headbands made from camelid or plant fiber,
wrapped around the head, which were associated with all age groups.
68 V. G. Standen, B. T. Arriaza, and C. M. Santoro

Discussion

Even though there is a difference in the sample size excavated at each site,
the tendency for there to be an overrepresentation of subadults, especially
infants, remains a constant. In five of the fourteen sites researched, 100 per-
cent of the bodies with artificial mummification were exclusively infants;
in four sites, they constituted more than 80 percent; in two sites, about 70
percent; and at the last two sites, about 50 percent (table 3.1).
The Chinchorro people did not invest much on domestic infrastructure
but in contrast spent time on complex and time consuming funerary pro-
cedures, coupled with a recurrent use of the same place for the interments.
Within their Pacific coast territory, from Ilo to El Loa (~17.3021.4 S),
they confined themselves to a few places where fresh water (the mouth of
a quebradas or spring [aguadas]) was available. The rest of the territory
remained an empty land, a condition maintained until today.
From a diachronic perspective, at the start of this funerary tradition (BP
7000), treatment was selectively applied only on infants. This focus on in-
fants (including fetuses and newborns) lasted for at least a millennium.
About BP 70006000, we found only infants with artificial mummification,
and during this early stage, these unique little bodies were exclusively mod-
eled with gray clay. After BP 60004800, this funerary treatment began to
appear on adults and juveniles, both men and women. We do not know
what triggered the expansion of these ritual practices to other age groups.
After BP 4800, the Chinchorro ceased modeling bodies in clay and paint-
ing them in black. A new style of mummification arose: red mummies (Ar-
riaza 1995), lasting until BP 3800.
Even though all age groups were now mummified, infants continued to
be found at the highest frequencies. Moreover, only infants show a greater
variability in mortuary treatments (e.g., bandaged mummies and mud-
coated mummies). At the end of the Chinchorro tradition, around BP
37003600, the ritual was again primarily used on infants, and a new vari-
ant of mummification appears: corded mummies (Llagostera 2003). This
means that at the start, and toward the end, of this funerary tradition, death
rituals were focused on infants (Standen 1997).
Analyzing artificial mummification by sex among subadults, a greater
proportion of small male bodies were found (74 percent) as compared to
female (26 percent). It is possible, although unclear, whether male children
were preferentially subjected to these complex death rituals. It is, however,
likely that the observed difference in male versus female frequencies results
Chinchorro Mortuary Practices on Infants: Northern Chile Archaic Period 69

from the fact that male genitalia are more readily visible. Does this rep-
resent a variation in the rates of perinatal mortality according to sex? Or
did girls have a better probability of survival? So far we do not have a clear
answer. What is clear is that in most of the studied sites, the data shows a
significantly higher percentage of intentionally mummified male infants.
Who made the infant mummies? This was probably a community effort.
To carry out the postmortem interventions on the bodies, it was neces-
sary to search for the raw materials, such as plant fiber, wood, furs, clay,
and pigments. These raw materials required moving away from the coastal
settlements (to capture birds and camelids for fur and to extract offshore
minerals and other materials). It is interesting to note that for the Chin-
chorro adults, hunting artifacts are equally distributed among men and
women (Standen 2011). Taking this into consideration, it was perhaps men
and women who were responsible for these particular tasks, although the
processing of raw materials, as in making mats and wigs, spinning strings,
polishing wood, and preparing clays and paints, was probably a womens
task. Finally, preparing the small bodies, that is, skinning, defleshing, evis-
cerating, and then refilling them, implied a specialized knowledge of hu-
man anatomy. The presence of mummifying specialists has been suggested
(Bittmann and Munizaga 1977), but so far we do not have empirical sup-
port to confirm this. In New Guinea, women were in charge of exhuming
and cleaning the bodies for the funerary rites of secondary burials (Stead-
man and Merbs 1982). Likewise, we would suggest that in the case of the
Chinchorro, women may have had a greater role in the intervention and
manipulation of the tiny fetal bodies and infants in general.
Another question to consider is if the mortuary treatments reflect the
social structure and the position of the deceased when alive (Binford 1971).
Since, among hunters and gatherers, prestige is only acquired over time,
one would not expect to find infants with such elaborated funerary treat-
ments and rites. Based on a comparative literature review of ethnographic
studies, Arriaza (1988) suggested that apart from sex and age, responsibility
toward ancestors and the belief in a spiritual world are important variables
when treating and caring for the deceased. In addition, Fox (1996), in a
comparative ethnographic synthesis of the HRAF (Human Relation Area
Files), stated that the treatment of a dead child is independent of rank but
related to grief, initiation rites, or the importance of children to the groups
survival.
Among the Chinchorro, we see a dazzling care of their dead, especially
infants, which likely reflects their belief in a complex spiritual world.
70 V. G. Standen, B. T. Arriaza, and C. M. Santoro

Mummies would have been arranged and placed near the surface, closer
to their settlements, where they were probably cared for and venerated.
Today, we find the mummies about 30 to 60 cm deep, depending on the
sites. But what made the Chinchorro decorate their deceased children with
earth dyes and prepare them in such a complex manner, beyond showing
empathy and grief for their loss? They probably expected to keep the arti-
ficially prepared bodies free from decomposition, not bound to disappear,
thus symbolically ensuring their permanence among them. As we have
pointed out, by mummifying the bodies with their eyes and mouths open,
the intent of those in charge of preparing the mummies was to represent
animate beings. Consequently, the mummies could have been considered
as living people, transformed and reintegrated symbolically into society.
Moreover, fetuses present in multiple burials suggest that they were so-
cially acknowledged as members of their group. Current evidence about
the origin of artificial mummification suggests a local development (Arri-
aza 1995; Guilln 1992; Standen 1991) and not an exogenous practice, as has
been stated by other authors (Rivera 1975; Rivera and Rothhammer 1986).
Arriaza (2005) suggests that the answer to this question would likely be
found under the specific, natural conditions where the Chinchorro lived.
He argues that the genesis of the Chinchorro mummies could be due to the
high levels of arsenic present in the Camarones Valley (precisely where the
oldest mummies were found), intertwined with their worldview. Arsenic is
an extremely toxic element, significantly affecting human reproductive suc-
cess. The death of newborns and infants is emotionally charged for parents,
family, and the community in general. In nearby Arica, the arsenic level is
normal, but in the Camarones Valley, the water and the environment have
shown a dangerous level of arsenic concentration, reaching 1,000 g/L, an
extremely high value compared with the standard of 10 g/L recommended
by the World Health Organization (WHO). The constant intake of arsenic
produces severe health problems and chronic poisoning of the population
(Arriaza 2005). In pregnant women, this poisoning causes spontaneous
abortions, stillbirths and premature births, among other maternal-fetal
health complications. Thus, it has been suggested that mummification may
have developed as an emotional response to the loss and the urge to care
for the deceased babies (with painting and ornaments).
Chinchorro Mortuary Practices on Infants: Northern Chile Archaic Period 71

Conclusion

We have presented a set of empirical evidence demonstrating the prefer-


ence that the Chinchorro showed in practicing unique mortuary treat-
ments on their offspring, particularly infants. This evidence suggests that
infants were ascribed high social value and played an important symbolic
role in their society. In particular, the complex mortuary treatment applied
to small fetuses is, as far we know, a unique and exceptional cultural prac-
tice that is not found in any other prehistoric society, either in the Andes
or in other parts of the world.
The composition and demographic structure of artificial mummies re-
flects a high rate of infant mortality. While infant mortality among hunters
and gatherers is generally high, it is clearly overrepresented in the Chin-
chorro samples. This high mortality could have been perceived as a threat
endangering the survival of the group. It is plausible that the emergence of
artificial mummification could have been sparked by the emotional pain
caused by infant deaths among their parents and relatives, added to a fear
that the group might disappear. Thus, artificial mummification was a sym-
bolic way to ensure the continuity of the group. In all human societies,
infants are the future of each community; the adaptive success is borne
by them, since each new generation represents the continuity of society
(Lillehammer 1989). Thus, the complex and delicate mortuary treatment
applied to infants would have symbolized the continuity of the group and
the renewal of society.
The fact that small infant mummies bear wigs, clothing, and artifacts
suggests that they would have been modeled as adults. The presence of wigs
is clearly a connection with adults, since the very young would have had
little or no hair. The clothing and offerings of these infants also suggest a
connection with the adult world, perhaps an idealization of the adulthood
they were expected to reach. In the same manner, the genital modeling
would suggest their gender roles and a connection also to the adult world.
It is likely that the gender roles were well defined among the Chinchorro,
and this would explain the modeling of infant genitalia.
Lastly, the Chinchorro mummification practices bring us close to an
extraordinary dimension of humanity, with highly ritualized concepts of
life and death and a particular emphasis on infants, newborns, and fetuses.
72 V. G. Standen, B. T. Arriaza, and C. M. Santoro

Acknowledgments

The authors want to give thanks to Natalia Borda Escobar for her work
in the translation of this paper and Mara Ins Arratia for the final revi-
sion of the manuscript in English. Thanks are also due to the editors of
the book, who made valuable suggestions to the text. This research was
supported with grants provided by the Fondo Nacional de Ciencia y Tec-
nologa (FONDECYT) Projects N 1121102N 1100059 and Convenio de
Desempeo Universidad de Tarapac-Ministerio de Educacin. Calogero
M. Santoro is sponsored by the Centro de Investigaciones del Hombre en
el Desierto (CIHDE), CONICYT-REGIONAL R07C1001.

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4
The Other Burials at Torre de Palma
Childhood as Special Death in a Medieval Portuguese Site

Sarah Holt, Stacey Hallman, Mary Lucas Powell,


and Maia M. Langley

The anthropological study of children and childhood is enjoying a well-


deserved resurgence with those who study infant and child mortuary pat-
terns, a fascinating intersection between childhood and the adult society
that defines it. Infants and young children have held a special role in many
societies, bridging the gap between the physical world and whatever comes
before. These deep connections perceived between an infant and the spirit
world, heaven, or the unknown have been by turns revered, feared, and
explored by poets, shamans, and priests for much of recorded history. Like
the experience of birth, which has been far more extensively covered in
text, infant and child death provides a unique event in which personal emo-
tion and belief dramatically convene with social norms of behavior. Un-
like birth, child death often leaves archaeologically identifiable remains,
through either the physical body, grave goods and markers, or the lack of
these materials where they are expected to appear. Through the lens of in-
fant mortuary practices, then, we can address the social position of infants,
discuss archaeological evidence for very young children as a socially pro-
scribed other, and use these special deaths as a way to reconstruct social
attitudes toward children and childhood.
As Aspoeck (2008) discusses, the terminology used to describe a se-
ries of burials recognizably different from a societal normative practice has
varied meanings and theoretical underpinnings in different archaeological
traditions. This chapter makes use of the concept of a sociocultural other:
a category or group within the larger population that is understood to be
different, special, or otherwise set apart from the majority of the culture
in a meaningful way. This cultural role of other has been discussed as an
76 S. Holt, S. Hallman, M. Lucas Powell, and M. M. Langley

anthropological perception of difference (Sarukkai 1997) and is a useful


term for discussing patterned differences in social agency reflected in the
burial treatment of groups such as religious minorities or women (Harper
2010). The idea that infants and very young children are other is not a new
one; differential burial of infants has been proposed to reflect a differential
status in life in Carthage (Norman 2003) and Ireland (Donnelly and Mur-
phy 2008; Finlay 2000). The other concept is here applied to infants and
young children as a group perceived as bounded or special by their own
culture in opposition to another common termdeviant.
The theoretical understanding of deviant burials has shifted over time
away from designating individual and unique interments for sensational
deaths such as sacrifice or taboo deaths to a way of describing socially ac-
cepted burial treatments that differ from a majority norm while still fol-
lowing a prescribed set of guidelines or traditions (Aspoeck 2008). Burials
of infants have been classified as deviant both to denote an atypical burial
treatment and as representative of a deviance from the expected life cycle,
that is, a premature death. Individual burials with extensive contextual
data such as neonate twins (Flohr 2012), neonates discarded in privy re-
fuse (Burnston 1982), and sites of apparent infanticide (Smith and Kahila
1992) have all been convincingly described as deviant burials. However,
Finlay (2000) cautions against ascribing deviant status to interments where
the original burial context is unknown. The usefulness of the term deviant
in application to widespread or consistent burial treatment of individual
groups has been questioned (Aspoeck 2008), and our discussion will in-
clude our theoretical position that the infant burials at Torre de Palma
should be considered not as deviant, but as othered burials, reflecting a
cultural otherness during the lives of the Torre de Palma children.
It is difficult to make cross-cultural comparative analyses of variation in
subadult mortuary practices; the known sites are few in number and a scant
number of citations surface in any discussion on the subject. With the aim
of expanding the examples of subadult burials available, we present a case
study from medieval Portugal: a cluster of infants and young children in-
terred beneath the floor of a chapel (the Ermida de So Domingos) located
inside the ruins of an early Christian basilica at the site of Torre de Palma,
Alto Alentejo, eastern Portugal (figure 4.1). This mortuary sample is similar
in some ways to the cluster of infant and child burials excavated from a
contemporaneous Portuguese site, the Ermida da So Saturnino (Serra de
Sintra), located near the Atlantic Coast northwest of Lisboa (Cunha 1996;
Garcia 1996). Both of these mortuary sites share some features with the
Figure 4.1. Map of Torre de Palma and site location in Portugal. The basilica is located in the
northwest portion of the site. (Reprinted with permission from S. J. Maloney and J. R. Hale. 1996.
The Villa of Torre de Palma (Alto Alentejo). Journal of Roman Archaeology 9 27594.)
78 S. Holt, S. Hallman, M. Lucas Powell, and M. M. Langley

post-medieval specialized mortuary locations in Ireland (cilln) reserved


for the burial of unbaptized infants and other deviant individuals. Our
comparison explores the variety of burial treatments for the very young
in the latter half of the second millennium in Western Europe and pos-
sible implications for social attitudes about infants as a category of social
others.

History of the Church at Torre de Palma

The site of Torre de Palma preserves a remarkable archaeological record of


more than 1,500 years of occupation in the Alto Alentejo region of Portu-
gal. Previous publications have covered aspects of the sites history and ar-
chitecture (e.g., Hale 1999/2000; Hale et al. 1999/2000; Maloney 1999/2000;
Maloney and Hale 1996), material culture (Huffstott 1998, 1999/2000;
Langley et al. 2007), burial practices and tomb structures (Hale 1995), and
individual burials of particular interest (Powell et al. 2012).
In the midfirst century AD, a Roman villa was built at the site, with
subsequent renovations and expansion during the following two centu-
ries and the development of a large agricultural estate. The site was located
near the main Roman road between Olispo (modern Lisboa) and Augusta
Emerita (modern Merida, Spain). In the late fourth century, construction
began on an early Christian church, a double-apsed basilica located about
150 m to the northwest of the villa (figure 4.1) (Langley et al. 2007). Over
the next three centuries, the church precinct was extended to the west by
a second, smaller, double-apsed basilica abutting the earlier structure, and
a cruciform baptistry was added on the south side. Two small cemeteries
flanked the western end of the precinct, and numerous aboveground tombs
were constructed of stone slabs within and adjacent to the church. Some
time after the eighth century, subsequent to the Muslim conquest of Iberia,
the earlier (eastern) part of the church complex was abandoned, although
this western portion of the church continued to serve some form of reli-
gious and administrative functions.
Beginning in the eleventh century, Christian authority was gradually
reestablished throughout Iberia (the Reconquista) as the Muslims were
gradually driven back to North Africa. In the second half of the thirteenth
century a small chapel was constructed within the standing curved wall
of the smaller, western basilica (Apse 3 on the basilica plan in figure 4.2).
This portion of the church was referred to in ecclesiastical documents as
the Ermida de So Domingos (Chapel of Saint Dominic) in the Bishopric
Childhood as Special Death in a Medieval Portuguese Site 79

Figure 4.2. Map of the Basilica Precinct showing Apse 3.

of Evora (Soares et al. 1758), and this name persisted in local oral tradition
until modern times (Boaventura and Banha 2006; Langley 2006; Langley
et al. 2007).
The floor of the chapel was raised above the original floor level and paved
with small rectangular bricks, and the beaten-earth walls were plastered
and painted (Maloney 2002: 1314; Maloney and Hale 1996). The earthen
walls eventually collapsed and disintegrated, and when the Roman villa at
Palma was discovered in 1947, nothing was visible aboveground at the site
except for a portion of the semicircular mortared stone wall around the
eastern apse of the western wing, clearly marking space within the Basilica
Precinct that had once been considered sacred (figure 4.1).
80 S. Holt, S. Hallman, M. Lucas Powell, and M. M. Langley

Figure 4.3. Tomb 9 (L 114) and Tomb 10 (L 113) (University of Louisville field photos).

If the name refers to the Spanish Catholic saint Santo Domingo de Silos
of the early twelfth century, there may be some significance to the apse as
Santo Domingo de Silos was known in medieval Spain as the patron saint
of pregnancy and anxious mothers (Watkins 2002). There were, however,
several St. Dominics in Spain during the Medieval period, and there is no
Childhood as Special Death in a Medieval Portuguese Site 81

historical or archaeological evidence to suggest that the Ermida de So Do-


mingos at Palma was dedicated to Santo Domingo de Silos.
The subfloor tombs located in this chapel are the only interments at
Torre de Palma that can be securely dated to the Medieval period (c. AD
11001600), with one exception discussed later in this chapter. Excavations
at the site conducted in 1984 by the University of Louisville Torre de Palma
Archaeological Project discovered the remains of at least twenty individu-
als: neonates, infants, and very young children (table 4.1) within three con-
tiguous 2-m 2-m excavation units. Two were discovered as articulated
skeletons (Tomb 10/L 113 and Tomb 9/L 114) (figure 4.3), while others were
represented only by clusters of disarticulated bones (Tombs 4, 5, 6, and 7/L
115, and L 123) (figure 4.4). No formal tomb structures were identified.
Some of the Apse 3 infants show signs of disease; 30 percent show peri-
ostitis on the long bones, a pathology consistent with infectious disease

Table 4.1. The burials in the Ermida de So Domingos, Torre de Palma


LC# Age Location
Infants (02 years)
TP 123/84 67 fetal months Sq N23/E24, Section A, level 2
TP 74/84 Late fetus/neonate Sq N22/E22, Level 2B
115 Tomb 6, TP 9/84 Neonate Sq N22/E22, Level 3
TP 113/84, TP 13/98 Neonate Sq N20/E20, Level 1
TP 113/84, TP 13/98 Neonate Sq N20/E20, Level 1
115 Tomb 4, TP 124/84 35 months Sq N22/E22, Level 2B
TP 123/84 612 months Sq N23/E24, Section A, Level 2
TP 74/84 912 months Sq N22/E22, Level 2B
115 Tomb 7, TP 115/84 1218 months Sq N22/E22, Level 3
TP 113/84, TP 13/98 1218 months Sq N20/E20, Level 1
123 TP 9/83 12 years Sq N23/E22, northern half
114 Tomb 9*, TP 116/84 1824 months Sq N23/E24, Level 2
114 Tomb 9, TP 116/84 1824 months Sq N23/E24, Level 2
115 Tomb 5, TP 114/84 1824 months Sq N22/E22, Level 2B
TP 82/84 1824 months Sq N23/E24, Section A, Level 1
TP 82/84 1824 months Sq N23/E24, Section A, Level 1
TP 123/84 1824 months Sq N23/E24, Section A, Level 2
Children (36 years)
123 TP 6/83 and TP 9/83 23 years Sq N23/E22, northern half
TP 74/84 35 years Sq N22/E22, Level 2B
(no TP number) 35 years Sq N23/E24
113 Tomb 10*, TP 118/84 56 years Sq N20/E20, N20/E22, Level 1
TP 113/84, TP 13/98 56 years Sq N20/E20, Level 1
Note: Burials marked with * each associated with 1 ceitis, a coin dating from 14381557.
Figure 4.4. Plan of Apse
3 showing locations of
Tombs 410 (Reprinted
with permission from
Maloney 2002, plan
B23, Basilica, p. 73).
Childhood as Special Death in a Medieval Portuguese Site 83

but with many etiologies (Ortner and Putschar 1981). All subadult remains
were aged using standard methods described by Buikstra and Ubelaker
(1994) and Scheuer and Black (2000); they are now part of the accessioned
collections in the Museu Nacional de Arqueologia in Lisboa, Portugal.
The two subadults in Tomb 9 (L 113) and Tomb 10 (L 114) were each
buried with a ceitis, a copper coin dated AD 14381557; five more coins
dating from AD 1222 to AD 1481 were recovered from the grave fill in the
area around L 115 but could not be associated with any specific individual
(Huffstot 1999/2000). No other grave goods or burial materials were as-
sociated with any of the individuals. An extreme degree of subsurface dis-
turbance was present, a pattern seen in many mortuary areas within Por-
tuguese churches and attributed to intensive reuse of this restricted space
over several centuries (Cunha 1996).
Table 4.2 summarizes the demography and tomb types for all of the
tombs discovered inside the Basilica Precinct. A few pieces of adult skel-
etal material were recovered during the University of Louisville excavations
within Apse 3, but these very likely represent random fragments not col-
lected by the earlier Portuguese archaeologists during their excavation of
the above-floor tombs in the western portion of the basilica. The subadults
aged birth to 2 years buried in Apse 3 account for two thirds of the total
number of individuals in this age category (20 out of 30, or 66.6 percent)
recovered from all periods and all mortuary locations at the Torre de Palma
site. The first half of the table presents data for the nonApse 3 burials;
infants and children were frequently placed in the same tomb structures
as adolescents and adults, though not all of the individuals in a particular
tomb were necessarily placed there simultaneously. The concentration of
children in Apse 3 who died at Torre de Palma between ages 3 and 6 years
is less striking: five of the twenty-four children (21 percent) in this age cat-
egory from all of the mortuary areas and periods were buried in this area.
The absence of identifiable subfloor tomb structures for the Apse 3 infants
and young children also contrasts sharply with the variety of aboveground
tombs that contain subadults of these age categories in the nonApse 3
areas of the Basilica Precinct and in the two small cemeteries that lie to the
northwest and the southwest of the Basilica Precincts enclosure wall.
To further emphasize the unusual mortuary context of the Palma Apse
3 subadult burials and to help understand the variation in the normative
burial tradition they may represent, we compared the treatment of the Apse
3 infants at Torre de Palma to known contemporaneous and historical ex-
amples of special treatment of subadult death.
Table 4.2. Tombs inside the Basilica at Torre de Palma: demography and tomb type

LC # MNA Sepultura/UoL MNI/Sex/Age Hale Tomb Type


Project Tomb
43 MNA Sep P F, M, i Type IV, granite slab
44 MNA Sep E 2F, M, a, c Type VII, small stones laid flat
46 MNA Sep A (ossuary) 3F, M Type IV, granite slab
47 MNA Sep B (ossuary) M Type IV, granite slab
49 MNA Sep F (ossuary) 2A, j, c Type VI, marble slabs
52 MNA Sep D F, M, A, a, c Type V, stone kerbs
62 No MNA sepultura i Type II, tile box
tomb #
63 MNA Sep 7A a, i Type VII, concrete slabs
65 MNA Sep 8A c Type V, stone kerbs
67 MNA Sep 9A j Type I, layers of tiles laid flat
68 MNA Sep 4A F, M, A Type I, brick wall
69 MNA Sep 10A A, 3c Type II, brick box
70 MNA Sep 6A F, 2M, a, j Type I, brick and stone fragments
71 MNA Sep 5A F, 2M, A, j Type I, stone slabs, brick lining
72 MNA Sep 3A F, 2M, 3A, 2c, j Type II, upright tiles form sides
73 MNA Sep 2A F, M, A, a Type I, layers of tiles laid flat
74 MNA Sep 1A F, 2M, a Type V, stone kerbs
102 AmEx TP 1/86, un- M No formal tomb structure
numbered tomb
104 AmEx Tomb 8, TP F, i, c Type II, brick box
117/84
109 AmEx Tomb 1, TP F No formal tomb structure
28/83; TP 50/83
110 AmEx Tomb 2, TP M No formal tomb structure
45/83
111 AmEx Tomb 3, TP 3M, F, A, j No formal tomb structure
59/83; TP 56/83
112 AmEx St. Achilles (no M Type VII, unique
tomb number), TP
96/84
APSE 3:
113 AmEx Tomb 10, TP c No formal tomb structure
118/84
Childhood as Special Death in a Medieval Portuguese Site 85

114 AmEx Tomb 9, TP 2i No formal tomb structure


116/84
115 AmEx Tomb 4, TP i No formal tomb structure
124/84
115 AmEx Tomb 5, TP i No formal tomb structure
114/84
115 AmEx Tomb 6, TP i No formal tomb structure
96/84
115 AmEx Tomb 7, TP i No formal tomb structure
115/85
122 TP 6/83 [I, c, A] No formal tomb structure
123 TP 9/83 [I, A] No formal tomb structure
TP 113/84; TP 13/98 F, 2M, A, 2i, c, a No formal tomb structure
TP 74/84 [3i, c, a] No formal tomb structure
TP 82/84, Room XII [2i] No formal tomb structure
TP 83/84, Room XVI [A, c, i] No formal tomb structure
TP 84/84, Room XIV [i] No formal tomb structure
TP 123/84 [3i, A] No formal tomb structure
Note: Interments marked with Hale tomb types IVII have formal structures detailed in Hale (1995).

Results

Other Portuguese Child Burials


Eugnia Cunha and her colleagues in the Departmento de Cincias da Vida,
Universidade de Coimbra, have published numerous reports on skeletal se-
ries excavated from medieval Portuguese ecclesiastical sites (Cunha 1996;
Cunha et al. 1993; Cunha and Matos 1999). Some of these sites yielded both
adults and subadults, sometimes in the same grave. However, many of these
sites were distinguished by the paucity or absence of the youngest category
of subadults (birth to 1 year). Regarding the latter, Cunha concluded, It is
probable that infants of this age had been buried in other locales, outside
the cemetery (1996: 68). These mortuary samples, contemporaneous with
the burials in Apse 3 at Torre de Palma, provide examples of the normative
burial practices in regard to individually constructed graves and the inclu-
sion of young children in shared burial spaces.
The early medieval Ermida de So Saturnino, Serra de Sintra, established
in AD 1192, presents certain similarities to Torre de Palmas Ermida de So
86 S. Holt, S. Hallman, M. Lucas Powell, and M. M. Langley

Domingos with respect to one portion of its mortuary area: a series of


interments, from the 14th and 15th Centuries, which contained mainly chil-
dren [and] constitutes, to the present time, a singular case in our country
(Cunha 1996: 78). Garcia (1996: 9596) describes this unusual set of buri-
als in her Brief Note on the excavations at this site: The final use of this
necropolis (at its extreme western edge) took place in the 15th Century,
[consisting of] infant burials in rectangular or oval pits defined by granite
blocks outlining the graves. All of these sepultures contained subadults,
two of which were accompanied by coins dating to the reign of Dom Joo
I. The young child in Sepultura 15 was holding a coin (a real) in one hand,
like the young Torre de Palma child buried in tomb L 113. However, note the
contrast between the identifiable individual tomb structures at this site and
the absence of such structures in the Palma Apse 3 subfloor interments.

Irish Cilln
What could account for this pattern of special treatment for the very
young dead in Medieval Portugal? A parallel from postmedieval Ireland
may provide a clue. Finlay (2000) and Donnelly and Murphy (2008) de-
scribe the burial of unbaptized Irish babies in designated spaces known
as cilln. Unbaptized children, criminals, those who committed suicide,
and strangers were often buried apart from the rest of society in medieval
Ireland and England, in positions farther away from the ideal burial lo-
cation (Fry 1999). This was not simply local preference but was prescribed
by the Catholic church, such that the canon law adopted for cemeteries
stated . . . those who could not receive Christian burial were to be laid
in a place set apart (Fry 1999: 18081). Accordingly, unbaptized babies
could not be buried in consecrated ground, that is, within the church or
its adjacent graveyard, because according to the doctrine of original sin,
the unbaptized child could not enter heaven. The physical separation of re-
mains is here symbolic of the eternal separation of souls. The church clearly
distinguished the individuals who fall within the baptized majority and the
other, the outliers, including grouped others such as unbaptized infants
and children as well as individual deviants from the majority such as adult
strangers and suicides (Finlay 2000).

Infants as Other
Ethnographic evidence supports the idea that infants are frequently un-
derstood as other; many cultures do not recognize children to be full
members of society from birth. As in the case of baptism, certain stages
Childhood as Special Death in a Medieval Portuguese Site 87

of maturity or rites of passage often must be completed before the child


is considered completely incorporated. Those who die before these rites
are completed are considered other, and burial practices leave physical
evidence to reflect this attitude.
Most of the literature, both ethnographically and archaeologically, fo-
cuses on neonates. In one example discussed by Scott (2001), when a very
young Yanomami infant dies there is no formal mourning. The child was
not unwanted, but cannot be mourned because it does not yet exist as a full
person; they were not of the right time, and therefore not for the world
at that moment (2001: 16). Roman infants too young to have teeth are
described by Nock as receiving no burial at all (1932: 322). Huntingford
(in Ucko 1969) additionally describes the Nandi tribe of Kenya, who bury
the toothless (both very old and very young) without the usual period of
exposure for they are near to the spirits and were in any case just coming
or just going (1953: 10). An ethnographic account describes the Ashanti as
burying any child younger than eight days in a pot in a trench, for he was
in fact just a ghost child and had no real intention of staying in this world
(Rattray 1932: 5960).
Aristotle wrote that a baby became a human being only upon its first
laugh, to be expected around forty days after birth (Sanders 1996). Al-
though it does not appear that this exact milestone was part of Greek law,
the abandonment and exposure of very young infants was sanctioned, as
recognition of a period of time in early life where the child is not part of so-
ciety and therefore has no claims upon it for care (Boswell 1984; Scott 1991).
The milestone of forty days seems to have been important in several tradi-
tions. Roman writers referred to the death of young children as mors acerba
(unripe death) or mors immatura (untimely death) (Norman 2002). Ac-
cording to Scott (1999: 1), an exception to the Roman law forbidding burials
within the city walls was made for Roman infants who died within forty
days of birth; these were traditionally buried by their mothers in domestic
settings, typically under the eaves of the family house (suggrundaria) (Scott
1999: 115). This seems to have been the case during the Roman period at
Torre de Palma, where two neonates (TP 109/92 and TP 113/93; table 4.2)
were buried beneath the floors of the Roman villa at the site.
This tradition was continued well after the Roman era, at least in rural
Portugal; writing about Portuguese mortuary beliefs and practices in vil-
lages around Braga, Goldey (1983: 56) notes that The stillborn are tradi-
tionally, though to a lesser extent now than in the past, not even interred
in the cemetery but buried in the floor of the corte below the house, where
88 S. Holt, S. Hallman, M. Lucas Powell, and M. M. Langley

the afterbirth is customarily buried . . . Only after the cholera epidemic of


1832 were some areas of land blessed for burial. The majority of Portuguese
cemeteries are 19th century or 20th century in origin . . . Children dying
in infancy or later childhood also received modified treatment; although
they are interred within the cemetery, Goldey describes childrens burials
in modern Portugal as devoid of the rituals of adult funerals: no one goes
into formal mourning for children; although they receive a requiem mass,
only immediate family are expected to attend (1983: 5). In this example,
the children are not differentiated pejoratively or excluded because of lack
of baptism, but are othered because they are considered little angels
(anjinhos), and as such have no part to play either in the secular or religious
aspects of death (1983: 15). As burial is one of the most conservative of so-
cial practices (Fry 1999: 182), the ongoing treatment of children as other
in modern Portuguese society suggests that this may be a continuance of a
much older conceptualization of infants and young children as inherently
different from the majority society of adults. This conceptualization of chil-
dren as anjinhos is a departure from widespread interpretations of infants
being included in the majority based solely on baptismal status.
In Latin America, the twentieth-century traditions of Catholic cultural
treatment of the death of young children as little angels are well docu-
mented. The death of an angelito, a child who dies young, about ten or
earlier if the child has been through the rite of confession (Parsons 1936:
148) can be cause for a gay celebration of the angel returning to God. Cen-
tral to this custom is the belief that the child who has not been confirmed in
the church is an innocent who will fly to God if the mourners do not dam-
age their angel wings with tears or overt signs of mourning (Bourque 1995;
Dominguez 1960; Norman and Norman 1974; Nations and Rebhun 1988;
Scheper-Hughes 1992). This status is often tied to the rite of confirmation
(Bourque 1995; Norman and Norman 1974), after which the child is con-
sidered part of adult society and can be formally mourned. Special burial
location or mortuary rites can accompany the angelito status; in Oaxaca,
the angelitos are not buried with food or water since they have a more direct
journey to heaven (Parsons 1936: 148), and in Venezuela they are interred
in a separate section of the cemetery allocated for children (Dominguez
1960). Dominguez describes the angelito graves as being originally marked
with a wooden cross to be later removed on the first anniversary of the
death, leaving the child graves unadorned, a departure from tradition with
adult graves.
Childhood as Special Death in a Medieval Portuguese Site 89

Interpreting the Other Burials at Torre de Palma

Finlay (2000: 409) noted that cilln were typically associated with some
sort of territorial boundary: the wall of a field, a corner of a plot of mar-
ginal land, or abandoned church sites [and] early ecclesiastical enclosures.
The latter locations would provide a place for grieving parents to bury their
unbaptized infants that retained some sanctity (Finlay 2000: 420), an im-
portant quality relevant to folkloric beliefs about child souls that wander
the earth after death.
Although the Catholic church defined the unbaptized infant as other,
perhaps not all family members felt the same way, and Finlay interprets the
reuse of sacred space as a way of connecting the infant soul to the family
and the traditions of the community. The ecclesiastical concept of limboa
liminal, in-between state, neither the happiness of heaven nor the tor-
ments of hell (Walsh 2005: 109)did not appear within the official cat-
echism of the church at this time, but it provided a means to reconcile the
problem of what happened to the souls of those who were barred from
heaven through no fault of their own, such as unbaptized infants. As Scott
has elaborately discussed, the choice to bury infants in repurposed ground
is deliberate, and the significance is worth noting; burial in unconsecrated
but recognizably holy ground is a physical reflection of this in-between
state (Scott 1990, 1999).
The timeline of change in sacred space use for the other Portuguese site
at Sintra, the early medieval chapel of So Saturnino (the ermida primi-
tiva, Garcia 1996: figure 5) resembles that of Torre de Palma; this ermida
fell into disuse for a period of time at the end of the fifteenth century. As
at Torre de Palma, the original structure was abandoned and in the second
half of the sixteenth century a new ermida was constructed just to the
north of the original ermida. During this intermittent period, infants and
young children were buried in individual tombs excavated into the bedrock
within the former walls of the ermida primitiva, clustered together at the
extreme western edge of its precinct. As at Torre de Palma, the grounds of
the early ermida would surely have retained their spiritual significance to
the local population, and the intentional reuse of space specifically for the
very young suggests that these individuals were considered categorically
other, as opposed to individually deviant.
There is no indication that the subadults of Torre de Palma were physi-
cally handicapped or otherwise identifiable by a visible category of genetic
90 S. Holt, S. Hallman, M. Lucas Powell, and M. M. Langley

deficiency such as trisomy or cleft palate. Although one individual (Tomb


4) shows pathological bone on the ilia, femora, and tibiae, which may origi-
nate from genetic anemia, the lack of these symptoms in the other indi-
viduals suggests there is not a clear family relationship between the chil-
dren. The timing of the burials, interred over the course of 300 years, and
the paucity of representation of this age group in the other contemporary
burials at the site suggests that the Apse 3 subadults were segregated by age
rather than cause of death or individual family practice.
In addition to the young subadults in Apse 3, at least one other person
a woman aged 3040 years at death, MNA catalog number 4769, v.2was
buried in the basilica during this same era. No information is available on
the exact location or formal aspects of her burial. Radiocarbon analysis of
this individual indicated that she had been buried between AD 1469 and
1648 (Powell et al. 2012), contemporaneous with the Apse 3 infants. John
Hale, the field director for the University of Louisville excavations, had
initially nicknamed this individual the African Queen because she dis-
played a suite of morphological traits suggestive of West African biological
ancestry; his hypothesis was subsequently confirmed by DNA analysis.
She may have been a worker at the nearby Monte, the fortified farm-
house that still dominates the large agricultural estate Herdade de Torre de
Palma. The earliest portion of the Monte was constructed in the late thir-
teenth or early fourteenth century. Portuguese explorers charting the west
coast of Africa began bringing both enslaved and free Africans to Portugal
during the later fifteenth century; these immigrants were forcibly con-
verted to Christianity, and several Portuguese religious confraternities
took on the specific responsibility to see that they received burial in con-
secrated ground (Lowe and Earle 2005). The ruins of the early Christian
church, visibly marked by the remains of the Apse 3 wall, lay only 750 m to
the south of the Monte, and the Ermida de So Domingos may have been
constructed to reconsecrate this area for Christian burial of the Montes
numerous workers and their families. Because the entire subfloor area of
the basilica was not excavated by the University of Louisville archaeological
project, and data from earlier excavations is incomplete, we do not know
how many (if any) other individuals may have been buried there after the
Ermida de So Domingos was established in Apse 3.
Although a more nuanced understanding of which adult populations
(if any) were buried within the boundaries of the basilica walls would en-
rich the discussion of how medieval rural Portuguese defined otherness
within society, we feel this exception does not impact the interpretation
Childhood as Special Death in a Medieval Portuguese Site 91

of the Apse 3 burials. If the African Queen does represent other unknown
adults interred within the basilica during the Medieval period, the subadult
burials can still be understood in terms of their physical isolation within
Apse 3.

Discussion/Conclusion

Infant burials in reused sacred space may be a way of navigating between


community expectations about the exclusion of other and connection of
individual infants to family. Infant deaths are considered special in many
cultures, and variation in infant burials can show boundaries of otherness
and allow inferences about how communities define boundaries between
infancy and personhood, or at least inclusion in a majority.
In discussing deviant burials, Cherryson (2008) explains that the label
is applied to burials not accorded whatever mortuary rites deemed appro-
priate and acceptable by contemporary society and that in some cases, the
burial rites accorded to an individual are so far removed from the accepted
practices of that time that the label deviant can be assigned with little hesi-
tation (2008: 115). As we have discussed here, the medieval infant burials
at Torre de Palma are notably different from adult inhumations from other
occupation periods at the site, as well as from normative burials of sub-
adults at other medieval Portuguese sites. However, the Apse 3 infants were
buried beneath the floor space of a structure recognizable as holy space and
documented as property of the Catholic church, continuing the normative
regional tradition with modification. While the practice of including the
very young in sacred space may not have been officially deemed acceptable
by church law, the lack of evidence for an alternative burial treatment for
the youngest age categories suggests that this was, at least locally, consid-
ered appropriate by the community.
We argue that these burials are different not as deviant from normative
practice but resulting from a conceptual separation of these subadults from
the rest of society, creating a special category of other. OShea (1984: 3)
asserts that studies of mortuary variables are based on the assumption that
an individuals treatment in death bears some predictable relationship to
the individuals state in life and to the organization of the society in which
the individual belonged. The separation of these infants from adults in
death thus suggests that their position in society was apart from the major-
ity of society, special or liminal, and required a modified burial tradition
incorporating the exclusionary religious status conferred by canon law with
92 S. Holt, S. Hallman, M. Lucas Powell, and M. M. Langley

the inclusionary nature of familial and community relationships. If, as Fry


(1999) argues, burial traditions conserve deeply held social ideologies, this
special treatment may be related to the modern Portuguese conception of
young children as anjinhos, itself a probable derivation of the Latin Catho-
lic tradition of innocents who have flown back to God before their confir-
mation in the church.
The Apse 3 burials at Torre de Palma differ from those at the Ermida da
So Saturnino in number and tomb construction but share this aspect of
physical separation of the very young dead from the widespread adult burial
tradition of the Medieval period. Likewise, the Apse 3 burials vary from the
Irish cilln tradition while displaying substantive similarities. The cilln
contained unbaptized infants along with adult categories of social other
and were often located in abandoned nonfunctioning former Christian
structures; the Portuguese subadult burials contained a broader age range
of subadults isolated inside former chapels that were still considered func-
tioning Christian sacred space in some sense by the local population. The
variation between these cases demonstrates that the conceptualization of
infants and young children in medieval and early postmedieval society was
not homogeneous across Europe, nor even within rural medieval Portugal.
However, the inclusion of infants and young children within this broader
modified burial tradition of reuse of sacred space suggests a shared belief
that infants and young children need and merit special treatment in death,
and the belief that special liminal locations were an acceptable area to bury
the very young.
The Torre de Palma Apse 3 burials suggest that in this region of medieval
Portugal, the period between birth and age 3 was a special state of other,
and that very young children were not fully included in the larger com-
munity, though not necessarily in a pejorative sense. The special deaths of
these youngest individuals were handled in a prescribed way that included
separating the other remains in a dedicated sacred space but do not ap-
pear deviant in the current use of the term as they appear to represent a
customary burial practice for all individuals within a discrete age category,
adapted from the larger normative burial treatment of older individuals.

