30th November 2006, 07:32 PM
I would argue against the graves containing babies that have disappeared. Troll's question was based on a conversation he had with me about this particular site, and i've been doing the bodies for it. There were 2 foetal/neonate individuals with fantastic preservation in little graves, and I disagree on principle with the suggestion that juvenile bone preservation is likley to be worse than that of adults, just not true on any of the many collections I've worked on. Juvenile bones don't just disappear, but they do get removed completely by later activity, while adults may only get partially removed. As for the differential preservation, all of the burials were in excellent condition, so it would strike me as unlikely that there would be excellent condition, or notyhing left, with no levels of preservation in between. The quicklime issue is interesting, but surely there would be patches of it left in the grave fill? Its a weird one certainly, but I'm not at all convinced by any of the explanations that rest on issues of differential preservation. I feel a paper coming on...
++ i spend my days rummaging around in dead people ++
++ i spend my days rummaging around in dead people ++