20th May 2005, 01:35 PM
I know this is an old thread but i must have missed it. My two bobs worth is- I have personally excavated close to 500 burials from all periods in three countries. In Oz on a colonial burial ground we could identify the remains of child burials from coffin wood stains in the soil. High background acidity, so you were lucky to find a childs tooth if anything. Adults were in poor condition but still there. A very high number of burials were of children (i estmated 1/4-1/3).
Eire- Realised many diggers were confused on the identification of neo-nate bones (confusing them with small animal or bird remains). Mattocks are also the great child destroyer. If you don't realise you've hit it with the first swing, you'll remove it completely with the second. I'm sure there are a lot of disarticulate bone bags containing tiny complete skelies.
I also worked on a Killeen (childs burial ground). A lot were fairly recent, but as the died without being baptised.... Most were very shallow.
England- baby burials and juves under the floor of a chapter house.
They are there if you look for them but I feel that quite a few archaeologist don't realise what they've got unless their actually shown what the remains look like. I agree that machining probably removes many from the record.
Eire- Realised many diggers were confused on the identification of neo-nate bones (confusing them with small animal or bird remains). Mattocks are also the great child destroyer. If you don't realise you've hit it with the first swing, you'll remove it completely with the second. I'm sure there are a lot of disarticulate bone bags containing tiny complete skelies.
I also worked on a Killeen (childs burial ground). A lot were fairly recent, but as the died without being baptised.... Most were very shallow.
England- baby burials and juves under the floor of a chapter house.
They are there if you look for them but I feel that quite a few archaeologist don't realise what they've got unless their actually shown what the remains look like. I agree that machining probably removes many from the record.