tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post514305363331938589..comments2024-03-28T18:32:05.933-04:00Comments on bensozia: A Roman Child Burial in Central France, with PuppyJohnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-32213279224400535802021-01-18T07:52:03.176-05:002021-01-18T07:52:03.176-05:00You're right, infant burials were rare everywh...You're right, infant burials were rare everywhere. Until the Middle Ages, when the Christian idea that all baptized children had to be buried in consecrated ground took hold. Children's bones don't preserve very well, so there still aren't that many infant skeletons, but medieval graveyards are full of tiny graves.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-26217301455078888742021-01-17T20:50:31.128-05:002021-01-17T20:50:31.128-05:00Aren't child burials relatively rare overall t...Aren't child burials relatively rare overall throughout most of history?<br /><br />Given pre-modern childhood mortality rates, my understanding has long been that there was often a hesitancy to treat children as really "people" until they reached a certain minimum age - a sort of hesitancy to grow too attached, lest you suffer needlessly for a child that is snatched away during those uncertain early years.<br /><br />Am I off the mark here? Obviously there are exceptions, and clearly we've found substantial numbers of child graves from many places and times... but I would suspect those would be more likely among wealthier families (better expectations of survival, more resources to conduct ritual burials), and among societies with specific religious or cultural beliefs or doctrines that would directly promote the practice of child burial (for example, belief that an unburied child would end up in Purgatory or similar), in effect counteracting an otherwise natural hesitancy.G. Verlorennoreply@blogger.com