Acknowledgments

Stephanie Maloney, project director of the University of Louisville Torre de


Palma Archaeological Project, graciously provided the field photographs
Childhood as Special Death in a Medieval Portuguese Site 93

and drawings of the Apse 3 burials. The authors would also like to thank
Della Collins Cook for her insightful comments on the drafts and essential
references on Latin American Catholic traditions.

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II
The Desecrated Child
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5
The Bioarchaeology of the Homicide
of Infants and Children

Simon Mays

Until recently, there was a tendency among archaeologists to downplay


the prevalence of violence and homicide in the past. This was true even
of archaeologists studying the more complex societies of the historic era,
despite ample evidence testifying to the importance of warfare, both as
cause and effect, in the rise of complex societies, and as a means of interac-
tion between states (Allen and Arkush 2006), and the importance in his-
toric societies of violence (or the threat of it) in everyday social intercourse
(Bellamy 1973; Hanawalt 1976). However, this tendency toward pacifying
the past was particularly marked among prehistorians studying small-scale
societies. Reasons for this reluctance to emphasize warfare, homicide, and
violence in general, are complex and have their roots in the history of the
discipline and in the social milieu in which research is conducted (Parker
Pearson 2005). Attitudes began to change from about the mid-1990s. Per-
haps the most influential work in this respect, at least for prehistorians,
was Lawrence Keeleys War before Civilisation (Keeley 1996). He, and other
authors writing at about the same time (e.g., Earle 1997; Gat 1999), pointed
out that few societies shun violence; in pre-state societies, warfare and raid-
ing are often endemic; and violence, or the threat of it, plays an important
role in maintaining social hierarchies.
Since the mid-1990s, a number of edited volumes (e.g., Arkush and Al-
len 2006; Carman 1997; Knsel and Smith 2013; Martin and Frayer 1997;
Parker Pearson and Thorpe 2005) have focused on the archaeological study
of homicide and violence. However, the emphasis in archaeological as well
as in social anthropological and historical studies has been on the role of
violence and killing within the adult social world. Given the recent rise
in interest in the archaeology and history of infancy and childhood (e.g.,
100 S. Mays

Bacvarov 2008; Crawford and Shepherd 2007; Dommasnes and Wriggles-


worth 2008; Lally and Moore 2011; Lewis 2007; Lillehammer 2010; Scott
1999; Sofaer Derevenski 2000), it seems timely to discuss some of the ar-
chaeological evidence for the homicide of non-adults in the past.
Attitudes toward killing vary greatly, even within a single society, with
circumstances determining the degree to which the act is socially sanc-
tioned. Societal reactions to acts of homicide range from horror to celebra-
tion. This is no less true of responses to homicide of infants and children
than it is of attitudes toward the killing of adults. The killing of children
may be viewed with particular revulsion, even within societies where adult
homicide rates are high. In some societies, homicide of newborns is viewed
with similar opprobrium, but in others it may be viewed as a lesser crime
than murder of an older individual, and, in the recent past, infanticide was
widely tolerated as a means of controlling family size or for other purposes.
In societies that practiced it, human sacrifice often involved children as its
victims. Sacrifices are characteristically offerings to deities with the aim of
benefitting society as a whole. Child sacrifice may therefore be viewed as
a positive act, and families may consider it an honor for their offspring to
be chosen. Finally, killing during warfare and raiding upon enemy social
groups may be important ways in which individuals can accrue social sta-
tus, and killing of children under these circumstances may be considered
as laudable as the killing of adults.
This contribution considers the homicide of infants and children under
the four broad headings briefly alluded to earlier: infanticide, infant and
child sacrifice, homicide of children by violence or neglect, and infants
and children as victims of warfare. In this discussion children are generally
considered to be those aged from about 1 to 15 years, and infants are defined
as those under 12 months of age.

Infanticide

Infanticide is the killing of unwanted babies. Until recently, it was a practice


that was tolerated in societies around the world (Williamson 1978; Warren
1985). A survey of 393 recent human societies (Divale and Harris 1976)
showed that nearly 80 percent practiced infanticide, and this may be an
underestimate of its true frequency as by its very nature it is a secret act
(Damme 1978), readily concealed. Unlike in other homicides, perpetrators
of infanticide are very often women (Mays 2000), and it is generally car-
ried out immediately after birth, before the mother-child bond has had a
The Bioarchaeology of the Homicide of Infants and Children 101

chance to strengthen (Williamson 1978). There are many different motiva-


tions for infanticide (Butler 2007; Caldwell and Caldwell 2005; Douglas
1966; Judson 1994; Scrimshaw 1984), but the following are among the more
frequent: the child is illegitimate (in societies that recognize this distinction
and stigmatize it); poverty of the parents makes it difficult for them to raise
the child, or conversely the wealthier may want to limit family size to help
keep property intact; the child may be deformed or disabled; the child may
not be of the desired sex. Societies in which newborns are not considered
fully fledged social beings are more likely to tolerate infanticide. The with-
holding of full personhood means that the murder of a newborn is not
accorded the same weight as the homicide of an older child or adult (Hrdy
1992; Scrimshaw 1984). Prior to the advent of safe abortion and effective
contraception, infanticide was one of the few ways of controlling family
size that was both effective and safe for the mother. It is usually carried out
by means that would leave no trace on the bones, principally suffocation
or exposure (Langer 1974; Williamson 1978), so in bioarchaeology it has
mainly been studied by indirect methods involving the analysis of demo-
graphic parameters and non-normative burial treatments.
Because it is normally carried out immediately after birth, the regular
practice of infanticide should lead to a perinatal age-at-death distribution
that resembles the distribution of gestational ages of live births in general
i.e. tightly clustered around a gestational age corresponding to a full-term
child. By contrast, natural deaths in the perinatal period (stillbirths and
natural deaths soon after birth) show a more dispersed age distribution
with less clustering around full term (Mays 1993). In perinatal infants, long-
bone length bears a close relationship to age (Adalian et al. 2002; Sherwood
et al. 2000; Scheuer et al. 1980), so measurement of infant remains can be
used to investigate perinatal age-at-death distributions and, by inference,
whether there is evidence of the regular practice of infanticide.
P. Smith and Kahila (1992) measured the long bones of nearly 100 infants
from the Romanearly Byzantine site at Ashkelon, Israel. They found that
they were tightly clustered around sizes corresponding approximately to a
full-term fetus. This seemed to point toward infanticide. The infant remains
had not received normative burial treatment but had been cast into a sewer
that ran beneath a bathhouse. Bathhouses in the Roman world were often
used as brothels, and the Ashkelon site lay within what appeared to be a
red light district of the Roman port. It was therefore suggested that they
were the unwanted offspring of courtesans working in the brothel (Faer-
man et al. 1998).
102 S. Mays

I measured the long bones of perinatal infants from archaeological sites


dating to the Roman and Medieval periods in Britain (Mays 1993; Mays
and Eyers 2011). The Roman burials (N = 197) came from various cemetery,
settlement, and villa sites; the medieval infants (N = 61) came from the
parish churchyard at the deserted village of Wharram Percy. Regression
equations (Scheuer et al. 1980) allow gestational age to be estimated from
long-bone length to within an accuracy of about 2 weeks in infants. The
Romano-British gestational ages clustered tightly around that correspond-
ing to a full-term baby (approximately 3840 weeks). By contrast, the ages
of perinatal infants from the churchyard at Wharram Percy were rather
dispersed, with no pronounced peak at full term. Comparison with recent
data showed that the medieval distribution was as expected if the Wharram
Percy perinates represented some combination of stillbirths and natural
deaths in the immediate postnatal period. The Roman distribution was, by
contrast, dissimilar to that expected of infants dying of natural causes, but
instead resembled the modern distribution of the gestational ages of all live
births, a pattern consistent with infanticide. The implication was not that
all the Romano-British infants were infanticide victims, but rather that they
made up a sufficient proportion of the total to exert a significant effect on
the perinatal age-at-death distribution. The same age-at-death distribution
held for both settlement/villa sites and for cemeteries, showing that victims
of infanticide were not always denied regular cemetery burial in Roman
Britain.
A number of similar studies, with large numbers (>25) of perinatal in-
fants, have been undertaken. In Britain, a medieval churchyard at Raunds
produced, like Wharram Percy, a fairly dispersed age distribution, con-
sistent with natural deaths, as did infants from the eighteenthnineteenth
century AD burial vaults at Christ Church Spitalfields, London (Lewis and
Gowland 2007). Similar results have been reported from Roman Kellis in
Egypt (Tocheri et al. 2005), some prehistoric (48003500 BP) Thai sites
(Halcrow et al. 2008), and early medieval Carrowkeel, Ireland (Wilkins and
Lalonde 2008). Other sites have, like the Romano-British ones mentioned
earlier, produced non-natural perinatal age-at-death distributions with
pronounced peaks at full term. These include another Romano-British
sample, from Winchester (Bonsall 2013), prehistoric Khok Phanom Di,
Thailand (40003500 BP) (Halcrow et al. 2008), and two sites in the Iron
Gates region of the Danube, Lepenski Vir (63005500 BC) and Vlasac
(98006900 BC) (Bori and Stefanovi 2004).
The Bioarchaeology of the Homicide of Infants and Children 103

The method of inferring infanticide from age distributions when indi-


vidual age is estimated from long-bone lengths using regression equations
has been criticized. Gowland and Chamberlain (2002) suggest that the peak
at full term may be an artifact of the regression method and advocate the
use of Bayesian statistics to remove this perceived bias. However, for theo-
retical reasons, one would expect any bias in the regression method to be
minimal, and there is empirical evidence that this is so (Mays 2003; Mays
and Eyers 2011). Several studies (Gowland and Chamberlain 2002; Lewis
and Gowland 2007; Mays and Eyers 2011) found that peaks at full term in
archaeological perinatal infant age distributions were less pronounced if
the Bayesian approach to aging of Gowland and Chamberlain (2002) was
used. However, this is probably due to a statistical bias in the Bayesian tech-
nique of Gowland and Chamberlain (2002), which means that it will tend
to produce dispersed perinatal age distributions with no great peak at full
term no matter what the data (Mays and Eyers 2011: 193637).
Some have suggested that a perinatal age-at-death distribution with a
peak at full term may not necessarily indicate infanticide. Halcrow et al.
(2008) observed a strong peak at full term in the perinatal infant age distri-
bution at Khok Phanom Di, but the infants were accorded normative burial
and in the historic period at least there was no tradition of infanticide in
that region. They argue that a naturally high mortality at birth may have
been responsible for the age distribution. Owsley and Jantz (1985) noted
a peak at full term in the age distribution of perinatal infants (aged from
long-bone lengths using regression equations) from a historic-period (AD
16001835) Plains Indians cemetery and associated it with a naturally high
mortality around time of birth.
The medical care available to infants today means that perinatal mor-
tality is much lower than in the past, but it is unlikely that the gestational
ages of those dying naturally in the perinatal period would be more tightly
clustered around full term than is the case now. If adverse extraneous fac-
tors, such as disease, resulted in high numbers of infants at 38 to 40 weeks
gestation in the mortality sample, then we would also expect high num-
bers of pre-term and, in particular, slightly older infants who lived a little
longer. Therefore, although other explanations, invoking natural mortality
patterns, perhaps combined with selective burial (e.g., Halcrow et al. 2008),
cannot be completely excluded as explanations for tightly clustered perina-
tal age-at-death distributions, infanticide may be more likely.
In many societies, children of one sex are valued more than the other.
104 S. Mays

It may often be males that are preferred, and when such societies practice
infanticide it may be female infants who are more often victims (Nordborg
1992). This may lead to skewed sex ratios. For example, in China and India,
where male offspring are traditionally preferred, males outnumber females
in historic (Caldwell and Caldwell 2005; Langer 1974; Lee et al. 1994) and
modern (Hesketh and Zhu 1997, 2006; Judson 1994) populations.
To investigate sex-specific infanticide we need to be able to determine
sex in infants. We cannot reliably sex infant or child skeletons from mor-
phological observations, but it can be done using ancient DNA. DNA study
of some of the perinatal infant skeletons from the Roman sites in Britain
that produced evidence for infanticide (Mays and Faerman 2001) showed
a sex balance statistically no different from 1:1, that is, no suggestion of
a sex bias in infanticide. However, at Ashkelon, more male than female
babies seem to have been killed (Faerman et al. 1998). This was thought
to be consistent with the functioning of the bathhouse as a brothel. In the
bisexual world of ancient Rome, both sexes were needed as prostitutes,
but the greater demand was for females. The courtesans of the bathhouse
may have selectively reared some of their offspring into their profession,
discarding the (mainly male) remainder.

Homicide of Children

Homicide rates in recent non-state societies vary greatly but are often
very high. Rates of more than 100 per 100,000 per annum (Knauft 1987)
have been documented, and Gat (1999) suggests that, on average, about
15 percent of adults in simple societies may die violently. This may offer
clues about possible homicide rates in prehistory. For the historic period,
it is only for the relatively recent past that written sources are adequate to
provide direct evidence of the frequency of homicide. Perhaps the earliest
to provide usable quantitative information are English late medieval legal
records. Sources from the thirteenth century suggest a homicide rate in
England of about 19 per 100,000 per annum (Given 1977: table 2). This is
much less than in most non-state societies but is still high compared with
modern figures: 1.35 for England and Wales (K. Smith et al. 2011). The four-
teenth century may have been more violent still, with a homicide rate for
London of about 3652 per 100,000 (Hanawalt 1976), about three times its
thirteenth-century level (Given 1977: 36).
If, as seems probable, homicide rates were high in many past societies,
how frequently were children the victims? Archaeological finds of children
The Bioarchaeology of the Homicide of Infants and Children 105

showing skeletal injuries are rare in most archaeological cemeteries (Lewis


2007: 169ff). In discussing this evidence, Lewis (2007) rightly points out
that the paucity of injuries in child remains may reflect difficulties in iden-
tifying trauma in the growing skeleton, and one should also recall that
many injuries sufficient to cause death will leave no mark on the bones.
However, it may be that in some societies at least, children were rarely vic-
tims of homicidal attack. In small-scale societies, even where rates of intra-
group violence are very high, killings may mainly or entirely involve adults
(Knauft 1987). Returning to our medieval historical data, in thirteenth-
century England only 1.8 percent of killings were of children (Given 1977).
In fourteenth-century Northamptonshire, deliberate child homicides were
less than 1 percent of the total (Hanawalt 1976). As in other periods, me-
dieval child skeletons showing evidence of homicidal violence are rare
(Lewis forthcoming). Although skeletal evidence and written sources each
have their biases and limitations, in the case of medieval England both
seem to suggest that, despite a high overall level of homicide in society,
children formed only a small proportion of victims. Homicide in medi-
eval England seems to have been to a large extent a collective endeavor in
which a man would enlist the help of relatives or friends to avenge a real or
imagined slight or, if from the upper classes, to eliminate a political rival
(Given 1977). Children, it seems, were largely beyond the purview of such
quarrels. On the rare occasions that they were murdered, the most usual
circumstance was that they happened to be at home when burglars called
(Hanawalt 1976; Given 1977: 117).
In some parts of the world, there is excess female mortality in children
across the age range (Caldwell and Caldwell 2005; Yount 2001). Today, the
most important cause appears to be preferential medical care for sons over
daughters (Yount 2001). Historically in such cases a more important factor,
given the ineffectual (and sometimes downright harmful) nature of early
medical care, was probably preferential nutrition for boys. Malnutrition in-
creases risk of mortality, either of itself or because it predisposes to disease
(WHO 2012). Some have equated increased risk of death by these means
with homicide (Johansson 1984).
It is only in the postmedieval period, with the systematic recording of
deaths and burials, that excess female childhood mortality can be studied
from written sources. Looking at European and North American evidence,
Johansson (1984) finds little evidence of excess female mortality before the
nineteenth century, but she does find it in the nineteenth century in colo-
nial America and, to a lesser extent, in parts of Europe, and connects this
106 S. Mays

with a trend toward devaluation of female labor. It would be interesting to


study the history of excess female childhood mortality directly in the skel-
etal record. This would require reliable sex determination of child skeletal
remains. As discussed earlier, this can potentially be achieved using DNA
analysis, but to use it on a scale that would allow the construction of sepa-
rate demographic profiles for male and female children would currently be
prohibitively time-consuming and costly. Improvements in technical pro-
cedures for extracting and studying ancient DNA may bring this within the
realms of possibility.

Child Sacrifice

Human sacrifice is the taking of life in a ritually prescribed manner. The


sacrifice is offered to a recipient, very often supernatural (Schultz 2010).
In some cultures, both adult and child sacrifices may be made. Human
remains, often with preserved soft tissue, are well-known finds from the
bogs of northern Europe (Dieck 1965; Glob 1969; Turner and Scaife 1995;
van der Sanden 1996). Their dates range from the Mesolithic age to recent
times, but about 40 percent are prehistoric (Turner and Briggs 1986: table
19). Most bog bodies are adult, but about 10 percent are children (Dieck
1965). Of the premedieval bodies, about one third show evidence for vio-
lent death, often in the form of garroting or strangulation, and there are
also often other signs of violent assault (Brothwell 1986; Dieck 1965; Glob
1969). The overkill in some of the bodies, plus the likelihood that watery
places held ritual significance during many periods in northern European
prehistory, has led most to agree that at least some bog bodies represent
human sacrifice (Ravn 2010). Children as well as adults may fall into this
category. For example, the preserved body of an 8- to 9-year-old boy, dat-
ing to 348113 BC, was found in a raised bog near Kayhausen in northern
Germany (Hayen 1964; van der Sanden 1996). The child had been tied up,
stabbed several times in the neck, and lowered into the bog.
Early Spanish chroniclers noted evidence for human sacrifice among
peoples they encountered in Central and South America. Some of these
ritual killings specifically involved child sacrifice. The capacocha ceremony
in the Inca Imperial period (late fifteenthearly sixteenth century AD) of
Andean South America is particularly well documented (Ceruti 2004; Re-
inhard and Ceruti 2010). It involved the sacrifice of infants and children to
the sun and other Inca deities. Children selected were generally offspring
The Bioarchaeology of the Homicide of Infants and Children 107

Table 5.1. Some Inca capacocha sites yielding mummified child remains
Mountain Elevation Sex, Age at Death Reference
Aconcagua 5,300 m Male, 7 yrs Ceruti 2004
Ampato 6,312 m Female, 1215 yrs Reinhard 1998a
Male, 812 yrs
Male, 812 yrs
Female, 812 yrs
Chachani 6,084 m Female, 15 yrs Reinhard and Ceruti 2010
Chani 5,896 m Unknown, 5 yrs Ceruti 2001
Chuscha 5,200 m Female, 8 yrs Panarello et al. 2003
El Plomo 5,420 m Male, 8 yrs Sanhueza et al. 2005
Esmeralda 900 m Female, 9 yrs Vreeland 1998
Female, 18 yrs
Llullaillaco 6,739 m Female, 15 yrs Reinhard and Stenzel 1999
Male, 7 yrs
Female, 6 yrs
Misti 5,822 m 6 infants/children Reinhard and Ceruti 2010
Pichu Pichu 5,630 m Male, 15 yrs Vreeland 1998
Female, 15 yrs
Female, 15 yrs
Quehuar 6,130 m Female, child Reinhard and Ceruti 2005
Sara Sara 5,500 m Female, 15 yrs Reinhard 1998b
Walla Walla 4,800 m Unknown, child Reinhard and Ceruti 2010

of local nobles. It was believed that sacrificed children would act as mes-
sengers, intermediaries between their community and the gods. Children
could be selected from anywhere in the empire, and, together with material
tribute, were taken to the Inca capital Cuzco, where feasting took place and
ceremonies were conducted. They were then taken to a place of sacrifice
(often a mountaintop), which could be thousands of kilometers from the
capital. They were killed by a blow to the head or by asphyxiation. Minimal
violence was used in order that nothing incomplete should be offered to the
gods.
Archaeological finds of capacocha sites have been made (table 5.1). Some
of the most informative have been located on high Andean peaks, where
the cold has resulted in mummification of the bodies. The study of these
and other lowland capacocha sites, where only skeletal remains survive,
has greatly enhanced our knowledge of the ritual. Radiography of the child
from El Plomo (Sanhueza et al. 2005) and the three bodies from Mount
108 S. Mays

Llullaillaco (Previgliano et al. 2003) demonstrated thick adipose tissue


and good muscular volume, indicating that they had been well nourished.
Analysis of gut contents showed that they continued to take nourishment
to within a few hours of death (Previgliano et al. 2003; Sanhueza et al.
2005). Analysis of nitrogen and carbon stable isotopes in hair and other
tissues from the mummies sheds further light on diet. All three Llullaillaco
children show increased animal protein in their diets in the year before
death (Wilson et al. 2007). There was also an increase in C4 protein (pre-
sumably maize) over the same period for the two Llullaillaco girls, and
also for the Chuscha girl (Panarello et al. 2003), although the Llullaillaco
boy and the girl from Sara Sara already had a high-C4 diet before this.
For the Llullaillaco girls, there was a further increase in C4 protein about
4.5 months before death. Given the distance from Cuzco, this may reflect
diet on their final journey, with reliance on maize and other foods stored
at way stations (Wilson et al. 2007). Oxygen and hydrogen isotopic data
suggested a highland origin for the Llullaillaco and Sara Sara individuals
(Wilson et al. 2007), whereas the Aconcagua boy came from a lower alti-
tude, only coming to high elevations very shortly prior to death (Sharp et
al. 2003). At the low-elevation capacocha site at Choquepukio, about 30 km
from Cuzco, a mass grave contained the skeletal remains of seven children
age 3 to 12 years. Analysis of strontium isotopes suggested that two were
of nonlocal origin, possibly from the Tiwanaku region of Bolivia and the
Ayacucho region of Peru. The others could have been local to the Cuzco
area (Andrushko et al. 2011). In summary, the isotopic work seems to sug-
gest a distinct diet for the capacocha children for as long as one year prior
to death and that they were of diverse origins.
Spanish colonial writers described child sacrifice in Mexico. Archaeo-
logical evidence sheds further light on the practice. For example, at the
Aztec temple at Tlatelolco, skeletal remains of forty-one individuals were
buried near an altar in the fifteenth century AD, accompanied by rich grave
goods. Thirty were subadults, ranging in age from 8 months to 16 years
(Guilliem 1999: 17273). The temple was dedicated to an Aztec god of wind
and rain, Ehectl-Quetzalcatl (Romn 1991; Romn and Chvez 2006).
DNA analysis (de la Cruz et al. 2008) suggested that most (perhaps all)
of the sacrificed were male. Ehectl-Quetzalcatl was one of several gods
of wind and rain depicted as diminutive male deities. Male children may
have been chosen for sacrifice because they would better personify Ehectl-
Quetzalcatl (de la Cruz et al. 2008).
The Bioarchaeology of the Homicide of Infants and Children 109

Human sacrifice was also part of Mayan religious tradition. Perhaps the
best-known sacrificial site is the sacred cenote (sink-hole) at Chichn Itz.
In Maya tradition, cenote are associated with rain gods. Dredging of the
cenote at Chichn Itz produced the remains of more than 100 individuals
(Anda 2007; Beck and Sievert 2005), of which more than half are children,
mainly age 4 to 12 years. Ethnohistoric accounts indicate that (as with the
Aztecs) children were favored as sacrifices to rain deities. At least some
of the children must have been killed prior to deposition in the cenote,
as some remains exhibited evidence of postmortem manipulations of the
bodies including dismemberment, defleshing, flaying, and heat exposure
(Anda 2007).
A recurring theme among those attempting to understand child sacrifice
in New World civilizations is the liminal position of children. They had yet
to be fully incorporated into the adult social world, and hence had greater
purity compared with adults. Child sacrifices may have been used by the
Inca because their purity made them more acceptable to the deities, and
care was taken to select those that were physically unblemished (Reinhard
and Ceruti 2010: 102). In Aztec culture, children may have been chosen
because their purity made them more able to communicate effectively with
the gods (Lopez Austin 1988: 286). Ardren (2011) discusses the concepts of
purity and liminality with reference to Mayan child sacrifice, particularly
at the cenote at Chichn Itz. In Mayan culture, identity in children was
not differentiated from their mothers until age 4 so that they embodied the
purity of the spirit world, and from that age purity gradually diminished
until, at puberty, they were integrated into the gendered world of adult so-
cial identity. At Chichn Itz, Ardren notes the preponderance of children
age 4 to 12. She connects this with an age of particular liminality when they
would have been especially able to mediate between the spirit and material
worlds.
Although it is clear that human sacrifice took place in some cultures in
Central and South America, other evidence is more controversial. Carthage
was a Phoenician colony on the North African coast until it was destroyed
in the second century BC by the Romans. Greco-Roman writers refer to
child sacrifice among the Carthaginians and describe immolation by fire
or else burning of the bodies of the sacrificed. For some (e.g., Stager and
Greene 2000) this is important evidence for child sacrifice. However, others
have emphasized that although the people of classical Rome tolerated in-
fanticide, they deplored human sacrifice, and the topic appears most often
110 S. Mays

in Roman literature in descriptions of foreign peoples, often as a way of


asserting their un-Roman (and hence uncivilized) nature (Schultz 2010).
This bias in written sources (Fantar 2000) has highlighted the importance
of the archaeological evidence regarding Carthaginian child sacrifice.
A tophet is a sacred place found in Phoenician colonies in the Mediter-
ranean basin with burials of burned remains of subadults. Excavations of a
large tophet at Carthage yielded burned skeletal remains of more than 500
subadults. Most of the Carthage tophet burials were not perinatal, so the P.
Smith and Kahila (1992) and Mays (1993) methods to detect homicide were
not applicable, but an analogous approach was used in which the age profile
of the burials was reconstructed in order to try to determine whether it dif-
fers from that expected of natural deaths.
Schwartz and colleagues (2010) estimated age at death of the Carthage
tophet burials using stages of dental calcification and from cranial and pel-
vic measurements. They found that ages ranged from fetal to 6 years old.
Most were less than 6 months old, and almost a quarter appeared to be
preterm fetuses, even allowing for up to 25 percent shrinkage in measure-
ments in the cremation process. Schwartz and colleagues (2010) argue that
preterm babies would not have been old enough to sacrifice or else would
have been born dead. They state that a high rate of stillbirths would be
expected naturally, and the high proportion of perinatal deaths resembles
that seen today. They conclude that the evidence is consistent with natural
deaths rather than systematic sacrifice of infants.
P. Smith and colleagues (2011) re-aged the Carthage infants by measur-
ing tooth length and petrous temporal bone dimensions, using published
data to correct for shrinkage during cremation. Their results suggested that
only 1 percent were preterm fetuses, 2 percent were aged between birth and
1 month, and 41 percent were between 1 and 1.5 months old. These results
are very different from those of Schwartz and colleagues (2010), with the
bulk of burials being rather older. P. Smith and colleagues (2011) argue that
Schwartzs team underestimated shrinkage of remains on cremation and
point out that tooth measurement is a more precise way of estimating age
than Schwartz and colleagues (2010) approach of comparing with stages of
dental development. P. Smith and colleagues (2011) argue that the paucity
of preterm infants and those in the first month of life is not expected if they
were natural deaths, so they conclude that sacrifice is more probable.
That two studies of the same material, taking similar approaches, could
come to diametrically opposed conclusions demonstrates the difficulties of
inferring deliberate homicide from skeletal demographic data, particularly
The Bioarchaeology of the Homicide of Infants and Children 111

from burned remains. Much of the discrepancy between the two studies is
related to differences in aging techniques and in the allowance made for
shrinkage of remains during cremation. It should also be noted that the
degree of firing of remains at Carthage was very variable (P. Smith et al.
2011: table 2). Shrinkage is dependent upon temperature of firing (Shipman
et al. 1984; Thompson 2005). Some of the variability in size of the tophet
bones and teeth doubtless reflects variability in firing as well as differences
in age, a factor not taken into account in either study.

War

War between state-level societies usually consists of formal battles be-


tween opposing armies. Until the advent of firearms and other high-tech
weaponry, the emphasis was on basic handheld weapons, and the physi-
cal strength and aggression of participants was an important factor in the
outcome, so young adult males predominated as participants. Although
formal battle occurs in warfare among non-state societies, it is not the pre-
dominant way these societies wage war; the predominant form is ambush
and raiding. Here a war party carries out a surprise attack on an enemy
village or ambushes a small group in the vicinity of an enemy settlement.
In these cases individuals encountered are usually killed indiscriminately
(Keeley 1996).
In formal battles between state societies, we would expect children and
women to be virtually absent among the casualties, but they should make up
a significant proportion of casualties of pre-state conflicts. Work by Bishop
and Knsel (2005) seems to confirm this. They found that mass burials
from historic battlefield sites were highly skewed toward adult males, but
that women and children were much better represented in prehistoric mass
graves.
Taking a similar approach to Bishop and Knsel (2005), I gathered ar-
chaeological skeletal age and sex data from the literature from mass graves
and from regular cemeteries with high frequencies of weapon trauma from
both state and pre-state societies. I calculated the subadult-to-adult ratio
and (among the adults) the female-to-male ratio (table 5.2). In the historic
battlefield sites, children are few, and those that were represented tended
to be in their teens. This seems to indicate that adolescents may sometimes
have been considered ready to participate in warfare. For example, in 1779 a
colonial military contingent was ambushed and killed by Indians near Fort
Laurens, Ohio. Among twenty-one skeletons from the Colonial force were
Table 5.2. Demographic composition of some burials associated with historic battles
and from prehistoric mass graves where skeletons show evidence of perimortal vio-
lence
Adult
Child-to- Female-to-
Site Date N Adult Ratio Male Ratio Reference
Burials associated with medieval and later battles
Towton, England AD 1461 38 0 0 Boylston et al.
2000
Snake Hill, On- AD 1812 28 0 0 Pfeiffer 1991
tario, Canada
Fort Laurens, AD 1779 21 0.11 0 Sciulli and
Ohio, USA Gramly 1989
Wisby, Gotland, AD 1361 1,085 0.01 0 Inglemark
Sweden 1939
Little Bighorn, AD 1876 43 0 0 Snow and Fitz-
Montana, USA patrick 1989;
Scott and Wil-
ley 1997
Uppsala, Sweden AD 1520 60 0 0.22 Kjellstrm
2005
epin, Croatia 15th cent. 22 0.16 0.58 laus et al.
AD 2010
Sandbjerget, AD 60 0 0 Bennike 1996
Denmark 13001350
Prehistoric mass burials
Eulau, Germany 26752495 13 1.60 1.50 Meyer et al.
BC 2009
Ofnet, Germany 73607720 38 1.53 2.0 Frayer 1997
BP
Crow Creek, 14th15th 486 0.86 0.82 Willey 1990
South Dakota, cent. AD
USA
Larsen Village, 18th cent. 71 0.51 0.59 Owsley et al.
South Dakota, AD 1977
USA
Castle Rock, Colo- 13th cent. 41 0.48 0.60 Kuckelman et
rado, USA AD al. 2002
Weatherill Cave 7, AD 400 61 0.17 0.38 Turner and
Utah, USA Turner 1999:
5965
The Bioarchaeology of the Homicide of Infants and Children 113

Battle Cave, Ari- 500 BCAD 11 0.33 0.17 Turner and


zona, USA 500 Turner 1999:
13341
Kogers Island, AD 22 0.16 0.46 Bridges 1996
Alabama, USA 12001500
Titri Hyk, 23002100 19 0.19 0.25 Erdal 2012
Turkey BC
Talheim, Germany c. 5000 BC 34 0.62 1.0 Wahl and
Knig 1987
Norris Farms, c. AD 1300 43 0.05 1.0 Milner et al.
Illinois, USA 1991
Scheltz, Austria 50534939 67 0.46 0.54 Teschler-Nic-
BC ola et al. 1999
Jebel Sahaba, 12,000 24 0.20 0.90 Wendorf 1968
Sudan 10,000 BC
Saunaktuk, North- AD 1370 35 2.18 - Melbye and
west Territories, Fairgrieve
Canada 1994
Notes: N = number of individuals, excluding those where sex and age was not recorded, MNI in the
case of commingled remains. Regular cemeteries containing a large proportion of burials with peri-
mortal violence. Entry criteria for table: N >10. Childrens ages ranged from birth to about 15 years,
generally.

two individuals age 12 to 15 years. The lower age limit for enlistment was 16
years, but this shows that those a little younger were nevertheless recruited
(Sciulli and Gramly 1989).
While somewhat variable, the proportion of non-adults in the prehis-
toric cases (table 5.2) is generally higher. In these cases, infants and very
young children are frequently included among the dead, indicating that
even those too young to be able to flee, let alone defend themselves, would
be killed. For example, the majority of prehistoric sites in table 5.2 (Ofnet,
Eulau, Scheltz, and Talheim in Europe; Titri Hyk in Asia; and Crow
Creek, Saunaktuk, Kogers Island, Battle Cave, and Norris Farms in North
America) included individuals under age 5 years, and a few (e.g., Crow
Creek, Scheltz) included perinatal infants. A similar level of violence may
be visited upon the very young as upon adults. At Ofnet and Talheim,
children as young as 3 years of age were bludgeoned to death with mul-
tiple blows. They may also show similar postmortem mutilations. At Crow
Creek all appear to have been scalped regardless of age, and the Ofnet in-
dividuals were all decapitated.
114 S. Mays

Despite all of this, the proportion of children among the prehistoric re-
mains in table 5.2 is highly variable, and some sites have rather few. In
non-state warfare, very few societies take male captives (Keeley 1996), but
women and children may sometimes be captured rather than killed on the
spot, a pattern seen, for example, in some historic North American Indian
groups (Ewers 1994). The taking of woman and child captives could be
another factor contributing to the low numbers of women and children in
some of the prehistoric mass burial sites. In general there is a positive cor-
relation between the proportion of children and the proportion of women
in the skeletal assemblages in table 5.2 (r = 0.85). This may be because in
many societies, womens roles mean that they tend to stay physically close
to their children, so raiding parties tend to catch them together, whereas
mens occupations are more separate. It may also be that societies that cap-
tured rather than killed women tended to do the same with children.
The historic sites in table 5.2 generally show low numbers of children,
but an exception is epin (fifteenth century, Croatia). Here there were three
juveniles among twenty-two individuals showing perimortal violence, in-
cluding one 4 to 10 years old and one 1 to 4 years old. The epin individuals
were likely casualties of a raid in AD 1441 by Turkish irregulars acting in
support of the Ottoman army (laus et al. 2010). The purpose of these ir-
regulars was to terrorize and disperse the enemy civilian population. This
carries echoes of the raiding that characterizes non-state warfare, and the
demographic signature of the casualties is fairly similar.

Discussion/Conclusion

Subadult human remains are the most direct archaeological evidence we


have for homicide of infants and children in the past. On occasion, re-
mains may show direct evidence, in the form of traumatic lesions, for death
through violence, but in many cases homicidal violence may leave no mark
on the skeleton. This is particularly true in the case of infants and young
children whose deaths may be readily caused with minimal violence by
smothering or other methods. Therefore, the bioarchaeological study of
child and infant homicide often requires indirect methods. If infant or
child deaths through homicide are sufficiently frequent, they may poten-
tially result in demographic profiles in skeletal remains that differ from
those expected of natural deaths. If those suffering violent deaths are ac-
corded non-normative burial treatment, then this too may aid the bioar-
chaeological identification of infant and child homicide.
The Bioarchaeology of the Homicide of Infants and Children 115

Study of subadult homicide in the past can potentially reveal much


about the nature of ancient violence and the social position of children in
early societies. The liminal position of children may be key to understand-
ing some aspects of child homicide. Withholding full personhood until a
child reaches some milestone of development may facilitate the practice of
infanticide, as the killing of very young individuals may not be viewed with
the same gravity as the homicide of an older individual. A childs liminal
position may also mean that he or she may be considered a particularly
suitable candidate for human sacrifice in cultures where religious or other
beliefs demand it. In other circumstances, the childs liminal position may
confer protection from homicide by adults. Because children have not been
incorporated into the adult social world of alliances and responsibilities,
they may lie outside the purview of political and other feuding that bedevils
many communities in both non-state and state social formations, so even
within highly violent societies children may be spared the results of intra-
communal violence. However, their special status may often be insufficient
to save them from the intercommunal raiding or massacres that frequently
attend warfare between non-state societies.

