NEOLITHIC CHILDREN BURIALS AT MORAVIAN SETTLEMENTS IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC

• Published in: Anthropologie (Brno) 2007-01, Vol.45 (1), p.31-60
• Main Authors: DOCKALOVA, Marta, CIZMAR, Zdenek
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adults; Bones; Central and Eastern Europe; Children; Europe; Graves; Mandible; Neolithic; Neolithic and chalcolithic; Newborns; ORIGINAL PAPERS • TRAVAUX ORIGINAUX • ORIGINALARBEITEN; Pottery; Prehistory and protohistory; Skeleton; Skull; Teeth
• ISSN: 0323-1119; 2570-9127

Studying the phenomenon of childhood brings on also issues relating to children burial rites in all types of communities. Children burials and children graves are inherent parts of archaeological discoveries made at Moravian settlement agglomerations. In the recent years (1999–2006), extensive archaeological rescue research – especially in Central Moravia – has considerably extended the amount of knowledge on the Neolithic burial rite. Most new findings come from the Linear Pottery Culture period, while the period of the Culture with Stroke-Ornamented Pottery shows constant stagnation, and the Moravian Painted Ware Pottery Culture has yielded only random individual finds. This contribution brings a summary of hitherto discoveries of 20 archaeological sites from Moravia (Figure 1) with finds of skeletal remains of 51 buried children. From the archaeological point of view, there are four categories of children's burials in settlements: Individual children's burials within the settlement structure, mass burials of adults and children, multiple children's burials within the structure, and individual graves. Analyses of burial customs at Neolithic settlements in Moravia show the approach of the community to children and childhood from the point of view of the burial rite and potential social differentiation.