Archetypal Dimensions of Infant Death, Infanticide and Child Abandonment in Pre-transitional Societies

Abstract

The present study analyses infant death, infanticide, and child abandonment in pre-transitional societies assuming that, even in various times, cultures, and geographical places, some elements are shared and commonly present on the way to decide on newborns’ right to life or death in a demographic system typified by high infant mortality rates. The attention focuses on this subject with multidisciplinary sources linking newborns’ mortality with population control behaviour, investigating, and clustering common elements. The aim is to revisit these topics considering them as archetypal dimensions that possess elements deeply rooted and emotionally linked in human nature to make them universally shared in time and space. This creates a network of semantic and iconic connections so strong as to persist over the centuries.

Keywords

• infant death
• infanticide
• childcare
• population history
• population studies
• sociology
• history
• anthropology