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6
Sense or Sensationalism?
Approaches to Explaining High Perinatal Mortality in the Past

Helen F. Gilmore and Sin E. Halcrow

The colonial mentality is dominated by a manichean allegory of white and black,


good and evil, salvation and damnation, civilization and savagery, superiority and
inferiority, intelligence and emotion, self and the other, subject and object.
JanMohamed 1983: 4

The modern disciplines of anthropology and archaeology emerged from


nineteenth-century interest generated by dark practices of exotic primi-
tive cultures, and social and scientific theories of race and evolutionism
in a period of sweeping imperialism and a belief in the supposed superior-
ity of European civilization. Although these views have long since been
comprehensively rejected, they have left a legacy of seeking difference in
human societies that has, at times, led researchers to favor the sensational
or unusual, rather than the mundane or more pragmatic explanations for
the evidence. This is particularly the case when considering the practice of
infanticide. This paper discusses the focus on the practice of infanticide,
and the evidence that has been presented for its occurrence in archaeologi-
cal contexts.
The identification of infanticide in archaeological contexts has caused
some debate as to whether it can be considered a valid interpretation based
on the evidence of high perinatal mortality peaks at prehistoric and historic
burial sites. A number of sites have shown a tight clustering of age-at-death
distribution at the gestational age of a full-term infant (38 to 40 weeks) (e.g.,
Bori and Stefanovi 2004; Halcrow et al. 2008; Smith and Kahila 1992;
Mays and Eyers 2011; Owsley and Jantz 1985; Mays 1993; Soren et al. 1995).
Mays and Eyers (2011: 1937) have argued that these perinatal age-at-death
124 H. F. Gilmore and S. E. Halcrow

distribution patterns are consistent with infanticide because they show


a marked contrast with the more evenly distributed age range expected
from so-called naturally occurring perinatal death, based on comparisons
with modern perinatal mortality data. However, newborn and postnew-
born infants had a high mortality rate in the past (Redfern 2007), so care is
needed when drawing conclusions from such evidence. Other researchers
have disagreed that this high mortality peak around full term is inevitably
an indicator of infanticide, arguing that contextual and cultural indicators
may contradict such an interpretation (Bori and Stefanovi 2004; Halcrow
et al. 2008).
Here we present an approach that investigates the interpretation of high
perinatal mortality distribution peaks in the past and consider the valid-
ity of archaeological interpretations of infanticide. Should infanticide be
considered the most plausible interpretation of a high incidence of peri-
natal death in archaeological sites, or is this an example of archaeologists
succumbing to the tabloid fascination (Davison 2001: 233) of the more
sensational cultural practices associated with other societies of the past?
We suggest that sociocultural context and ecological/environmental factors
should also be included when considering infanticide as an explanation,
and three essential questions need to be addressed: To what extent does the
contextual evidence from the site and the culture support the interpreta-
tion? Is the depositional context one that we might expect for infanticide?
What alternative reasons for this particular age-at-death distribution could
reasonably be considered? If infanticide is a possible scenario it is also im-
portant that we ask why? And how?
To consider these questions we review the practice of infanticide cross-
culturally and temporally; consider the various archaeological approaches
to, and interpretation of, infant mortality and age-at-death distribution;
and discuss two archaeological case studies, Ashkelon in Roman-period
Israel (Smith and Kahila 1992) and the Romano-British Hambleden Villa
site in Buckinghamshire (Mays and Eyers 2011). At both of these sites a high
clustering of perinatal mortality around full term has been considered in-
dicative of infanticide, with these interpretations generating a large amount
of public interest and comment through the popular media. We critically
evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the arguments and evidence pre-
sented in these studies, drawing on a range of documentary, ethnographic,
and archaeological sources to provide a wider reading of the age-at-death
distribution data within the cultural context.
Approaches to Explaining High Perinatal Mortality in the Past 125

Background

Infanticide has been practiced and documented in a wide range of cul-


tures through time, and it has been argued in anthropological texts to have
been a human practice and adaptive strategy to environmental, economic,
and social circumstances since the Pleistocene era (Hausfater and Hrdy
1984). Infanticide occurs in modern societies, often for similar reasons to
the past, including unwanted pregnancy (Resnick 1970). The practice of
infanticide in societies of the past and present, and its various forms and
perceived causes, has been the subject of extensive research from a range
of disciplines and perspectives. Anthropological, historical, ethnographic,
and clinical studies of infanticide have covered a diverse range of cultural
groups and environments, generally investigating the practice from the
perspectives of subsistence strategies, gender relationships, population
manipulation, cultural ideologies, and political power.

Methods of Infanticide

An understanding of how methods of infanticide, direct or indirect, overt


or covert, varied according to time, place, and circumstance is essential
to archaeological interpretation of perinatal remains as possible infanti-
cide victims. Langer (1974: 353) has cited methods including exposure,
starvation, strangulation, smothering, poisoning or . . . the use of some
lethal weapon. As the majority of these methods are unlikely to leave vis-
ible traces in the archaeological record, it is necessary to look for other
clues as to whether the cause of death was contrived or natural. The most
common methods for disposing of unwanted children in non-Christian
cultures were exposure or drowning, for which we have documentary
evidence from the Roman Empire (Parkin and Pomeroy 2007), classical
Greece (Garland 1990), premodern China (Mungello 2008), and Viking-
age Scandinavia (Wicker 1998).

Motives

It is important to understand the chief motives for the practice of infan-


ticide as it has occurred across time and space, as this can often provide a
clue for its interpretation in archaeological contexts. Infanticide often oc-
curred in cases where the infant was born weak or was physically deformed
(Cowlishaw 1978; Garland 1990). The sex of an infant was also an important
126 H. F. Gilmore and S. E. Halcrow

factor for many cultures. In general, historical sources and anthropological


studies show that a preference for sons over daughters, for both cultural
and practical reasons, resulted in a high proportion of female infanticide
victims (for example, Mungello 2008; Wicker 1998). Poverty and social
pressures have also been documented as causes for killing the newborn
(Langer 1974). From these examples, a reasonably clear picture emerges
of how and why infanticide was practiced cross-culturally and over time.

Infant Mortality and Infanticide in the Archaeological Record

Much can be learned about past societies by analyzing the age-at-death


distribution of infants and children, and interpreting these data in both
biological and social terms, such as health and demographic profiles, reli-
gious ideologies, and mortuary rituals (Tocheri et al. 2005). Infants are the
most biologically and socially vulnerable members of a community, as their
physical immaturity renders them susceptible to a range of environmental
health risks and their survival depends on adequate nurture, parental care,
and social acceptance. Consequently, an accurate assessment of their health
and well-being gives an indication of the relative success of a populations
biological and cultural adaptation to the challenges in its environment, as
well as providing information on maternal health and fertility rates and
cultural practices and values (Halcrow and Tayles 2011; Lewis and Gowland
2007; Redfern 2007).

Assessing Age-at-Death of Perinates from Archaeological Samples

Age-at-death distribution data are the basis on which infanticide argu-


ments are usually constructed (e.g., Mays 1993; Mays and Eyers 2011; Smith
and Kahila 1992). The gestational age of a fetus is calculated in weeks from
the date of the last monthly period, full term being 40 weeks (or ten lunar
months). Because the skeleton is actively growing, it is possible to achieve a
relatively high degree of accuracy in estimating skeletal age from the stages
of bone development (Fazekas and Ksa 1978; Scheuer and Black 2000).
Age estimates are generally based on measurements of long bone diaphy-
seal lengths correlated with recognized gestational age standards to pro-
duce an age-at-death distribution profile of the sample (e.g., Halcrow et al.
2008; Lewis and Gowland 2007; Mays 1993; Tocheri et al. 2005).
Mays (1993: 886) argues that there are no good biological reasons to
suggest that there was any marked difference in the overall pattern of infant
Approaches to Explaining High Perinatal Mortality in the Past 127

mortality in the past from that of the present. The comparison standards
that he and others have used to define a natural perinatal mortality rate
have been taken from Hoffman and colleagues (1974) of U.S. white chil-
dren born in 1968, and from Gibson and McKeown (1951) of live births in
Birmingham in 1947, and Butler and Alberman (1969) of singleton births
in the 1958 British Perinatal Mortality Survey. However, he acknowledges
that the medical interventions available today may have reduced the overall
numbers of individual neonatal deaths.
Direct archaeological evidence of infanticide is rarely physically trace-
able, and concentrations of perinatal remains do not necessarily indicate
that infanticide was the cause of death (Wicker 1998). Infant mortality rates
were generally high in the past, and a relatively high number of perinatal
deaths is normally expected in burial demography (Bourbou 2003; Hal-
crow et al. 2008; Owsley and Jantz 1985) and have been found in a large
number of burial samples. These include samples from the Argolid in the
Aegean (Angel 1971), Roman-period Britain (Mays 1993), southeast Eu-
rope (Bori and Stefanovi 2004), medieval and postmedieval England
(Lewis and Gowland 2007), postcontact indigenous populations in North
America (Owsley and Jantz 1985), and Neolithic Central Thailand (Hal-
crow et al. 2008). Although we accept that the tight clusters of perinatal
deaths in the age-at-death distribution data at the archaeological sites men-
tioned by Mays and Eyers (2011) show a statistically significant difference
when compared to the more evenly dispersed patterns of natural perina-
tal mortality, we question the validity of infanticide interpretations made
solely on this basis. As Parkin (1992: 80) has pointed out, such differences
in mortality patterns are less significant when considered in the context
of high-mortality regimes of the past than they might appear in a modern
low mortality context.

Causes of Perinatal Death

Birth and the first few days of life are a dangerous time for a baby, with the
risk of mortality being extremely high (Kelnar et al. 1995). Birth compli-
cations, maternal health factors, and the risk of disease are likely to have
increased the incidence of perinatal deaths and stillbirths in the past. Al-
though 38 gestational weeks has traditionally been considered full term
and is used as such in archaeological estimates, recent clinical literature has
established that morbidity and mortality are significantly increased in in-
fants born between 37 and 38 gestational weeks compared with those born
128 H. F. Gilmore and S. E. Halcrow

at 39 or 40 gestational weeks (Clark and Fleischman 2011). Babies born


at this earlier gestational age are automatically at increased risk, chiefly
owing to immaturity of lung development leading to respiratory distress
syndrome (Butler and Alberman 1969; Clark and Fleischman 2011).
Postpartum dangers include trauma, pneumonia due to infection of the
amniotic cavity (Redfern 2007), and respiratory distress syndrome, par-
ticularly for preterm or low-birthweight perinates, owing to the immaturity
of their lungs. Environmental hazards for the newborn include infections,
bathing in contaminated water, and tetanus due to the use of dirty instru-
ments (Kelnar et al. 1995; Redfern 2007).
Changes in social and environmental conditions over time can also lead
to changes in causes of infant death. When comparing neonatal mortality
between the Iron Age and Roman periods in samples from Dorset, Britain,
Redfern (2007) found that a change in cultural stressors and buffers af-
fected infant and child mortality risk and disease. Given the multitude of
risk factors that could influence the survivability of newborn and postnew-
born infants and the generally high mortality rate in past societies (Redfern
2007), we need to be careful of drawing conclusions of infanticide when a
high perinatal mortality rate is found.

Burial Context and Infant Persona

The burial context and the cemetery demography are important consider-
ations to be included in the interpretation of the cause of death. A variety of
locations and depositional rites have been accorded to the newborn dead,
ranging from inhumation in a general cemetery to seemingly casual placing
in isolated and unusual places. The nature of the burial can provide clues
as to the value given to the newborns life and death. Mortuary practices
and the cultural values and beliefs they represent can vary considerably. In
many cultures and times, burial locations for infants have not always been
designated cemeteries or burial grounds. In Greek and Roman cultures
it was a usual practice to bury infants under domestic buildings or adja-
cent to activity areas (Esmonde Cleary 2000; Kurtz and Boardman 1971;
Moore 2009). Their inclusion in adult cemeteries did not become common
practice until the fourth century AD, when Christianity became the official
religion of Rome (Soren and Soren 1995). The differentials of location and
degree of formality of infant burials are often associated with the age or
stage of development. (Esmonde Cleary 2000; Smith and Kahila 1992), and
in Roman society, where high infant mortality was an accepted fact of life,
Approaches to Explaining High Perinatal Mortality in the Past 129

emotional investment in a child was often withheld until it was certain that
it was likely to survive (Parkin 1992).

Case Studies

Ashkelon in Roman-period Israel (Smith and Kahila 1992) and the Ro-
mano-British Hambleden Villa site in Buckinghamshire (Mays and Eyers
2011) are two archaeological sites where infanticide has been interpreted to
have occurred based on a high clustering of perinatal mortality around full
term. Both sites have attracted a great deal of public interest and comment
through popular and social media. Here we evaluate the archaeological and
contextual evidence for infanticide at these sites in accordance with the
questions initially posed in this chapter: To what extent does evidence from
the site, the culture, and the depositional context support the interpreta-
tion? If infanticide is a possible scenario, why and how did it occur? What
alternative explanations could reasonably be considered?

Ashkelon
The skeletal remains of nearly a hundred infants were discovered in a sewer
beneath a bathhouse in the city of Ashkelon in Israel dating from the late
Romanearly Byzantine period, between the fourth and sixth centuries AD
(Stager 1991). From the claimed limited gestational age range and deposi-
tional context, it is argued that the sample comprised only perinatal in-
dividuals. However, their long bone length data showed that the sample
included perinates, preterm fetuses, and postneonatal infants (Smith and
Kahila 1992). The forming teeth showed traces of iron oxide staining in
the developing enamel, which, they argue, suggested that bleeding into the
oral tissues had occurred, indicating that asphyxia was the cause of death
(Smith and Kahila 1992). The incidence of pink teeth is a postmortem phe-
nomenon that has been associated with cases of asphyxia (Soriano et al.
2009). However, research has shown that it can also occur in circumstances
where there is no connection with asphyxia, such as damp postmortem
environments and the presence of fungi (Dye et al. 1995; Soriano et al.
2009). This potential evidence of suffocation, and the fact that the infants
appear to have been casually disposed of in a sewer rather than given care-
ful burial, may suggest that death by drowning or suffocation, known to be
common methods of infanticide practiced by the Romans, had occurred
for at least some of these.
Roman sewers were constructed on a large scale and carried sewage,
130 H. F. Gilmore and S. E. Halcrow

street runoff, and wastewater together, with several openings to them along
the streets (Hansen 2011). Wastewater from baths ran or drained to the
main sewer (Nielsen 1993). As the Ashkelon sewer is a fourth-century con-
struction, the infant remains are probably contemporary with the bath-
house (Rose 1997), but are they connected? There is no evidence to show
that the infants entered the sewer from the baths, and other possibilities
should be considered. The main purpose of a sewer is to carry away waste;
therefore its contents will flow. Consequently it is possible that the infants
were thrown into the sewer from one or more of the street openings. The
section under the bathhouse could have easily been a catchment area where
the remains collected with other debris.
Reasons and explanations for a high number of probable infanticide vic-
tims in this location have connected them to the bathhouse above the sewer
and suggest that the bathhouse was a brothel, the infants the unwanted
children of prostitutes. Admittedly, such an explanation has the sensation-
alism that matches the horror dimension of such a discovery. However,
there are a number of flaws in this reasoning. While large public baths
(thermae) catered to the general public and might have offered a range
of additional services and activities, including the services of courtesans,
smaller private bathhouses (balnea), similar to the one at Ashkelon, were
more likely to have hosted small social gatherings (Aldrete 2004).
The possibility that the Ashkelon bathhouse was a brothel was initially
considered by Stager (1991) as lamps with erotic motifs were found at the
site, but it was concluded that these were associated with the earlier villa
over which the bath had been built (Rose 1997). Many such decorated ob-
jects were commonly used in everyday life in Roman homes (Aldrete 2004).
These motifs have been reassociated with the bathhouse to support claims
that it was a brothel in the red-light district of Ashkelon (Faerman et al.
1998). However, it is difficult to believe that prostitutes would give birth in a
small bathhouse, or that they would allow any accidental pregnancy to pro-
ceed to term. Riddle and colleagues (1994) point out that a variety of meth-
ods of contraception and abortion were available to Roman women and
that prostitutes knew how to prevent pregnancies. Ancient DNA analysis of
forty-three left femora was undertaken to identify the sex of the infants. Of
the nineteen that provided results, fourteen were purportedly male and five
female (Faerman et al. 1998). The high rate of male infants in the sample
contradicts the historical accounts of preferential female infanticide in Ro-
man society and has been interpreted as selective preservation of females
to be reared as courtesans (Faerman et al. 1998).
Approaches to Explaining High Perinatal Mortality in the Past 131

Taking all the contextual evidence and bioarchaeological data into ac-
count, the Ashkelon study presents a case for considering infanticide as a
possible rather than probable cause of some of these deaths. Factors sup-
porting this are the number of perinates, the depositional context in waste-
water, and the fact that drowning is a known method of Roman infanticide.
In addition, the iron oxide traces in the forming teeth may suggest deliber-
ate suffocation, or drowning, although, as mentioned, this is not a reliable
indicator of the cause of death. On the other hand, several were premature
fetuses, unlikely to have survived birth, whose remains, as well as those of
stillborn infants, may have been disposed of in the most expedient manner
available. Nothing positively connects the bathhouse with the infants in the
sewer, and its association with their remains may well be coincidental.

Hambleden
The Yewden Roman villa site at Hambleden in Buckinghamshire, England,
is an archaeological celebrity, showcased by the BBC in 2010. It has its
own Facebook page and generates ongoing discussion and speculation in
the popular media. Much of the evidence has been reported through me-
dia channels rather than in academic publications. Consequently, fact and
fiction have become so intertwined regarding this discovery that it is as
well to examine the actual evidence that led Mays and Eyers (2011) to the
conclusion that infanticide was practiced at this site. The Hambleden site
has been identified as a sophisticated two corridor Roman villa (Percival
1990: 531). It was first excavated in 1912 by Alfred Heneage Cocks, who re-
ported the discovery of 103 burials, 97 of which were small infants, buried
under courtyards or walls on the north side of the site (Cocks 1921). The
infant bones were recently rediscovered in a museum archive after almost
a century.
The infant burials were not, as has been misreported, a mass grave but
ninety-seven single depositions that may have spanned a time period of
about 300 years of the villas occupation (Mays and Eyers 2011). Of these,
thirty-five have been analyzed and showed an overall gestational age esti-
mation range between 32 and 43 weeks, with the majority aged between
38 and 40 weeks. This was concluded to be of sufficient similarity to the
distribution data from Ashkelon to support an interpretation of infanti-
cide at Hambleden (Mays and Eyres 2011). Ancient DNA analysis is re-
ported to have found a normal sex ratio of about 1:1, indicating no sex
bias (Nadel 2011). Eyers, in interview (Parry 2011), has stated publicly that
the site was a brothel, and the infants the unwanted babies of prostitute
132 H. F. Gilmore and S. E. Halcrow

mothers. Although the villa was relatively isolated, she argues that there
is evidence for passing traffic, possibly customers, and suggests that the
deaths occurred within a fifty-year period from AD 150200. Alternatively,
the curator of the Buckinghamshire County Museum has suggested that
the site was a shrine-cum-birthing-place (Nadel 2011).
However, of the ninety-seven infant burials recorded by Cocks (1921),
only thirty-five individuals from the sample have been included in this re-
cent analysis, which calls into question the representativeness of the data
presented. Moreover, the deaths of ninety-seven infants, averaging one in
three years over a period of almost three centuries of the villas occupation,
is hardly a remarkably high mortality rate given the high infant mortality
rate of the period and the likely population of such an establishment, which
might have numbered as many as sixty people at any time over a period of
300 years inclusive of slaves, as well as additional local villagers working on
the estate (de la Bdoyre 2012).
None of the evidence suggests that if any or all of these infants were
deliberately killed it was a mass event, despite the more sensational head-
lines. According to the original reports, these infants had been accorded
proper, if simple burial in individual graves, in and around the buildings
and yard of the villa itself, which is, as mentioned, in keeping with histori-
cal accounts of the normal Roman burial custom for very young infants
(Esmonde Cleary 2000; Moore 2009). The recently published result of an
analysis of cut marks on the femur of one of the infants has concluded that
they appear consistent with the embryotomy of a dead fetus in a difficult
labor, which indicates that at least one of these burials was the result of a
birthing tragedy (Mays et al. forthcoming).
The burials at Hambleden are inconsistent with what is known about
Roman infanticide practices. As discussed, exposure and drowning were
the most usual methods employed, in which case we might expect to find
infant bones as haphazard scatters in middens, in remote areas of the land-
scape, or in wells or waterways, as has been the case in Scandinavia (Wicker
1998).
Mays and Eyers (2011) have compared the perinatal age-at-death dis-
tribution pattern of Hambleden to that of Ashkelon, which may have
prompted the attempts that have been made to construct a similar social
context. However, apart from the common factor of both being situated in
Roman provinces at about the same period, the sites, one an urban sewer,
the other a rural estate, and the deposition of the infant remains, are vastly
Approaches to Explaining High Perinatal Mortality in the Past 133

different. The proposal that the villa was a brothel, although definitely add-
ing to the popular charisma of the site and linking it with the Ashkelon the-
ories, appears to be based on the selective observations of historical pres-
entism. In fact, a Romano-British villa was essentially a wealthy private
estate. Nothing at the Hambleden villa suggests that it was anything other
than this (Percival 1990). The argument that these infants were killed by
prostitute mothers is the same as that made for the infant remains at Ash-
kelon, and for the same reasons can be dismissed as unlikely. Dead babies,
as Joyce (2011) has observed, are bad evidence for a Roman brothel. Joyce
(2011) argues that contraception was readily available in the Roman period.
Overall, on the archaeological evidence, this site appears likely to have
been occupied by people whose values were consistent with Roman at-
titudes to the death and burial of infants who were either stillborn or died
shortly after birth of natural causes. As has been discussed, there are many
clinical and environmental reasons for perinatal death, other than infan-
ticide. No direct or contextual evidence suggests that these infants were
routinely murdered at birth, or even that they were dying in high numbers,
given that, as noted, ninety-seven infant deaths over a few hundred years
does not suggest an abnormally high mortality rate. Rather, it suggests that
a number of newborn infants, who died of natural causes during the long
occupancy period of the villa, were buried in accordance with the normal
practice of the period. It is, of course, impossible to state that none of these
individuals was a victim of infanticide. However, the evidence has so far
suggested no apparent reason for wholesale infanticide at the villa. Essen-
tially, the interpretation of widespread infanticide at Hambleden based on
the Mays and Eyers (2011) study rests entirely on the discovery of a concen-
tration of full-term infant skeletal remains and a general assumption that
infanticide was regularly practiced throughout the Roman Empire.
Using the modern data as the model for natural infant death distri-
bution, Mays and Eyers (2011) have compared the age-at-death distribu-
tion of perinates at Hambleden and Ashkelon with the British medieval
cemetery site of Wharram Percy in North Yorkshire. Mays (1993) observed
that the Wharram Percy site exhibits a flatter, more natural infant mortal-
ity profile in contrast to Romano-British sites and to Ashkelon. However,
how representative of a natural perinatal mortality is the Wharram Percy
age-at-death distribution? The Wharram Percy infant mortality rate of 15
percent is low in terms of expected medieval infant mortality (Lewis 2002;
Waldron 1994), which may be an underrepresentation due to deficiencies
134 H. F. Gilmore and S. E. Halcrow

in the excavation recovery process (Mays 2007). The temporal difference


between pagan Roman and medieval Christian cultural practices and at-
titudes to infant death and burial should be considered, as well as temporal
changes in maternal health, environmental variables, and types of physical
activity that might influence the infant mortality rate.

Discussion/Conclusion

Documentary and ethnographic evidence supports the fact that infanticide


has been practiced in many parts of the world through time. However, it
should also be recognized that this does not necessarily mean that it has oc-
curred at a high frequency, or even at all, in every past culture or individual
community. As archaeologists we should be careful to avoid assuming a
general pattern from similarity in archaeological contexts, while ignoring
elements that do not fit the interpretation. There appears to be a certain
tendency within archaeology to opt for the sensational rather than the sen-
sible in interpreting the past, which has seen infanticide become a favored
explanation for abnormally high perinatal age-at-death distribution, re-
gardless of conflicting contextual evidence or the possibility of more prag-
matic causes of death. In this chapter we have considered the validity of
interpreting high perinatal mortality in archaeological sites as infanticide,
both in general terms and at two well-known infanticide sites, Ashkelon
and Hambleden. In each of these cases, a review of the contextual evidence
suggests that an interpretation of infanticide may be questioned, despite
the high perinatal mortality data. In both cases sensationalism appears to
have overtaken, and often distorted, the factual evidence.
We consider that an interpretation of infanticide should be based on
more evidence than gestational age-at-death distribution. Corroborative
evidence from an understanding of the site and the culture is essential, to
support the interpretation. High perinatal mortality rate may be significant
but does not in itself constitute an infallible indicator of infanticide.

Acknowledgments

We thank the editors of this volume for inviting us to contribute to it.


Approaches to Explaining High Perinatal Mortality in the Past 135

Note

Legally, infanticide refers to the deliberate killing of any infant under the
age of 12 months (Kellet 1992). In the archaeological examples presented
here, we use the term to refer to infant deaths around the time of birth, as
it has been argued that this was the most likely time for the killing of an
unwanted infant (Mays 1993). Strictly speaking, the proper term for this is
neonaticide, and it is considered by Resnick (1970: 1414) to be a separate
entity with distinct motives within the broader category of infanticide.

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7
A Disciplined Childhood in
Nineteenth-Century New York City
A Social Bioarchaeology of the Subadults
of the Spring Street Presbyterian Church

Meredith A. B. Ellis

Historical bioarchaeology is in a unique position to comment on both the


structuring institutions of childhood and the agency of children. Here I
explore such an embodied dialectic using the subadults excavated from the
burial vaults of the nineteenth-century Spring Street Presbyterian Church
in New York City. The subadult remains from this congregation include
ninety-one left tibiae from discrete individuals and hundreds of commin-
gled elements.
By recognizing that childhood was both defined by the structuring insti-
tutions in which the children were raised and also created and extended by
those children, we can place the skeletal remains back into their historical
narratives. Instead of only inferring behavior from remains, we can now
pair those inferences with recorded activities and begin to construct more
complex stories about life in the past. This ongoing study of the Spring
Street remains offers a challenge to bioarchaeological analyses of children
by illustrating the power of integrating social history, cultural landscapes,
and skeletal biology, and by reminding us that these domains cannot be
separated. In this chapter I will pay particular attention to the skeletal con-
dition of rickets to illustrate the benefits of this type of integrated approach.
The Spring Street Presbyterian Church opened in the Eighth Ward of
New York City in 1811 (figure 7.1). Over the next thirty-two years, the church
and its congregation would experience the rapid urbanization of the area,
an influx of migrant and immigrant families, the social changes associated
with the so-called Market Revolution, and the fervor of the Second Great
140 M.A.B. Ellis

Figure 7.1. Neighborhood of the Spring Street Presbyterian Church. Map courtesy of
Joseph Stall. Reprinted with permission from Ellis (2010, fig.1).

Awakening, a religious revival movement that swept through the United


States. The church would become politically active and radically anti-slav-
ery. It would find a place in the historical record as a target of the 1834 race
riots. And, during this same time period, the church would build and use
four burial vaults, interring some 300 individuals. Construction at the site
in 2006 inadvertently unearthed the four underground vaults.
The Spring Street Presbyterian Church opened its doors for worship after
two missionaries decided the hinterland of New York City needed its own
Presbyterian Church (Moment 1886). The congregation first came together
in rented rooms and then built a permanent structure that opened in 1811.
Archival research indicates that the land for the church was bought from
the Trinity Church corporation and was connected to a woman named Jane
who lived on the property and grew and sold fruit from orchards on the
land (Meade 2007). Just a few years later, the church was in the center of
the growing city, the target of anti-abolitionist riots and home to the urban
middle and working classes that lived in the area.
The Eighth Ward during the time of the church went from farmland
slowly being incorporated into urban street planning, to a middle-class
neighborhood, to a more urban and mixed-class community. The northern
A Disciplined Childhood in Nineteenth-Century New York City 141

parts of the Eighth Ward incorporated Greenwich Village, known as a quiet


residential area at the time and a location to which individuals fled during
the disease epidemic evacuations during the first part of the nineteenth
century (Homberger 2005). And yet the eastern portions of the ward had
several blocks of known prostitution, and the southern and eastern edges
bordered communities that had lower incomes and higher rates of tene-
ments (Homberger 2005). The Eighth Ward, then, was at the cross sec-
tion of middle-class and working-class realities, incorporating elements
of wealth and poverty and individuals from diverse aspects of New York
City life. It is this unique moment in New York City history, this transition
from rural to urban, that defines the Spring Street Presbyterian Church
during the use of its burial vaults. This was a dynamic time, as the city
and its people, and especially its families, were redefining themselves in
the new market economy and the evangelical energy of the Second Great
Awakening.
In the two decades that the burial vaults were in use (18201846), the
church pushed the boundaries of racial politics by engaging with the major
concerns of abolitionists, advocating for an end to segregated seating, of-
fering communion to all congregants, and calling for racial equality. One
historian of the church has noted, It has frequently been said of the Spring
Street Church that it has lived dangerously. It has certainly lived strenu-
ously and courageously. It has kept the faith, (Hintz 1951: 3). The churchs
politics during the 1820s and 1830s concur with such an assessment.
These abolitionist activities of the pastors were just some of the ideo-
logical paradigms with which the church and its congregants interacted. I
argue in this chapter that to fully understand the subadult remains of this
congregation, we must reconcile bodies with the social reality of life. The
particular social history of this church, tied up in its involvement with abo-
lition, the Second Great Awakening, and body reform movements, affected
the biology of the congregants. Embodiment offers a way of understand-
ing how the social becomes the biological and provides a way to bridge
archaeological and bioarchaeological analyses. Bodies, as Shilling argues,
are object[s] ordered by society, (2008: 2). Lock and Farquhar write that
since embodiment recognizes that bodies . . . are social, political, subjec-
tive, objective, discursive, narrative, and material all at once, (2007: 9),
the artificial divide between body and society can be bridged through an
embodiment perspective. Because of the plasticity of the skeleton, its abil-
ity to adapt, react, and develop according to the external forces acting on
it, Sofaer says, the pasts of people are sedimented in their bodies (2006:
142 M.A.B. Ellis

77). The embodiment approach asks researchers to collapse the duality of


mind and body, of physical and cultural, and to recognize that they cannot
and do not exist independently from each other but rather are a part of the
same processes.
The collapsing of the Cartesian mind/body divide has opened up new
ways of understanding the body in society, including examinations of
agency, diet, religion, education, modernity, and death (Shilling 1993).
Shilling argues that the utility of this is that the body is most profitably
conceptualized as an unfinished biological and social phenomenon which
is transformed, within certain limits, as a result of its entry into, and par-
ticipation in, society (Shilling 1993: 12). Importantly, Shilling also notes
that the body is both the recipient of social relations and the basis for social
relations: Social relations may take up and transform our embodied ca-
pacities in all manner of ways, but they still have a basis in human bodies
(Shilling 1993: 13). Shilling (1993: 199) creates a definition of embodiment
that is useful for this analysis:
1. The human body at birth is itself the product of evolutionary pro-
cesses which are affected by social as well as biological processes.
2. As the body develops it is taken up and transformed, within limits,
by social factors.
3. The body is not only affected by social relations but forms a basis
for and enters into the construction of social relationships.
The body, then, is not just a site of biological processes but also the site of
social relationships. In particular, children are a special subset of society
and are subject to specific rules and institutions, practices and disciplines,
that mold how environments affect them and how they respond. Children
exist in a world that is not fully of their creation. And yet, within that world,
children find ways to exercise agency and have varying abilities to do so.
Understanding both the structures that define childhood and the ways that
children manage their realities within those structures is an appropriate
challenge for anthropology. By recognizing that the mind of the child is
embodied and that children are acting based on their experiences just like
adults, children are no longer passive recipients of culture but rather part of
a social network in which they play a part (Toren 1993). From an anthro-
pological point of view, this model of mind demands a focus on children as
at once subjects and objects of history, and on the processes in and through
which they constitute their knowledge of the world (Toren 1993: 462). This
means turning to children as potential actors and seeing how they influence
A Disciplined Childhood in Nineteenth-Century New York City 143

and create their worlds along the continuum of their development. Within
the skeleton, the embodiment of sociality can help us access these individ-
ual histories. In turn, recognizing how children function within structure
can help us recognize the significance of skeletal signatures.

Materials and Methods

For this project, I define subadult as remains that range in age from fetal to
15.5 years. This age category is based on the historical record of the church,
which indicates that the church charged different prices for child and adult
burials. That price change occurred at age 15, indicating that, to the church,
age 15 represented the beginning of adulthood. Skeletal age was estimated
using dental calcification, long bone length, and epiphyseal fusion (Moor-
rees et al. 1963a, 1963b; Schaefer et al. 2009; Ubelaker 1989). Analysis has
been split between individuals and commingled elements, of which the
latter make up the majority of the collection. From this data, further in-
ferences about the life courses of the subadults can be made, including
patterns of growth, diet, disease, and activity. Here, however, I will focus
on the metabolic deficiency that manifests as rickets to illustrate how the
interaction of ideology and behavior with biology can shed light on the
lives of the children.
Rickets is a vitamin D deficiency that affects new bone. Lack of vitamin
D causes insufficient mineralization and leaves a recognizable signature on
the skeleton (Mays et al. 2009). Vitamin D is acquired from two sources:
consumption of foods such as the fat of some animal products (Steinbock
1976) and fish oils (Roberts and Manchester 2005). Most vitamin D, how-
ever, is synthesized by ultraviolet rays (Roberts and Manchester 2005).
UVB radiation is absorbed by the skin by 7-dehydrocholesterol (Holick
2008). This means that poor diet and insufficient exposure to sunlight are
both contributing factors to vitamin D deficiency.
The failure of new bone to mineralize causes visible changes to the skel-
etons of subadults. The rapid turnover of subadult bone means that un-
mineralized bone can build up very quickly. This unmineralized bone is
weakened and bone deforms under the weight of a child, resulting in a suite
of skeletal signatures. The most obvious skeletal signature is bowed long
bones from crawling or walking children, as the soft bone bends under the
weight (figure 7.2). This bowing includes compression of the surfaces of the
bone under pressure, which leaves behind porosity. The fact that childrens
bone is growing fairly rapidly means that the metaphyses, or growth plates,
Left: Figure 7.2. Bowed
femorae and tibiae of
Individual YYY. Photo
courtesy of Anthony
Faulkner.

Below: Figure 7.3. Flared


and expanded metaphysis
of tibia from Individual
EEE. Photo courtesy of
Anthony Faulkner. Re-
printed with permission
from Ellis (2010, fig. 5).
A Disciplined Childhood in Nineteenth-Century New York City 145

Figure 7.4. Porous and expanded rib from Individual EEE. Photo courtesy of Anthony
Faulkner.

of long bones can also be affected, and they can expand, deform, and fray
(Brickley and Ives 2008; Mays et al. 2009) (figure 7.3). The sternal ends of
ribs can likewise show expansion and resorption, and in cases of severely
weakened bone structure, rib fractures can occur (figure 7.4). The growth
of the ilium is also often affected, resulting in an elongated and deformed
element (Mays et al. 2006). Finally, the buildup of unmineralized bone can
result in elements that are preserved in the archaeological record with little
to no cortical bone, leaving the bone with a porous or spongy appearance
(Brickley and Ives 2008) (figure 7.4).
Individual elements were scored for the presence of rickets based on the
presence of diagnostic features, including flaring, expansion, and resorp-
tion of metaphyses; cupping, compression, and fracturing of metaphyses;
bowing of diaphyses; widespread porosity of cortical bone; and porosity
along the surface under compression (see also Ellis 2010). Individuals were
likewise scored for the presence of rickets based on these features. All ele-
ments were coded using the Smithsonians Massacred/Cannibalized Re-
mains coding system because of the commingled nature of the collection
(Owsley et al. 1995).

Results

Given the historical settingone of a rapid shift to urbanization and indus-


trializationwhat should we expect to see in the subadult remains? Com-
parative studies suggest that we should find children dying young as well as
146 M.A.B. Ellis

Figure 7.5. Age-at-death distribution of the subadults of the Spring Street Presbyterian
Church. Reprinted with permission from Ellis (2010, fig. 2).

suffering from numerous metabolic deficiencies. This is indeed borne out


in the subadult remains from Spring Street (figure 7.5). Of the ninety-one
subadult tibiae, seventy-two, or 79.12 percent, are aged 6.5 years or younger.
Of those, thirty, or 41.67 percent, are infants (newborn through 1.5 years).
Only thirteen subadults, or 14.29 percent, are between ages 6.5 and 15.5
years. This distribution fits expectations that children were dying at a young
age, when they were most vulnerable to epidemic diseases, infectious dis-
eases, and, as per the cluster in the first year to two years of life, weaning
diseases (see also Ellis 2010). In the Coroners Reports: New York City, 1823
1842 (Scott 1989), the most commonly listed cause of death for children
was drowning, followed by suffocation and burning. Additional categories
include a variety of infectious diseases and unknown illnesses, particularly
for the young (Scott 1989). One third of all deaths in the city were children
under age 2 (Duffy 1968). In 1816, out of 2,739 deaths, 600 were recorded
as deaths of children under age 2. In 1825, that number jumped to 1,495
children under age 2 out of 5,018 recorded deaths (Duffy 1968). The annual
average death rate for children under age 5, between 1815 and 1819, was
952, and that number climbed to 1,291 in 18301834 (Duffy 1968). The age
distribution of the children buried at Spring Street fits these demographics.
Urban living provided children and families with many challenges in-
cluding dietary deficiencies, as evidenced by the presences of rickets, ane-
mia, and scurvy in the remains. The subadults from the Spring Street Pres-
byterian Church burial vaults in particular have very high rates of rickets.
A Disciplined Childhood in Nineteenth-Century New York City 147

Table 7.1. Incidence of rickets in subadults

Total Number Total Number Subadults


Site Name Dates of Individuals of Subadults with Rickets
Spring Street Presbyte- 18201843 ~300 91 (left tibiae) 29 (31.87%)
rian Church
Christ Church, Spital- 17271859 938 187 20 (10.7%)
fields, England
St. Martins Church, 1800s 857 164 21 (12.8%)
Birmingham, England
First African Baptist 18251842 135 60 1 (1.7%)
Church, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania
Monroe County Poor- 18261863 296 67 N/A
house Cemetery, New
York
Sources: Reeve and Adams 1993; Higgins and Sirianni 1995; Rankin-Hill 1997; Mays et al. 2006, 2009;
Brickley 2006.

Of the ninety-one left tibiae, twenty-nine, or 31.87 percent, exhibit char-


acteristics consistent with rickets. Just over half of those elements (n = 15)
have bowing, porosity, and metaphyseal flaring and resorption. In addition,
four tibiae show a complete lack of calcification of osteoid, resulting in an
element that is rough and porous. Also present were two tibiae with com-
pression fractures of the proximal metaphyses along with other diagnostic
features of rickets.
Compared to other contemporaneous skeletal series, this is especially
high. Christs Church in Spitalfields, England, for instance, has a rickets
rate of 10.7 percent (Reeve and Adams 1993). St. Martins Church in Bir-
mingham, England, has a rickets rate of 12.8 percent (Brickley 2006; Mays
et al. 2006, 2009), and the First African Baptist Church in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, has a rickets rate of 1.7 percent (Rankin-Hill 1997) (see table
7.1). What accounts for this disparity?

