Being to Become? Childhoods, Life Courses and Relational Identities in Pre-Roman South-East Italy

Autor(en)

Matthias Hoernes, Laimer Manuele, Christian Heitz

Abstrakt

The paper analyzes notions of childhood in pre-Roman south-east Italy based on more than 170 funerary features with subadult depositions at three sites, viz. Ascoli Satriano and Ordona in northern Apulia and Ripacandida in the Basilicata. In order to understand early age both in a regional view and in its local manifestations, we discuss this dataset in terms of spatial placement, equipment with grave-goods as well as funerary and post-burial practices of subadult burials. The paper employs a twofold theoretical approach: A life-course perspective allows to sketch how conceptions of social age shift over early life and dynamically intersect with other social categories such as gender and status. A relational approach positions childhood in wider social structures and is sensitive to how funerary assemblages and practices constitute the post-mortem identity of children, reconfigure the social identities of the bereaved and deploy strategies of coping with loss. In integrating these two strands, we investigate whether and how mortuary performances and assemblages represent age-based identities, relate to infant needs and development and reflect how subadult individuals were embedded in, but also contributed to, their communities in life.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Klassische Archäologie

Externe Organisation(en)

Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck

Journal

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

Band

64

ISSN

0278-4165

Publikationsdatum

2021

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

601003 Archäologie

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/76f208d6-4bce-4f26-ab9c-006ed187f73a