Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Edited by
Jennifer L. Thompson, Marta P. Alfonso-Durruty,
and John J. Crandall
19 18 17 16 15 14 6 5 4 3 2 1
The University Press of Florida is the scholarly publishing agency for the State University
System of Florida, comprising Florida A&M University, Florida Atlantic University,
Florida Gulf Coast University, Florida International University, Florida State University,
New College of Florida, University of Central Florida, University of Florida, University of
North Florida, University of South Florida, and University of West Florida.
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
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
Children in Prehistory
Now Seen, Now Heard
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
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.
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
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
Reference List
Baadsgaard, A., A. T. Boutin, and J. E. Buikstra (editors). 2011. Breathing New Life into the
Evidence of Death: Contemporary Approaches to Bioarchaeology. School for Advanced
Research, Santa Fe.
Baker, B., T. L. Dupras, M. W. Tocheri, and S. M. Wheeler. 2005. The Osteology of Infants
and Children. Texas A&M University Press, College Station.
Baxter, J. E. 2000. An Archaeology of Childhood: Children, Gender, and Material Culture in
Nineteenth-Century America. PhD dissertation, University of Michigan.
. 2005. The Archaeology of Childhood: Children, Gender, and Material Culture. Al-
taMira Press, Walnut Creek.
Bird, D., and R. Bliege Bird. 2005. Martu Childrens Hunting Strategies in the Western Des-
ert, Australia: Foraging and the Evolution of Human Life Histories. In Hunter Gatherer
Childhoods, ed. B. S. Hewlett and M. E. Lamb, 12946. Aldine, New York.
Bogin, B. 1997. Evolutionary Hypotheses for Human Childhood. Yearbook of Physical
Anthropology 40: 6389.
. 1999. Patterns of Human Growth. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
. 2006. Modern Human Life History: The Evolution of Human Childhood and
Adult Fertility. In The Evolution of Human Life History, ed. K. Hawkes and R. R. Paine,
197230. School of American Research Press, Santa Fe.
. 2009. Childhood, Adolescence, and Longevity: A Multilevel Model of the Evolu-
tion of Reserve Capacity in Human Life History. American Journal of Human Biology
21: 56777.
Bonogofsky, M. 2011. The Bioarchaeology of the Human Head. University Press of Florida,
Gainesville.
Buikstra, J. E., A. Baadsgaard, and A. T. Boutin. 2011. Introduction. In Breathing New Life
into the Evidence of Death: Contemporary Approaches to Bioarchaeology, ed. A. Baads-
gaard, A. T. Boutin, and J. E. Buikstra, 328. School for Advanced Research, Santa Fe.
Buikstra, J. E., and L. A. Beck. 2006. Bioarchaeology. Academic Press, Burlington.
Chamberlain, A. T. 1997. Commentary: Missing Stages of Life: Toward the Perception of
Children in Archaeology. In Invisible People and Processes: Writing Gender and Child-
hood into European Archaeology, ed. J. Moore and E. Scott, 24850. Leicester University
Press, London.
Cohen, M. N., and G. J. Armelagos. 1984. Paleopathology at the Origins of Agriculture.
Academic Press, Orlando.
Cohen, M. N., and G.M.M. Crane-Kramer (editors). 2007. Ancient Health: Skeletal Indica-
tors of Agricultural and Economic Intensification. University Press of Florida, Gaines-
ville.
12 J. L. Thompson, J. J. Crandall, and M. P. Alfonso-Durruty
Latham, K. E., and M. Finnegan. 2010. Age Estimation of the Human Skeleton. Charles C.
Thomas, Springfield.
LeVine, R. 2007. Ethnographic Studies of Childhood. American Anthropologist 109:
24760.
Lewis, M. E. 2007. The Bioarchaeology of Children: Perspectives from Biological and Forensic
Anthropology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Lillehammer, G. 2000. The World of Children. In Children and Material Culture, ed. J.
Sofaer Derevenski, 1726. Routledge, New York.
Love, J. C, M. S. Derrick, and J. M. Wiersema. 2011. Skeletal Atlas of Child Abuse. Humana
Press, New York.
Malinowski, B. 1913. Family Life among the Australian Aborigines: A Sociological Study.
University of London Press, London.
Martin, D. L., R. P. Harrod, and V. R. Prez (editors). 2012. The Bioarchaeology of Violence.
University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
Mead, M. 1955. Theoretical Setting, 1954. In Childhood in Contemporary Cultures, ed. M.
Mead and M. Wolfenstein, 512. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Mead, M., and M. Wolfenstein (editors). 1955. Childhood in Contemporary Cultures. Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Moll, H., and M. Tomasello. 2010. Primer: Infant Cognition. Current Biology 20: R872
R875.
Ogden, J. A. 2000. Skeletal Injury in the Child. Springer, New York.
Perry, M. 2005. Redefining Childhood through Bioarchaeology: Toward an Archaeologi-
cal and Biological Understanding of Children in Antiquity. Archaeological Papers of
the American Anthropological Association 15: 89111.
Rakita, G.F.M., J. E. Buikstra, L. A. Beck, and S. R. Williams (editors). 2005. Interacting
with the Dead: Perspectives on Mortuary Archaeology for the New Millennium. Univer-
sity Press of Florida, Gainesville.
Robbins Schugg, G. 2011. The Bioarchaeology of Climate Change. University Press of Flor-
ida, Gainesville.
Roveland, B. E. 1997. Are Children Unknowable Archaeologically? Anthropology News-
letter April 1997: 14.