Discussion

Traditionally, vitamin D deficiency has been considered a hallmark of ur-


banization. Movement toward working indoors, clustering in cities, and
148 M.A.B. Ellis

pollution leading to inadequate access to sunlight are undoubtedly impor-


tant factors. It should be noted that New York City, at a latitude of 40 degrees
and a longitude of 74 degrees, gets an average of 2,557 hours of sunlight in a
year (Brickley and Ives 2008: 7780). Adults, on average, need somewhere
around five minutes of sunlight a day, or thirty hours of sunlight a year,
to maintain vitamin D synthesis. Children need even less (Brickley and
Ives 2008: 7780). New York City receives inadequate levels of sunlight
for consistent, year-round vitamin D synthesis from sunlight only. This is
complicated by issues of cloud cover, architecture, and cultural practices of
clothing choice (Brickley and Ives 2008). And yet when the rates of rickets
at Spring Street are compared to other urban sites with similar latitudes,
cultural practices, and rates of industrialization, the subadults from Spring
Street still have a much higher rate of rickets (see table 7.1). What else might
account for this trend?
This is where we must return to the historical context of the church and
understand how these people were living and moving about their landscape.
While the Eighth Ward, the neighborhood that surrounds the church, had
some middle-class areas on its northern borders, the majority of the ward
was of mixed class and race and was continuing to urbanize as middle fami-
lies and elites increasingly moved north (Homberger 2005). Spring Street
itself was urban, with docks at one end and houses of prostitution at the
other (see figure 7.1). The docks also hosted a market (Common Council
of New York City 1931) and were dumping locations for trash, animal car-
casses, and waste. Up until around 1818, a tannery and glue factory was
present on Spring Street (Dietz and Dietz 1914). Among the occupations of
those who lived on the street were butchers, blacksmiths, carpenters, cart-
men, grocers, masons, cabinetmakers, and accountants (Common Council
of New York City 1931). These types of occupations put the congregants of
the church squarely in the new middle class and the emerging working
class.
This diversity of households in the congregation and ward meant that
a wide variety of childhoods were also being experienced by the children
of the church. Historian Steven Mintz notes that this time period saw the
largest range in childhood experiences, from the small number of upper-
and middle-class children, to the working-class and poor children, to child
slaves and indentured servants. Childhood experiences were regional as
well, varying by the economy of their given location (Mintz 2004). In cities,
unlike in rural areas, the economy encouraged child labor in factories and
mills. As Mintz (2004: 136) notes, While the Industrial Revolution did not
A Disciplined Childhood in Nineteenth-Century New York City 149

invent child labor, it did make child labor more visible by removing child
and teenage workers from domestic settings. The household economy of
the 1700s was replaced by a manufacturing economy, and children were a
part of that change. The influx of poor immigrants during this time period
also added to the number of children working for wages or, in many cases,
living on the streets (Cable 1975).
For the new middle class, emphasis for children was on education, and
the literature on the subject continued to blossom, shifting its emphasis
toward mothers and their duties (Cable 1975). With the advent of public
schools in the 1820s and the early stages of formalized education, there was
also a sudden increase in Sunday schools. Parents were encouraged to dress
their children in loose-fitting, gender-neutral clothes that would be light
and airy and allow them free movement (Cable 1975). These children were
raised in a very different world, and thus with different access to sunlight,
than children in working-class families.
Children in working-class and poor families often needed to contribute
to the household in some fashion. Whether they were working in factories,
joining their mothers on the streets forag[ing] for manufacturing wastes
nails and screws, old rope, broken glass, shreds of cotton plucked from
wharves where southern packets docked for resale (Burrows and Wallace
1999: 477), or resorting to crime and loitering as apprenticeship positions
disappeared, the children of the poor often worked from a young age in
a variety of settings. The children of the congregation would have had a
variety of experiences that could have affected their access to sunlight.
Physical landscape alone, therefore, cannot completely reconcile the
elevated frequency of subadult rickets, as the physical landscape of these
children would have ranged from indoor to outdoor labor and from in-
door sheltering to outdoor education. It is quite possible that the ideology
of the church influenced the biology of the congregants. I am particularly
interested in the church as a structuring institution, as the faith, pastors,
and community would have been proscribing beliefs, behavior, and even
dietary practices that influenced childhood. Religion, as Mellor and Shil-
ling (1997) argue, uses the body to create and control the religious experi-
ence. The Christian preoccupation with the body begins with using the
body as a metaphorthe body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, the
body of the church, the baptism of the body into the faith, and so onand
continues on to use the body as site of reformation and control (Mellor and
Shilling 1997). These practices include controlling the diet through fasting
and body reform; controlling behaviors such as sex, social relationships,
150 M.A.B. Ellis

and discipline, for both adults and children; and controlling emotions, such
as creating the sublime experience in Catholic rites or the attempt to curb
such emotions in some Protestant denominations (Mellor and Shilling
1997). My research seeks to understand how these types of behaviors were
embodied by the children in the congregation.
One of the factors that affect the incidence of rickets is the fact that the
churchs ideologies surround its stance on race. Since rickets is also influ-
enced by the amount of melanin in the skin, that is, skin color, a church
with an integrated congregation may see higher rates of the condition. The
church, during the twenty-six years of the burial vaults, was caught up in
radical religious and ideological shifts. The church leaders and congregants
reacted to this by becoming active in local and national abolitionist move-
ments that were calling for the immediate emancipation of all slaves. The
church was experimenting with desegregated seating, and, based on pre-
liminary observations, desegregated burials. The ideology of the church
and racially mixed makeup of the ward suggests that those of African de-
scent are present in the burials and could help account for the high number
of cases of rickets. Assessment of such correlations is awaiting DNA results.
An additional factor that can contribute to vitamin D deficiency is diet,
and the church may have influenced dietary practices. Besides abolition
politics, there is archival data that suggests that the church was involved in
other reform movements (Abzug 1994). The church was active in promot-
ing Sabbatarianism, or the idea that no work should be done and no stores
open on the Sabbath. At least three of the four pastors during this time were
espousing gender roles consistent with the cult of domesticity, the idea that
the women should be home raising and educating the children and out of
the public sphere. The church was directly involved in tract distribution to
the poor, in temperance campaigns, and in the Sunday school movement.
And there is tantalizing evidence that the pastors of the church were con-
nected to Sylvester Graham and his body reform movement (Abzug 1994).
This movement was reacting to both the emerging market economy and
conceptions of moral impurity. Grahamites, as they were called, were sup-
posed to shun commercially made bread and eat only bread made at home
from special graham flour (a precursor to todays modern graham crack-
ers). Additionally, meat, hot foods, and beverages other than water were to
be avoided. Finally, in the most extreme cases, eating was to be restricted to
the bare minimum necessary to survive (Abzug 1994). A testimonial from
a woman who grew up on one of these restricted diets notes that she was
allowed to eat only bread and vegetables and dr[i]nk water. . . . we became
A Disciplined Childhood in Nineteenth-Century New York City 151

more dyspeptic, however, and, of course, thought we must diet more rig-
idly; we partook of but one meal in twenty-four hours, and this consisted of
a thin slice of bread, about three inches square, without water. . . . Thus we
passed most of our early years, as many can attest, in hunger, pain, weak-
ness, and starvation (Griffith 2004: 75). This is a tantalizing bit of evidence
given the high rate of rickets among the subadults.
The church was undoubtedly promoting beliefs about behavior, race,
and diet directly to children both in services and in its Sunday school edu-
cation program. This program included an infant class, which historical
research suggests was aimed at young children, at least from age 4 and up.
At one time it was noted that this class had one hundred participants and
was mixed race (Moment 1886: 1315).
We also have to keep in mind that the pastors were responsible for in-
structing parents on how to raise their children. The Reverend Samuel
Hansen Cox of Spring Street gave a sermon celebrating the opening of an-
other churchs Sunday school in 1823 during which he said children were
like twigs to be nurtured into blossoming adults, and that they are at the
happiest moment of human life, and when the mind is susceptible of im-
pression (Celebration 1824: 29). Reverend Henry G. Ludlow, eleven years
later, gave a sermon at the church on the need to punish and chastise chil-
dren, saying How can a parent dare to refuse chastisement to a refractory
child? I know it is painful, but God knew it too when he enjoined the duty.
And are you kinder than God? Are you so fearful of inflicting pain, which
endures for a few moments only, and you do not wish to save his soul from
eternal hell? (Ludlow 1834: 9). While these two pastors are espousing dif-
ferent ideas about the nature of childhood, both are stressing children as
individuals that need active childrearing and sheltering from immorality,
either through moderating their own behaviors or through exposing them
to ideas through education.

Conclusion

This historical narrative, I argue, is needed to more fully understand some-


thing like the exceptionally high rate of rickets in the subadult population.
Assuming that urbanization explains this and other metabolic conditions
neglects to recognize that the bodies of the children were also being molded
by ideasideas about how to behave, when to work, what to eat, where to
live, and how to worshipideas that were controlled by their parents and
influenced by structural institutions such as the church.
152 M.A.B. Ellis

From this we must consider how the power of ideas influenced the bod-
ies of the children. The high rate of rickets seen in this collection is not eas-
ily explained by any one factor, but rather by taking into consideration all
of the factors that contribute to rickets and all of the ideological and behav-
ioral practices of the congregation. Likely some combination of the factors
described here resulted in the prevalence of rickets among the children. To
ignore such factors in an analysis is to do a disservice to the particular his-
tory of this group of people and to fail to fully flesh out their stories.
And yet, while we can explore all of the social forces acting on the chil-
dren, we must also not forget that children too were actors. Can we see
how children negotiated life in the church? The following story shows how
childhood agency can indeed be found in the historical record and influ-
ence our understanding of these bodies. The story was told by the Reverend
Henry Ludlow at a meeting of the American Tract Society (Eighth Annual
Meeting 1833). Ludlow said:
One little boy, four or five years old, saw, as he passed to and from
his school, a man who kept his store open on the Sabbath. One day
he saw the man standing in the door, and went up to him and said
Sir, you ought not to keep your door open to-day.
Why? said the man.
Because it is wicked, sir.
How do you know that? said he.
Because God says, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
The man turned and went in; he could not stand the force of an
infants reproof. Soon after, the child came to his teacher for a Tract
on keeping the Sabbath, to give to the man.
I argue that this is an excellent illustration of childhood agency within the
structure of the church. While it is clear that the church is instructing chil-
dren in the ideology of Sabbatarianism, it is of the childs own volition that
he becomes a missionary, not only engaging an adult in conversation but
also returning back to the man with a tract for him to read. Surely the child
is imitating adult behavior, but he is also actively engaging with and per-
petuating the habitus (Bourdieu 1977) within which he is situated, taking
the moral message he has learned (stores should be closed on the Sabbath)
and turning it into physical action (talking to the man; bringing him a
tract). He is acting here as a social agent of the church, not a passive object
on which the church is acting. It also highlights for us that, by age 4 or 5,
children in the church were playing adult roles, shaping their habitus. So
A Disciplined Childhood in Nineteenth-Century New York City 153

while the data on rickets illustrates how the church may have subjected
children to structures, we can see in this vignette how children may have
been responding to these structures and perpetuating them in their com-
munity. From this vignette, we have a picture of a disciplined childhood,
which may stand in contrast to the many other kinds of childhoods being
experienced in New York City at this time.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to the editors of this volume for the invitation to be a part of
such a wonderful collection. A special thank you to Shannon Novak for
her guidance on this project and article. Thank you to David Pultz and
the Presbytery of New York for their support of this research. Funding for
this project was provided by Syracuse University, the Maxwell School, and
Roscoe-Martin. Resources were provided by AKRF/URS Corporation and
Tom Crist. A special thank-you to SANA and the St. Clair Drake Travel
Award committee for the travel grant that allowed this to be presented at
the 2011 American Anthropological Association Meetings. Thank you to
the Biological Anthropology Section of the American Anthropological As-
sociation for the 2011 Student Paper Prize. Photographs courtesy of An-
thony Faulkner. Map courtesy of Joseph Stoll.

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III
The Working Child
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8
Childhood, Colonialism, and Nation-Building
Child Labor in Virginia and New York

Autumn Barrett

This study investigates the role of childhood labor in Virginia and New York
during the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. Free and enslaved children
comprised part of the labor forces that built the economies and stability
of these former European colonies and, later, the nation-state. Childhood
and adulthood, as conceptual products of the European enlightenment,
were employed by European colonizers to justify exploitation. Europeans
defined colonial subjects as perpetual children, devoid of full rationality
and, therefore, in need of rule (Baker 1998; Mehta 1997). Childhood, within
the European colonial project, served as a metaphor for formative and cul-
tivable terrain, complementing McClintocks (1995) analysis of colonial ter-
ritories as empty frontiers.
Within colonies and nations, childhood became a site for intervention,
a space for enculturating colonial and national subjectivities and repro-
ducing unequal power relationships (Davin 1997; Stoler 1997, [1995] 2000,
2002). While the European and Western infantilizing of adult colonial
subjects has been much discussed (see Baker 1998; Nandy 1983), this study
focuses on the European constructions of childhood and privilege as they
were enacted by adults in relationship to children in the British colonies of
Virginia and New York. Europeans justified colonization and exploitation
through a civilizing mission, posited as aiding colonized peoples never
able to reach rational adulthood and always in a state of perpetual child-
hood. However, actions surrounding developing individuals, subadults,
demonstrate that non-elite developing individuals did not experience the
privilege accorded by childhood to their elite counterparts, and these ex-
periences were further patterned by constructions of race and gender. This
study investigates the contexts within which subadults were identified and
160 A. Barrett

treated as children, or not; by whom and for whom these distinctions were
made; and the material realities shaped by these distinctions.

The European Discovery of Childhood

Aris (1962) argues that childhood, as a separate and distinct time of life,
began to emerge in Europe after the thirteenth century, becoming fully
conceptualized during the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Childhood
became a special and morally innocent period of life, whereas, previously,
European children had been viewed as small adults (Aris 1962). Children,
within this framework, required distinct care and preparation through
coddling, moral discipline, and education in order to prepare them for
adulthood (Aris 1962). Childhood as a special period of life was first em-
braced by the upper classes but spread over time to encompass all classes in
European and Western societies (Aris 1962; Stephens 1995).
Education and scholastic endeavors began to replace apprenticeship as
the focus of preparation for adulthood. Aris (1962) argues that the first
part of the nineteenth century may have experienced a regression due to
the employment of children in the textile industry. Within Europe, labor
became acceptable for lower-class children, while education and breed-
ing were the occupations deemed appropriate for privileged children
(Locke [1693] 2007; Mehta 1997). Examples from Virginia and New York
demonstrate how these European distinctions were enacted within North
American Colonial and early national contexts.
The documentary record provides evidence of the cultural ideologies
that informed European practices within the metropole and colony. In-
denture contracts demonstrate how adult actions patterned access to re-
sources among indentured children. From a biocultural perspective, these
documentary sources sketch the sociocultural and ideological contexts in
which indentured and enslaved children labored within Colonial and post-
Colonial Virginia and New York. The material implications of European
cultural constructions of childhood, class, race, and gender are borne out
in the lives of non-elite children. Europeans and European Americans jus-
tified slavery by claiming the inhumanity of Africans (Blakey 2001, 2009;
Douglass 1854). The remains of enslaved men, women, and children within
New Yorks African Burial Ground (NYABG) bear witness to the African
lived experience of European and European American dehumanizing prac-
tices, of slavery, and of forced labor. Colonial laws restricted the movement
of Africans and African Americans, including prohibitions on gathering
Childhood, Colonialism, and Nation-Building 161

together to bury their dead. In this context, the African Burial Ground
is a testament to the risk Africans took to bury their loved ones (Blakey
1998; Medford 2009; Perry et al. 2009). The act of burial and the care with
which each individual was interred were acts of defiance, asserting their
own humanity and the humanity of their dead, the majority of whom were
children (Blakey and Rankin-Hill 2009).

Childhood and the Reproduction of a Laboring Class in Virginia

The original English colonists were recognized by the king as extending the
boundaries of England while also demarcating boundaries of Englishness.
King James I, in a decree dated April 10, 1606 declares:
I. James, by the grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France, and
Ireland, Defender of the Faith & c. Whereas our loving and well-dis-
posed subjects, [list of names of adventurers], gentlemen, and diverse
others of our loving subjects, have been humble suitors to us, that we
would vouchsafe unto them our license, to make habitation, planta-
tion, and to deduce a colony of sundry of our people into that part of
America, commonly called Virginia, and other parts and territories
in America, either appertaining unto us, or which are not now actu-
ally possessed by any christian prince or people . . . (Hening [1823]
1969, vol. 1: 57).
The king refers to the colonists as adventurers of and for our city of
London to whom he granted permission to exploit all resources available
in the territory for the purpose of founding a colony of sundry of our
peoplea diverse mixture of English people envisioned as populating the
colony of Virginia. The listing of the adventurers of and for England was
hierarchically delineated by title. For King James I, Virginia was within
his domain because it had no Christian prince or people. The king alludes
to, while not overtly acknowledging, Native Americans. King James also
referred to children within this charter, revealing his vision for the colony,
including an English identity for the future colonists. He ensures that all
colonial children are entitled to the privileges of British subjects (Hening
[1823] 1969, vol. 1: 64). Shared English identity is contrasted with the rank-
ing of notables, gentlemen and diverse others. From Virginias earliest
Colonial period, a social hierarchy was created, enforced within the laws
and codes applied to the colony.
Virginia was vulnerable, and to ensure the colonys viability it needed a
162 A. Barrett

reproducible physical labor force as well as the increased potential for pop-
ulation growth. Toward this end, one hundred children from the streets
of London (Ballagh 1895) were deported to Virginia in 1619 to provide
labor, to sanitize London society, and to infuse the colony with the growth
potential that these children embodied. In 1627, 1,500 children were sent
to Virginia (Smith [1947] 1965). This project, initiated in proposals that
began in 1609, followed the Portuguese model of sending children to labor
in colonies, and was perceived by its British funders as a moral, charitable,
and social campaign (Smith [1947] 1965). A collection was taken in the
early 1640s for transplanting various poor and fatherless children of the
kingdom who were out of work (Smith [1947] 1965: 150). This statement
further attests to the employment of poor children in the British labor
force.
England viewed children from the streets as burdensome and danger-
ous (Smith [1947] 1965: 138). These children were fatherless, were unem-
ployed, and posed a threat to social order. Their removal was perceived as
socially beneficial and particularly convenient to the labor needs of the
Colonial planters, and, in turn, the metropole. The terms under which
the children would exit their indentureship also provided a future class of
adult, non-elite tenants to work for and pay rent to the planters. There is no
indication as to how these children were removed from London. From the
streets implies displaced children with nowhere to go. However, Panter-
Brick (2002) critiques the use of the term street children in her studies of
contemporary children, arguing that it obscures the social networks and
various living situations within which impoverished children live. Panter-
Bricks (2002) work evokes a far more complex lived experience than the
image of street children as starving and waiting to be rescued and raises
questions regarding the circumstances surrounding the physical removal
and transplantation of street children from London to Virginia. Later
conscription of child labor in Virginia sheds light on acceptable practices
for removing poor children from their homes.
A 1646 act by King Charles I acknowledged the abundance of children in
the colony as a blessing from God. He then established a system for bind-
ing out poor children in need of breeding to be indentured servants in
order to become good adults by learning honest and profitable trades
(Hening [1823] 1969: 336). The act also establishes a system of labor con-
scription for a public flax house. Referencing English precedent according
to the aforesayd laudable custom in the kingdom of England, commission-
ers were to choose two children from each county to be sent to work in a
Childhood, Colonialism, and Nation-Building 163

public flax house and live in public housing constructed for the children
(Hening [1823] 1969: 336). Though the justices and the commissioners were
to select children at their discretion, they were encouraged to remove
children from families with parents who by reason of their poverty are
disabled to maintaine and educate them (Hening [1823] 1969: 337). One
apparent reason for the act, however, stems from parental resistance to hav-
ing their children removed from the home, for in prefacing the investment
of authority in the commissioners, the king states, but foreasmuch as for
the most part the parents, either through fond indulgence or perverse ob-
stinancy, are most averse and unwilling to parte with theire children, Be it
therefore inacted. . . . (Hening [1823] 1969: 336). The moral well-being of
poor children is woven into language justifying their removal from poor
homes: to avoyd sloath and idlenesse and to improve the honor and the
reputation of the country, and noe lesse their owne good and theire parents
comfort (Hening [1823] 1969: 336). The children selected to work in the
flax house were to be no younger than seven or eight years old. This exam-
ple is similar to the charitable initiatives for sanitizing the streets of Lon-
don. As Smedley (2007) has demonstrated in her study of the emergence
of the idea of race, processes applied within the metropole were extended
and applied within the colony and continued into the national period.
In 1655, colonial initiatives attempted to civilize Native Americans by
introducing the concept of private property through exchange. As part of
this program, Native American parents were to bring their children to Eng-
lish authorities for placement within English colonial homes as gages of
their [Native American] good and quiet intentions to us and amity with
us (Hening [1823] 1969, vol. 1: 396). If Native American parents brought
their children, the parents were promised the ability to choose the families
with whom their child would be placed and that the families will not use
them as slaves, but do their best to bring them up in Christianity, civility
and knowledge of necessary trades (Hening [1823] 1969, vol. 1: 396). This
mandate deemed Native American children as property for exchange and
served to dissuade Native American uprisings. The act also conveys an im-
plied threat: should a parent fail to bring the child for placement, the child
would be removed and used as a slave rather than an indentured servant,
though labor is expected in both cases.

Enslaved Children, Labor, and Wealth in Virginia


A second group of newcomers arrived during the same year that Virginia
received the first group of children from London. In 1619, approximately
164 A. Barrett

twenty Africans arrived in Virginia and quickly entered the labor force.
Gomez (1998) states that a singular status cannot be applied to all of the
earliest Africans in Virginiasome were free, while others were inden-
tured servants or enslaved. However, in the years following 1619, Virginia
elites increasingly relied on enslaved African laborers to build the colonys
economic wealth and stability.
Children of African descent, as progeny and property, became the sub-
jects of contest as early as 1640. When two people of African descent had
a child, difference in freedom status could be grounds for a legal dispute.
John Gravolere, a free servant of African descent, fathered a child with
an enslaved woman of African descent. Gravolere had to file suit to gain
permission from the court to buy his son from the mothers enslaver. The
court granted him permission to purchase his own son. This court decision
highlights the conflict between acknowledging the humanity of Africans as
parents and children and a racist ideology that justified slavery, thus allow-
ing for one parent and her child to be property (Boskin 1976) and forcing
a father to buy his child. In 1662, because of the ambiguities exemplified in
the Gravolere case and the increasing number of children of mixed Euro-
pean and African descent, a law was passed that the status of the mother
determined the status of her child. Prior to this act, the freedom status of
the father was usually the precedent for the childs status (Boskin 1976). The
increase in the number of enslaved children also increased labor capital for
the elite within Virginia as a colony, and as a new nation.
Carter Burwell, a prominent Virginia landholder, no longer had to pur-
chase enslaved laborers after (circa) 1745 because of the survival of enslaved
children that offset the deaths among the enslaved. Between 1745 and
1756, Burwells enslaved labor force almost doubled from 50 to 96 people.
By 1786, after the American War of Independence, Burwell claimed 156
people (Colonial Williamsburg Foundation 1999: 301). Thomas Jefferson
noted the value of children to enslavers by stating, I consider a woman
who brings a child every two years as more profitable than the best man
on the farm . . . what she produces is an addition to capital (quoted in
King [1995] 1997: 147). In 1819, Roger More Riddick reported the value
of an infant at twenty-five dollars, the value of an eighteen-month-old at
eighty dollars, and the value of a three-year-old at one hundred fifty dollars
(King [1995] 1997). More than tripling from infancy to toddler, and almost
doubling between eighteen months and three years, the monetary value of
enslaved children increased as they became able to labor and survived to
promise the return of future labor.
Childhood, Colonialism, and Nation-Building 165

Enslaved children began work at early ages and could be required to


complete the same tasks that adults performed, mostly domestic and field
work, with some children learning a skilled trade (King [1995] 1997). King
([1995] 1997: 41) notes the essential role that enslaved children served by
stating that even a cursory look at historical data shows that children made
large contributions to the nations economic growth. Their work was static
only in the sense that they were destined to toil as soon as they were useful,
and it continued until they were useless. Schwartz, in her study of enslaved
children in the antebellum southern United States, states, by the age of
seven or eight, boys and girls could perform a variety of chores compe-
tently, and by age ten or twelve, most were capable of working alongside
adults in the field (2000: 132).
Enslaved children in Virginia did not experience the childhood reserved
for elite children. European colonials and European Americans accounted
and exchanged enslaved children as property, their value being their ability
to produce labor and increase labor capital. Christians (1800) report to a
plantation owner, Francis Jerdone, states, lost a little negro last week about
8 months old with whooping cough. The following year, Christian (1801)
lists the number of barrels of corn available for sale and the small size of
the hogs that year and that we have lost two little negros this Fall, three
horses with a distemper this Summer thoe they were of the oldest two of
them useless from age. When referred to in documents, the word child is
rarely used for children of African descent. Rather, the racial term negro is
more often used, importing the attendant racist ideologies that excluded
negros from being fully human, reducing men, women, and children to
their labor capacity, alongside the livestock reports.
The use of the term negro often implied enslaved status within nine-
teenth-century documents in Virginia. Free people of African descent
were marked as such to distinguish them from the normative negro,
who was enslaved. In an 1840 court case in Norfolk County, Virginia, a
judge ordered that the indebted estate inherited by three orphaned chil-
dren of European descent be paid by selling the eldest enslaved child of
the negro Simmon. The three orphaned children are referred to as infant
children . . . of an age too young to have been bound out or apprenticed
(Norfolk County Court Records 1840). Given that during this time period
in Virginia, free children of African descent were being bound out as young
as 2 years, it is unlikely that at least one of the three siblings was not at
least 2 years old. Infant in the indenture documents refers to children
under age 14 years. Enslaved and free children of African descent were
166 A. Barrett

deemed able to work at ages considered too young for children of European
descent.
Thomas Jefferson requested advice from John L. Ravenscroft of Lunen-
burg County, Virginia, regarding the type of labor required for spinning
machinery. Ravenscroft replied, in 1812, stating that my machinery now at
work in my sights are all together conducted & worked by negroes . . . some
of them being under 5 years of age; we spin any size of cotton yarn wanted
for clothing either for mysel, the labouring hands or the house (Ravens-
croft 1812). Ravenscroft goes further to describe the roving mechanism that
is learned by any chap of 7 or 8 years of age, the [roving] frame is distinct
and separate and requires one of the same age (Ravenscroft 1812). Only the
spinning is operated by a girl of 16, and he lauds the machines ability to
ensure that the quality of the yarn is entirely out of her control (Raven-
scroft 1812). The childrens capabilities are transformed into proof of the
inventors mechanical ingenuity.
African and African American parents resisted these dehumanizing
gazes of enslavers and the broader European American society. A piece
of correspondence written in 1854 by Iverson L. Twyman, a Virginia phy-
sician, demonstrates these juxtaposing values over a European American
orphan and an enslaved African American child. Twyman often wrote to
his wife, expressing concern regarding their childrens upbringing, empha-
sizing that his son, in particular, must be properly educated in order to
prepare for adulthood. However, in 1854, Twyman writes to Thomas Aus-
tin, expressing his distress over an enslaved child who has been taken away
for sale. The man who took her away was reported to have been drunk and
claimed that he was taking her home to have her valued [quotations and
emphasis in the original] (Twyman 1854). It is a matter which the world
would say does not concern me, but I cannot stand still & see orphan chil-
dren wronged out of [their] rights, Twyman (1854) declares. The little girl,
whom Twyman believes to be named Molly, is the property of an orphan
child, and it is the orphan child for whom Twyman is concerned. Mollys
mother made Twyman aware that Molly was taken away by sending a gift
with Twyman to be given to Molly through Twymans negroes. Mollys
absence raised questions and led Twyman to learn of the aforementioned
incidents. Mollys mother strategically used Twyman to intervene in her
daughters sale. However, Twyman is acting on behalf of the orphaned
child, in jeopardy of losing Molly, as property, to a thief. Twymans discus-
sion of his own children emerges in stark contrast within his correspon-
dence and concern about the vulnerable estate of a young orphan and the
Childhood, Colonialism, and Nation-Building 167

discussion of Molly as property. The mothers assertion of Mollys value, as


daughter and child, is clearcontradicting the dehumanizing actions and
language of the European American men within this interaction.

Childhood and Enslaved Labor in New York

From the earliest years of Dutch colonial presence in New Amsterdam,


enslaved African laborers were intrinsic to the colonys success, comprising
40 percent of the population in 1626. The colony came under British control
in 1664 and became New York. The NYABG population represents the lives
and deaths of enslaved Africans who labored within colonial New York in
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Those interred include Africans
forced to migrate as well as African descendants born into the condition of
slavery. More than 400 individuals were excavated and assessed; however,
the total cemetery population is estimated to be 15,000 (Blakey 2010; see
also Blakey and Rankin-Hill 2009). Among the excavated individuals for
whom age could be determined, more than 40.75 percent were subadults
(ages 6 months to 14.9 years). More than half (55.3 percent) of these chil-
dren died by age 2 years (Rankin-Hill et al. 2009). For those who survived
infancy, high levels of infection and disease were recorded, with peaks in
the age range 1 to 5 years (Null et al. 2009). Among children with deciduous
dentition, 85 percent have hypoplastic dental enamel defects, indicating
high levels of systemic stress (Barrett and Blakey 2011; Blakey et al. 2009a).
Young enslaved children in New York engaged in labor and were of-
ten sold beginning at age 6 (Medford 2009). European slaveholders fears
heightened between the mid- and late eighteenth century as a result of a 1712
slave revolt and the discovery of a planned revolt in 1741. By then, however,
the trade in human captives between the British and Spanish colonies had
ceased. Since adult enslaved men from the Caribbean were considered to
be the strategists behind the revolt and the conspiracy, enslavers increased
their demand for direct importation of African women and children, who
were perceived as less threatening (Blakey 2009; Epperson 1999; Foote 1991;
Goode-Null 2002; Kruger 1985; Lydon 1978). As Medford argues, child la-
bor was integral to colonial New Yorks labor force and for enslavers pref-
erence for compliant workers (Medford 2009: 118). Medford provides the
example of John Watts, a prominent New York merchant and councilor in
the 1760s, who stated: For this market, [enslaved laborers] must be young,
the younger the better if not quite children, those advanced in years will
never do . . . (Watts, quoted in Medford 2009: 118; Perry et al. 2009). The
168 A. Barrett

definition of child being employed by Watts is not clear. Definitions of child


versus adult as applied to enslaved people vacillated in eighteenth-century
New York. In fact, New York census data from 1731 and 17371738 listed
10-year-old enslaved individuals as adults, although prior to 1731 and af-
ter 17371738 adult enslaved people were those over age 15 (Barrett and
Blakey 2011; Blakey et al. 2009a; Goode-Null 2002). Jea provides an ex-
ample of continued importation of young African children throughout the
eighteenth century. Jea was born in Old Callabar in 1773, where he was
kidnapped and enslaved at age 2 and taken to North America and, finally,
New York (Jea 1998). Jea gained his freedom as a young adult but describes
his life as an enslaved child, recalling when he was 8 and 9 years old, going
hungry and experiencing violence (Jea 1998).
Children were deemed essential to the growth and success of British
colonies and the growth of the newly formed United States. Childhood was
a site for reproducing class- and race-based labor relations and access to
resources. The present study now turns to investigate how European con-
structs of childhood and race were enacted by elite adults and experienced
by non-elite free and enslaved children in Virginia and New York.

Materials and Methods

Virginia
Soon after the United States severed Colonial ties, Overseers of the Poor
were vested with the authority to remove children from homes and bind
them out through indenture contracts (Hening [1823] 1969, vol. 10: 289),
continuing the positions held by colonial officials. Indenture contracts
from the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries demonstrate
continuity in form and content for indenture contracts in England, the
colony, and the state of Virginia. Each document provides the contractual
obligations of the party to whom the child is indentured, the terms under
which the apprentice will serve and the skill to be taught by the Master.
Indenture documents literally made spaces and places for race, class,
and gender in the blanks left for identifiers such as name, sex, age, and oc-
cupation. Race, however, does not refer only to the notations of a child as
negro or of colour or mulatto, but also to the unmarked category of
white that is implied as the normative category in the absence of notation.
By the first half of the nineteenth century, ideas of racial difference and hi-
erarchy were legitimized through scientific racism, supporting normative
Childhood, Colonialism, and Nation-Building 169

standards of invisible whiteness and humanness (Blakey 1999a, 1999b).


Unequal access to resources was routinely established for children of Afri-
can descent in the United States, using racial distinctions.
A catalogue of 163 Virginia indenture documents dating from 1804
to 1858 are used for comparisons between the age at which children en-
tered into indenture, the occupation in which they were engaged (scored
as skilled or domestic/agricultural), and the length of servitude. Analysis
of patterns according to gender and race were assessed. These patterns of
labor among poor, free children in Virginia during early nationhood are
compared to data on enslaved childrens labor. Documentary results are
further discussed in relation to skeletal evidence of labor among subadults
within colonial New Yorks African Burial Ground population.

New York

Hypertrophic muscle and ligament attachments/insertions are areas of in-


creased robusticity due to repeated and/or strenuous muscle use. Enthe-
sopathies are lesions or spiculed bone formations at the point of muscle
and ligament attachments/insertions (see Capasso et al. 1999; Wilczak et al.
2009). The present study analyzes data from the NYABG skeletal pathol-
ogy database. Hypertrophies and enthesopathies in the NYABG skeletal
population were recorded by osteologists of the NYABG Project as present
or absent, scoring the degree as (1) barely discernible or (2) clearly present
(Blakey et al. 2009b; Wilczak et al. 2009), degree scores following Buikstra
and Ubelaker (1994) (see figure 8.1). Most of the recording and coding was
done by a single osteologist (M. Cassandra Hill). The NYABG project data-
bases are housed at the W. Montague Cobb Laboratory, Howard University,
and the Institute for Historical Biology, The College of William and Mary.
Presence of musculoskeletal stress markers (MSMs) on the arms, legs, and
pectoral girdle were recorded among the NYABG subadults for whom age
and a temporal designation could be assessed (n = 99). The present analysis
analyzes hypertrophies and enthesopathies of the lineae asperae as indica-
tors of labor-related stress, observing relative frequencies across time using
the temporal groupings assigned to burials by the NYABG Project archae-
ologists (Howson et al. 2009). The temporal groups include an Early Period
(late seventeenth century to approximately 1735, n = 49); a Middle Period
(approximately 1735 to 1760, n = 186); a Late Middle Period (approximately
176076, n = 55) and a Late Period (1776 to 1794, n = 114). Temporal as-
signments were based on burial context and stratigraphy, grave-related
170 A. Barrett

Figure 8.1. New York African Burial Ground Project subadult recordation examples (a)
hypertrophy absent; (b) hypertrophy present, severity 1 (barely discernible); (c) hyper-
trophy present, severity 2 (clearly discernible).

artifacts, and coffin style (Howson et al. 2009). Subadults, for this study,
are defined as individuals aged 6 months to 14.9 years according to meth-
odologies outlined by Buikstra and Ubelaker (1994).
An analysis of occupational stress among adults within the NYABG
showed high levels of MSMs in men and women across age groups, with
an increase in frequencies among adults who died at older ages (Wilczak
et al. 2009). Men and women, young and old, worked intensively during
their lifetimes. As Wilczak and colleagues (2009) note, an increase in MSM
frequency with age is consistent with the accretion of stress markers (and
severity) over a lifetime. However, younger adults in the age range 15 to 24
years evinced high levels of stress with marked hypertrophies and enthe-
sopathies, though at lower frequencies than older individuals (Wilczak et
al. 2009).
Past studies of MSMs have focused on adult populations, with a few
studies explaining their exclusion of subadults because of the rapid cel-
lular turnover and the observation that MSMs generally demonstrate an
accumulation of occupational stress over time (Hawkey and Merbs 1995;
Wilczak et al. 2009). Wilczak and colleagues (2009) state that the frequency
and severity of MSMs among the NYABG 15- to 25-year-olds, particularly
among males, indicate that muscle and ligament attachments under the
Childhood, Colonialism, and Nation-Building 171

greatest strain may develop quite rapidly (Wilczak et al. 2009: 214). Fur-
thermore, the authors pose that alternatively, or in conjunction with high
stress and rapid development, [these data] may indicate full integration at a
very young age for males into the adult enslaved labor force, giving ample
time for hypertrophy and stress lesion formation(Wilczak et al. 2009: 214).
The present study builds on this observation to investigate the presence
of labor indicators among the subadults of this population, interpreting
these indicators in conjunction with the documentary record of enslaved
childrens labor.
For this study, presence of MSMs is defined as a muscular hypertrophy
and or enthesopathy on the left or right femur, including severities 1 (barely
observable) and 2 (clearly discernible). Observable femora were defined
as having 75 percent or more of the proximal and middle third of the di-
aphysis with preservation status allowing observation. Using these criteria,
nineteen subadults were observable.

Results

Virginia
Steckel (1996), using narratives of former enslaved people and probate re-
cords, calculated that 48 percent of enslaved children in North America be-
gan to work before age 7, and 84 percent before age 11. Most narratives re-
corded enslaved children as working by age 14. As children, approximately
50 percent of the males worked in the field versus 20 percent of the females.
However, 44 percent of the males versus 53 percent of the females worked
by age 7. As adults, 75 percent of the males were laborers and 25 percent
were skilled in a craft, whereas 80 percent of the women were field laborers
and 20 percent were servants and seamstresses (Steckel 1996).
Among the Virginia indenture contracts analyzed for this study, occupa-
tions were scored as skilled and domestic/agricultural. Skilled occupa-
tions included blacksmith, boat builder, bricklaying, and plastering; cabinet
maker; carpenter (including house and ship carpenters); carriage maker;
caulker; chair and gig maker; clerk; edge tool maker; engine maker; house
joiner; mariner; painter; saddler; sailor; seamstress; weaver; shoe/boot
maker; slater and plasterer; spinstress and weaver; tailor; wagon maker;
wheel wright; and windsor chair maker. Domestic/agricultural occupations
included farmer, house servant, waiter, hostler, menial duties servant, and
houseworker. The status of a child was recorded, such as orphan, bastard,
172 A. Barrett

Table 8.1. A comparison of Steckels (1996) labor statistics for enslaved children
in North America and free, indentured children in nineteenth-century Virginia
Enslaved Children Indentured Children (N = 145)
Laboring by age 7 48% 11.7% (n = 19); 57.9% (n = 11)a
Laboring by age 11 84% 44.1% (n = 64); 65.6% (n = 42)a
Laboring by age 14 83% 64.8% (n = 94); 57.4% (n = 54)a

Note: a. African American children

free boy, free girl, of colour, negro. The ages at which children entered into
servitude ranged from 2 to 19 years. Girls were indentured until age 18, boys
until age 21.
Ages at the time of indenture were recorded in 145 of the 163 contracts
analyzed. While Steckel reports 48 percent of enslaved children working
by age 7, among the Virginia indentured children, 11.7 percent (n = 19)
were indentured younger than age 7. However, 58 percent (n = 11) of the
youngest children were of African descent. This trend continues (see table
8.1), where indentured children overall are not as young when entering
into labor as enslaved children, but free African American children are
more highly represented, comprising the majority of children indentured
at young ages (including the youngest indentured child, age 2).
The majority of indentured boys and girls were of African descent. How-
ever, the majority of girls were of African descent and the majority of boys
were of European descent (see table 8.2). While only 18.2 percent (n = 12)
of the boys of European descent were assigned to house servant and/or
farming occupations, 82.6 percent (n = 38) of the boys of African descent
were assigned these occupations. This relationship is inverted when look-
ing at the assignment of skilled occupations (see table 8.3). The majority of
boys of European descent (81.8 percent, n = 54) were taught occupations
such as engine maker, house joiner, court clerk, blacksmith, windsor chair
maker, cabinet maker, shoe maker, wheelwright, bricklayer, and tailor. This
is contrasted by only 17.4 percent (n = 8) of the boys of African descent be-
ing assigned occupations other than farming and servant, which included
shingle getter, carpenter, mariner, husbandry, hostler, and house joiner.
Among girls, those of African descent were most likely to be assigned
to house servant and/or farming occupations (83.8 percent, n = 31) in
comparison with 64.3 percent (n = 9) of the girls of European descent.
Childhood, Colonialism, and Nation-Building 173

Table 8.2. Nineteenth-century Virginia indenture contracts by gender and race (n = 163)

Total Girls 31% (n = 51) Total Boys 69% (n = 112)


Girls, African descent 72.5% (n = 37) Boys, African descent 41.1% (n = 46)
Girls, European descent 27.5% (n = 14) Boys, European descent 58.9% (n = 66)

Table 8.3. Nineteenth-century Virginia indentured occupations by gender and


race (n = 163)
House Servant and/or Farmer Skilled Occupations
Total Boys 30.7% (n = 50) 38% (n = 62)
African Descent 82.6% (n = 38) 17.4% (n = 8)
European Descent 18.2% (n = 12) 81.8% (n = 54)
Total Girls 23.9% (n = 40) 6.7% (n = 11)
African Descent 83.8% (n = 31) 16.2% (n = 6)
European Descent 64.3% (n = 9) 35.7% (n = 5)

Housekeeping was the most frequent occupation assigned to girls of Afri-


can and European descent, though girls of African descent were assigned
farming labor in 10.8 percent (n = 4) of the cases. Girls of European descent
were never assigned farming labor. In relation to skilled occupations, 35.7
percent of girls of European descent learned skills such as sewing, knit-
ting, seamstress, weaving, milliner and mantua maker, and husbandry. In
contrast, 16.2 percent (n = 6) of girls of African descent were taught skilled
occupations, including spinning, weaving, and seamstress.
Boys of European descent were provided educational provisions, while
no boys or girls of African descent were provided education. Indeed,
where a template indenture contract was used, educational provisions were
crossed out for children marked as of colour or negro. Only two girls
of European descent were given educational provisions in their contracts.
Children of African descent represent the majority of indentured chil-
dren and the majority of domestic/agricultural occupational assignments
and were not provided education. Occupations were gendered in ways
that placed girls and boys of African descent in overlapping roles, such as
farmer and house servant. Girls of European and African descent shared
some gendered occupations, though girls of African descent were less likely
to be taught skilled occupations and girls of European descent were not
assigned farming labor. Boys of European descent, however, were the most
distinct in the variety and types of occupations they were taught, as well as
174 A. Barrett

in their access to education. These patterns reflect ideologies of white male


supremacy, affecting access to education, labor, and occupational train-
ing during childhood. Occupational preparations, in turn, would affect
the economic opportunities available to these children as they entered the
adult labor market.

