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Infant burial reveals a Mesolithic society that honoured its youngest members

32 points by diodorus 5y ago

poulsbohemian 5y ago
It's always fascinating to see how other cultures lived and where they assigned value or importance in their culture. That said, I don't understand stories like this that seem surprised that past cultures mourned loss. Certainly they faced a lot more infant mortality and shorter overall lifespans than we do, such that one might think they would become hardened to it, but it would be hard to believe they would be able to completely turn off the emotions. Some might say that I'm overlooking that this was a female child and that these past societies lacked equality and gender enlightenment of our modern society. Even on that I find myself questing why we make these assumptions. It's pretty clear there are some universal constants through time and culture - parents love their children. They may parent differently based on time and place, but it's an innate human behavior to love and mourn them.
- deleted 5y ago
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- deleted 5y ago
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- irrational 5y ago
  morn > mourn
  - poulsbohemian 5y ago
    Thank you, I'm well aware, but I can't fix the fact we live in an overzealous autocorrect world that fucks up everything. Just in typing the past line I had to thrice fix words that the technical powers that be deemed to be incorrect.
- ReactiveJelly 5y ago
  > I don't understand stories like this that seem surprised that past cultures mourned loss Me neither. I wondered if the article is supposed to be subtly anti-abortion, but it's not like the website has any obvious links to anti-abortion political parties. It's just kinda weird. Yeah, don't all primates mourn infant death? Wikipedia tells me the Mesolithic period only began 20,000 years ago, so these would have been genetically modern humans. It's good when science finds obvious stuff, but we don't have to present it as shocking when it does.
  - WFHRenaissance 5y ago
    >Child funerary treatment provides important insights into who was considered a person and afforded the attributes of an individual self, moral agency, and eligibility for group membership. Neve shows that even the youngest females were recognized as full persons in her society. Not so much anti-abortion, as contemplating the degree of personhood assigned to new humans in this culture. Kind of purposely divisive of you to claim that this article is subtly anti-abortion.
    - SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
      That’s the part about this whole debate I don’t get. That it seems neither side is willing to accept we’ll never have an answer to that. You can’t actually know when life is or isn’t. Yet everything is an attack to someone. How do we make non-falsifiable claims and objective laws either way? “You aren’t a person until mommy says so” seems just as troublesome as “ending anything that could be a person is always murder”. I feel like I’m crazy for understanding both sides and not being hardline.
      - WFHRenaissance 5y ago
        > How do we make non-falsifiable claims and objective laws either way? “You aren’t a person until mommy says so” seems just as troublesome as “ending anything that could be a person is always murder”. You don't ;). Just gotta pick a value system and kind of push for your team to win. If you're in the US, we've kind of been operating in this BS emotivistic meta-ethical framework for like 70 years and I doubt we'll escape it any time soon. We'd need re-education camps in order to come to a consensus on a value system...
- goda90 5y ago
  It might be because some other well studied cultures seemed to dismiss the death of children callously: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_exposure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_exposure
uplifter 5y ago
>Child funerary treatment provides important insights into who was considered a person and afforded the attributes of an individual self, moral agency, and eligibility for group membership. Neve shows that even the youngest females were recognized as full persons in her society. Alternatively, it shows that ancient people were as terrified of baby ghost hauntings as we are today. Those baby ghosts need to be appeased, through costly ritual and material sacrifice, lest they return and torment the living. I mean, it seems as valid an interpretation as the article authors' one, no?
- WaitWaitWha 5y ago
  > Alternatively, it shows that ancient people were as terrified of baby ghost hauntings *as we are today*. (emphasis added) >I mean, it seems as valid an interpretation as the article authors' one, no? What? No.

32 points by diodorus 5y ago

It's always fascinating to see how other cultures lived and where they assigned value or importance in their culture. That said, I don't understand stories like this that seem surprised that past cultures mourned loss. Certainly they faced a lot more infant mortality and shorter overall lifespans than we do, such that one might think they would become hardened to it, but it would be hard to believe they would be able to completely turn off the emotions. Some might say that I'm overlooking that this was a female child and that these past societies lacked equality and gender enlightenment of our modern society. Even on that I find myself questing why we make these assumptions. It's pretty clear there are some universal constants through time and culture - parents love their children. They may parent differently based on time and place, but it's an innate human behavior to love and mourn them.

deleted 5y ago
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deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
irrational 5y ago
morn > mourn
- poulsbohemian 5y ago
  Thank you, I'm well aware, but I can't fix the fact we live in an overzealous autocorrect world that fucks up everything. Just in typing the past line I had to thrice fix words that the technical powers that be deemed to be incorrect.
ReactiveJelly 5y ago
> I don't understand stories like this that seem surprised that past cultures mourned loss Me neither. I wondered if the article is supposed to be subtly anti-abortion, but it's not like the website has any obvious links to anti-abortion political parties. It's just kinda weird. Yeah, don't all primates mourn infant death? Wikipedia tells me the Mesolithic period only began 20,000 years ago, so these would have been genetically modern humans. It's good when science finds obvious stuff, but we don't have to present it as shocking when it does.
- WFHRenaissance 5y ago
  >Child funerary treatment provides important insights into who was considered a person and afforded the attributes of an individual self, moral agency, and eligibility for group membership. Neve shows that even the youngest females were recognized as full persons in her society. Not so much anti-abortion, as contemplating the degree of personhood assigned to new humans in this culture. Kind of purposely divisive of you to claim that this article is subtly anti-abortion.
  - SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
    That’s the part about this whole debate I don’t get. That it seems neither side is willing to accept we’ll never have an answer to that. You can’t actually know when life is or isn’t. Yet everything is an attack to someone. How do we make non-falsifiable claims and objective laws either way? “You aren’t a person until mommy says so” seems just as troublesome as “ending anything that could be a person is always murder”. I feel like I’m crazy for understanding both sides and not being hardline.
    - WFHRenaissance 5y ago
      > How do we make non-falsifiable claims and objective laws either way? “You aren’t a person until mommy says so” seems just as troublesome as “ending anything that could be a person is always murder”. You don't ;). Just gotta pick a value system and kind of push for your team to win. If you're in the US, we've kind of been operating in this BS emotivistic meta-ethical framework for like 70 years and I doubt we'll escape it any time soon. We'd need re-education camps in order to come to a consensus on a value system...
goda90 5y ago
It might be because some other well studied cultures seemed to dismiss the death of children callously: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_exposure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_exposure

uplifter 5y ago

>Child funerary treatment provides important insights into who was considered a person and afforded the attributes of an individual self, moral agency, and eligibility for group membership. Neve shows that even the youngest females were recognized as full persons in her society. Alternatively, it shows that ancient people were as terrified of baby ghost hauntings as we are today. Those baby ghosts need to be appeased, through costly ritual and material sacrifice, lest they return and torment the living. I mean, it seems as valid an interpretation as the article authors' one, no?

WaitWaitWha 5y ago
> Alternatively, it shows that ancient people were as terrified of baby ghost hauntings *as we are today*. (emphasis added) >I mean, it seems as valid an interpretation as the article authors' one, no? What? No.