. 2001. Archaeological Approaches to the Study of Prehistoric Children. In Children
and Anthropology. Perspectives for the 21st Century, ed. H. B. Schwartzman, 4156. Ber-
gin and Garvey, Westport.
Schaffer, D. R., and K. Kipp. 2006. Developmental Psychology: Childhood & Adolescence.
Wadsworth, Independence.
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G. Herdt, 54268. Cambridge University Press, New York.
Scheper-Hughes, N., and C. Sargent. 1998. Small Wars: The Cultural Politics of Childhood.
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University Press, Cambridge.
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14 J. L. Thompson, J. J. Crandall, and M. P. Alfonso-Durruty
Invisible People and Processes: Writing Gender and Childhood into European Archaeol-
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. 2000. Children and Material Culture. Routledge, New York.
Steckel, R. H., and J. C. Rose. 2002. The Backbone of History: Health and Nutrition in the
Western Hemisphere. Cambridge University Press, New York.
Thompson, J. L., G. E. Krovitz, and A. J. Nelson. 2003. Patterns of Growth and Development
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Thompson, J. L., and A. J. Nelson. 2011. Middle Childhood and Modern Human Origins.
Human Nature 22: 24980.
I
The Chosen Child
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1
Death and the Special Child
Three Examples from the Ancient Midwest
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).
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
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.
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
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
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
Description
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
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
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)
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).
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
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 -
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
Discussion
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
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)
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
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
Mortuary Treatments
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.
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
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 3.1d. 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
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.
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
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
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
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
Results
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
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
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
Acknowledgments
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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Childhood as Special Death in a Medieval Portuguese Site 95
Simon Mays
Infanticide
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
Child Sacrifice
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
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
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
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
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6
Sense or Sensationalism?
Approaches to Explaining High Perinatal Mortality in the Past
Background
Methods of Infanticide
Motives
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.
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
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
Discussion/Conclusion
Acknowledgments
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
Figure 7.1. Neighborhood of the Spring Street Presbyterian Church. Map courtesy of
Joseph Stall. Reprinted with permission from Ellis (2010, fig.1).
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.
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.
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
Figure 7.5. Age-at-death distribution of the subadults of the Spring Street Presbyterian
Church. Reprinted with permission from Ellis (2010, fig. 2).
Discussion
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
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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A Disciplined Childhood in Nineteenth-Century New York City 155
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.
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).
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.
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
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
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
New York
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
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)
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).
Discussion/Conclusion
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
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
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
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.
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%)
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.
Discussion/Conclusion
Acknowledgments
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Goodman, A. H., and G. Armelagos. 1989. Infant and Childhood Morbidity and Mortal-
ity Risks in Archaeological Populations. World Archaeology 21: 22543.
Hawkes, K. 2006. Life History Theory and Human Evolution. A Chronicle of Ideas and
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nile Dependency, Social Arrangements, and Mobility among Hunter-Gatherers. Cur-
rent Anthropology 36: 688700.
Henry, P. I., G. A. Morelli, and E. Z. Tronick. 2005. Child Caretakers among Efe Foragers of
the Ituri Forest. In Hunter-Gatherer Childhoods: Evolutionary, Developmental and Cul-
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Hewlett, B. S., and M. E. Lamb. 2005. Emerging Issues in the Study of Hunter-Gatherer
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Hochberg, Z. 2008. Juvenility in the Context of Life History Theory. Archives of Disease
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196 M. P. Alfonso-Durruty and J. L. Thompson
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.
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
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
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
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
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
Acknowledgments
Reference List
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man Paleopathology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Babcock, B. A. (editor). 1991. Pueblo Mothers and Children: Essays by Elsie Clews Parsons
19151924. Ancient City Press, Albuquerque.
Bauder, J. M. 2009. Porotic Hyperostosis: Differential Diagnosis and Implications for Sub-
adult Survivorship in Prehistoric West-Central Illinois. PhD dissertation, Binghamton
University.
Cohen, M. N., and G. J. Armelagos. 1984. Paleopathology at the Origins of Agriculture.
Academic Press, Orlando.
Crandall, J. J., D. L. Martin, and R. P. Harrod. 2012. We Didnt Know We Were Poor: Re-
thinking Marginality and Gender Relations at Black Mesa. Paper presented at the 77th
Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Memphis, TN.
Dean, J. S. 1988. A Model of Anasazi Behavioral Adaptation. In The Anasazi in a Changing
Environment, ed. G. J. Gumerman, 2544. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
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Environmental Marginality and Child Health at Black Mesa, Arizona 213
Wapler, U., E. Crubzy, and M. Schultz. 2004. Is Cribra Orbitalia Synonymous with Ane-
mia? Analysis and Interpretation of Cranial Pathology in Sudan. American Journal of
Physical Anthropology 69: 34554.
Weston, D. A. 2008. Investigating the Specificity of Periosteal Reactions in Pathology
Museum Specimens. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 137: 4859.
Wood, J. W., G. R. Milner, H. C. Harpending, and K. M. Weiss. 1992. The Osteologi-
cal Paradox: Problems of Inferring Prehistoric Health from Skeletal Samples. Current
Anthropology 33: 34370.
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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
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).
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
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
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12
Tracing Tiwanaku Childhoods
A Bioarchaeological Study of Age and Social Identities
in Tiwanaku Society
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
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
Results
Discussion/Conclusion
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
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.
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
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
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
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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256 M. P. Alfonso-Durruty, J. L. Thompson, and J. J. Crandall
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
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de Palma, Portugal: Mortars and Ceramics in Building Roma Aeterna: Current
Research on Roman Mortar and Concrete.
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
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
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.