New York
The African Burial Ground of New York spans the British colonial period
in the late seventeenth century, to 1794, the early national period. Among
the 101 subadults for whom age at death could be determined, 17 (16.8 per-
cent) have MSMs including hypertrophic muscle and ligament attachments
and/or enthesopathies. However, there are no incidents of MSMs in chil-
dren among the age groups between 0.5 and 3.99 years. The appearance of
MSMs in children beginning at age 4 may represent being forced to labor,
with some children engaged in strenuous labor. Although the sample size
is small (n = 19), the presence of MSMs at such young ages prompts closer
scrutiny and interpretation, in relationship with historical and cultural
contexts.
Relative frequencies were assessed by observing presence and absence
of MSMs on the left or right femur of subadults between ages 4 and 14.9
years in the NYABG population. Among this observable sample (n = 19),
the highest frequency of MSMs was found in the Early Period (100 percent,
n = 1), with lower frequencies within the Early Middle Period (28.6 percent,
n = 2) and Middle Period (25 percent, n = 1) and increasing frequencies in
the Late Period (57.1 percent, n = 4) (see figure 8.2).
The vacillating criteria for child/adult distinctions applied by European
colonials in the census data may have influenced the type of labor expected
of enslaved 10-year-olds deemed adults in the 1731 and 17371738 cen-
suses. These census dates correspond to the final years of the Early Period
and the early years of the Middle Period. However, children with MSMs
during these periods were dying between 4 and 8.9 years of age. In fact, the
data indicate that children with femoral MSMs were dying between ages 4
and 10.5, with only one child among them over age 9. The youngest among
children with femoral MSMs died within the Early and Late Periods. In
contrast, children without femoral MSMs died between ages 4 and 14, dur-
ing the Middle, Late Middle, and Late Periods (there were no children ab-
sent of MSMs in the Early Period).
As Medford (2009) observed in the documentary record, young en-
slaved children in New York were employed in domestic labor and were
Childhood, Colonialism, and Nation-Building 175

Figure 8.2. New Yorks African Burial Ground: temporal analysis of MSM relative fre-
quencies in subadults (N = 19).

frequently advertised for sale beginning at age 6. As previously discussed,


responding to fears of enslaved men revolting, enslavers increased impor-
tation of women and children directly from Africa in the mid-eighteenth
century, with the greatest importations occurring between 1741 and 1770
(Goode-Null 2002; McManus 1966). While Jeas (1998) account demon-
strates that children as young as 2 years old were being kidnapped and
enslaved into the 1770s, Medford (2009) notes newspapers advertising the
arrival of young Africans between ages 9 and 12 during the latter half of the
eighteenth century.
High mortality rates and isotope analysis among NYABG subadults in-
dicate that the youngest children were likely to have been born in New
York, within the conditions of slavery (Blakey et al. 2009a; Goodman et al.
2009; Rankin-Hill et al. 2009). These children would have been put to work
at young ages, learning occupational tasks that would benefit enslavers and
provide training in skills that could be advertised when the children were
sold, beginning at age 6. Children being imported directly from Africa may
have lived their earliest years free. The ill and weakened among these young
Africans, often between ages 9 and 12, may have died soon after arriving in
New York and may not have engaged in heavy labor long enough to develop
MSMs prior to death. The decrease in frequencies during the Middle and
176 A. Barrett

Late Middle Periods corresponds with the period of highest importation


of young Africans into New York. An increase in MSM frequency (from 25
percent to 50 percent) is seen again in the Late Period, after such importa-
tion has slowed.
Wilczak and colleagues (2009) propose that the high levels of MSMs
among young adults who died between ages 15 and 25 in the NYABG popu-
lation may reflect MSM formation due to severe labor as well as prolonged
labor that began in earlier childhood. The trend of MSM frequencies in
subadults suggests that the youngest children, and therefore those most
likely born into slavery, entered into labor at young ages and some of them
were engaged in strenuous labor between ages 4 and 10.5. The highest fre-
quencies of MSMs among these young children are in the earliest and later
periods, periods when fewer young Africans are arriving. Wilczak and
colleagues (2009) data may reflect the 15- to 25-year-olds who labored in
New York (or the Caribbean prior to arriving in New York) long enough to
engage in strenuous labor, causing rapid and cumulative MSMs, whether
born enslaved or free. Unfortunately, the archaeological temporal data was
not available when Wilczak and colleagues (2009) conducted their analysis.

Discussion/Conclusion

Social inequality existed within European and, particularly, English soci-


ety throughout the period of European and British expansion. However,
within the colonies of Virginia and New York (for the New York context,
see Epperson 1999), an English identity became racialized in terms of Euro-
pean and white identity in juxtaposition to non-Europeansspecifically
Native Americans and Africans.
The value of children, and child labor, is demonstrated within the docu-
mentary record. Riddicks Virginia records show that the value of an en-
slaved child tripled from infancy to 18 months and almost doubled again at
3 years. The documentary record shows that enslaved children in New York
were often sold as young as age 6 (Medford 2009). Approaching age 6 may
have involved increased labor expectations for enslaved children in New
York; indeed, evidence of labor, through MSMs, enters the skeletal record
at age 4. Fear of revolt threatened slaveholders and increased their reliance
on younger labor. Although the skeletal sample size is small, this shift may
be reflected in the high frequencies of MSMs in the Early Period. However,
decreased frequencies in the Middle and Late Middle Periods may reflect
Childhood, Colonialism, and Nation-Building 177

the importation of young enslaved African laborers between ages 9 and 12,
who died soon after arrival in New York.
The delineation of race within the nineteenth-century indenture docu-
ments demonstrates the precarious status of childhood for free and en-
slaved children of African descent in Virginia. These children were more
likely to be assigned occupations that mirrored the labor conducted by en-
slaved children. Gendered hierarchies nested within class and racial hier-
archies further defined the adult role for which a child was prepared. Elite
boys of European descent were prepared through education and breeding
to take their positions of privilege as adults. Poor, free boys of European
descent were taught a skilled trade that would enable them to earn a liv-
ing once their indenture contract ended. They were usually provided an
education as well. Poor, free boys of African descent were most likely to be
indentured as farmers or house servants, with no education. Poor, free girls
of African descent were most likely to be indentured as house servants,
with no education. While elite girls of European descent may have been
educated, their poor, indentured counterparts were usually taught a skill
but rarely educated.
Frederick Douglass quotes a pro-slavery article in the Richmond Exam-
iner, which states, the white peasant is free, and if he is a man of will and
intellect, can rise in the scale of society . . . but here is the essence of slav-
erythat we do declare the Negro destitute of these powers (Douglass
1854). The Richmond Examiner article claims that conditions of enslaved
life equaled that of the poor white peasant, with the exception that the
Negro cannot experience social mobility due to a lack of will and intel-
lect. The preceding indenture analysis demonstrates that the poor white
peasant and the free Negro were systemically situated for the poor white
(male) peasant to have access to resources by which he could rise in the
scale of society, but free children of African descent were only prepared for
a life of labor, comparable to the experiences of enslaved children.
Whiteness, and particularly the white man, was constructed as the
natural position of privilege within Virginia as colony and state (Blakey
1999b). While the importation of poor children from London indicates
social inequality among London society, the marker of poor remained a
qualifier that implied an unnatural deviation from the position of privilege
held by elite whites. This qualifier continued to appear in descriptions of
indentured children. However, the marker of deviation for indentured chil-
dren of African descent was free. As Virginians transitioned from colony
178 A. Barrett

to state, the absence of a racial indicator implied European descent, and the
absence of poor implied white privilege as a natural order, construct-
ing a normative whiteness in relationship to people of color, where Virgin-
ians and Americans came to signify white unless otherwise noted.
The European conception of childhood privilege, as described by Aris
(1962), was not experienced by children of African descent, enslaved or
indentured. Enslaved children were not afforded full rights of humanity,
much less the privilege of childhood. African inhumanity as a tenet justify-
ing slavery was argued by enslavers in terms of an ahistorical and culturally
displaced negro (Blakey 2001; Douglass 1854). As the Virginia documen-
tary evidence attests, negro was a social and legal category synonymous
with slavery, and a life of labor in perpetuity. However, this racialized cat-
egory traversed the legal status of slave and was enacted within the insti-
tution of indentured servitude. The NYABG skeletal data suggests that in-
tensive labor was required of enslaved children in colonial and postcolonial
New York, beginning at age 4.
This study has focused on social inequality as demonstrated through
patterns of free and enslaved child labor in Virginia and New York. Laws,
contracts, correspondence, and images demonstrate mechanisms by which
sameness and difference were enacted by the English and by European
Americans to construct an English identity, an American identity, and
more broadly a white identity in relationship with members of the em-
pire, colony, and state who were systematically excluded. Analyses from
the New York African Burial Ground Project further demonstrate the use
of child/adult distinctions within New York during the Colonial and post-
Colonial periods. Examples drawn from these sources highlight the im-
portance of labor, including child labor, within the Colonial and national
contexts, as well as the severe implications for child health and access to
resources.
Subadults were trained and enculturated by adults for hierarchically ori-
ented positions within the colony and, later, the nation. Within Virginia and
New York, European constructs of child and adult were contextually ap-
plied toward particular ends. The European construction of childhood was
a notion born of privilege, portrayed as universal, but discriminately en-
acted. Analyses of Virginia and New York show how adults defined and en-
acted social distinctions between children according to categories of race,
class, and gender that patterned access to resources, levels of privilege, and
the types of labor in which children were engaged.
Childhood, Colonialism, and Nation-Building 179

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Dr. Michael Blakey and the Institute for
Historical Biology at the College of William and Mary for providing ac-
cess to the New York African Burial Ground Project databases and photo-
graphic archives.

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9
Little Helping Hands
Insights from Punta Teatinos, Chile

Marta P. Alfonso-Durruty and Jennifer L. Thompson

Bioarchaeological studies of prehistoric foraging societies have not ex-


plicitly examined the social and economic role of subadults and how their
roles change from infancy to adulthood. In this chapter we explore these
changes using prehistoric subadults from the archaeological site of Punta
Teatinos, Chile. To achieve this goal we contrast biological age with chang-
ing patterns of health to reveal the timing of social transition between the
life stages of infancy, childhood, juvenility, adolescence, and adulthood.
Through this analysis we aim to identify the signatures of socialization
on the osteological remains of prehistoric subadults (Baxter 2005, Kramer
2001). We use the term subadult to refer to all individuals who have not
fully matured biologically (as is commonly done in bioarchaeology). The
term child is often used in anthropology and other disciplines to refer to
all subadults or non-adults (Lewis 2007). In this study, we use the terms
child, children, and childhood in single quotes when using them to refer
to all subadults. We do so because some researchers define childhood as
a specific growth and development stage (e.g., Bogin 1999) and so use the
terms child and children to refer to individuals within that stage.
Modern humans have a set of unique life history traits that delay growth
and maturation compared to other primates (Bogin 1999, 2009; Hawkes
2006; Paine and Hawkes 2006; Smith and Tompkins 1995; Thompson and
Nelson 2011). This extended pattern of growth evolved within the bio-
logical, social, and ecological environment experienced by our ancestors
(Bogin 1999; Nelson et al. 2003; Thompson and Nelson 2011). Although
energetically costly, this prolonged period of growth may have been se-
lected for because it increased the mothers reproductive success (Bogin
2009) and/or because it permits the growth of a large brain (Bogin 1999;
184 M. P. Alfonso-Durruty and J. L. Thompson

Leigh and Park 1998; van Schaik et al. 2006), which may lead to higher pro-
ductivity and fertility during the adult period (Hawkes 2006; Kaplan et al.
2000). Whatever evolutionary conditions or benefits may have led to this
extended period of growth, the result is the presence of subadult individu-
als who, although dependent on adults, are also important contributors to
their groups. It is not surprising, then, that during much of human history,
subadults have been treated as economic commodities (Lancy 2008; Rove-
land 2001; Sander et al. 1996).
As individuals grow from infancy to adolescence, they become increas-
ingly independent from others and actively contribute to the pooled energy
budget of their group (Baxter 2005; Bogin and Smith 1996; Hochberg 2008;
Kramer 2001, 2010; Pereira and Altmann 1985; Reiches et al. 2009). The
contribution of children to production should not be ignored but cannot
be assumed (Baxter 2005) because, while the biological nature of the child
(subadult) is universal, their somatic and psychological development varies
considerably in response to cultural conditions. Thus, a true understanding
of the subadult period (infant, child, juvenile, etc.) cannot ignore culture.
As the youngest members of our species, children (those not yet deemed
adult) have always existed and will always exist. Most, if not all, societies
acknowledge children as being different from adults, but the ideas regard-
ing these dissimilarities vary and result in a unique set of expectations for
the roles and behaviors deemed appropriate during the childhood period
(Baxter 2005; Panter-Brick 1998).
The bioarchaeological study of subadults has a long history but faces
unique challenges when trying to assess these individuals social roles
within their group. During the life history stage of childhood, for example,
individuals are rarely the primary producers or consumers of most types of
material culture and, while the artifacts found at a childs grave may inform
us about his or her social standing, they most likely reflect adult remem-
brances and ideas of the child (Baxter 2005). Thus, it is not surprising that
subadult skeletons are most often studied to assess nutritional standards
and the presence of diseases and to reconstruct mortality and survivorship
patterns (Goodman and Armelagos 1989; Lewis 2007; Steckel and Rose
2002). These types of studies focus on subadults because these individuals
are highly susceptible to environmental conditions. Thus, the remains of
subadults provide important information regarding the adaptational suc-
cess of the group (Larsen 1997; Lewis 2007). Most of these studies, however,
portray subadults as passive individuals, fully dependent on others and ex-
cluded from economic production or other forms of active social life.
Little Helping Hands: Insights from Punta Teatinos, Chile 185

Although traditional studies of subadults commonly ignore the ideolo-


gies surrounding children, the fact is that as individuals grow and develop,
their bodies are changed in response to the ideologies that mold their in-
dividual history (Lewis 2007, Sofaer 2006). Thus, the social construction
of childhood is not just a discursive matter; it has material consequences.
Traditions, values, and skills model the body (Panter-Brick 1998; Sofaer
2006), so that culturally specific lifeways are literally embodied in the
organism. Subadult skeletons, therefore, have the potential to provide a
wealth of information regarding the social life of children (Lewis 2007).
The study of the body can reveal this history if we use approaches that
overcome universal, transhistoric categories. To do this we need to situate
the body within the cultural and environmental context in which it was
produced (Sofaer 2006). Both social and biological views of what it means
to be a child are important and need not to be divorced from each other
(Lewis 2007). Thus, a biosocial approach to the study of the remains of
children can reveal the behavioral processes that modeled the body (phe-
notype) and the ideologies that guided them. However, one important ca-
veat is that the interpretations we draw from these remains must consider
that subadult burials contain the remains of those who did not live long
enough to become adults, and do not necessarily represent the totality of
children in the group (Wood et al. 1992).

Child the Hunter

In forager societies children (subadults) commonly account for ~40 per-


cent of the population (Hewlett and Lamb 2005). In these groups, par-
ticipation of children in production-related activities is contingent on
environmental and technological conditions (Bird and Bliege Bird 2002;
Bock 2005; Tucker and Young, 2005). Forager children hunt and gather in
natural environments where it is relatively safe and easy (Tucker and Young
2005) but do not do so in dangerous environments (Henry et al. 2005) or
in areas where foraging requires too much walking or where there is risk
of dehydration (Bird and Bliege Bird 2005). Technological reliance on food
procurement impacts the ability of children to participate in production.
Tool use in subadults is contingent on the tools weight and complexity, so
that their use is usually restricted to children who have already acquired
the necessary strength, balance, and dexterity (Bock 2005). This rich eth-
nographic picture of living, foraging children provides valuable informa-
tion with which we can start to conceptualize what life may have been like
186 M. P. Alfonso-Durruty and J. L. Thompson

for them in prehistory. This information also provides the backdrop within
which we can interpret the results of our findings regarding the hunter-
gatherer/foraging children from Punta Teatinos.

Punta Teatinos

Punta Teatinos is a Late Archaic site (4905 100 BP, 4560 95 BP, 4000 90
BP) located on the semi-arid coast of central Chile (figure 9.1). Bathed by
sub-Antarctic tides, in conditions that have remained relatively stable for
the last 4,000 years, the shore is rich in nutrients that generate short tro-
phic chains and is home to organismsespecially fishwith high fertility,
fast growth, and short life cycles (Niemeyer 1989). By 6500 BP, regional
resources were affected by a thermal oscillation that increased the tem-
perature and decreased humidity. This climate change, along with cultural
influences of neighboring coastal groups from the north, led to an inten-
sification in the exploitation of coastal resources. However, for most of the
local Archaic groups, including the people from Punta Teatinos, seafood

Figure 9.1. Loca-


tion of Punta
Teatinos in the
Norte Chico
region of Chile.
The location of
the site, within
the IV region
(part of the
Norte Chico) of
Chile, is shown
on the left.
Little Helping Hands: Insights from Punta Teatinos, Chile 187

was, and then continued to be, a fallback food that supplemented inland
resources obtained though hunting and gathering (Llagostera 1989; Nie-
meyer 1989).
The site, dug during several field seasons between the 1960s and 1980s,
corresponds to a large shell midden (15,000 m2), where the remains of fish
(Elasmobrachii and Tachurus sp.), shellfish (mussels, clams, Chilean aba-
lone, limpets, and Protothaca thaca), birds (Phalacrocorax sp. and Peleca-
nus thagus) and marine mammals (sea lions, whales, and sea otters) were
identified. On the southeast portion of the site, excavations revealed a large
cemetery composed of 211 skeletons, of which 39.3 percent were deemed
subadult (N = 83; Quevedo 1998). Both adult and subadult individuals were
buried in a flexed or hyperflexed position, with a predominant, but not
exclusive, north-south or northeast-southwest orientation. The remains
were either surrounded with large rocks that formed an elliptical or circu-
lar structure or covered by moundlike structures or small concentrations
of rocks and whale bones (Quevedo 1998; Schiappacasse and Niemeyer
196566). Few burials had grave goods, and only 10 percent of these corre-
sponded to subadult graves. In spite of their underrepresentation, subadult
graves with grave goods had the richest and most varied mortuary para-
phernalia, which mostly included objects of personal adornment (charms,
beads, and labrets) as well as pipes (Quevedo 1998; Schiappacasse and Nie-
meyer 196566).
We selected this site based on the careful excavation and curation of
the material, which has resulted in good preservation of the remains. Most
importantly, we chose the site based on its geographic location and the
economic strategy of the group. Seafood is a type of resource that can be,
and is, collected by all segments of a group, with a minimum energetic cost
(Bird and Bliege Bird 2002). Thus, it is likely that the subadult members
of the community interred at Punta Teatinos participated, when able and
capable, in productive activities. Thus, the study of their remains has the
potential to reveal patterns of changing social roles over the growth period.

Materials and Methods

To date we have examined 107 individuals from Punta Teatinos. Of these


28 are subadults. Subadult individuals were classified as newborns, infants,
children, juveniles, or adolescents (life history stages of growth). We fol-
lowed Bogins (1999) division of subadults into these various age categories.
These categories have evolutionary significance (Thompson and Nelson
188 M. P. Alfonso-Durruty and J. L. Thompson

2011) but also correlate well with developmental stages of growth (Bogin
1999). Age categories will therefore differ from those commonly used by
bioarchaeologists. But, given our interest in patterns of changing health/
behavior over the subadult period, our choice is justified. Individuals who
died during fetal development or at birth were classified as newborns. In
newborns, age determination was based on the dimensions of the basi-
occiput and dental development (Fazekas and Ksa 1978; Ubelaker 1999).
Infants, children, juveniles, and adolescents were identified based on their
degree of dental eruption and formation (Bogin 1999; Ubelaker 1999). All
individuals aged older than birth but under age 3 years were classified as
infants. Individuals whose age was over 3 years but whose M1 (first perma-
nent molar) had not yet erupted were classified as children (corresponding
to age 3 to 6 years). Juveniles are individuals whose M1 had erupted but
whose M2 (second permanent molar) had not (6 to 12 years). Adolescent
individuals had an erupted M2 but a nonerupted M3 (third permanent mo-
lar) or had a degree of epiphyseal fusion that indicated they were in their
teens, even though their M3 were erupted (12 to 18 years).
Age at death was also estimated based on bone length (Black and Scheuer
1996; Fazekas and Ksa 1978; Ghantus 1951; Gindhart 1973; Maresh 1970;
Molleson and Cox 1993; Scheuer et al. 1980). The results were divided by
skeletal region into (1) the pelvic and shoulder girdle, (2) the upper extrem-
ities diaphyseal length, and (3) the lower extremities diaphyseal length. All
results were also assigned to the biological categories of newborn (fetal to
birth), infant (0 to 2.9 years), child (3 to 5.9 years), juvenile (6 to 11.9 years),
or adolescent (12 to 18 years). We compared dental ages against bone length
ages and categorized the comparison as matches or mismatches, where
mismatches are presumed to be the result of some nutritional or pathology
stressor that inhibited bone growth (Aufderheide and Rodrguez-Martn
1998; Larsen 1997; Lewis 2007; Ortner 2003). Porotic hyperostosis; cribra
orbitalia; periostitis; infectious conditions; resorptive, proliferative, and
mixed lesions; and trauma were assessed and recorded following standard
procedures (Aufderheide and Rodrguez-Martn 1998; Buikstra and Ube-
laker 1994; Capasso et al. 1999; Larsen 1997; Lewis 2007; Ortner 2003).

Results

Dental age estimations indicated that 17.9 percent of the individuals were
newborn (N = 5), 39.3 percent were infants (N = 11), 10.7 percent were
children (N = 3), 17.9 percent were juveniles (N = 5), and 14.3 percent were
Little Helping Hands: Insights from Punta Teatinos, Chile 189

Table 9.1. Comparison of dental ages with age assessments based on postcranial measurements

Pelvic and
Age Group Shoulder Girdle Upper Extremities Lower Extremities
Matches Mismatches Matches Mismatches Matches Mismatches
n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%)
Newborn 12 (100%) 0 (0.0%) 7 (100%) 0 (0.0%) 8 (100%) 0 (0.0%)
Infant 21 (100%) 0 (0.0%) 27 (96.4%) 1 (3.6%) 20 (86.9%) 3 (13.1%)
Child 1 (33.3%) 2 (66.6%) 9 (100%) 0 (0.0%) 9 (100%) 0 (0.0%)
Juvenile 4 (66.7%) 2 (33.3%) 6 (40%) 9 (60.0%) 2 (15.4%) 11 (84.6%)
Adolescent 1 (100%) 0 (0.0%) 11 (100%) 0 (0.0%) 6 (54.5%) 5 (45.5%)

adolescents (N = 4). When compared to other age estimates, dental ages


matched the most with age estimates based on measurements of the pelvic
and shoulder girdle regions (table 9.1). In contrast, the upper and especially
the lower extremities showed the highest number of mismatches (table 9.1).
In terms of age categories, the largest number of mismatches corresponded
to juveniles (table 9.1), as several of them were classified as children based
on long bone length. These results indicate that there was a significant de-
gree of bone growth retardation in this age group. Although the number
of adolescents in this study is low, we also observed several instances in
which the individuals presented bone growth retardation (table 9.1), which
suggests that among adolescents growth velocity was slowed and the ado-
lescent growth spurt deterred or delayed.
The analysis of porotic hyperostosis and cribra orbitalia (table 9.2)
showed a higher percentage of cases among juveniles and adolescents
in comparison to the younger age groups. However, higher percentages
among juveniles and adolescents may be the result of a longer life, which
in turn could have resulted in a longer period of exposure to conditions
of scarcity or pathogens that led to an anemic state (Ortner 2003; Stuart-
MacAdam 1992; Walker et al. 2009). Likewise, porous and lytic lesions are
absent among newborns, but they appear in infants, children, juveniles,
and adolescents. No specific trend is observed for the different age seg-
ments (table 9.2). Periostitis is present in all age segments (table 9.2, figure
9.2a). We also found one case, PT58 (a juvenile), with signs of vertebral
tuberculosis in T1 and T2 (figure 9.2c). In this case the affected vertebrae
show localized destruction of the vertebral bodies that lead to cavitation,
vertebral collapse, and associated ankylosis.
Table 9.2. Number and percentage of individuals affected by pathological conditions

Porotic Cribra Periostitis Lytic Lesions Porous Lesions


Hyperostosis Orbitalia n/N(%) n/N(%) n/N(%)
n/N(%) n/N(%)
Age Group Skull Appendicular Appendicular Appendicular Axial
Newborn 0/3 (0.0%) 0/1 (0.0%) 1/3 (33.3%) 0/3 (0.0%) 0/3 (0.0%) 0/2 (0.0%) 0/5 (0.0%)
Infant 0/8 (0.0%) 2/5 (40.0%) 3/9 (33.3%) 5/10 (50.0%) 1/9 (11.1%) 2/11 (20.0%) 1/9 (11.1%)
Child 0/3 (0.0%) 0/3 (0.0%) 0/3 (0.0%) 2/3 (66.7%) 2/3 (66.7%) 1/2 (50.0%) 0/3 (0.0%)
Juvenile 2/4 (50.0%) 1/4 (25.0%) 2/4 (50.0%) 4/5 (80.0%) 1/5 (20.0%) 0/4 (0.0%) 1/5 (20.0%)
Adolescent 3/4 (75.0%) 2/3 (66.7%) 1/4 (25.0%) 3/4 (75.0%) 1/4 (25.0%) 0/2 (0.0%) 1/4 (25.0%)
Little Helping Hands: Insights from Punta Teatinos, Chile 191

Figure 9.2. Examples of pathological and traumatic conditions observed among the
subadults analyzed. (a) Periostitis on the posterior aspect of the humerus. (b) Healed
depressed fracture on the right parietal of one of the adolescents studied. (c) Thoracic
vertebrae with cavitation and perforation that likely resulted from tuberculosis.

Traumatic lesions to the skull were observed in children (33.3 percent),


juveniles (20 percent), and adolescents (50 percent) (see figure 9.2b; table
9.3). Fractures in the appendicular skeleton were found in newborns (33.3
percent), children (33.3 percent), and adolescents (25 percent). Trauma to
the axial skeleton was identified in infants (11.1 percent; right clavicle) and
adolescents (50 percent). We also observed one case of spondylolysis, and
one individual with fractures to the shoulder girdle (which likely resulted
from violence). Unlike younger age segments, several of the fractures found
among adolescents, especially in the skull and shoulder girdle, were pos-
sibly the result of interpersonal violence, although the lesions were healed
by the time of death.
Porous lesions in the vertebral column were identified in one adoles-
cent (25 percent) and one juvenile (20 percent) only. The affected juvenile
showed lipping in both cervical and thoracic vertebrae. In the case of the
192 M. P. Alfonso-Durruty and J. L. Thompson

Table 9.3. Number and percentage of individuals with traumatic lesions


Skull Appendicular Axial
Age Group n/N(%) n/N(%) n/N(%)
Newborn 0/3 (0.0%) 1/3 (33.3%) 0/5 (0.0%)
Infant 0/9 (0.0%) 0/10 (0%) 1/9 (11.1%)
Child 1/3 (33.3%) 1/3 (33.3%) 0/3 (0.0%)
Juvenile 1/5 (20.0%) 0/5 (0.0%) 0/5 (0.0%)
Adolescent 2/4 (50%) 1/4 (25%) 2/4 (50.0%)

adolescent, several cervical thoracic and lumbar vertebrae exhibit slight


marginal lipping and porosity in the superior and/or inferior articular
facets. This individual also presents bilateral syndesmosis of the costocla-
vicular ligament attachment, and cribra femoris on both the right and left
femoral neck. All these lesions suggest that this individual participated in
strenuous tasks.

Discussion/Conclusion

The comparison of dental ages with age estimations based on postcranial


skeletal elements indicates that the highest degree of concordance was
found with those based on the pelvic and shoulder girdle. Based on these
results, it seems that these regions are not very sensitive to environmental
stressors. However, we must consider that matches in these regions, es-
pecially the pelvic girdle, are highest in newborns and infants, for whom
nutritional and immunological needs were likely supplied through breast
milk.
Unlike newborns and infants, juveniles and adolescents display a higher
number of cases exhibiting growth retardation. These results may be the
outcome of longer periods of exposure to detrimental conditions that could
have led to growth impairment. However, it is interesting that these cases
occur more often at a time when individuals become, cross-culturally, more
independent and commonly contribute to their own sustenance (Hawkes
et al. 1995; Hewlett and Lamb 2005; Kramer 2005).
Juveniles, unlike children and infants, are more autonomous from adults
and partially take care of themselves and others. The transition from child-
hood to juvenility is critical in the determination of body composition. In
these Punta Teatinos individuals, growth appears to have been slowed. This
may mean that the midchildhood growth spurt, one of the markers of the
Little Helping Hands: Insights from Punta Teatinos, Chile 193

transition to juvenility (Bogin 1999), may have been compromised. This


suggests that the adiposity rebound, a characteristic commonly observed
during juvenility (Hochberg 2008), may have also been hindered in this
group. Biologically, then, these individuals would have seen their somatic
development slowed. However, by juvenility, adult brain growth in weight
has largely been achieved and juveniles have gone through a cognitive
shift that commonly leads them to higher levels of independence (Bogin
1999; Campbell 2006; White 1996).
Although the number of adolescents in this study is low, we observed
several instances in which the individuals presented long bone growth
retardation. As among juveniles, the velocity of growth may have been
slowed and the adolescent growth spurt compromised. Adolescence, like
juvenility, is a period of increased independence and higher expectations
regarding self-sustenance, which may also have affected the cases studied
so far.
Although the overall number of cases with traumatic lesions is low, the
results show that as individuals grew older, they became more likely to suf-
fer from accidents or assaults that lead to fractures. Trauma to the skull is
most common among adolescents. Trauma in long bones is present in one
adolescent and two newborns (in the latter case we found that the fractures
were healed by the time of death). In the case of the adolescent, however,
the fractures are likely the result of some form of violence (because of their
location and the presence of trauma to the skull on the same side) and,
although healed, the consequences were long-lasting (e.g., glenoid fossa
fractured, coracoid fractured). The presence of traumatic lesions that re-
sulted from interpersonal violence can be interpreted as the result of abuse,
personal conflict, or involvement in warfare. The fact that this type of lesion
is found among adolescents shows that they were part of an adult world
that either recognized them as members (if they were involved in warfare)
or saw them as competitors, which made them victims of abuse.
Among adolescents, fractures to the axial skeleton most likely resulted
from either heavy workloads (spondylolysis) or interpersonal violence. The
case of an infant with a fracture on the right clavicle, on the other hand,
may be the result of manipulation during birth, or abuse after it.
Our results show a general increase in pathologies as individuals aged,
but this increment is most noticeable in juveniles. This increase can be
partially explained as the result of an extended period of exposure, and
thus response, to conditions that led to the development of these skeletal
lesions. Juvenility is, however, an age of increased independence that may
194 M. P. Alfonso-Durruty and J. L. Thompson

account, at least in part, for these individuals exposure or susceptibility to


infections.
Increased levels of independence during juvenility and adolescence are
commonly accompanied by an increase in risk-taking behavior (Bogin
2009). The high levels of growth disruption and the presence of resorptive
and traumatic lesionsthe latter of which may have resulted from inter-
personal violenceamong juveniles and adolescents are an indication of
transition from a social childhood to a social adulthood.
Based on these results it seems that prehistoric juveniles and adoles-
cents at Punta Teatinos were rapidly transitioning into an adult world that
was plagued with hard work, violence, and risk. Our results and analysis
show that by using biological categories and contrasting them with the dis-
tribution of disease, trauma, and postcranial ages, it is possible not only
to tease out the signatures of socialization, but also to picture these indi-
viduals as dynamic agents that grew and changed within their given social
environment.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the National Museum of Natural History in San-


tiago, Chile, for granting access to the collections, and for their warm wel-
come. Special thanks to the museums director, Claudio Gomez; Leslie Azo-
car, chief curator; Nieves Acevedo, Museum Studies; and Paola Gonzlez
Abarca, librarian, for their patience, support, and hard work. Our special
thanks also goes to Valeska Martinez, Universidad de Concepcin, who
assisted us during data collection.

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10
Children of the Working Class
Environmental Marginality and Child Health
at Black Mesa, Arizona (AD 9001150)

Debra L. Martin, Jennifer L. Thompson, and John J. Crandall

Climate change and global political-economic processes have put a strain


on subsistence farmers living in remote and/or marginal areas (Hertel and
Rosch 2010; Morton 2007). Archaeological data provides a way to see how
humans in the past dealt with marginality and environmental uncertainty
over long periods of time. It also provides one way to better understand
the complex relationship between environmental factors, biocultural ad-
aptation, and population morbidity and mortality because of the tempo-
ral depth of such data and its ability to contextualize individuals within
their communities. Maintaining an agricultural subsistence base in a desert
requires extraordinary attention to environmental factors affecting crop
productivity and hard physical labor on a seasonal basis. The indigenous
inhabitants of the U.S. Southwest include the Pueblo Indians, who have
lived in this region from the Archaic period through to the present. Pueblo
Indians include many different tribes and languages (for example, the Hopi,
Zuni, Santa Clara, Santa Domingo, and Cochiti), yet there is an ideologi-
cal continuity that binds them. This in situ continuous presence of the in-
digenous inhabitants still living where their ancestors did for hundreds of
years is unique in the United States, where only a few groups, such as the
Pueblo and Iroquois, were not geographically relocated by European con-
quest. Although these populations were not displaced or completely killed
off during the colonial expansion, disease epidemics, genocidal atrocities
and mass relocations were regularly part of the experience of conquest.
In reconstructing the health of the children who lived in the Southwest
prior to contact, it is important not to overlay modern analogs on the past
Environmental Marginality and Child Health at Black Mesa, Arizona 199

to extract meaning (Halcrow and Tayles 2011). What can be done is to re-
construct the most rudimentary and basic relationships involving archi-
tecture, material culture, birth, disease, and death. While it is an imperfect
data set, much can be learned from this. At the very least, life before Euro-
pean expansion is documented. At its best, these kinds of studies contribute
to our understanding of the kinds of stresses (disease, poor nutrition, lack
of resources) to which much of the worlds population is subjected. Infor-
mation from the past can help clarify the delicate and complex relationship
between ideology, politics, diet, disease, birth, birth spacing, and biological
cost. These factors were as relevant to the ancestors as they are to modern
people living in marginalized agricultural settings the world over.
The health of infants and children is intricately linked to the function
of mothers, families, and communities (Goodman and Armelagos 1989).
Children living in underserved and poor agricultural areas today suffer
regularly from high rates of morbidity and mortality due to nutritional
problems, influenza, pneumonia, gastritis, enteritis, parasite loads, and di-
arrhea (Maholmes and King 2012). Many of these problems are exacerbated
by the reduction in birth spacing that often occurs when infant mortal-
ity is high and when children are important components of agricultural
work (Sobolik 2002). Thus, information on childrens health in the past
sheds light on community health and family dynamics when contextually
configured.
One particularly marginal region within the ancient Southwest is found
in the Hopi Mesas, which are often referred to as the Kayenta region or
Black Mesa. This area of the Southwest is geographically bounded by the
Colorado River on the west, Chinle Wash on the east, the Henry Mountains
to the north, and the Little Colorado River on the south. This region en-
compasses where the Hopi Indians live today and have lived for hundreds
of years. We will refer to this area as Black Mesa in this chapter.
Black Mesa provides an important and unique look at the challenges
that the everyday working-class people encountered in contrast to the
people from highly stratified societies seen in larger centers also located
in the ancient Southwest (e.g., Chaco Canyon, Paquime, Casas Grandes).
Archaeologists have referred to the precolonial inhabitants as the Anasazi,
although this is a problematic name for some Pueblo Indians today since
it is derived from a Navajo word for the diverse groups living in the region
today. Pueblo Indians is also a problematic name, since it was the name
given by the Spanish conquistadors when they encountered the original
people living in the Southwest. The Hopi call their ancestors Hisatsinom.
200 D. L. Martin, J. L. Thompson, and J. J. Crandall

The terms used throughout this chapter (i.e., Anasazi, Ancestral Pueblo,
Pueblo Indians, and Hopi) all refer to the pre-contact indigenous inhabit-
ants of this region.
The combined archaeological data retrieved from several decades of ex-
cavation on Black Mesa suggests an adaptive strategy that was based on
endurance, resilience, and flexibility in the face of an unpredictable and
unforgiving landscape. Gumerman (1984: 6) provides a characterization of
the Black Mesa people in this way:
The spartan lifestyle and relative material poverty of these people
would seem to make Black Mesa an unpromising and certainly un-
exciting area in which to conduct archaeology. But, it is precisely
because of the paucity of spectacular remains that Black Mesa is a
unique natural and cultural laboratory for understanding Anasazi be-
havior. The majority of the Anasazi did not live in the grandiose cliff
dwellings or huge trade-oriented towns, but in rural areas like Black
Mesa. . . . They produced and consumed few luxury items and left
very few things that impress the modern eye. Yet they played a vital
role in the complex social and economic system.
Remote and marginal, inhabitants of Black Mesa were originally referred to
as poor cousins living in the provincial backwater of the U.S. Southwest
(Gumerman et al. 1972: 198).
Thus, Black Mesa was populated largely by subsistence farmers living
in dispersed small hamlets, similar to the smallholder farms described
today in developing countries that are most vulnerable to climate-related
stressors and political-economic disparities (Morton 2007: 19680). Resi-
dents of Black Mesa were not completely isolated, as there is evidence of
some trading for extra local sources of lithic raw materials. During this
time, however, the larger and more architecturally spectacular sites to the
north, west, and south of Black Mesa were engaged in expansive trade net-
works moving exotic trade items, and they were invested in building large
community centers (Powell 1988). Because these other sites are quite visible
archaeologically, they have been focused upon to the exclusion of smaller
less spectacular sites such as those at Black Mesa. It is now understood that
most of the people living in the Southwest during this time period did not
live in the large cultural centers but rather in thousands of these smaller ru-
ral farming settlements (Hegmon et al. 2008). Thus, Black Mesa is represen-
tative of the ordinary working-class people who were invested in making
a living in an unstable environment with sparse resources. Understanding
Environmental Marginality and Child Health at Black Mesa, Arizona 201

the success of these groups, and the reasons for their eventually leaving
the area, could provide insights into what the limits of adaptation and ac-
commodation are in marginal environments. Additionally, a study of child
health in the region sheds light on the lives of everyday youngsters who
would have constituted a large percentage of the community across the
ancient Southwest.
Black Mesa is a desert plateau area, harsh and ecologically unstable. The
mesa region contained a complex system of washes where streams were
ephemeral sources of water only easily collected during the rainy season.
According to Dean (1988), between a major period of dryness that peaked
around AD 890 and later a period of wetness and moisture that peaked
at AD 1145, Black Mesa climate and precipitation was extremely variable,
consisting of a long history of unpredictable climatic events.
On the whole, Black Mesa has been characterized then as a marginal
and unstable ecosystem. Its pinyon-juniper forest presents a high-altitude
landscape with short growing seasons, variable climate, relatively few plant
species, infrequent water sources, and limited large game, making it prone
to periodic food shortage and crop failure. Maize cultivation was practiced,
but conditions were not suitable for large-scale intensive crop production.
Instead, inhabitants practiced a mixed subsistence strategy, using a number
of resources spread over space (Powell 1983). An analysis of ethnobotanical
remains from Black Mesa suggests that natural vegetation was consistently
relied upon throughout the occupation. But these plants would have been
low in density, widely scattered, unreliable as a staple, and unpredictable in
caloric contribution. Combined with cultigens (primarily maize, gourds,
and beans) that are aggregated, nonrandom in distribution, and predict-
able in location yield and caloric content, inhabitants were able to patch
together adequate food resources (Martin et al. 1991). Animal resources
(mostly deer and rabbit) were likewise patchy in distribution, unreliable as
a staple and energetically high cost.
Powell (1983) carefully documented settlement patterns starting around
AD 800, and she demonstrated that mobility and flexibility remained a part
of the subsistence strategy to maximize resources to sustain a viable exis-
tence on the mesa. During the later phase of occupation (AD 10001150)
the subsistence regime appears to have become even more diverse, with
reliance on corn agriculture (evidenced in the form of increased number
of storage facilities) along with an increase in the use of gathered wild food
and small game, particularly toward the latter phase of occupation. To-
ward the end of the occupation, circa AD 11001150, demographic patterns
202 D. L. Martin, J. L. Thompson, and J. J. Crandall

reconstructed from the age and sex distribution of the human remains sug-
gest an orderly outmigration (Martin et al. 1991).
It is against this back drop of environmental marginality, flexible adap-
tive strategies, regional isolation, and seasonal mobility that childhood is
examined. Based on what has been reported for other agricultural groups
in the Southwest, the adults on Black Mesa would have had to be preoccu-
pied with a wide range of stressors relating to diet (food composition, sub-
sistence shift, and annual food shortages), changing climatic conditions,
endemic infections, and nutritional shortfalls (Martin et al. 1991; Palkovich
1984; Ryan 1977). Reports on the analysis of human skeletal remains from
the Southwest in general have shown that nutrition is often compromised
and that disease was a constant problem for desert farmers in the ancient
Southwest (Sobolik 2002; Stodder et al. 2002).
For the inhabitants of Black Mesa, food collection and food production
were subject to short-term and long-term environmental instabilities, such
as unpredictable rainfall patterns and unreliable resource productivity.
Studies suggest that prehistoric Pueblo populations were always marginal,
and with the agriculture dependency, the biological impact worsened.
When populations became more stable, a heightened susceptibility to food
shortage developed. As a result of nutritionally marginal diets, the skeletal
patterns examined from the Southwest have revealed endemic rather than
episodic stress (Gumerman 1988; Gumerman et al. 2003). Greater levels of
biological stress can be found in the Pueblo populations due to their overall
conditions of endemic nutritional inadequacy (Sobolik 2002).
Hopi accounts and ethnographic data regarding the life of children in
historic times is reviewed by Kamp (2002: 7879), and it is useful for imag-
ining the life of ancient children on Black Mesa. One pueblo woman ex-
plained childhood as a time when work and play were closely related (taken
from Kamp 2012: 90):
one of the things that children incorporated very early into their
consciousness was that work was necessary to feel good . . . and to
have others think well of you. If it was said that you were a hard
worker you felt you were paid one of the highest compliments . . . As
children, we carried our younger brothers and sisters on our backs
while we swept the plaza area, helped get clay or mixed the clay with
temper. We also mixed the mud with our feet for making adobe and
mortar . . . we also helped carry the bricks and mortar to build the
walls. Cooking was done by girls from a fairly young age. Boys were
Environmental Marginality and Child Health at Black Mesa, Arizona 203

off in the fields helping with hoeing, harvesting and in the mountains
hunting and fishing.
Other ethnographic accounts suggest further that it was the job of Hopi
children (especially those under age 6) to collect firewood, fetch water,
gather wild plants, and catch small rodents (Babcock 1991; Underhill 1991).
Thus, it is clear from ethnographic records that children made economic
contributions to society and so were part of the working class from a
young age.
The current project focused on indicators of biological well-being for the
subadult portion of the Black Mesa Archaeological Project (BMAP) human
remains assemblage in order to investigate the ways in which infant and
child morbidity and mortality can reveal the impact of climate change and
environmental instability on viability. Although the inhabitants success-
fully lived on Black Mesa for approximately 250 years, they did so at some
costs to their well-being, and they did choose to migrate elsewhere, likely
in response to more well-watered areas, so that by 1150 there were no longer
people living within the region.

