Surviving Childhood: The Relationship Between Childhood Health and Longevity in the Early Bronze Age Necropolises Mokrin and Ostojićevo (2100-1800 BC)

Abstract

The study of prehistoric societies requires a holistic approach to all segments of the population. Researchers agree that the period of growth and development is crucial for the life course, its quality, and duration. In recent decades, there has been a noticeable increase in studies focusing on the material traces of children in the archaeological record, particularly within bioarcheology. These approaches, however, are not without limitations. Focusing exclusively on children’s skeletons provides valuable insights, but it also limits the analysis to those who did not survive childhood. Therefore, it is necessary to include adult individuals to gain a more complete understanding of childhood health in the past. In this paper, we show that analysing markers of survived childhood stress in skeletons of adult individuals can provide insights into many aspects of children’s lives in the past while focusing on an EBA skeletal series from Mokrin and Ostojićevo.

Keywords

• markers of stress
• linear enamel hypoplasia
• bioarchaeology of children
• health in prehistory
• Maros culture
• Early Bronze Age