26th June 2010, 06:52 PM
Quite interesting.......
Perhaps the mitochondrial DNA will suggest that the majority of the infants belonged to a small number of women? If this was a brothel-it strikes me as a bit interesting that "unwanted" infants were buried in the immediate locale and not disposed of elsewhere. There are plenty of examples where infants have been interred within the fabric of Roman buildings-none as far as I am aware have been interpreted as either murder victims or the by-products of a brothel. How many other "securely identified" brothels of the period have been shown to house large numbers of infants? Could we not be looking at a building that was some sort of maternity unit and the infants were simply all lost at birth or stillborn? Would this not explain the similarities in age at death? Age at death estimations in infants is iffy anyway and long-bone lengths are merely a guide. Maybe they were all interred within the bounds of this building as it was "protected" by a deity responsible for the care of children? How do we prove infanticide?
This really could turn out to be extremely interesting but I smell the sinister odour of sensationalism yet again......:face-approve:
Perhaps the mitochondrial DNA will suggest that the majority of the infants belonged to a small number of women? If this was a brothel-it strikes me as a bit interesting that "unwanted" infants were buried in the immediate locale and not disposed of elsewhere. There are plenty of examples where infants have been interred within the fabric of Roman buildings-none as far as I am aware have been interpreted as either murder victims or the by-products of a brothel. How many other "securely identified" brothels of the period have been shown to house large numbers of infants? Could we not be looking at a building that was some sort of maternity unit and the infants were simply all lost at birth or stillborn? Would this not explain the similarities in age at death? Age at death estimations in infants is iffy anyway and long-bone lengths are merely a guide. Maybe they were all interred within the bounds of this building as it was "protected" by a deity responsible for the care of children? How do we prove infanticide?
This really could turn out to be extremely interesting but I smell the sinister odour of sensationalism yet again......:face-approve: