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Ein Platz unter den Lebenden, ein Platz unter den Toten : Kinderbestattungen des latènezeitlichen Fundplatzes Basel-Gasfabrik
Book title
Lebenswelten von Kindern und Frauen in der Vormoderne
Publisher
Curach Bhán
Place of publication
Berlin
Pages
257-273
ISSN/ISBN
978-3-942002-21-9
Series title
Paläowissenschaftliche Studien : PAST
Number
Vol. 4
Keywords
Iron Age, children, settlement burial, cemetery, demography, paleopathology
Abstract
In over a century of exploration, the Basel-Gasfabrik La Tène site has yielded not only a wealth of artefacts but also a large number of human skeletal remains, both from the two associated burial grounds and from the settlement itself. Among these are many children. In the burial grounds, adults and children were inhumed lying on their backs in a roughly S-N orientation. Children were furnished with grave goods in greater number, variety and frequency than adults, reflecting an appreciation of the young members of the community regardless of the high child mortality rate. One girl had remarkably rich grave goods, some of which were child sized, some the size for a grown woman. In the settlement children were generally buried along with adults. Only very young children were sometimes deposited by themselves in various features. The majority of the children both from the burial grounds and the settlement died before the age of four and many show signs of deficiency and infections.
