Childhood in early medieval Ireland: perspectives from human osteology and archaeology
Denise B. Keating
Supervisor:
Dr. Aidan O Sullivan
Dr. Helen Lewis
Funded by: IRCHSS
Abstract
Through osteoarchaeological, archaeological and anthropological analyses of children’s skeletal remains this project aims to create the first understanding of the experience and identity of children in early Ireland in their social, economic and physical worlds
What was it like to be child in early medieval Ireland (AD 400-1100)? What were one’s chances of survival, one’s health status and diet? In what ways did life change for children as they grew older? These are questions that are traditionally regarded as being very difficult to answer. Children are typically considered virtually invisible in the archaeological record (apart from when small objects regarded as ‘toys’are found), while historical sources – apart from some laws, saints lives and occasional narrative literature – typically refrain from even mentioning them. However, it is now possible to investigate early medieval childhood through osteoarchaeological analysis of some large Irish cemetery populations recently recovered through archaeological excavations.
This project seeks to explore childhood identity and society’s treatment of children in early medieval Ireland by focusing on children themselves as represented by their bodies. It will uncover the physical and social experience of children’s lives through analysis of skeletal pathology, developmental stress markers and growth studies. It will also explore social change. The early medieval period in Ireland was a time of significant social and ideological change featuring religious conversion, significant growth in population, a transformed agricultural economy and increasing social complexity. Our studies of the processes of change have rarely attempted to look at people’s bodies themselves, while those at the base of the social ladder and the most likely to reflect these radical changes (i.e. children), have rarely been investigated.
This project also seeks to examine the part played by non-adults in society and their often overlooked impact upon it. One aspect of this will be the way in which infant mortality reflects society’s ability to provide a survivable environment for the child. Failure to supply buffers to disease, socio-economic hardship, accidents and abuse will potentially cause premature death of infants. Inability to provide a survivable environment is affected by numerous factors, not least by famine, disease, political turmoil or endemic poverty, some of which are direct outcomes of periods of social change.
This serves as a base from which to explore what bearing the survival or non-survival of offspring has on the perception of kinship and community. Concepts of such relationships are, at this time of societal change, being tested and undergoing a type of transformation themselves. The project aims to consider the effects of grief and loss resulting from child death and the potential for personal tragedy to affect not only the immediate family but also to be felt throughout the wider community.