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Prehistoric Babies Held in Equal Esteem as Adults ~ Archaeologists

By Hilary White

VIENNA, December 14, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Archaeologists in Austria, on discovery of elaborate infant gravesites, have concluded that infants in prehistoric societies were regarded as equally important as adults.

The report by the Prehistoric Commission of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and published in the journal Nature, says the findings indicate that even newborns were considered to be full members of these hunter-gatherer communities. Radiocarbon dating estimates the remains at about 27,000 years old.

Two grave pits, one containing the remains of two infants who were possibly twins, and another with one baby, were discovered at the Krems-Wachtberg site in Lower Austria. The graves show that even the youngest children were buried with elaborate and valuable grave furnishings and possibly religious rituals.

The graves included beads, mammoth bone coverings and a mineral substance called red ochre, commonly used in adult burials of the time and thought to have religious or ritual significance.

LiveScience reports that the double grave, discovered in 2005, had led scientists to speculate that the elaborate treatment was due to the unusual birth of twins. The later discovery of the grave of the single infant also decorated with red ochre and jewellery indicated that all children, not just twins, were held in the same esteem.

Child graves of that period are comparatively rare and archaeologists had usually assumed that children were regarded with indifference in ancient societies. "Nothing comparable to these burials of such young Upper Palaeolithic individuals has been found before," study co-author Christine Neugebauer-Maresch wrote.

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