Don't all mothers love their children? Deposited infants as animate objects in the Scandinavian Iron Age

Bibliographic Data

ID3919562
AuthorsMichael Hallstrøm Eriksen (0000-0001-5894-7713, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3ER, UK, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume49
Issue3
Pages338-356
Publication date2017-05-27
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueWorld Archaeology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0043-8243 • E-ISSN: 1470-1375
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00438243.2017.1340189
OpenAlexW2735281163
LanguageEN
Citations received23
References cited46

Understanding ‘counter archaeologies’ as taking a counterpoint and challenging normative perspectives, this paper considers infancy in Iron-Age Scandinavia through an examination of children deposited in settlements and wetlands. The paper reports on a data set of child deposition from Scandinavia in the first millennium CE, and compares the practices with cases from other Germanic areas. While a complex phenomenon where cause of death is mostly unknown, textual sources indicate that neither limited emotional responses to child loss nor infanticide was uncommon in the first millennium CE. Infanticide is widespread cross-culturally, yet is foreign to many researchers because it counters deep-held contemporary, Western perceptions of universal maternal instinct. The paper questions whether infant loss within Scandinavian and Germanic societies prompted emotional responses akin to Western, contemporary reactions. Were infants more closely related to animate objects than human beings? And did this ontological logic provoke the use of infant remains in ritual deposition

Developmental psychology · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · Historical and Archaeological Studies · History · Psychology