The Archaeology of Infancy and Infant Death

Book excerpt: This book is a wide-ranging archaeological description and analysis of infancy, the social constructions of infancy, and the practices of infant care and social reproduction through time and across space. The main themes are the ways in which infants have lived in and have been perceived by society, the burial of the infant dead, and the meanings of domestic infanticide and infant sacrifice. It examines infancy as a process with meanings varying between and within societies, and it addresses the relationships between infants and adults. The contradictions which lie at the heart of attitudes to infants, and the exclusion of neonates from communal life and communal burial, are recurrent themes. The whole is rounded off with a concluding chapter which aims to establish some general statements about past attitudes to infancy and the treatment of infants, whilst stressing the particularity and specificity of the various historical contexts which have been examined.