[HN Gopher] Infant burial reveals a Mesolithic society that hono...
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Infant burial reveals a Mesolithic society that honoured its
youngest members
Author : diodorus
Score : 28 points
Date : 2021-12-16 04:51 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com)
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| 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.
| irrational wrote:
| morn > mourn
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| goda90 wrote:
| It might be because some other well studied cultures seemed to
| dismiss the death of children callously:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_exposure
| [deleted]
| ReactiveJelly wrote:
| > 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.
| uplifter wrote:
| >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 wrote:
| > 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.
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(page generated 2021-12-17 23:01 UTC)