Farewell to the Young: Early Iron Age Mortuary Practices in the Middle Danube Region

ABSTRACT

The study of burials and mortuary practices in the past provides essential information on the role and treatment of children in past communities. This study aims to better understand the status of children by reviewing the material culture provided by child burial contexts. Early Iron Age (800–300 BC) mortuary practices in the southern Middle Danube (present–day eastern Croatia and northwestern Serbia) are characterized mostly by the cremation of the dead. The Iron Age is an important time for funerary transitions. The standard practice of cremating the dead was replaced by the practice of inhumation during the 6th century BC. The manner of treatment of the dead body affected the preservation of objects and data in the graves. This paper studies 74 burials with child remains, costumes, jewellery, tool items, and pottery grave goods. In Early Iron Age mortuary practices, children were treated just like the adult members of the community.

KEYWORDS:

• Children
• mortuary practices
• Early Iron Age
• Middle Danube region
• jewellery
• costume
• tools
• vessels

Acknowledgements

The team of the Archaeological Museum in Osijek provided documentation from the Batina excavation. Bruno Jobst took photographs of the grave assemblage from Batina for the Institute of Archaeology, Zagreb. Marko Maras translated the text into English. We thank them all, especially three anonymous reviewers for detailed advice on how to improve our manuscript.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work has been fully supported by the Croatian Science Foundation under the project Childhood in Protohistory in the Southern Carpathian Basin ARHKIDS (RP 2019-04-2520).

Notes on contributors

Daria Ložnjak Dizdar

Daria Ložnjak Dizdar is a research advisor at the Institute of Archaeology in Zagreb, Croatia. Her research interests are prehistoric archaeology, especially communities and identities of the Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age in the Carpathian Basin, mortuary practices, age groups, and ceramics. She has participated in numerous archaeological excavations in continental Croatia and in several research projects. She takes part in teaching graduate courses at the Department of Archaeology of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Zagreb. Her publications focus on topics about the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Early Iron Age in the southern Carpathian Basin.

Marko Dizdar

Marko Dizdar is a research advisor at the Institute of Archaeology in Zagreb. His research interests are prehistoric archaeology, identities, cemeteries, gender groups, especially the Iron Age in the Carpathian Basin and Romanisation. He has excavated numerous sites in Croatia. He takes part in teaching PhD courses at the Department of Archaeology of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Zagreb. He has published several books and numerous papers, mostly focusing on the Late Iron Age in the southern Carpathian Basin. He is the director of the Institute of Archaeology in Zagreb, Croatia.

Aleksandar Kapuran

Aleksandar Kapuran is a principal research fellow at the Institute of Archaeology in Belgrade. In the last decade his research interest has focused on the Early Copper Age and Bronze Age copper metallurgy in Serbia. He is the co-director of the Serbian-Austrian scientific project, Bronze Age at the territory of eastern Serbia – metallurgy, settlements, and necropolises (Archaeological Institute, Belgrade, and Austrian Archaeological Institute, Vienna), and he takes part in numerous archaeological investigations of prehistoric sites on the territory of Serbia and Greece. He is the author and editor of several books, and he has published numerous articles about different issues, mostly related to the Metal Ages in the Central Balkans.