Materials and Methods

A total of eighty subadults from the Black Mesa skeletal collection (Martin
et al. 1991) were examined for the presence of two indicators of systemic
stress: porotic hyperostosis of the cranial vault and orbits and periosteal
reactions on the long bones of the leg. Age estimations for the subadult
portion of the collection were acquired through the evaluation of dental
eruption patterns, dental calcification, and long bone length (Moorrees et
al. 1963a, 1963b; Ubelaker 1989). Age at death at Black Mesa ranged from
newborn to 19 years. The final sample of seventy-one was determined by
including only individuals with dental ages of 17 and younger and those
with sufficiently preserved cranial, femoral, and tibial bones in the analysis.
Because social age and biological age differ cross-culturally, age ranges here
are presented based only on biological age at death. The social perception
of individuals in the southwest among Pueblo communities should be kept
in mind, however, and is discussed in Chapter 11.
The skeletons analyzed and reported upon in this chapter have previ-
ously been part of a major paleopathological study of Black Mesa (Martin
et al. 1991). That study synthesized numerous indicators of biological stress,
which we conceive of as deviations from homeostasis that increase risk of
204 D. L. Martin, J. L. Thompson, and J. J. Crandall

death and have functional consequences for the individual or the commu-
nitys well-being (following Goodman et al. 1988). This research included
documentation of multiple indicators of adult and subadult stress that re-
flect a disruption of biological homeostasis due to the interplay of patho-
gens, nutrients, economic behavior, and social and environmental variables,
which are widely used in bioarchaeological research (Larsen 1997). Where
necessary, reference was made to standard paleopathology texts such as
Steinbock (1976) and Ortner and Putschar (1981). Because diagnostic crite-
ria and the ability to differentially diagnose bone pathologies have changed
dramatically since the 1980s, a reanalysis of the subadults was undertaken
using more exact analytical techniques for extracting information on infant
and child health. The focus in this chapter is on porotic hyperostosis (an
indication of chronic anemia) and periosteal reactions (an indication of a
generalized nonspecific inflammatory or infectious response).

Porotic Hyperostosis

One of the best-studied indicators of subadult systemic stress is porotic hy-


perostosis (Walker et al. 2009). This morphological syndrome, consisting
of spongy lesions resulting from the expansion of bone marrow in the skull,
results from the hyperactivity of hematopoietic tissue in the cranium. Po-
rotic hyperostosis, occurring across the bones of the cranial vault and eye
orbits, is understood as the result of chronic anemia. Megaloblastic anemia
due to vitamin deficiency, specifically B12, has most recently been proposed
as a factor in the etiology of porotic hyperostosis (Walker et al. 2009). How-
ever, Oxenham and Cavill (2010) argue that porotic hyperostosis could also
result from a deficiency in iron. Dietary deficiencies are a common health
problem in both industrialized and unindustrialized countries and are
rather pronounced in children, adolescents, and women during childbear-
ing years (Mann and Murphy 1990; Walker et al. 2009). Past research has
highlighted that the etiology of porotic hyperostosis involves inadequate
diet, poor absorption of either iron or other essential vitamins, parasitism
and gastrointestinal infections, and blood loss. Additionally, there is ongo-
ing debate as to whether other nutritional deficiencies can cause lesions
similar in appearance to anemia-induced porotic hyperostosis, particularly
in the eye orbits (Wapler et al. 2004).
Porotic hyperostosis can be characterized by the presence of spongy le-
sions that penetrate the outer table of the frontal and parietal bones and
rarely on the occipital. An extreme case involving a fully developed lesion
Environmental Marginality and Child Health at Black Mesa, Arizona 205

will involve a thickening of the skull by the expanded diploic layer and the
outer table being completely reabsorbed. This allows the trabeculae of the
expanded cancellous bone to be directly observed. In slight to moderate
cases small porosities are prevalent (Aufderheide and Rodrguez-Martin
1998; Ortner 2003). Usually in older individuals, the appearance may reveal
the effects of healing or remodeling. In these cases, new bone has formed as
a direct response of the lesion or the bone destruction (Mann and Murphy
1990). A replacement of the diseased bone with newly mineralized bone
will be visible and can be used as an indicator of the length of time the indi-
vidual suffered from disease. In other words, the presence of bony remodel-
ing is taken as an indicator of the duration and severity of the disease and
also denotes something about the resilience of the ill individual (see Martin
et al. 1991: 152). This is because those who survive to exhibit remodeling in
response to porotic hyperostosis are less frail than those who die without
mounting any bony response (Bauder 2009; Wood et al. 1992).
Cribra orbitalia is similar to porotic hyperostosis but only implies a
smaller lesion located in the roof of the orbits (Stuart-Macadam 1989).
Both porotic hyperostosis and cribra orbitalia are predominately found in
infants and younger children. Cribra orbitalia is widely understood to have
identical morphological and demographic features and associations as po-
rotic hyperostosis of the cranial vault (Stuart-Macadam 1987; see Wapler et
al. 2004 for discussion). In this study, both types of lesions are treated as
part of the same disease process and are referred to interchangeably (see
Stuart-Macadam 1987, 1989).
The scoring system used in this study separated the lesions into sever-
ity, locations, and the amount of remodeling that had occurred. Severity
was scored as being slight, moderate, or severe. Individuals who had small,
pinpoint-sized points of porosity that showed a nonrandom pattern of clus-
tering were scored as slight. A score of moderate was given to the juveniles
who had larger areas of involvement, with more pronounced lesions, and
a visible thinning of the cortical tables. When trabecular-like formations
were seen rising above the surface of the cranial bone, the lesion was scored
as severe. The location was recorded using a method that divided the cra-
nial vault into the following areas: the orbits, near sutures, bossing, other
areas, or multiple occurrences. Finally, the state of the lesion was noted as
either being unremodeled (active at time of death) or remodeled. Examples
of the scoring system used here can be found in Martin et al. (1991: 31014).
All lesions were observed by multiple observers and scoring of lesions is
comparable to other scholars scoring methods (e.g., Bauder 2009).
206 D. L. Martin, J. L. Thompson, and J. J. Crandall

Periosteal Reaction

Pathological processes that result in visible lesions in archaeological bone


are primarily the result of chronic conditions (Ortner 2003). Chronic
(typically nonlethal) conditions are important to analyze because they can
highlight insufficiencies in diet and nutritional adequacy, as well as provide
a metric of the level of transmissible disease within a community, giving
an overall picture of lifestyle and group living. Most examples of infec-
tious disease found on prehistoric skeletal remains are nonspecific caused
by a number of pathological conditions (Larsen 1997). The most common
causes of infectious disease (nearly 90 percent) are the bacteria Staphylococ-
cus and Streptococcus (Ortner 2003). The majority of infectious responses
on bone are the result of common bacterial infections that are transmissible
between group members (Martin et al. 1991). When both infection and po-
rotic hyperostosis occur with the same individual, the infectious lesions are
usually more severe (Lallo et al. 1977). Infectious disease may be the initial
pathological response that made individuals more susceptible to porotic
hyperostosis (Mensforth et al. 1978).
Periosteal reactions, commonly attributed to infectious disease, usually
affect multiple long bones and are systemic in nature. While these lesions
are nonspecific in their etiology (Weston 2008), they represent a baseline to
measure systemic stress as their etiology is linked to sanitation, sedentism,
compromised immune response, minor injury, and exposure to infectious
disease as mentioned earlier (Larsen 1997). Active periosteal reactions at
time of death appear as smooth, irregular, latticelike layers of new bone
formed over the existing bone (Weston 2008). The amount of raised bone
gives an indication of the severity and longevity of the infection. A healing
bone will still display irregular and pitted lesions but will eventually return
to normal texture through the remodeling process. The distribution of the
lesions on the long bones was viewed macroscopically and recorded ac-
cording to the bone affected (right and/or left femur or tibia), the severity
(slight, moderate, severe), and the degree of remodeling (unremodeled or
remodeled). Bilateral lesions are most informative as they denote systemic
stress that is experienced widely across the body, which suggests systemic
infection is present, rather than other causes of lesions that may have less
marked functional consequences or impact on survivability.
Environmental Marginality and Child Health at Black Mesa, Arizona 207

Results

Regarding porotic hyperostosis, the most affected group were infants and
children under age 2, with 25.0 percent exhibiting severe forms of porotic
hyperostosis and 28.6 percent having active lesions at time of death (table
10.1). Of the other age groups (over 2 years of age), 100 percent exhibit signs
of remodeling, suggesting that they survived their anemic condition longer
than younger individuals. Individuals exhibiting mild or moderate severity
comprise the majority of cases: 40.6 percent of individuals aged newborn to
1.9 years, 35.7 percent of individuals aged 2.0 to 6.9 years, and 100 percent
of individuals aged 12.0 to 16.9 years. The exception was the subgroup aged
7.0 to 12.9 years, with the highest frequency of 54.5 percent from slight
severity. Overall, 40.0 percent of juveniles from Black Mesa were scored as
having a moderate form of porotic hyperostosis, and 84.0 percent showed
remodeled lesions (table 10.1).
The study revealed that 70.7 percent of the sample exhibit periosteal
reactions (table 10.2). 87.8 percent of lesions exhibit some degree of re-
modeling, and 12.2 percent were active; 50.0 percent of all lesions observed
are of slight severity, and 87.8 exhibit evidence of remodeling. All age sub-
groups exhibit high frequencies of lesions considered slight in expression;
57.1 percent of the subgroup aged newborn to 1.9 years, 37.5 percent of the

Table 10.1. Frequency of porotic hyperostosis by age (vault/orbits)


Age (Years) None (n) Slight (n) Moderate (n) Severe (n)
Newborn to 1.9 12.5% (4) 21.8% (7) 40.6% (13) 25.0% (8)
2.0 to 6.9 28.6% (4) 28.6 (4) 35.7% (5) 7.1% (1)
7.0 to 12.9 9.1% (1) 54.5% (6) 27.3% (3) 9.1% (1)
13.0 to 16.9 0.0% 0.00% 100% (2) 0.00%
Total 15.3% (9) 28.8% (17) 40.0% (23) 16.9% (10)

Table 10.2. Periosteal reactions by age


Age (Years) None (n) Slight (n) Moderate (n) Severe (n)
Newborn to 1.9 23.8% (5) 57.1% (12) 19.5% (4) 0.00%
2.0 to 6.9 31.2% (5) 37.5% (6) 31.2% (5) 0.00%
7.0 to 12.9 40.0% (6) 46.7% (7) 13.3% (2) 0.00%
13.0 to 16.9 16.7% (1) 66.7% (4) 16.7% (1) 0.00%
Total 29.3% (17) 50.0% (29) 20.7% (12) 0.00%
208 D. L. Martin, J. L. Thompson, and J. J. Crandall

subgroup aged 2.0 to 6.9 years, 46.7 percent of the subgroup aged 7.0 to
12.9 years, and 66.7 percent of the subgroup aged 13.0 to 16.9 years exhibit
severe lesions. No severe cases of periosteal reaction were observed among
any individuals in the sample.
In summary, porotic hyperostosis was present in 86.4 percent of the
sample, and 70.7 percent had some form of periosteal reaction. Of observed
cases of porotic hyperostosis, 84.0 percent showed signs of bony remodel-
ing, and 16.0 percent were active at time of death. Also, 70.7 percent showed
markers of periosteal reactions, with 87.8 percent showing some degree of
remodeling and 12.2 percent being active. Additionally, 61.9 percent of all
cases of subadult porotic hyperostosis found in this sample co-occur with
periosteal reactions. Fluctuating health was also observed across all age
categories regarding growth, chronic anemia, infection, and frequencies of
maxillary canine hypoplasias (see Martin et al. 1991: 2079 for these data).
Taken together, these data suggest that chronic biological stress, particu-
larly infection and malnutrition in early life, were regularly experienced at
Black Mesa.

Discussion/Conclusion

Ancestral Hopi people living on Black Mesa in northeastern Arizona be-


tween AD 800 and AD 1150 never had it easy, and although conditions
may have gotten somewhat harder over the years, they likely knew what
to expect. When they made an orderly exit off the mesa in the early 1100s,
there were no signs of massacres, burned structures, or epidemic diseases.
Data from the paleoenvironmental, archaeological, and skeletal sources
suggest that Black Mesa did not experience any of the signs of social stress
and violence that are seen in other localities (e.g., Turner and Turner 1999).
The data concerning porotic hyperostosis and periosteal reactions sug-
gested that Black Mesa experienced chronic stress associated with the dif-
ficulties of inhabiting the Southwest that included nutritional deficiencies.
The data regarding porotic hyperostosis rates attest to the impact of nutri-
tional deficiencies for Black Mesa children. Anemia, particularly experi-
enced by pregnant women and children, remains a major health concern
today in varying geographic settings (Maholmes and King 2012). No sub-
adult subgroup appeared to be shielded, although the highest degree of
severity was exemplified in the subgroup aged newborn to 2 years. This
implies an early stress placed on the youngest and most vulnerable por-
tion of the juvenile population and also reflects the difficulty faced by the
Environmental Marginality and Child Health at Black Mesa, Arizona 209

mothers of these youngsters (discussed shortly). The difference in frequen-


cies between the early and late time periods suggests these deficiencies were
periodic. In summary, nutritional deficiencies of the Black Mesa Pueblo
were not severe in their manifestation or episodic and seasonal. Confirmed
by the highest frequencies of severe lesions, very young infants were most
at risk.
Black Mesa may have been just one of many small farming hamlets
outside the boundaries of the larger political centers such as Chaco Can-
yon. Theories about the intensity and reliance on maize in marginal desert
settings suggest that health may be compromised (Cohen and Armelagos
1984). On Black Mesa, the health of the adult population was surprisingly
good (Martin et al. 1991), in part because there was never a total depen-
dence on maize. Seasonal mobility permitted a range of food resources to
be exploited. This project was designed to examine childhood morbidity on
Black Mesa in order to assess the impact of seasonal mobility and agricul-
ture on the most vulnerable segment of the population. Although there is
no doubt that a high dependence on a maize diet may contributed to high
percentages, there are many other factors that need to be addressed. Walker
(1985) suggested that one factor may be the prolongation of breastfeeding
without sufficient iron supplements. For our study, chronic, likely nutri-
tional anemia and infection contributed to morbidity and likely to mor-
tality, particularly in the neonates and in the post-weaning years. Infants
(birth to 2 years) carried the highest morbidity burden at the site (Martin
et al. 1991). Previous work examining child health in the larger context of
maternal health, growth and development, and dental indicators of physi-
ological stress suggest that compromised mothers may have played a role
in infant morbidity and the high infant mortality observed at Black Mesa
(Martin et al. 1991: 2079).
An examination of the adult women who lived, worked, and died on
Black Mesa provides additional contextual information regarding the health
and adaptive strategies of those living in the rural, ancient Southwest. Stud-
ies focused on the adult females on Black Mesa are useful in contextualizing
patterns of subadult health presented here, given that many individuals
died during infancy and likely were born with infections and malnutrition
that would have begun in utero. Data on mortality (both crude mortality
rate and mean age at death) in the region show that females survive into
old age at a higher rate than males, with a trend in increased mortality for
females in the reproductive years (Martin et al. 1991; Martin 2000). Many
women did survive reproductive age on black Mesa because elderly (age
210 D. L. Martin, J. L. Thompson, and J. J. Crandall

50 and older) women outnumber men 2:1 (Martin et al. 1991). These data
highlight the biological costs of reproduction in a marginal environment.
No statistically significant differences exist in general health indicators
between adult males and females on Black Mesa. These data likely reflect
the nature of the endemic stressors faced by communities managing life in
the tough deserts of the American Southwest. While overall rates of perios-
teal reaction (nonspecific generalized infections) and porotic hyerpostosis
(chronic anemia) were similar for adult males and females, females did
exhibit more severe periosteal reactions and a greater rate of dental caries
than males of the same age ranks. No males exhibited periosteal lesions on
the tibiae greater than slight in expression, while 16.7 percent of females
exhibited severe lesions at the time of death. An overview of the health
patterns of men and women on Black Mesa can be found in Martin (2000).
Taken alongside other data, bioarchaeological analyses highlight the
morbidity burden faced by women but also suggest that these could be
overcome and that a long life was possible. The sum total of bioarchaeologi-
cal research on these ancient womens lives suggests that empirical data
exist from Black Mesa that support a role for womanpower that is more
prominent than usually depicted for prehistoric women. . . . although spec-
ulative, there is growing evidence that the multiplicity of roles played by
women in reproduction, production, and group viability have been greatly
misunderstood (Martin et al. 1991: 214). In a recent reevaluation of health
indicators and muscle markers for the Black Mesa adult females, analyses of
osseous indicators of muscular activity and a review of robusticity analyses
support the interpretation that women, who exhibit skeletal evidence of
habitual activity comparable to males, were key players in the communitys
survival (Crandall et al. 2012).
Thus, these children of Black Mesa were protected by cultural buffers
such as a diverse diet, food-sharing networks, hardworking mothers and
female relatives, less reliance on agriculture, and living in smaller groups
(Hegmon et al. 2008). Black Mesa children, compared to those from other
archaeological sites, demonstrate lower frequencies of severe nutritional
and infectious disease, though risk of death and evidence of widespread
stress are still ever-present. We go so far as to argue that the working-class
world of Black Mesa with its lack of social hierarchy, emphasis on food
sharing and mobility, and flexible social organization provided much-
needed buffering against malnutrition and repeated bouts of infection
faced by youngsters in the community. While we document evidence of
chronic anemia among Black Mesa subadults, there is an indication that the
Environmental Marginality and Child Health at Black Mesa, Arizona 211

condition did not contribute significantly to mortality because the majority


of lesions (almost 90 percent) show signs of healing. Furthermore, most of
the lesions observed across the entire Black Mesa sample (119 individuals
when adults are included) were slight in involvement (64.3 percent). In this
study, we also found little evidence of severe infection among infants, and
this strengthens a proposition put forth by earlier work that chronic but
relatively mild, transmissible diseases may have been relatively endemic
on Black Mesa, infection persistent enough to reinfect older children but
mild enough for them to recover (Martin et al. 1991: 208). These illnesses,
however, were clearly buffered by the minimally hierarchical and flexible
communities on Black Mesa.
When compared with other contemporaneous Ancestral Pueblo sites,
Black Mesa had one of the highest frequencies of chronic, moderate ane-
mia, revealing the effects of the harsh environment. Walker (1985: 143) pro-
vides a comparison of rates of porotic hyperostosis among subadults across
the prehistoric Southwest in which Black Mesa exhibits a frequency of le-
sions that is neither mild nor spectacular compared to other sites, with two
out of the eight sites compared exhibiting higher rates of subadult porotic
hyperostosis. Such regional comparisons suggest that precolonial hunter
and gatherer groups, like Black Mesa, may have been predisposed to nu-
tritional deficiency with the shift to agriculture dependency, due to the
gathering of larger more settled groups (Sobolik 2002; Walker 1985). These
larger settlement groups created the potential for higher rates of infectious
disease and nutritional deficiencies, due to shifts in sanitation and concom-
itant exposure to parasites, overcrowding, and an increased competition for
limited resources. This is clearly evident in a recent study by Hegmon and
colleagues (2008) comparing resilience between various communities in
the Southwest that all neighbor Black Mesa.
Out of the three regions analyzed by Hegmon and colleagues from the
U.S. Southwest (Mimbres, Mesa Verde, and Hohokam), the people of the
Mimbres Classic period (AD 10001130) were the least rigid, exemplifying
resilience. A high rigidity is often associated with declines in traditions
and populations along with an increase in human suffering, in terms of
violence and health. With their adaptability, reorganizational strategies,
and persistence, the inhabitants of the Mimbres region closely resembled
the Ancestral Pueblo of Black Mesa. However, stress factors that increase
morbidity, such as weaning and the onset of self-provisioning, were still
clearly evident on Black Mesa despite their smaller size. This regional per-
spective highlights the reality that although Black Mesa was a harsh and
212 D. L. Martin, J. L. Thompson, and J. J. Crandall

marginal environment for farming, the adult strategies of seasonal mobil-


ity, maintaining a diverse diet, and political autonomy may have protected
the children in ways not possible in the larger communities.
The results indicate that 84.7 percent show visible signs of mild to mod-
erate porotic hyperostosis and 70.7 percent demonstrate some form of peri-
osteal reactions. Further examination by age suggests that there was early
age of onset of both pathologies and that they tended to co-occur in all age
categories. These data suggest that the morbidity experienced by infants
and children in these small working-class farming communities was a
constant and crushing responsibility for the adults as well as the children
old enough to make economic contributions to their group. Subsistence
strategies, flexible responses to a marginal environment, and a largely egali-
tarian social organization buffered, but could not entirely halt, the impact
of marginality on child health. Comparison with data on childhood illness
for contemporaneous and later groups provides a way to contextualize the
experience of children within and among different regions.

Acknowledgments

We owe our deepest gratitude and profound respect to officials represent-


ing the Hopi Nation for allowing the excavation, curation, and analysis of
the Black Mesa skeletal remains.

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IV
The Cultured Child
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11
Surviving Childhood
Health, Identity, and Personhood in
the Prehistoric American Southwest

Ann M. Palkovich

For children born into ancestral Puebloan societies in the pre-Hispanic


American Southwest, life was first and foremost a matter of survival. Daily
existence meant dealing with diseases of malnutritionincluding mega-
loblastic anemia, scurvy, and rickets. Widely documented for many pre-
Hispanic settlements throughout the Southwest, these health issues have
become synonymous with high morbidity and mortality rates among the
very young in Ancestral Puebloan populations (e.g., Stodder and Martin
1992; Martin 1994; Stodder 2007).
Serial infections contracted by the very young, such as diarrhea, and ane-
mia are two pathological states linked to a suite of other conditions, such
as rickets (vitamin D deficiency), and scurvy (vitamin C deficiency). These
conditions, along with megaloblastic anemia (vitamin B12 deficiency), col-
lectively are often associated with populations experiencing poor health as
the result of poor hygiene and inadequate diets.
Deficiencies underlying one health condition physiologically often in-
teract with and are affected by other conditions; diets deficient in one mi-
cronutrient are commonly deficient in a number of micronutrients that
lead to these related, synergistic health conditions. Children are typically
the most susceptible, having immature immune systems and few physi-
ological means to buffer dietary deficiencies.
This suite of health issues remains common in developing countries and
has shaped contemporary perceptions of childhood. Vulnerable at birth
to odds of an early death, children in many societies may be viewed as
unformed individuals, as if waiting to see if any given infant survives (e.g.,
220 A. M. Palkovich

Scheper-Hughes 1992). It is a short leap to presume a similar social dis-


tancing of the very young within past communities that experienced high
infant/child morbidity and mortality. It appears that the challenge of any
childhood marked by malnutrition and infectious diseases would be a sim-
ple matter of surviving these health issues, and some children (sometimes
few) did survive. How, then, does one understand the lived experience of
children and the nature of childhood for past populations as potentially
distinct and different from these living analogies? Is early childhood in the
past more than just overcoming infections fostered by malnutrition?

Theoretical Background on Personhood

In exploring notions of childhood (e.g., Lillehammer 1989; Scheper-


Hughes 1992; Baxter 2005, 2006, 2008; Lancy 2008), research has focused
on childhood as practice for adulthood and on understanding childhood
as a distinct phase of life. This work has challenged largely Western notions
of childhood and understanding children only in relation to adulthood or
as elements of a life cycle demographic. By mapping anew the social roles
of children in the archaeological past, a different understanding of the ways
in which children used material culture in ways that were simply differ-
ent from adults has emerged, along with new perspectives on the social
and economic roles that children likely played in the past. Explorations
of identity in childhood draw on both of these perspectives and help us
map the social and economic roles that children may have played in the
past. These studies have drawn on theoretical trends in archaeology such
as identity, agency, and gender in order to help situate life cycle issues such
as socialization, knowledge transmission, and identity (e.g., Meskell 2000).
For pre-Hispanic Ancestral Puebloan populations, I suggest that notions of
personhood offer us distinct insights about the lived early life experience of
those born into these past populations.
Concepts of identity and agency have allowed us to examine facets of
an individuals life (e.g., age, sex, gender, ritual activities) as they relate to
and are situated by social relations. Personhood casts these concepts into
a broader framework. Notions of personhood draw on Clifford Geertzs
distinction between individuals and the sociocultural milieu that shapes,
defines, and orders each individuals lived experience (see Fowler 2004).
Conventionally, the lives of individuals born within a community are given
form by the myriad of social relations throughout an individuals life. A
Health, Identity, and Personhood in the Prehistoric American Southwest 221

person in such communities and an individual are one in the same.


Here the distinction between the individual and individuality, or existence
and experience, still presumes discrete, bounded, embodied individuals
whose unique life experiences create individuality and give both social
form and variability in a community. Life experiences for an individual
may be multiauthored and varied, but the individual/person is discrete and
singular.
Personhood, however, is not necessarily bounded by a given indi-
viduals physical body. The distinction between individual and experi-
ence can be framed more broadly, where a person may not necessarily
be coincident with the sense of an individual. Strathern (1988) notes that in
Highland New Guinea, an individuals life experience is multiauthored, but
also multiconstituted or multifocal. A person is formed through inalienable
relations with others and with objects that form an increasingly complex
biography throughout the life of an individual. In this case, an individuals
identity is not wholly embodied in his or her physical body. A person
is created via social relations, with some elements of a given person re-
siding in the individuals body, and other elements residing elsewherein
objects or ancestors or other individuals. Personhood is not bestowed
upon or contained within an individuals physical body, but rather is both
multiauthored and multifocal. This divisibility of the person also imbibes
things with elements of a person; these things are no longer mere objects
or symbols, but part of the community of persons with shifting value and
agency.
In Highland New Guinea, Strathern (1988) notes that a person is multi-
authored by social relations but also fractal rather than singularly embod-
ied; people exist as dividual and partible, with elements of the person
residing both in other individuals and in social interactions, substances,
objects, animals, and other venues outside the body. In this sense, a per-
son is relational, defined by context and actions, where interactions with
things convey elements of personhood to the individual. Fowler (2004)
has suggested that ideas of personhood may provide insights about the
pastfor example, how persons are embodied in part by their interac-
tions with fur-bearing mammals in Mesolithic Scandinavia (Fowler 2004).
Personhood as both multiauthored and multifocal may similarly provide
some insights about the nature of childhood within Ancestral Puebloan
communities.
222 A. M. Palkovich

Children and Personhood in Ancestral Puebloan Societies

For pre-Hispanic Southwest Ancestral Puebloan societies, ethnographic


analogy with indigenous groups that trace their ancestry to the ruins of
past community have routinely been a starting point for archaeological in-
terpretation. There are many ways in which archaeologists, historians, and
others have explored the connections, links, similarities, and divergences
between the ethnohistorical record and various Ancestral Puebloan com-
munities. Aspects of Puebloan sociocultural order, beliefs, and cosmology
are evident materially at pre-Hispanic Ancestral Puebloan sites and are
consistent with historical accounts. Interpretations of these past commu-
nities offered by archaeologists, historians, and others trace both the broad
cultural continuities historically evident in the American Southwest and
importantly offer insights about particular events.
More recently, the contributions to our understanding of the past of-
fered by Puebloan tribal elders and ritual specialists that draw on oral tra-
ditions have refined our understandings of cultural persistence and con-
tinuity as well as the diversity in social practices, such as contextualizing
ritual paraphernalia found in archaeological context (e.g., Ferguson and
Lomaomvaya 2010; Mason 2000; also see McGregor 1953; Neitzel 2012). Yet
material evidence that we note archaeologically is more than patterns of be-
havior we can link to the ethnographic past. The parallels evident between
Ancestral Puebloan life and ethnohistorical accounts suggest that similar
fundamental aspects of Puebloan worldview and cosmology situated the
nature of everyday Puebloan life in the past.
It appears that Puebloan cosmology shapes people as relational persons.
Ethnographically, it is noted that Puebloans distinguish kinds of beings (see
Ellis 1951; Ortiz 1969; White 1962), such as everyday individuals (accord-
ing to Ortiz, Dry Food People or weed people), individuals who fulfill
particular secular or ritual functions (Ortizs Towae), and Made people or
those with special status related to moieties (Ortizs Patowae). These kinds
of beings have parallel forms in the spiritual world, and upon death, one
becomes the same kind of being mirrored in the underworld. The interplay
and melding of these spiritual existences between earthly existence and the
underworld are evident in several ways and appear to partition an indi-
viduals existence between earthly and underworld realms. For example, in
the course of annual ritual cycles, Made people appear as the underworld
deities, literally becoming the personification of these deities. Here the un-
derworld spirits appearance is wholly embodied in its earthly counterpart.
Health, Identity, and Personhood in the Prehistoric American Southwest 223

In the case of the recently deceased, the spirit leaves the body and remains
in the village for four days before taking up permanent residence in the
underworld. Here a person is represented by a transition of the spirit from
an earthly existence to the underworld, with the physical body retaining
no special significance. Each of these instances suggests that a Puebloan
person is centered in a spiritual existence that is fluid and relational both to
moments of ritual performance, to states of earthly existence and to transi-
tions between earthly and underworld beings.
Of interest here are two categories of being, innocents (or not she ta)
and witches (chuge ing) (Ortiz 1969: 140). Children younger than age 6
are considered innocents whose existence is still within the realm of the
underworld, and they are therefore not yet persons. As noted by Ortiz
(1969: 16),
to be not yet she ta is to be innocent or not yet knowing. . . . to be in-
nocent is to be not yet Tewa; to be not yet Tewa is to be not yet human;
and to be not yet human to be, in this use of the term, not entirely out
of the realm of spiritual existence.
Young children retain an ambiguous status as persons; their earthly exis-
tence is recognized through a naming ceremony after four days of life, and
a water-giving ceremony at age 1 year recognizes the infant as a part of a
moiety within the villages social structure. It is not until the water-pouring
ceremony, which occurs between ages 6 and 10, and the finishing ceremony,
which occurs at age 10, that a childs existence is recognized as fully incor-
porated into an earthly person. Only upon becoming Towae (Dry Food
Person) when gender roles are given and one is formally incorporated into
a moiety is an individual finally considered fully human and thus becomes
a person.
The sense of not yet knowing (not she ta) conveys not only a sense
of an immature individual, a child, but also highlights these individuals
as both nave and vulnerable. The importance of this state of innocence is
apparent in comparison to the only other class of non-persons, or witches
(chuge ing). Witches are spirits in Puebloan cosmology that depend on
preying upon the unexpired lives of those not yet freed to return to the
underworld (Ortiz 1969: 140) and take human form by occupying the bod-
ies of the living. Witches are blamed for many of the misfortunes that befall
a community. And as a non-person, a witchs spirit is prohibited from re-
turning to the underworld (Simmons 1942) and instead lingers among the
living, waiting for the opportunity to possess another human (Goldfrank
224 A. M. Palkovich

1967; Ortiz 1969). Witches are dangerous, in part, because they can be any-
onemale or female, young or old. Witchcraft knowledge and power may
be passed through families or passed on to those who are recruited. Even
young children are suspect in families thought to harbor witches. Since
witch spirits are thought to seek out vulnerable lives, children, as innocents,
are considered particularly vulnerable to possession by evil spirits (Darling
1999). Acts of aggression and violence (such as the invoking of arrows for
protection and strength) and acts of curing and purification (such as the
use of ashes) were all measures used to drive away, to protect against, or to
outright kill witches (Darling 1999).

Materials and Methods

The subadult remains recovered from Arroyo Hondo Pueblo illustrate the
socially constructed vulnerabilities of children as non-persons in An-
cestral Puebloan society. Arroyo Hondo is a fourteenth-century Ancestral
Pueblo settlement located at the northern edge of the Galisteo Basin near
present-day Santa Fe, New Mexico. Of the 120 burials recovered from this
site, 54 were individuals age 5 or younger at the time of death. Mortuary
patterning, paleopathological assessment, and trauma analysis are among
the studies conducted on these remains (Palkovich forthcoming). Three
subadults, ages 3, 4, and 4, are of interest here. The bodies of these indi-
viduals were disposed of together but not formally interred. In addition,
they were the only subadults that exhibited trauma. No photographs of
remains are included here in accord with the wishes of the descendant
population.

Results

Archaeologically, the violent deaths of these three young children at Arroyo


Hondo Pueblo, ages 3, 4, and 4, may well represent ritualized violence
directed against those believed to be inhabited by evil spirits. Each of these
children died as a result of forceful fatal blows to the crown of the head.
In each case, cranial fractures centered on the sagittal suture and radiated
downward, fracturing parietals and temporals; separating coronal, sagittal,
occipital, and temporal sutures; and separating as well as fracturing the
basicranium.
Forensically, this level of cranial damage is known to be fatal. All three
individuals also exhibited the same pattern of rib fractures, suggesting their
Health, Identity, and Personhood in the Prehistoric American Southwest 225

torsos were clubbed, and one child exhibited facial trauma associated with
a number of dental ablation fractures. These children had been beaten to
death in the same manner in a single violent event, their bodies then dis-
posed of together and buried without ceremony.

Discussion/Conclusion

It is disquieting to think that young children were the victims of violence.


In this case, I have argued (Palkovich 2013) that their deaths could be un-
derstood as ritualized acts of violence, perhaps intended to rid the village
of evil influences. These children may have been considered vulnerable yet
also perceived as dangerous and a potential a threat in part because they
were not she ta. They were too young to be considered persons or may
have been the innocents in a family suspected of witchcraft. In this case,
these unusual childhood deaths represent an event embedded in Ancestral
Puebloan cosmology and belief that also reflects the status of young chil-
dren as non-persons in these communities.
Puebloan cosmology variously divides personhood between an indi-
viduals earthly experiences and specific underworld roles. Naming and
water-giving rituals are stages that begin to integrate a childs earthly ex-
istence into community roles. Water-giving performed at age 6 may well
have celebrated those childrens survival of early-childhood health hazards.
However, the ritualized violent deaths of three young children at Arroyo
Hondo suggest that the hazards of Ancestral Puebloan childhood were in
part bound up in their partible personhood. Ancestral Puebloan chil-
dren had a physical existence in their communities, but also resided in
the underworld. Ancestral Puebloan adults were persons defined by their
earthly social roles that shaped and resonated with their connections to
their ritualized underworld personas. Ancestral Puebloan young children
had a physical existence in their communities but resided wholly in the
underworld. This ambiguity of roles offered them innocence and a conti-
nuity of existence, with the possibility of being reborn into the community
should they die. This innocence also rendered children highly vulnerable
to evil influences and thus subject to suspicions.
Children in Ancestral Puebloan communities faced more than the haz-
ards of malnutrition and disease. Their intimate yet undefined connection
to the underworld meant their nominal roles in their communities ren-
dered them earthly non-persons; personhood was entirely as a spirit of the
underworld. Surviving for Ancestral Puebloan children meant surviving
226 A. M. Palkovich

the ambiguity of childhood; it meant enduring earthly health and social


hazards long enough to acquire roles partitioned between earthly and ritual
existences that shaped and structured ones personhood.

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12
Tracing Tiwanaku Childhoods
A Bioarchaeological Study of Age and Social Identities
in Tiwanaku Society

Deborah E. Blom and Kelly J. Knudson

A wealth of publications focused on childhood in the past within the last


five years attests both to a scholarly interest on ancient childhoods and a
realization that our understanding of the past is incomplete if we ignore
approximately half of society (e.g., Ardren and Hutson 2006; Baxter 2006;
Dommasnes and Wrigglesworth 2008; Halcrow and Tayles 2008). In the
Americas, ancient childhoods have been addressed by various researchers
(e.g., Ardren and Hutson 2006), but relatively few studies have focused on
the Andes in general and specifically in the field of bioarchaeology. An-
dean bioarchaeologists have examined health, cranial modification prac-
tices, and paleomobility in the first years of life (Blom et al. 2005; Farnum
2002; Hoshower et al. 1995; Klaus and Tam 2009; Knudson and Blom 2009;
Knudson and Torres-Rouff 2009; Pechenkina and Delgado 2006; Torres-
Rouff 2002). However, childhood has not been the focus of these studies,
and the few publications specifically on juveniles restrict their focus to spe-
cialized contexts involving sacrifice and/or trophy heads (e.g., Andrushko
et al. 2011; Bourget 2001; Reinhard and Ceruti 2005; Tung and Knudson
2010).
In this chapter, we seek to fill the gap in studies of ancient Andean child-
hoods by incorporating age identities into our previous bioarchaeological
and biogeochemical research into the formation of social identities in the
Tiwanaku polity, which dominated the South Central Andes from c. AD
500 to AD 1150. In this chapter, we first discuss our general theoretical ap-
proach to concepts of childhood in the Andes, using the ethnographic and
ethnohistoric record to outline significant issues in early childhood that
A Bioarchaeological Study of Age and Social Identities in Tiwanaku Society 229

can be addressed through bioarchaeological data. We then briefly present


our study area from Tiwanaku contexts in the South Central Andes. By
expanding on our previous data, we investigate past Andean concepts of
childhood with a focus on the development of and intersections between
gender, age, residence, and community identities. In doing so, we illustrate
how reframing data on Tiwanaku childrearing practices, social identities,
and residential mobility can address the experience of Tiwanaku child-
hoods and begin to shed light on how childhood was constructed for indi-
viduals within Tiwanaku society. We finish with a discussion of directions
for ongoing research on Tiwanaku childhoods and in the ancient Andes in
general.

Theoretical Background on Social Constructs of Andean Childhoods

Theoretical frameworks that recognize concepts of child and childhood


as culturally and historically contingent (Aris 1962; Lancy 2008; Mont-
gomery 2009) have revolutionized archaeological studies of children (e.g.,
Baxter 2006; Joyce 2000; Kamp 2001) but have yet to be fully applied in the
Andes. Careful use of the ethnographic and ethnohistoric record through
appropriate analogy (e.g., Binford 1968; Watson et al. 1971; Wylie 1985) can
provide valuable perspectives on Andean age and gender identities, which
are in turn useful to bioarchaeologists interested in social identities more
broadly. However, ethnohistoric data are passed through a filter of Spanish
conquerors, and ethnographies may inadvertently and incorrectly repre-
sent rural Andean populations as static and homogenous (Jamieson 2005;
Starn 1991; Weismantel 1991). With this in mind, we note that, in the Andes,
ethnohistorical sources provide information on the activities of children
of various ages and on age constructs or grades used by the Quechua-
speaking Inka as well as Aymara-speaking groups (e.g., de Castro and de
Ortega Morejn [1558] 1936: 238; de Santilln [1563] 1879: 1921; Guaman
Poma de Ayala [1615] 1936: 193234). Ethnographic sources on Aymara-
and Quechua-speaking communities also provide information about social
age categories and gender identities in the Andes (e.g., Allen 2002; Bolin
2006; Canessa 2000b; Harris 1980).
Andean ethnographic and ethnohistoric sources indicate that two events
transform presocial/wild fetal and infant beings into social persons (Ca-
nessa 2000b; Graham 1999: 17; Greenway 1998; Harris 1980). Historically
and today, the transition from fetus to baby (wawa) takes place most prom-
inently not at birth but during a naming ceremony (Allen 2002; Bolin 2006:
230 D. E. Blom and K. J. Knudson

2728; Canessa 2000b; Harris 1980) and/or with the first haircut (rutucha),
usually performed when a child has a full head of hair (Allen 2002: 69;
Canessa 2000a: 134). The hair-cutting ceremony, the time at which gender
identities are often assigned, takes place in a domestic setting, highlighting
the importance of the household in the formation of social identities in
childhood (e.g., Joyce 2001). These ethnographic data can help bioarchae-
ologists conceptualize the formation of gender identities and may aid in in-
terpreting mortuary and bioarchaeological data in the Andes and beyond.
Another childrearing practice that illustrates the importance of every-
day practice in early-childhood identity formation is cranial modification,
a significant tradition in much of the Andes before the Spaniards outlawed
it in the sixteenth century (see the overview in Blom 2005). Although head
shape must be modified in a long process over the first few years of life, ac-
cording to Bandelier (1910: 176), the first bonnet [used to modify a childs
head shape] was manufactured with many ceremonies and superstitions
in the Tiwanaku heartland, much as we see with hair-cutting and naming
ceremonies today. Because it is bioarchaeologically accessible, culturally
modified head shape provides a powerful tool in the study of ancient An-
dean childhoods, as do studies of age-differentiated status through mortu-
ary analyses (e.g., Gowland 2006).
Food is also instrumental in constructing social identities across space
and time in the Andes (e.g., Allen 2002; Graham 2003; Hastorf 2003; Weis-
mantel 1991) and is visible in age-specific perceptions of children and their
identities. Because the hair-cutting ceremony often coincides with wean-
ing (Graham 1999: 17, citing Garcilaso de la Vega [1609] 1966; Rowe 1946:
282, citing Cobo 18901895: book 14, chap. 6; Gonzlez Holgun 1608; and
Molina 1913: 176), the timing of this life cycle transition may be determined
by pinpointing the timing of weaning through biogeochemical data (e.g.,
Dupras and Tocheri 2007). In the Andes today, the important milestones
that are associated with becoming a fully socialized person are speech and
the consumption of solid food during and after the weaning process (Har-
ris 1980; Orta 1999).
Through the act of feeding, social identities are developed, especially for
children who are adopted or fostered, such as through the Andean practice
of child circulation (Leinaweaver 2007). Weismantel (2004: 499) writes,
The notion that the relationship between parent and child might be built
over time through acts of feeding is one that resonates with indigenous
cultural traditions in the Andes. . . . Shared food gradually created un-
breakable ties between bodies and established permanent social identities;
A Bioarchaeological Study of Age and Social Identities in Tiwanaku Society 231

therefore, the act of feeding, rather than biological relationships, is key in


defining relationships. Thus, feeding adopted children slowly transformed
them into members of the family in a physical, as well as a social, sense
(Weismantel 2004: 499). Therefore, understanding the complex roles and
meanings of food choices may help bioarchaeologists contextualize paleo-
dietary studies and the role of food in the construction and maintenance of
social identities.
Culturally specific beliefs about the dietary needs of children are also
key in determining childhood experiences and risk of dietary deficiencies
(see Graham 1999 for a review of child nutrition and seasonal hunger in the
Andes). For example, Graham (1997) reports that in the Andean highlands,
early childhood is perceived as a period of weakness and physical imma-
turity, when threats from physical and supernatural forces are particularly
significant; hunger makes children more vulnerable to these dangers, and
on-demand feeding, through both nursing and snacking, is seen as a way
to counteract these threats. In times of food shortages, young children
are buffered as much as possible (Leonard 1991). As children age, there is
a strengthening life force, or body-soul connection, and by about age
seven a child is considered to be like a little adult, stronger and less vul-
nerable to illness than younger children, with a well-integrated life force,
capable of work and morally responsible (Graham 1997: 1703). Therefore,
in many Andean communities, as children age they are provisioned less
and instead help prepare meals and maintain the household through caring
for siblings, often generating more food than they consume (Thomas 1976).
The extent to which these beliefs affecting childhood feeding and labor
practices can be extended to Tiwanaku contexts is yet unknown.

The Middle Horizon Tiwanaku Polity in the Andes

The Middle Horizon Tiwanaku polity flourished in the South Central An-
des from c. AD 500 to AD 1150 (figure 12.1) (see the overviews in Goldstein
2005; Janusek 2004; Kolata 1993). Tiwanaku-affiliated sites and material
culture are present throughout Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina in areas
such as the Moquegua Valley of southern Peru (see the overview in Gold-
stein 2005) and San Pedro de Atacama in northern Chile (see the overviews
in Rivera 1991; Torres-Rouff 2008). Compared to other Andean regions,
there is a long history of research on Tiwanaku social identities. Initially,
scholars focused on the role of communities, such as ayllus, within the Ti-
wanaku polity (e.g., Albarracn-Jordn 1996) and on identifying Tiwanaku
232 D. E. Blom and K. J. Knudson

Figure 12.1. Map of the


South Central Andes
with Chen Chen, Peru,
and Tiwanaku, Bolivia,
labeled.

ethnicity in material culture from Tiwanaku-affiliated sites (e.g., Rodman


1992). More recent work has continued to focus on community-level social
identities within the Tiwanaku polity, both in the Tiwanaku heartland and
within Tiwanaku-affiliated communities in the Moquegua Valley, which
likely articulated with the Tiwanaku state as a multiethnic colony or dias-
pora (Blom 2005; Goldstein 2005; Janusek 2004). Isotopic analyses have
demonstrated that Tiwanaku residential mobility was complex (Knudson
2008), and multiple analyses point to a shared Tiwanaku social and po-
litical identity with the maintenance of regional community identities in
Moquegua and other regions (Blom 2005; Goldstein 2005; Janusek 2004;
Rodman 1992).

Materials and Methods

Combining multiple lines of evidence, we reconstruct the development and


intersections of social identities and the experience of childhood at the
Tiwanaku-affiliated site of Chen Chen in the Moquegua, where Blom has
A Bioarchaeological Study of Age and Social Identities in Tiwanaku Society 233

bioarchaeologically analyzed 1,080 individuals and Knudson has biogeo-


chemically analyzed a subset of 35 individuals. The embodiment of group
or community identity is accessed through the highly visible practice of
cranial modification, which is permanently inscribed during first years of
life. Regional patterning and its highly visible nature indicate that head
shape was a diacritical feature in Tiwanaku society (Blom 2005; Hoshower
et al. 1995; Torres-Rouff 2002), making it an ideal marker of community
and regional identity. Bloms (2005) analyses of cranial modification styles
in 287 sufficiently complete crania followed standard qualitative techniques
(Buikstra and Ubelaker 1994).
Another way that we can particularly contribute to the study of Tiwa-
naku childhoods and identities is through bioarchaeological analyses of
geographic origins and residential mobility. While archaeologists must
rely primarily on burial location, residential fluidity and paleomobility
throughout the life course can be studied through biogeochemical analy-
ses of enamel and bone. Radiogenic strontium isotope values (87Sr/86Sr) in
archaeological human enamel and bone samples can elucidate the geologic
zones in which an individual lived during enamel and bone formation in
the first and last years of life (Bentley 2006). Paleodietary analyses using
biogeochemical data such as oxygen isotope data from enamel or nitrogen
isotope data from dentine or bone collagen that formed before, during, and
after the weaning process can be used to examine weaning behaviors and
variability (e.g., Dupras and Tocheri 2007).
In addition to community-based identities such as those accessed by
cranial modification and residence, we also explore their intersections with
intracorporal identities such as age and gender. Using published standards,
juvenile age was assigned using dental formation and epiphyseal closure
and sex was determined for adults based on cranial and pelvic morphol-
ogy and metrical analysis (Buikstra and Ubelaker 1994). In discussing age
as a social identity, we follow Gowlands (2006: 143) and others distinction
between physiological age, represented by physical aging, and social age,
which is socially constructed and concerns appropriate behaviors and ac-
tivities for a particular age group. Here, we use the term juveniles when re-
ferring strictly to the physiological age of individuals who have not reached
skeletal maturation to distinguish from social age identities such as child
or baby (but see Bogin 1999 and others). In addition, we define childhood
as the culturally constructed period before which an individual is con-
sidered a fully functioning adult; we anticipate that most individuals will
234 D. E. Blom and K. J. Knudson

experience a number of different age identities during childhood and again


through adulthood and that, based on Andean ethnographic data, age and
gender may be heavily intertwined in the formation of social identities.
Finally, childhood health was observed through childhood anemia, an
indicator of chronic infection, parasites, and/or certain dietary deficiencies
(Blom et al. 2005; El-Najjar et al. 1976; Lallo et al. 1977; Mensforth et al.
1978; Starbird et al. 2010; Stuart-Macadam 1992; Walker et al. 2009). Porotic
hyperostosis and cribra orbitalia data were collected following standard
protocols (Blom et al. 2005; Buikstra and Ubelaker 1994). Cribra orbitalia
and porotic hyperostosis data was collected for a sample of 296 individuals,
split into those aged 010 years (N = 115) versus those older than 10 years
of age (N = 181) at death since lesions are more likely to be unremodeled in
the young.

Results

Cranial modification analyses indicate that more than 80 percent of the


individuals buried at Chen Chen had their head shapes modified in region-
ally distinct styles during childhood (Blom 2005). No significant differ-
ences exist in cranial modification practices by sex. An association between
cranial modification style and age at death is apparent on the sample for
which specific age data were available (N = 286). Significantly more of the
individuals dying before age 10 had modified head shapes (92.5 percent
versus 80.8 percent) (table 12.1). When we break these groups into finer
age distinctions, we see that all individuals contained in the Chen Chen
mortuary sample who died before age 3 to 5 had modified skulls, with the
youngest individual with an unmodified skull assigned an age of 3.56.5
years at the time of death (table 12.2).
Analyses of evidence of childhood anemia revealed that 57 percent of
those aged 010 years at death exhibited cribra orbitalia, while 72 percent
displayed porotic hyperostosis (Blom et al. 2005). Cribra orbitalia lesions
were present in 39 percent of individuals older than age 10 at death. Pre-
dictably, lesions are significantly more common in juvenile remains, but no
significant difference existed between finer age distributions of children.
No significant differences exist in the presence of cribra orbitalia by sex or
between evidence of anemia and cranial modification.
Paleomobility results are based on radiogenic strontium isotope data
from enamel and bone samples from thirty-five adult individuals buried at
Chen Chen (Knudson 2008, 2011). Mean 87Sr/86Sr is 0.7077900.00412 (1,
Table 12.1. Chi-square of cranial modification by age range (010 years vs. 10+
years)
Modification Total
Absent Modified
Age Range 010 years Count 7 86 93
% 7.5% 92.5% 100.0%
10+ years Count 37 156 193
% 19.2% 80.8% 100.0%
Total Count 44 242 286
% 15.4% 84.6% 100.0%
Note: Fishers Exact Test: p = 0.007.

Table.12.2. Chi-square of cranial modification by detailed age range


Modification Total
Absent Modified
Age Range 0.51 years Count 0 3 3
% 0.0% 100.0% 100.0%
12 years Count 0 18 18
% 0.0% 100.0% 100.0%
23 years Count 0 17 17
% 0.0% 100.0% 100.0%
35 years Count 1 23 24
% 4.2% 95.8% 100.0%
57 years Count 4 13 17
% 23.5% 76.5% 100.0%
710 years Count 2 12 14
% 14.3% 85.7% 100.0%
1015 years Count 0 10 10
% 0.0% 100.0% 100.0%
1518 years Count 0 8 8
% 0.0% 100.0% 100.0%
18+ years Count 37 138 175
% 21.1% 78.9% 100.0%
Total
Count 44 242 286
% 15.4% 84.6% 100.0%
Note: Fishers Exact Test: p = 0.021 (9 cells [50.0%] have expected count less than 5)
236 D. E. Blom and K. J. Knudson

Table 12.3. Chi-square of sex by Sr signature


Outlier (Teeth) Total
No Yes
Count 11 4 15
F % within
Sex Sex 73.3% 26.7% 100.0%
Count 8 0 8
M % within
Sex 100.0% 0.0% 100.0%
Count 19 4 23
Total % within
Sex 82.6% 17.4% 100.0%
Note: Fishers Exact Test (2-sided): p = 0.257 (2 cells [50.0%] have expected count less than 5)

Table 12.4. Chi-square of cranial modification by Sr signature


Outliers (Teeth) Total
No Yes
Count 4 2 6
Absent % 66.7% 33.3% 100.0%
Modification Count 17 1 18
Modified % 94.4% 5.6% 100.0%
Count 21 3 24
Total % 87.5% 12.5% 100.0%
Note: Fishers Exact Test (2-sided): p = 0.143 (2 cells [50.0%] have expected count less than 5)

n = 35). The data are consistent with a relatively homogeneous population


in which most individuals lived and died in the same geologic region near
Chen Chen during both their nonadult and adult years. However, there
are four outliers who exhibit nonlocal radiogenic strontium isotope val-
ues in their enamel (Knudson 2008), indicating that a small number of
people spent their juvenile years outside the region despite their eventual
burial there. When we look at these individuals specifically, we find that all
are female (table 12.3). In addition, of the three for which cranial modifi-
cation could be observed, only one individual (M1-3840) had a modified
skull, while the other two individuals heads were not modified (M1-0036
and 2947) (table 12.4). No significant difference exists between radiogenic
strontium isotope values and sex, modification, or evidence of anemia (ta-
ble 12.5). However, relatively small sample sizes hamper these comparisons.
We can further explore the role of intersecting social identities and their
impact in childhood and adulthood through a more detailed analysis of
one of these individuals. While this case study is of an individual who died
A Bioarchaeological Study of Age and Social Identities in Tiwanaku Society 237

Table 12.5. Chi-square of cribra orbitalia by Sr signature


Outlier (Teeth) Total
No Yes
Cribra Orbitalia Absent Count 9 2 11
% 81.8% 18.2% 100.0%
Present Count 11 2 13
% 84.6% 15.4% 100.0%
Total Count 20 4 24
% 83.3% 16.7% 100.0%
Note: Fishers Exact Test (2-sided): p = 1.00 (2 cells [50.0%] have expected count less than 5)

as an older adult, looking at evidence throughout her life course including


her childhood may provide insight into her circumstances in later life.
This female (M1-2947) died sometime after age 50 and was interred
in the Tiwanaku-affiliated Chen Chen site in a simple prepared pit with
no grave goods (Blom et al. forthcoming). Her skeleton reveals a story of
sustained abuse through at least the later part of her life, a pattern that is
uncharacteristic of the Chen Chen sample. Of twenty-two observable ribs,
fourteen had fractures at different stages of healing, with three of these
occurring around the time of death. She also had multiple antemortem
fractures to her nasal bones, left frontal and zygomatic. Her head shape
was unmodified, something that we see in a minority of individuals. Fi-
nally, radiogenic strontium isotope data show that at least the first years of
her life were spent living somewhere other than the Moquegua Valley or
the Tiwanaku heartland in the Lake Titicaca Basin (Knudson 2008). More
specifically, while first molar enamel exhibits 87Sr/86Sr = 0.719211 (M1-2947,
F1205), a rib sample exhibits 87Sr/86Sr = 0.707688 (M1-2947, F1204), a lo-
cal signature (Knudson 2008). Future research will investigate residential
mobility and paleodietary changes over the life course of this individual.

Discussion/Conclusion

Our previous analyses of biodistance, culturally modified head shape, and


radiogenic strontium isotopes established a dynamic, ongoing relation-
ship between the Moquegua Valley and the Altiplano as individuals with
various local social identities moved between the two areas. Our new data,
which explore Andean constructions of childhood and the lives of children,
examines several intersecting and fluid social identities, such as age, gen-
der, status, and community identities. Here, we focus more specifically on
238 D. E. Blom and K. J. Knudson

the interpretations of our data and begin to reconstruct Tiwanaku child-


hoods, beginning with possible meanings of cranial modification as well as
the absence of modification.
The head shape modification was practiced on the majority of individu-
als buried within Chen Chen; previous analyses indicate that this practice
is most likely associated with regional identity within Tiwanaku society.
What the absence of modification might mean is more difficult to defini-
tively explain. It had been suggested in a footnote in one of our previous
works that
those whose heads were not modified might have been those whose
elders thought might cross boundaries in adulthood. The benefits of
not being identified as belonging to a particular group might have
been seen if they were, for example, members of llama caravans, who
were thought to have traveled throughout the Tiwanaku realm. Of
course, the chance that these may have been individuals who were
not properly cared for in infancy or who did not clearly belong to a
particular group is also possible. (Blom 2005: 17, footnote 10)
In light of the age distribution within the mortality sample, several other
interpretations are possible for the lack of younger juveniles without modi-
fication in the mortality sample. This pattern is unlikely to be simply due to
differential mortality. Even if children with unmodified heads were health-
ier, we also expect some well-nourished young children to die from disease
and accidents. In addition, the lack of association between modification
and markers of childhood anemia further invalidates this interpretation
and also argues against suggestions that what is labeled porotic hyperos-
tosis may in fact be a reaction to cranial modification (e.g., Guilln 1991:
166). Another possibility is that children without modification were not
afforded the same burial treatment as the rest of the population, including
juveniles whose heads were modified. Reasons for this could include the
possibility that those without modification were not recognized as full per-
sons in Tiwanaku society (see Duncan 2009) or lacked kin or others who
cared for them in death.
Finally, another explanation for the age-at-death distribution of indi-
viduals without cranial modification in the mortuary sample is that a sub-
stantial number of individuals without modification moved to the Tiwa-
naku-affiliated settlements in the Moquegua Valley only later in life. This
is especially intriguing given that all four individuals sampled who lived
elsewhere during early childhood were female, two of the three did not
A Bioarchaeological Study of Age and Social Identities in Tiwanaku Society 239

have their head shapes modified, and one exhibited trauma as presented
in the case study earlier (M1-2937). While the sample size in this study
prevents solid comparisons, the relationship between gender identities and
residential mobility is a key aspect to be studied in the future, based on
the residential mobility data presented here and those from San Pedro de
Atacama, Chile, on cranial modification (Knudson and Torres-Rouff 2009)
and cranial metrics (Costa Junqueira and Llagostera 1994) that suggest fe-
male exogamy. It is important to also consider that any female migration
may have occurred at some point in childhood, either with family mem-
bers or through the traditional and modern practice of child circulation,
which can be more common among girls (Leinaweaver 2007). Therefore,
accessing multiple data points throughout an individuals life cycle may be
particularly important. Radiogenic strontium isotope studies that focus on
sex-based differences in mobility and studies that more closely pinpoint
age at migration (e.g., Hadley and Hemer 2011) will aid in addressing these
issues more fully.
Information about age at migration may be particularly important in the
Andes, where the practice of child circulation today, at least, means that
children are commonly fostered or adopted into a new family (Leinaweaver
2008). In addition, children often have more social and physical mobil-
ity through fictive kin ties, in natal and new homes, and in intermarriage.
During the Middle Horizon, the labor of juveniles in the community may
have been quite beneficial since the Moquegua Valley was likely the loca-
tion of extractive agricultural colonies for Tiwanaku. Children may be the
first to learn new or different languages and customs, often have an easier
time with tensions between homeland and new area, and may more readily
adopt mixed identities. Although not a focus of this study, a consideration
of childrens role in acculturation is vital when studying immigrant popula-
tions like those in Moqueguas Tiwanaku settlements.
We conclude with a brief discussion of the ways in which future bioar-
chaeological and biogeochemical research can continue to shed light on
Tiwanaku childhoods. First, this preliminary study only addresses Tiwan-
aku childhoods at the site of Chen Chen; expanding the dataset to include
a larger sample from Chen Chen as well as other Tiwanaku-affiliated sites
in Moquegua and elsewhere will further clarify these issues. In particu-
lar, although expensive and destructive biogeochemical analyses provide
obstacles, an expanded radiogenic strontium isotope dataset will be ben-
eficial. A larger sample size will also help us and others investigate the vari-
ability in the experiences of juveniles and children throughout space and
240 D. E. Blom and K. J. Knudson

time, both within and between archaeological sites and burial populations.
In addition, by more fully studying foodways across the life course through
dental and isotopic analyses and patterns of childhood health and disease,
we can explore dietary change, including weaning, and nutritional buffer-
ing throughout the diverse Tiwanaku realm; this will elucidate important
aspects of social age constructs and concepts of the body and personhood.
Methodologically, future research will be improved through new ways of
looking at seriation and finer distinctions in age, including examining de-
velopmental stages versus chronological age, which can be problematic, in
general and specifically in the Andes (see Roksandic and Armstrong 2011;
Rowe 1946). Finally, and most importantly, we look forward to a larger
number and wider variety of bioarchaeological studies that incorporate ju-
veniles and social constructs of childhood; as shown by the contributions
to this volume, this is an exciting and fruitful direction for research.

Acknowledgments

We are very grateful for the financial support of The National Science
Foundation (BCS-0202329 and SBR-9708001), the University of Vermonts
College of Arts and Sciences Deans Fund for Faculty Development, and the
Wenner-Gren Foundation (grant number 5863). The following individuals
and institutions generously provided contextual information, laboratory
and museum access, and/or logistical support: Instituto Nacional de Cul-
tura de Moquegua, Linda Keng, Laboratory for Archaeological Chemistry,
Museo Contisuyo, Antonio Oquiche, Bruce Owen, Patricia Palacios, Paula
Tomczak, and Bertha Vargas. Alan Howard of the University of Vermonts
Statistical Software Support and Consulting Services kindly provided con-
sultation on the statistical analyses. Finally, we are grateful to the co-editors
for inviting us to present the issues discussed in this chapter in the sympo-
sium titled Tracing Childhood: Bioarchaeological Investigations of Early
Lives in Antiquity organized by Jennifer L. Thompson, Marta Alfonso-
Durruty, and John J. Crandall at the 110th Annual American Anthropologi-
cal Association Meeting in Montreal, Canada. We thank the members of
that symposium and its organizers for thought-provoking discussions of
the bioarchaeology of childhood.
A Bioarchaeological Study of Age and Social Identities in Tiwanaku Society 241

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Conclusion

Little Bodies, Big Voices


The Lives of Children in the Past

Marta P. Alfonso-Durruty, Jennifer L. Thompson,


and John J. Crandall

Infancy, childhood, and adolescence, like other life stages (such as adult-
hood), are a biological universal of our species. However, the somatic, psy-
chological, and social stances of children (all subadults) vary dramatically
depending on cultural conditions (Lancy 2008; Roveland 2001; Sander et
al. 1996). While the body transforms in response to biological changes,
cultural ideologies also mold it so that culturally specific lifeways are em-
bodied in the subadult little body (Lewis 2007; Panter-Brick, 1998; Sofaer,
2006). Subadult skeletons, therefore, have the potential to provide a wealth
of information regarding the social life of children (Chapter 9; Lewis 2007).
The social construction of childhood is not just a discursive matter: it has
material, embodied consequences.
A true understanding of the social subject in bioarchaeology must con-
sider both the biological and cultural aspects of the human experience.
The study of the body or skeleton can reveal these dimensions and their
intersection, given that it is modeled by biological, cultural, social, envi-
ronmental, and historical forces (Lewis 2007; Sofaer 2006). Although the
integration of social and biological perspectives may seem obvious today,
past anthropological studies certainly emphasized one to the detriment of
the other.

A Very Brief History of Growing Up in Anthropology

Anthropological interest in children and childhood has a long but uneven


history that has its precedents in the descriptions and records produced
by Christian missionaries and colonial administrators (Bluebond-Lang-
ner and Korbin 2007; LeVine 2007). The American and British founding
Conclusion. Little Bodies, Big Voices: The Lives of Children in the Past 247

fathers of anthropology (Boas 1912; Malinowsky 1929) and their students


(e.g., Mead 1928a, 1928b; Firth 1936) conducted the earliest anthropologi-
cal works on the subject (for a detailed review, see LeVine 2007). Thus,
by the 1920s through the 1950s, anthropologists were actively publishing
ethnographic accounts of childhood that were mostly based on fieldwork
conducted in non-Western communities. The purpose of these studies was
to contest ideas of universality, especially those regarding psychological
development (for more information, see LeVine 2007).
These early, as well as subsequent, anthropological studies of living
children emphasized acculturation and socialization. These concepts are
useful heuristic tools, but they limit our views in that they conceptualize
children in a binary contrast with adults. The emphasis in socialization
and acculturation led to depictions of children as primitive, natural, and
passive (Baxter 2005; Prout 2000, 2005; Roveland 2001). This portrait of
children as unfinished products went hand in hand with Western concepts
of childhood, in which children are depicted as innocent and vulnerable,
and childhood is understood as a time that is, or at least should be, free of
cares and responsibilities (Lancy 2008; Prout 2005).
By the 1980s the theoretical tides were turning, and discourse studies
(e.g., Foucault 1980) as well as mass media revealed the variable nature of
childhood and the multiple social and historical contexts in which it takes
place (Broude 1995; Hewlett and Lamb 2005; Lancy 2008; Prout 2005). The
emphasis thus changed from the biological nature of childhood to its social/
cultural construction (Hewlett and Lamb 2005; Lancy 2008; Prout 2005).
Constructionists saw the body as the product of discourses of power (Fou-
cault 1980) and thus as a site of representation, a stage for display (Joyce
2005). On the other hand, those who saw the body as artifact understand
it as a passive entity shaped by the workings of culture (Bourdieu 1984).
These approaches eventually led to a body that was denatured and that lost
its centrality (Joyce 2005).
Biological anthropology, like cultural anthropology, also has a long his-
tory of scientific curiosity about children, but the theoretical stance differs
from that followed by early cultural studies. Darwin, for example, was in-
terested in childhood and wrote on the subject emphasizing the biological
processes of development (Darwin [1872] 1979; Prout 2005). The Darwin-
ian legacy rooted childhood studies in biology. Thus, subsequent analy-
ses of childhood became saturated with notions of biological universality
and dealt, for the most part, with the evolutionary origins and energetic
costs of childhood (Bogin 2005, 2009; Bogin and Smith 1996; Bledsoe 2001;
248 M. P. Alfonso-Durruty, J. L. Thompson, and J. J. Crandall

Charnov 1993; Gurven and Kaplan 2006; Lummaa 2001; van Schaik et al.
2006).
Traditional bioarchaeological studies corresponded well with the con-
cerns of pediatric medicine, in which the child was viewed mostly in terms
of developmental normality (Prout 2005). Congruently, bioarchaeological
studies emphasized the analysis of subadults morbidity and mortality and
have successfully demonstrated that subadult remains inform us about the
degree to which a population had successfully adapted to its environment
(Buckley 2000; Goodman and Armelagos 1989; Humphrey 2003; Lewis
2002, 2010; Mays 1999; Molleson and Cox 1993; Ortner and Mays 1998;
Perry 2006; Ribot and Roberts 1996; Saunders 2000; Saunders et al. 1995;
Steckel and Rose 2002).
However, as the chapters in this volume reveal, the rapid growth of the
little bodies records more than just adaptation. Studies of subadult re-
mains can reveal the social treatment (via trauma and mortuary arrange-
ments) and social position (through health and disease) that children had,
received, and acquired. These studies, then, unearth the economic con-
text and social ideologies that shaped these bodies. Indeed, the chapters
in this volume highlight the integrative and transdisciplinary nature of
the bioarchaeology of children. These little bodies provide insights into
big comparative anthropological questions regarding the origin of human
variation, the role of inequality, the impact that social transformations
have on individuals, and the roots of health variation, among others. The
chapters in this volume can be used to identify new avenues of research
that can capitalize on recent theoretical and methodological advances in
paleopathology, skeletal biology, and forensic anthropology (Agarwal and
Glencross 2011; Baker et al. 2005; Grauer 2012; Latham and Finnegan 2010;
Lewis 2007).

Little Bodies

While the nature-nurture divide plagued anthropological childhood stud-


ies for a while, most scholars today agree that we must move beyond this
dichotomy (Ingold 1998; James 2000, 2007; Prout 2005; Stearns 2005). In
this sense, the field of childhood studies has developed parallel to womens/
feminist studies (see Bluebond-Langner and Korbin 2007; the Introduction
to this volume). Ideas regarding agency and embodiment, among others,
have helped to bridge the divide, and we certainly believe that studies of
Conclusion. Little Bodies, Big Voices: The Lives of Children in the Past 249

age-based categories, such as childhood, are central to this task (e.g., Perry
2006).
While the body is biological, it only comes to be what it is as a result of its
historical context (Baxter 2005; Sofaer 2006). Childhood, then, is neither
just a social construction/discourse nor just a biological phase. Childrens
bodies and minds are used to identify them as such, and it is the body that
contextualizes their social relations, roles, and statuses (Baxter 2005; James
2000, 2007). The childs body cannot be divorced from class, gender, and
ethnicity, and the childs social life has material consequences for the body
of a being that is also becoming (Baxter 2005; Lancy 2008; Prout 2000,
2005). The lives of children are therefore embodied in the sense that natu-
ral, social, cultural, and physical factors intersect in the body and mold it
(Meskell 2000).
Thus, in transcending the nature-culture divide, the childs growing
body occupies a special place where a dialogue between the natural, social,
and human sciences can occur (Prout 2005; Sofaer 2006). It is the body that
performs cultural ideals and norms, and it is those same actions that, in
turn, shape the body (Baxter 2005; Kramer 2002; Panter-Brick 1998; Sofaer
2006). This is why subadults can and should be studied using a biocultural/
biosocial approach (Lewis 2007; Perry 2006). Thus, the main goal of this
volume has been to present studies that assess traditional takes and also
address new research avenues, using a variety of theoretical approaches in
the study of the skeletal remains of subadult individuals.
Several of the studies presented in this volume address questions re-
garding the special treatment, whether positive or negative, that children
received in life and/or death. In Chapter 3, Standen and colleagues study
shows that infants and fetuses were the recipients of special mummification
treatments. This treatment, although certainly exceptional, suggests that
fetuses and infants bodies were modeled as adults (e.g., through the inclu-
sion of wigs), and thus that they were not separated from the adult world.
While the prehistoric children of northern Chile received special care after
death, those of the North American Southwest, whose biology separated
them from the rest, were exposed to a life of ill treatment, potential slavery,
and even violent death (Chapter 1). Prehistoric children of northern Mex-
ico, on the other hand, were the most substantial component of sacrificial
assemblages. This situation suggests that ill children were perceived as piv-
otal in the creation and maintenance of reciprocal obligations between the
living and the supernatural forces (Chapter 2). The infant burials at Torre
250 M. P. Alfonso-Durruty, J. L. Thompson, and J. J. Crandall

de Palma in Portugal (Chapter 4) exemplify how the very young were, in


life, at the margins of society, but became closer to, or even incorporated
into, a larger adult group in death through their inclusion in a sacred space.
The work presented in these chapters reveals that the social meaning of
childhood, and even personhood status, varies between societies, but also
with the unique characteristics of individual children. We firmly believe
that future research will elaborate on these studies, not only by exploring
the social identity of children, but also by assessing the variability that these
identities take through time and space and even within the same group.
These chapters are thought-provoking but also remind us that the interpre-
tation of disease and even burial contexts is far from being straightforward.
The dead body is an idealized representation (Ucko 1969). Thus, the careful
examination of the body and the context in which it was deposited must be
an essential component of all bioarchaeological studies.
Moreover, the social status and even value of children is also variable
through time and space. While studies of violence rarely include children,
Mays shows in Chapter 5 that infanticide, homicide, sacrifice, neglect, and
the participation of children in warfare may have been more common in
the past than previously thought. Like Walker (2001), Mays cautions us that
violence is rarely registered in the skeleton and that the special case of sub-
adult homicide may require, at times, indirect methods. In contrast with
this proposition, Gilmore and Halcrow show in Chapter 6 that although
infanticide has been practiced it was not necessarily a common procedure.
They warn that infanticide has become the preferred explanation in cases
of high perinatal age at death. This interpretation, however, contradicts the
information gathered from the burial contexts and needs to be substanti-
ated by more than a high rate of perinatal age at death. However growing
and exciting the bioarchaeology of children may be, the distinctly opposite
views presented by Mays and by Gilmore and Halcrow shows us that there
is still much work to be done. Between these two studies, we find the one
presented by Ellis in Chapter 7, which carefully examined the effects that
religious ideologies had in the lives of nineteenth-century Presbyterian
children in New York. The skeletal remains of these children revealed signs
of rickets that responded to the use of the body, by the church, as a site of
reformation and control. This study is exemplary in revealing how the body
reflects more than simple biological processes and is modeled by social and
ideological forces (Halcrow and Tayles 2008; Sofaer 2006).
The case of Black Mesa (Chapter 10) is an example of how the study of
paleopathologies in subadults can reveal the health status of the population
Conclusion. Little Bodies, Big Voices: The Lives of Children in the Past 251

but also the cultural practices that may have buffered them from stressors.
Moreover, the integration of the subadult data with the data collected for fe-
males shows how the health of mothers and children is intrinsically bound.
In Chapter 8, Barrett introduces us to the world of the working child in
Virginia and New York (seventeenth to nineteenth centuries). This histori-
cal bioarchaeology study not only reveals the ways in which these subadults
lived but also demonstrates the hybrid (cultured) nature of the body. The
skeletal remains of these children show how identities nested in class and
race affected their well-being. Moreover, Barretts inclusion and exploration
of musculoskeletal stress markers in subadults is suggestive of the type of
studies that can be done in subadult remains. Likewise, Alfonso-Durruty
and Thompsons analysis in Chapter 9 of the Archaic children of Punta
Teatinos reveals that the examination of growth, paleopathologies, and age
at death can be used to explore social ages. This study shows how these
prehistoric children transition into the adult world at an age that could be
surprisingly young for modern Western standards. Barretts and Alfonso-
Durruty and Thompsons studies attest to the social and economic role of
children in these societies. They also show that social age can be explored
in bioarchaeological analysis, thus transcending the nature-nurture divide.
Future studies should include this type of analysis, but they should also
thoroughly research and incorporate the archeological context in which
the bodies were found. By doing so, it will be possible to assess the degree
to which the mortuary treatment of these individuals was, or was not, an
idealized portrait of their life.
The social status and identity of past children is explored in the studies
presented by Palkovich in Chapter 11 and by Blom and Knudson in Chapter
12. In Palkovichs study, Puebloan children were victims of violence and
perceived as being at potential risk because of their social status (as non-
persons) within the group. Their complex identity tied their existence to an
underworld that was regarded as dangerous. This study reveals that more
than biological, ecological, and economical circumstances challenged the
lives of children in the past. The bodies of the Puebloan children were in-
tertwined within social ideologies and complexities that endangered their
lives and wellbeing. As in this case, ambiguities of the Tiwanaku childrens
identities reveal that those who did not receive cranial modification may
not have been considered persons, and thus would have not been afforded
the same burial treatment as those who did. An alternative explanation for
this phenomenon would be that individuals who had unmodified skulls
moved to the Tiwanaku-affiliated area of the Moquegua valley later in life.
252 M. P. Alfonso-Durruty, J. L. Thompson, and J. J. Crandall

Some of the isotope results presented by Blom and Knudson in Chapter


12 suggest that the latter may be the case. Whatever the scenario may have
been, this study, like Palkovichs, shows that childrens lives are interwoven
with those of the adults that belonged to the group. This means that (as
suggested by Halcrow and Tayles 2008) children, although different from
adults, cannot and should not be separated from adults in bioarchaeologi-
cal studies. Their lives take place in a fluid context that changes with age
and develops in shifting social and ideological dimensions.

Is There a Voice for the Children of the Past?

