The amount of archaeological research concerning children and children’s graves in Switzerland has increased since 1990. While interesting papers have been published about children in the Bronze Age, the Roman period (especially...
moreThe amount of archaeological research concerning children and children’s graves in Switzerland has increased since 1990. While interesting papers have been published about children in the Bronze Age, the Roman period (especially concerning neonates) and the early Middle Ages, there is still not a single published paper about children and children’s graves in the Iron Age. But newly discovered cemeteries from the Latene Period with a notable number of children’s graves in Canton Bern (CH) have increased the necessity for research in this area.
It’s the aim of this paper to take a closer look on children’s burials in the Latène Period and what a death of a child meant not only for the child’s family, but also for the immediate society. Therefore adult’s and children’s graves in some important Swiss Latène cemeteries are examined using cluster analysis as well as more qualitative and spatial approaches. Due to poor anthropological data for most of the cemeteries the paper focuses on the grave goods and their array in the grave. The differences and similarities of children’s and adult’s graves within the same cemeteries obtained this way form the basis for a socio-archaeological interpretation.