While there is a growing literature on children in living populations (Bird


and Bliege Bird 2002; Crittenden et al. 2009; Henry et al. 2005; Hewlett
and Lamb 2005; Kramer 2002; Lancy 2008; Tucker and Young 2005), there
is also much that we do not know about childhood in the past (see, e.g.,
Cohen 2007). Bioarchaeologists, like archaeologists, have faced challenges
when investigating children in prehistory, and it is only recently that at-
tempts to examine children in their biocultural context have been made
(e.g., Halcrow and Tayles 2008; Perry 2006). Childhood is one of the things
that makes us humans (Bogin 2009) and it is not, as proposed by Aris
(1962), just a Western construction. Those of us who are lucky enough to
survive it are also capable of understanding that its complexity arises from
both its biology and its sociality. Thus, the study of prehistoric children is
a central anthropological endeavor. It tells us about beings who were also
becoming adults, of beings who were shaped and changed by their social
groups, and studying them informs us about the diversity of the human
experience. Youngsters are indeed ambiguous beings (e.g., Finlay 2000)
whose lives transform and take different meanings, which may or may not
be reflected in the grave or by its grave goods. Thus, an analysis of material
culture that does not include the study of the body will not account for the
diversity of experiences of childhood in the past. In fact, bioarchaeological
studies of children show us the fluid status of childhood and juvenility and
move beyond classic archaeological studies where the presence/absence
and quality of offerings is used to determine the existence of ascribed or
acquired status (e.g., Roveland 2001; Stoodley 2000).
We believe that children in historic and prehistoric contexts need to be
studied through predictive models that systematically assess their roles
and lives, taking into account a variety of ecological and social variables in
Conclusion. Little Bodies, Big Voices: The Lives of Children in the Past 253

addition to biological ones. Such studies will benefit from the evolutionary,
ecological, and cultural perspectives presented in this volume. As the chap-
ters included in this volume show, bioarchaeological studies of childrens
remains make an important contribution to biological anthropology and
archaeology. The study of children reveals the experience of growing up in
conditions that are made diverse by the sociocultural context. This context,
as shown in this volume, includes conditions such as slavery, poverty, in-
equality, marginality, religious beliefs, and economy. By assessing children
within a wider context, we look forward to bioarchaeological studies that
move beyond a depiction of childhood in the past that is a mere reflection
of contemporary social constructions.
While we attempt to give a voice to the children of the past, questions re-
garding their representation cannot be ignored. In the past, as today, there
was a diversity of childhood experiences between communities and time
periods. But the next step is to look further for the diversity within com-
munities and the explorations of the selves that created societies.
While these childrens lives might be gone, their stories and voices can
be heard. However, their voices today are ultimately the describers de-
scription (Geertz 1988; Lewis 2007). As anthropologists we cannot escape
the predicaments of representation, so we must endeavor to engage our
results within the context and the bodies from which they emerge. While
the bioarchaeology of children has grown to become a legitimate field of
scholarly inquiry, there is still much work awaiting. To date, hundreds if
not thousands of subadult remains sit silently in museums and collections
around the world. Moreover, existing and at times available bioanthropo-
logical data remains uncontextualized and underutilized in testing hypoth-
eses about health, social organization, warfare, and sacrifice. The field lies
open ahead of us. It is time for us to repopulate our communal history with
the voices of the children of the past.

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Contributors

Marta P. Alfonso-Durruty is assistant professor of anthropology at Kansas State


University. She is the author of Experimental Assessment of Nutrition and Bone
Growths Velocity Effects on Harris Lines Formation in American Journal of
Physical Anthropology, Bassiocciput Age Estimation Assessment in Subadults
from Punta Teatinos, Chile with J. L. Thompson in AnthropologieInternational
Journal of the Science of Man (forthcoming), and Anlisis Bioantropolgico de
un Enterratorio Humano del Holoceno Tardio en Cabo Nose, Tierra del Fuego,
Chile [Bioanthropological Analysis of a Late Holocene Burial from Cape Nose,
Tierra del Fuego, Chile] with F. Morello and E. Calas in Magallania.

Bernardo T. Arriaza is the director of the Instituto de Alta Investigacin in Chile.


He is the author of Beyond Death: The Chinchorro Mummies of Ancient Chile
(Smithsonian Institution Press), Cultura Chinchorro: Las Momias Artificiales
Mas Antiguas del Mundo with Vivien G. Standen (Universidad de Tarapac), and
Cultura Chinchorro: Las Momias Artificiales Mas Antiguas del Mundo (Editorial
Universitaria). He is also a co-author of Characterizing the micromorphology of
sediments associated with Chinchorro mummifaction in Arica, Chile using SEM
and EDS, published in Archaeometry.

Autumn Barrett is a PhD student of anthropology at the College of William and


Mary. She is the author of Life Histories of Enslaved Africans in Colonial New
York: A Bioarchaeological Study of the New York African Burial Ground with
M. Blakey in Social Bioarchaeology.

Deborah E. Blom is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Ver-


mont. She is the author of The Complex Relationship between Tiwanaku Mor-
tuary Identity and Geographic Origin in the South Central Andes with K. J.
Knudson in Bioarchaeology and Identity in the Americas, Embodying Borders:
Human Body Modification and Diversity in Tiwanaku Society in the Journal of
Anthropological Archaeology, and Making Place: Humans as Objects of Dedica-
tion in Tiwanaku Society with J. W. Janusek in World Archaeology.
260 Contributors

Della C. Cook is professor of anthropology at Indiana University. She is the au-


thor of The Evolution of American Paleopathology with M. L. Powell in Bio-
archaeology: The Contextual Study of Human Remains; The Myth of Syphilis: The
Natural History of Treponematosis in North America with M. L. Powell; and The
African Queen, a Portuguese Mystery (with M. L. Powell, Maia M. Langley,
Jennifer Raff, Frederika Kaestle, and Susan D. Spencer) in The Bioarchaeology of
Individuals.

John J. Crandall is a PhD student in anthropology at the University of Nevada,


Las Vegas. He is the author of Evidence of Child Sacrifice at La Cueva de los
Muertos Chiquitos (6601430 AD) with D. L. Martin and J. L. Thompson in
Landscapes of Violence and The Cave of the Dead Children: Evidence of Child
Sacrifice in Ancient North Mexico (forthcoming).

Meredith A. B. Ellis is a PhD student in anthropology at Syracuse University. She


has published The Signature of Starvation: A Comparison of Bone Processing at
a Chinese Encampment in Montana and the Donner Party Camp in California
with C. W. Merritt, S. A. Novak, and K. J. Dixon in Historical Archaeology and
The Children of Spring Street: Rickets in an Early Nineteenth-Century Urban
Congregation in Northeast Historical Archaeology.

Helen F. Gilmore is a PhD student of anthropology at the University of Otago,


New Zealand. A Goodly Heritage: Queens Gardens, Dunedin, 18001927: An
Urban Landscape Biography is the title of her MA thesis, and she is working
with Dr. Sin Halcrow.

Sin E. Halcrow is lecturer in biological anthropology at the University of Otago,


New Zealand. She has written Newborn Twins from Prehistoric Mainland
Southeast Asia: Birth, Death and Personhood with N. Tayles, R. Inglis, and
C. Higham in Antiquity; The Bioarchaeological Investigation of Children and
Childhood with N. Tayles in Social Bioarchaeology; and The Bioarchaeological
Investigation of Childhood and Social Age: Problems and Prospects with N.
Tayles in Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory.

Stacey Hallman is a PhD student in sociology at the University of Western On-


tario, Canada. The Effect of Pandemic Influenza on Infant Mortality in Toronto,
Ontario, 19171921 is the title of her MA thesis.

Sarah Holt is a PhD student in anthropology at Ohio State University. Individu-


als and Variation: Stable Isotope Analysis of Weaning Using Dental Serial Sec-
tions is the title of her MA thesis.
Contributors 261

Kelly J. Knudson is associate professor of anthropology and director of the Ar-


chaeological Chemistry Laboratory at Arizona State University. She has pub-
lished Bioarchaeology and Identity in the Americas with C. M. Stojanowski, In-
vestigating Regional Mobility in the Southern Hinterland of the Wari Empire:
Biogeochemistry at the Site of Beringa, Peru with T. Tung in American Journal
of Physical Anthropology, and Childhood Lost: Abductions, Sacrifice and Trophy
Heads of Children in the Wari Empire of the Ancient Andes with T. Tung in
Latin American Antiquity.

Maia M. Langley is interim director, Early College and Dual Credit Jefferson
Community and Technical College (formerly researcher at the Museu Nacional
de Arqueologia, Portugal. She has published Est in Agris: A Spatial Analysis
of Roman Uillae in the Region of Monforte, Alto Alentejo, Portugal in Revista
Portuguesa de Arqueologia and A Comparison of Dating Techniques at Torre
de Palma, Portugal: Mortars and Ceramics in Building Roma Aeterna: Current
Research on Roman Mortar and Concrete.

Debra L. Martin is Lincy Professor of Biological Anthropology at the University


of Nevada, Las Vegas. She has published The Bioarchaeology of Violence with R.
Harrod and V. Perez, Troubled Times: Violence and Warfare in the Past with D.
Frayer, and Black Mesa Anasazi Health: Reconstructing Life from Patterns of Death
and Disease.

Simon Mays is a senior scientific officer at English Heritage, United Kingdom. He


has published The Archaeology of Human Bones; Human Osteology: In Archaeol-
ogy and Forensic Science with M. Cox; and Advances in Human Palaeopathology
with R. Pinhasi.

Ann M. Palkovich is associate professor of biological anthropology at George


Mason University and is director of human evolution research at the Krasnow
Institute for Advanced Study. She has published The Bioarchaeology of Individuals
with A. Stodder, Pueblo Population and Society: The Arroyo Hondo Skeletal and
Mortuary Remains, and Sew Long: The Osteobiography of a Woman from Me-
dieval Polis, Cyprus with A.L.W. Stodder in The Bioarchaeology of Individuals.

Mary Lucas Powell is professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of


Kentucky. She has published The Myth of Syphilis: The Natural History of Trepo-
nematosis in North America with D. C. Cook, Status and Health in Prehistory: A
Case Study of the Moundville Chiefdom, and What Mean These Bones? Studies in
Southeastern Bioarchaeology with P. S. Bridges and A. M. Mires.
262 Contributors

Amanda A. Rollins is a PhD student in anthropology at Indiana University,


Bloomington.

Calogero M. Santoro is a principal researcher at Instituto de Alta Investigacin


in Chile. He has published Cultures of the Chilean Desert: 10,000 Years of History,
Reconstructing the History of Human Impacts on Coastal Biodiversity in Chile:
Constraints and Opportunities with M. M. Rivadeneira and P. A. Marquet in
Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, and El Trnsito Ar-
caico-Formativo en la Circumpuna y Valles Occidentales del Centro sur Andino:
Hacia los Cambios Neolticos with L. Nez in Chungara, and has recently
coauthored Emergence of Social Complexity among Coastal Hunter-Gatherers
in the Atacama Desert of Northern Chile with V. Standen in PNAS.

Vivien G. Standen is professor of anthropology at the Universidad de Tarapac,


Chile. She has published Temprana Complejidad Funeraria de la Cultura Chin-
chorro (Norte de Chile) in Latin American Antiquity, Patron Funerario Arcaico
Temprano del Sitio Acha-3 y Su Relacion con Chinchorro: Cazadores, Pescadores
y Recolectores de la Costa Norte de Chile with C. M. Santoro in Latin American
Antiquity, and External Auditory Exostosis in Prehistoric Chilean Populations:
A Test of the Cold Water Hypothesis with B. Arriaza and C. M. Rollins in Ameri-
can Journal of Physical Anthropology, and has recently coauthored Emergence
of Social Complexity among Coastal Hunter-Gatherers in the Atacama Desert of
Northern Chile with C. M. Santoro in PNAS.

Andrew R. Thompson is a PhD student in anthropology at Indiana University,


Bloomington. He has published Differential Diagnosis of Limb Length Discrep-
ancy in a 19th Century Burial from Southwest Mississippi in International Jour-
nal of Osteoarchaeology.

Jennifer L. Thompson is an independent scholar. She has published Patterns of


Growth and Development in the Genus Homo with G. Krovitz and A. Nelson, A
Neolithic Nomad from Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt in Bioarchaeology of Individuals,
and Middle Childhood and Modern Human Origins in a special, invited vol-
ume of Human Nature.
Index

Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations. childrearing practices, 230; fetus to baby
transition, 22930; food and, 23031; hair-
Abortion, 70, 101 cutting, 230; social constructs of, 22931,
Acculturation, 247 240; social identity, 230; threats to, 231. See
Adolescence, 49; growth stage, 2; indepen- also Chinchorro mortuary practices
dence, 193; life stage, 246; timing of, 19; Anemia, 204; Black Mesa study, 2089, 211;
transition to, 17, 18384 megaloblastic, 219; Tiwanaku study, 234, 238
Adoption, 31 Angelito, 88
Adulthood, 143, 238; childhood as practice Anjinhos, 88, 92
for, 220; features, 29; idealization of, 71, Anthropology: biological and cultural, 24748;
159; identity, 233, 236; preparing for, 160, growing up in, 24648; literature, 5; ques-
166; progress to, 1, 9; roles, 183; social, 194. tions, 10; social, 99
See also Subadults Archaeology: BMAP, 203; of childhood, 1; chil-
African Americans: child labor, 17273, 178; dren as unknowable in, 4; Hambleden case
free children, 172 study celebrity, 131; infanticide in records,
African Queen, 9091 126. See also Bioarchaeology
Afterbirth, 88 Aris, P., 160, 252
Age: Black Mesa study and, 203; Chinchorro Aristotle, 87
mortuary practices and, 61, 6466; dental, Arroyo Hondo Pueblo study, 22426
19, 20; infanticide and, 103; Klunk 11C40- Arsenic, 70
92, 21; Klunk 11C43-8, 24; Koster mound Ashkelon case study: characteristics, 129; DNA
5-27, 26; Loma San Gabriel Tepehuan analysis, 130; infanticide victims, 13031;
and, 5152; mortality at La Cueva de los sewer constructions, 12930
Muertos Chiquitos, 46; perinatal mortality Asphyxia, 129
and, 12627; Punta Teatinos study and, Aspoeck, E., 75
188, 189, 192; purity and, 109; in ritual Aztec ritual child sacrifice, 4849, 1089
child sacrifice, 4445, 46, 47; Spring Street
Presbyterian Church study distribution, Battering, 23
146, 146; Tiwanaku study and, 233, 234, Bioarchaeology, 2, 25253; aim of, 1011; inte-
235, 238 grative approach, 10; methods, 42; questions
Agency, 2; of children, 139, 152; examination addressed by, 11; reconstructing lives, 37;
of, 142; ideas, 248; social, 76; trends, 220 tracing children, 510
Aggression, 111, 224 Biological anthropology, 24748
Andean childhood, 228; body-soul con- Biology: childhood and, 3; of children, 5
nection, 231; child circulation, 239; Biosocial approach, 249
264 Index

Birth: afterbirth, 88; complications, 12728; laboring class in Virginia, 16163; as practice
premature, 70; rebirth, 52 for adulthood, 220; social constructs, 3, 185,
Black Mesa Archaeological Project (BMAP), 247; social meaning, 250; surviving, 252. See
203 also Adulthood; Andean childhood
Black Mesa study: age and, 203; anemia, 2089, Child labor, 7, 149; African Americans, 17273,
211; child health and, 20910, 25051; child 178; Black Mesa study and, 2023; European
labor and, 2023; ecosystem, 201; food-shar- discovery of childhood, 16061; New York
ing networks and, 210; lesion scoring system, slaves, 16768; occupations, 17274; Virginia
205; maize and, 209; periosteal reaction, childhood laboring class, 16163, 251; Vir-
206, 207, 208, 210, 212; porotic hyperostosis ginia enslavement, wealth and, 16367
and, 2038, 207, 210, 212; settlement pat- Childrearing practices: Andean childhood, 230;
terns, 2012; transmissible disease and, 211; Tiwanaku study, 229
womanpower and, 210; working-class and, Children: adult roles in Spring Street Presbyte-
200, 203, 212 rian Church study, 15253; African Ameri-
Bludgeoning, 113 can, 172; agency of, 139, 152; in antiquity, 10;
Body: body reform movement, 150; body-soul archaeologically unknowable, 4; biology of,
connection, 231; growing, 249; study, 185. See 5; biosocial approach to study, 185; chastis-
also Little bodies ing, 151; contribution of, 1, 184; cultural
Brain growth, 18384, 193 ideologies, 246; economic contributions, 8;
Breastfeeding, 1, 49, 51, 209 immature immune systems, 219; language
British Perinatal Mortality Survey, 127 and customs, 239; lives of past, 24653; as
Brothels, 101, 104, 130, 133 most valuable asset in ritual child sacrifice,
Bundle burials, 25, 39. See also Funerary 49, 52; Native American as property, 163;
bundles as other, 7576; prehistoric, 3, 252; Pueblo
Burials: bundle, 25, 39; La Cueva de los Muertos Indians, 22225; sick, 3738; street, 162; trac-
Chiquitos, 43, 45, 48; deviant, 76, 78, 91, 92; ing bioarchaeologically, 510; treatment of, 1;
Greek infant, 128; Klunk 11C40-92, 2324; as unfinished products, 247; value of, 3, 250;
Klunk 11C43-8, 2526; Koster mound 5-27, voice of past, 25253. See also Homicide of
28; Loma San Gabriel Tepehuan bundle, children; Subadults
42; Loma San Gabriel Tepehuan sites, 39; Chile. See Punta Teatinos study
other, 76, 78, 8586; perinatal mortality and, China offspring preference, 104
12829; practices, 7; war battle, 11213. See Chinchorro mortuary practices: age and, 61,
also Tombs; Torre de Palma burials 6466; arsenic and, 70; bandaged mummies,
63, 64; black mummies, 62, 62; corded mum-
Canon law, 86, 91 mies, 63, 64, 68; fetus presence, 70; funerary
Carthage ritual child sacrifice, 10911 offerings, 67; infant clothing, 67; infant inter-
Catholic theology, 7, 86 ment, 67; infant mortality and, 71; mortuary
Cave of the Little Dead Ones, 4142 treatments, 6166, 62, 63, 64, 71; mud-coated
epin, 114 mummies, 63; mummification, 61, 65, 66; or-
Child, 2; child circulation, 239; as hunter, naments in, 59; profile of Chinchorro, 5960;
18586; microcephalic, 17 red mummies, 63, 63; sex and, 61, 6466;
Child abuse, 7; Klunk 11C40-92, 23; skeletal social structure and, 69; traditions, 68
abuse, 5; Tiwanaku study and, 237 Cholera, 88
Child health, 19899; Black Mesa study and, Christian conversion, 90
20910, 25051; in little bodies, 25051; Christian missionaries, 246
Tiwanaku study and, 234 Cleft palate, 89
Childhood: archaeology of, 1; biology and, 3; Coddling, 160
European discovery of, 16061; growth stage, Cognitive development, 2, 4
2; history of studies, 35; indenture and, 177; Coins, 83, 86
Index 265

Community expectations, 91 Hambleden case study, 131; Spring Street


Compassion, 32 Presbyterian Church study, 150
Confirmation, 88 Dobe !Kung, 17
Constructionists, 247 Drowning, 146
Cooperative breeding, 4
Coprolites, 4142 Ecclesiastical enclosures, 89
Corn, 39, 165, 201. See also Maize Economic responsibilities, 10
Cosmology, 222, 225 Economy, 253
Craft specialization, 18 Education, 160
Cranial modification, 233, 234, 235, 236, 236, Egypt infanticide, 102
238 Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl, 108
Craniology: Klunk 11C40-92, 2829; Koster Embodiment approach, 5, 14143, 248
mound 5-27, 30; in special child death, Empire control, 37
2830 Endemic cretinism, 17
Cribra orbitalia, 9, 188, 189, 190; features, 205; Enlightenment, 159
Tiwanaku study and, 234, 237 Enteritis, 199
La Cueva de los Muertos Chiquitos: age-spe- Environmental hazards, 128
cific mortality, 46; burials, 43, 45; collective Epidemics, 42
burials, 48; disease and, 50; lesions, 47 Ermida de So Saturnino, Serra de Sintra,
Cultural anthropology, 24748 8586
Cultural ideologies, 246 Ethnography, 9, 58
Cultural patterns, 61 Ethnohistory, 31
Customs, 239 Evil spirits, 224
Evolutionary theory, 3
Dark practices, 123 Exposure, 17, 109, 125
Death, 8; causes in perinatal mortality,
12728; natural infant death, 13334; Spring Family structure, 4
Street Presbyterian Church study causes, Female infanticide, 126
146. See also Perinatal mortality Female migration, 239
Death, special child and: craniology and, Feminist theory, 1, 3, 248
2830; Klunk 11C40-92, 1924, 22; Klunk Fertility rates, 126
11C43-8, 2426, 25; Koster mound 5-27, Fertility symbols, 52
2628, 27 Fetuses: in Chinchorro mortuary practices, 70;
Defleshing, 109 fetus to baby transition in Andean child-
Deformities, 31, 101, 125 hood, 22930; hiding, 59; mummification,
Dental age, 19, 20 249
Dental crown measurements, 19 Fishing, 59, 67
Developmental defects, 1718 Flaying, 109
Deviant burials, 76, 78, 91, 92 Folkloric beliefs, 89
Diarrhea, 199 Food: Andean childhood and, 23031; sharing
Dietary deficiencies, 234 in Black Mesa study and, 210; shortages,
Disability, 32 50, 231; social identity and, 230. See also
Disease: La Cueva de los Muertos Chiquitos Breastfeeding; Corn; Maize; Malnutrition;
and, 50; ideologies, 52; interpretation of, Undernutrition
250; perinatal mortality and, 12728; trans- Foragers, 8, 18586
missible, in Black Mesa study, 211. See also Funerary bundles: Loma San Gabriel Tepehuan,
Illness; specific diseases 42; in ritual child sacrifice, 47
Dismemberment, 109 Funerary offerings, Chinchorro interment, 67
DNA analysis, 106; Ashkelon case study, 130; Funerary textiles, 49
266 Index

Games, 59 identification, 123; interpretation, 134;


Garroting, 106 methods, 125; motives for, 101, 12526;
Gastritis, 199 Roman, 102, 129, 131; sex and, 104; women
Gender ideologies, 6 perpetrators, 100101; worldwide fre-
Genetic analyses, 5 quency, 134. See also Perinatal mortality
Global History of Health Project, 50 Infants, 1; burial practices, 7; Chinchorro
Greek infant burials, 128 interment, 67; clothing, 67; growth stage,
2; modern medical care, 103; mortality,
Hair-cutting, 230 71; mummification, 249; as other, 8688;
Hambleden case study: archaeological celebrity, Roman, 87
131; DNA analysis, 131; infanticide, 13132; Infections, 228
natural infant death, 13334 Influenza, 199
Harpoons, 67 Innocents, 22324
Heat exposure, 109 Intercommunal raiding, 115
Homicide of children: attitudes toward, 100; Intermarriage, 239
commonality, 250; DNA study, 106; infan- Interpersonal violence, 17, 19394
ticide, 100104; rates of, 1046; ritual child Irish cilln, 86, 89, 92
sacrifice, 10610; subadults, 115; trauma and, Isotope analysis, 232, 234, 236, 237, 23940,
105, 114; war and, 11114 252
Hopewell mortuary practices, 18
HRAF. See Human Relation Area Files Jefferson, Thomas, 164, 166
Humanness, 169 Juveniles, 233, 240
Human Relation Area Files (HRAF), 69 Juvenility, 19394; growth stage, 2
Hunting, 59, 67, 69, 18586
Hypophosphatemic rickets, 22, 30 Klunk 11C40-92: age, sex, stature, 21; burial
context, 2324; child abuse, 23; cranial
Iberia, 78 proportions, 22; craniology, 2829;
Identity, 220; adulthood, 233, 236; religious, 7; description, 19, 21; fractures, 22, 22; pathol-
white, 176. See also Social identity ogy, 2123; possible captive or slave, 23, 31;
Ideologies: complexity, 39; cultural, 246; dis- rickets and, 21; social identity, 23; suture
ease, 52; forces, 250; gender, 6; religious, 38, closure, 22, 2223
40, 43, 53; ritual child sacrifice, 41 Klunk 11C43-8: age, sex, stature, 24; burial
Idol worship, Loma San Gabriel Tepehuan, 40 context, 2526; craniology, 2930; descrip-
Illness, 32; Loma San Gabriel Tepehuan and, 51; tion, 24; pathology, 2425; suture closures,
ritual child sacrifice and, 47, 4951 25, 25, 29
Immorality, 151. See also Brothels Knowledge transmission, 220
Inca capacocha ceremony, 1068, 107 Koster mound 5-27: age, sex, stature, 26;
Indenture, 166, 16869; childhood and, 177; burial context, 28; craniology, 30; dental
contracts, 171; Virginia contracts, 173 asymmetry, 27, 27; description, 26; pathol-
India, offspring preference, 104 ogy, 2628; suture closure, 27
Industrial Revolution, 14849
Inequality, 7, 253 Landscape symbolism, 39
Infanticide, 7, 8; age-distribution, 103; ancient Language, 239
and modern, 125; in archaeological record, Lesions: Black Mesa study scoring system,
126; Ashkelon case study, 13031; back- 205; La Cueva de los Muertos Chiquitos,
ground, 125; commonality, 250; defined, 47; Punta Teatinos study, 18889, 190,
100, 135; Egypt, 102; female, 126; frequency 19194, 192
and timing, 100101; Hambleden case study, Limbo, 89
13132; as homicide of children, 100104; Little angels, 88
Index 267

Little bodies: biosocial approach, 249; child MSMs. See Musculoskeletal stress markers
health, 25051; fluid context, 252; social Mulatto, 168
status and, 25051; study, 24849 Mummification, 6, 60; bandaged mummies,
Lived experience, 220 63, 64; black mummies, 62, 62; Chinchorro
Loincloths, 67 mortuary practices, 61, 65, 66; corded mum-
Loma San Gabriel Tepehuan: adobe use, 42; age mies, 63, 64, 68; infants and fetuses, 249;
and, 5152; burial sites, 39; funerary bundles, mud-coated mummies, 63; red mummies,
42; idol worship, 40; illness and, 51; precari- 63, 63; specialists, 69
ous childhood, 39; religious ideology, 38, 40, Musculoskeletal stress markers (MSMs),
43; ritual child sacrifice, 3843, 50; sacrifice 16971, 17476, 175, 251
candidates, 50; warfare and raiding, 40 Muslims, 78

Macroscopic techniques, 5 Nandi tribe, Kenya, 87


Maize, 18, 108, 201; Black Mesa study and, 209 Native Americans, 161; children as property,
Male behavior, 4 163. See also Pueblo Indians
Malnutrition, 7, 105, 220, 225 Nature-nurture divide, 251
Manganese, 62 Neglect, 250
Manual dexterity, 2 Negro, 127, 165, 168; displaced, 178
Marginality, 19899, 253; Pueblo Indians, 202 New York: slaves in, 16768; subadults, 178. See
Market Revolution, 13940 also Spring Street Presbyterian Church study
Marriage, 31, 239 New York African Burial Ground (NYABG),
Masks, 63 16061, 167; MSMs, 16971, 17476, 175,
Massacres, 115 251; pathology analysis, 169; recordation
Materiality, 5 examples, 170
Maternal health, 126; perinatal mortality and, NYABG. See New York African Burial Ground
12728
Mating, 4 Oppression, 7
Mat making, 69 Osteological synthesis, 45
Mayan ritual child sacrifice, 4849, 1089 Ostracism, 7
MBAP. See Black Mesa Archaeological Project Other: burials, 76, 78; children as, 7576;
Medical care, 105 infants as, 8688; as little angels, 88; Por-
Megaloblastic anemia, 219 tuguese child burials, 8586; societies, 124;
Mesoamerica, 41, 51 Torre de Palma burials, 8991
Mexico, ritual child sacrifice, 108
Microcephaly, 17, 31, 32 Pacifying past, 99
Middle Horizon Tiwanaku polity, 23132, 232, Paleodietary analysis, 233
239 Paleopathology, 1718, 32
Mimbres Classic period, 211 Parasites, 51; exposure to, 211; loads, 199; Tiwan-
Mississippian, 18 aku study and, 234
Moral discipline, 160 Parenting, 4
Morbidity, 10 Pathology: Klunk 11C40-92, 2123; Klunk
Mortality, 10; age at La Cueva de los Muertos 11C43-8, 2425; Koster mound 5-27, 2628;
Chiquitos, 46; Chinchorro mortuary prac- NYABG analysis, 169; Punta Teatinos study,
tices and, 71; curves, 17; infant, 71; Roman 18889, 190, 191; ritual child sacrifice, 4647
infants, 12829. See also Perinatal mortality Perinatal mortality: age and, 12627; in archae-
Mortuary treatment, 6, 5859; Chinchorro ological record, 126; Ashkelon case study,
mortuary practices, 6166, 62, 63, 64, 71; 12931; birth complications and, 12728;
observation, 60; unusual, 41; variability, 39 British Perinatal Mortality Survey, 127;
Motives for infanticide, 101, 12526 burial context and infant persona, 12829;
268 Index

Perinatal mortalitycontinued Religious beliefs, 37, 253


causes of death, 12728; disease and, 12728; Religious control: infant class, 151; rickets and,
distribution peaks, 124; environmental haz- 15051; Spring Street Presbyterian Church
ards and, 128; Hambleden case study, 13134; study and, 14951
infanticide background, 125; infanticide mo- Religious identities, 7
tives, 12526; maternal health and, 12728; Religious ideology, 53; Loma San Gabriel Tepe-
trauma and, 128 huan, 38, 40, 43
Periosteal reaction, 206, 207, 208, 210, 212 Religious systems, 39
Periostitis, 188, 189, 190, 191 Renaming, 31
Personhood, 5; Pueblo Indians, 22026; shift- Representation, 253
ing, 9; status, 250; theoretical background, Residential mobility, 229, 232, 233, 237
22022; withholding, 115 Rickets: defined, 143; Klunk 11C40-92 and, 21;
Persons, 10, 12829 religious control and, 15051; Spring Street
Pete Klunk mound, 19 Presbyterian Church study and, 8, 139, 143,
Pink teeth, 129 144, 145, 14547, 14950
Pneumonia, 128, 199 Rites of passage, 4, 59, 87
Poisoning, 125 Ritual child sacrifice, 6, 7, 100; age, funerary
Political systems, 37 bundles, illness and, 47; age at death, 4445,
Porotic hyperostosis, 9; Black Mesa study and, 46; Carthage, 10911; children as most valu-
2038, 207, 210, 212; causes, 204; character- able asset, 49, 52; commonality, 250; death by
istics, 2045; Punta Teatinos study and, 188, suffocation, 43; funerary textiles, 49; homi-
189, 190; Tiwanaku study and, 234 cide of children, 10610; ideology, 41; illness
Poverty, 12628, 163, 253 and, 4951; Inca capacocha ceremony, 1068,
Prehistoric children, 3, 252 107; late personhood, 48; Loma San Gabriel
Prehistoric health, 5, 9 Tepehuan, 3843, 50; Mayan and Aztec,
Premature births, 70 4849, 1089; pathology, 4647; preferences
Premature suture closure, 18 for, 37; role of sick children, 3738; social
Puberty, 19, 109 identity and, 3738, 53; Tlaloc imagery and,
Pueblo Indians, 19899; child health, 21920; 3839, 52; trauma and, 48; violence, 106
children, 22225; cosmology, 222, 225; in- Ritual cycles, 39, 222
nocents and witches, 22324; marginality, Roman infants, 87; Ashkelon case study, 12931;
202; personhood, 22026; ritual cycles, 222; Hambleden case study, 13134; infanticide,
spiritual existence, 223; violence, 251 102, 129, 131; mortality rates, 12829
Punta Teatinos study: age and, 188, 189, 192;
brain growth and, 18384, 193; child the Sabbatarianism, 150, 152
hunter, 18586; cribra orbitalia and, 188, 189, Sacred space, 92
190; grave goods, 187; interpersonal violence Sagittal synostosis, 22
and, 19394; juvenility and, 19394; lesions Santo Domingo de Silos, 8081
and, 18889, 190, 19194, 192; pathology, Scalping, 62, 113
18889, 190, 191; periostitis and, 188, 189, 190, Scurvy, 46, 47, 50
191; porotic hyperostosis and, 188, 189, 190; Second Great Awakening, 13941
remains preservation, 187; signatures of so- Settlement patterns, Black Mesa study, 2012
cialization, 183, 194; trauma, 191, 192, 19394 Sex: Chinchorro mortuary practices and, 61,
6466; infanticide and, 104; Klunk 11C40-92,
Quids, 41 21; Klunk 11C43-8, 24; Koster mound 5-27,
26; Tiwanaku study, 236
Racism, 8, 169 Sexual dimorphism, 19
Rebirth, 52 Shamans, 40
Index 269

Shell beads, 41, 49 Strangulation, 106, 125


Shifting personhood, 9 Street children, 162
Skeletal abuse, 5 Streptococcus, 206
Slavery, 6, 7, 253; battering and, 23; Klunk Subadults, 2; defined, 143; homicide of children,
11C40-92 possibility, 23, 31; legal status, 178; 115; killing of, 7; lifeways, 246; in Meso-
narratives, 171; Virginia culturing, 8, 16367, america, 36; study, 18485, 248; Virginia and
172. See also Indenture New York, 178
Smithsonians Massacred/Cannibalized Re- Suffering, 8
mains coding system, 145 Suffocation, 43, 129, 146
Smothering, 114, 125 Sunday school movement, 150
Social adulthood, 194 Suture closures: early, 3032; Klunk 11C40-92,
Social agency, 76 22, 2223; Klunk 11C43-8, 25, 25, 29; Koster
Social behavior, 4 mound 5-27, 27; premature, 18
Social collective, 10
Social constructs: Andean childhood, 22931, Tetanus, 228
240; childhood, 3, 185, 247 Tiwanaku study, 9, 25152; age and, 233, 234,
Social hierarchies, 99 235, 238; anemia, 234, 238; child abuse and,
Social identity, 7; Andean childhood, 230; food 237; child health and, 234; childrearing prac-
and, 230; formation, 233; Klunk 11C40-92, tices, 229; cranial modification, 233, 234, 235,
23; ritual child sacrifice and, 3738, 53; Tiwa- 236, 236, 238; cribra orbitalia and, 234, 237;
naku study, 22829, 23132 dietary deficiencies and, 234; female migra-
Socialization, 220, 247; signatures of, 183, 194 tion, 239; isotope analysis, 232, 234, 236, 237,
Social norms, 75 23940, 252; Middle Horizon Tiwanaku pol-
Social order, 7, 17 ity, 23132, 232, 239; paleodietary analysis,
Social pressures, 126 233; parasites and, 234; porotic hyperostosis
Social status, 25051 and, 234; residential mobility, 229, 232, 233,
Social support, 32 237; sex, 236; social constructs of Andean
Social theory, 3, 10 childhood, 22931, 240; social identity,
Society renewal, 71 22829, 23132; weaning practices, 233
Souls, 89, 231 Tlaloc imagery, 3839, 52
Spinning, 69 Tombs, 80, 81, 82, 83, 8485
Spiritual existence, 223 Tophet, 110
Spirit world, 109 Torre de Palma burials, 77; African Queen,
Spring Street Presbyterian Church study, 8; age 9091; history of church, 7885; Irish cilln
distribution, 146, 146; burial vaults, 14142; and, 86, 89, 92; other, 8991; tombs, 80, 81,
cause of death, 146; children in adult roles, 82, 83, 8485
15253; DNA analysis, 150; embodiment Transmissible disease, 211
approach, 14143; historical context, 148; reli- Trauma, 7, 188; homicide of children and, 105,
gious control and, 14951; rickets and, 8, 139, 114; perinatal mortality and, 128; Punta
143, 144, 145, 14547, 147, 14950; Sabbatari- Teatinos study, 191, 192, 19394; ritual child
anism and, 150, 152; urban and mixed-class sacrifice and, 48; weapon, 111
community, 140, 14041, 14849 Trisomy, 89
Staphylococcus, 206 Twins, 76
Starvation, 125
Stature: Klunk 11C40-92, 21; Klunk 11C43-8, 24; Undernutrition, 50
Koster mound 5-27, 26
Stillborn, 70, 87, 101 Vegetable threads, 63
Stone weights, 67 Vengeance, 105
270 Index

Violence, 4, 6, 99; acts of, 224; interpersonal, 17, White male supremacy, 174
19394; Pueblo Indians, 251; in ritual child Whiteness, 12728, 169
sacrifice, 106; rituals, 37; scalping, 113; social WHO. See World Health Organization
hierarchies and, 99; in society, 115. See also Wig making, 69
Homicide of children; Trauma; War Witches, 22324
Virginia: childhood laboring class, 16163, 251; Women: female migration, 239; feminist theory,
culturing slaves, 8, 16367, 172; indenture 1, 3, 248; infanticide perpetrators, 100101;
contracts, 173; subadults, 178 womanpower, 210
Wood carvings, 41
War: burials, 11213; homicide of children and, Wood polishing, 69
11114 Worked obsidian, 41, 49
Weaning practices, 233 Working-class, 9, 200, 203, 212
Weapons, 125; harpoons, 67; spear throwers, 67; World Health Organization (WHO), 70
trauma, 111
White identity, 176 Zoomorphic figurines, 52
Bioarchaeological Interpretations of the Human Past:
Local, Regional, and Global Perspectives
Edited by Clark Spencer Larsen
This series examines the field of bioarchaeology, the study of human biological re-
mains from archaeological settings. Focusing on the intersection between biology
and behavior in the past, each volume will highlight important issues, such as bio-
cultural perspectives on health, lifestyle and behavioral adaptation, biomechanical
responses to key adaptive shifts in human history, dietary reconstruction and food-
ways, biodistance and population history, warfare and conflict, demography, social
inequality, and environmental impacts on population.

Ancient Health: Skeletal Indicators of Agricultural and Economic Intensification,


edited by Mark Nathan Cohen and Gillian M. M. Crane-Kramer (2007; first
paperback edition, 2012)
Bioarchaeology and Identity in the Americas, edited by Kelly J. Knudson and
Christopher M. Stojanowski (2009; first paperback edition, 2010)
Island Shores, Distant Pasts: Archaeological and Biological Approaches to the Pre-
Columbian Settlement of the Caribbean, edited by Scott M. Fitzpatrick and Ann
H. Ross (2010)
The Bioarchaeology of the Human Head: Decapitation, Decoration, and Deformation,
edited by Michelle Bonogofsky (2011)
Bioarchaeology and Climate Change: A View from South Asian Prehistory, by Gwen
Robbins Schug (2011)
Violence, Ritual, and the Wari Empire: A Social Bioarchaeology of Imperialism in the
Ancient Andes, by Tiffiny A. Tung (2012; first paperback edition, 2013)
The Bioarchaeology of Individuals, edited by Ann L. W. Stodder and Ann M.
Palkovich (2012)
The Bioarchaeology of Violence, edited by Debra L. Martin, Ryan P. Harrod, and
Ventura R. Prez (2012)
Bioarchaeology and Behavior: The People of the Ancient Near East, edited by Megan
A. Perry (2012)
Paleopathology at the Origins of Agriculture, edited by Mark Nathan Cohen and
George J. Armelagos (2013)
Bioarchaeology of East Asia: Movement, Contact, Health, edited by Kate Pechenkina
and Marc Oxenham (2013)
Mission Cemeteries, Mission Peoples: Historical and Evolutionary Dimensions of
Intracemetery Bioarchaeology in Spanish Florida, by Christopher M. Stojanowski
(2013)
Tracing Childhood: Bioarchaeological Investigations of Early Lives in Antiquity, edited
by Jennifer L. Thompson, Marta P. Alfonso-Durruty, and John J. Crandall (2014)

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