Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T00:22:47.688Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Infanticide in Roman Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Simon Mays
Simon Mays*
Affiliation:
Ancient Monuments Laboratory, English Heritage, 23 Savile Row, London W1X 1AB, England
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Age-distributions of perinatal infants from Romano-British sites and a medieval site are different and may reflect different major causes of death. Whilst the medieval infants probably represent natural deaths, the Romano-British infants, from both cemetery and non-cemetery sites, may mainly represent victims of infanticide.

Type
Notes
Information
Antiquity , Volume 67 , Issue 257 , December 1993 , pp. 883 - 888
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bayley, J. 1980. The human bones, in Stead, I.M., Rudston Roman villa: 146–8. Leeds: Yorkshire Archaeological Society.Google Scholar
Bloch, M. & Parry, R. (ed.). 1982. Death and the regeneration of life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brunt, P.A. 1971. Italian manpower 225 BC-AD 14. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Coleman, E. 1976. Infanticide in the early Middle Ages, in Stuard (1976): 47–70.Google Scholar
Collis, J. 1977. Owslebury (Hants) and the problem of burials on rural settlements, in Reece, R. (ed.), Rurial in the Roman world: 26–34. London: Council for British Archaeology. Research report 22.Google Scholar
Cox, M. 1989. The human bones from Ancaster. London: Ancient Monuments Laboratory. Report 93/89. Google Scholar
Denston, C.B. 1976. The human remains, in Stead, I.M., Excavations at Winterton Roman villa and other Roman sites in north Lincolnshire: 290–300. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Gibson, J.R. & Mckeown, T.. 1951. Observations on all births (23,970) in Birmingham, 1947. III. Survival, British Journal of Social Medicine 5: 177–83.Google Scholar
Hanawalt, B. 1976. The female felon in 14th-century England, in Stuard (1976): 125–40.Google Scholar
Hanawalt, B. 1977. Childrearing among the lower classes of late Mediaeval England, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 8: 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, O. 1982. The dead and the devils among the Bolivian Laymi, in Bloch & Parry (1982): 45–73.Google Scholar
Harris, W.V. 1982. The theoretical possibility of extensive infanticide in the Graeco-Roman world, Classical Quarterly 32: 114–16.Google Scholar
Hausfater, G. & Hrdy, S.B. (ed.). 1984. Infanticide. Hawthorne (NV): Aldine.Google Scholar
Hoffman, H.J., Stark, C.R., Lundin, F.E. & Ashbrook, J.D.. 1974. Analysis of birth weight, gestational age&fetal viability, US births 1968, Obstetrical&Gynecological Survey 29: 651–81.Google Scholar
Kellum, B. 1974. Infanticide in England in the later Middle Ages, History of Childhood Quarterly 1(3): 367–88.Google ScholarPubMed
Langer, W.L. 1974a. Infanticide: a historical survey, History of Childhood Quarterly 1(3): 353–65.Google ScholarPubMed
Langer, W.L. 1974b. Further notes on the history of infanticide, History of Childhood Quarterly 1(4):129–34.Google Scholar
Mays, S.A. Forthcoming. The human remains from Wharram Percy, in the forthcoming Report on the churchyard.Google Scholar
Merrifield, R. 1987. The archaeology of ritual S-magic. London: Batsford.Google Scholar
Molleson, T.I. 1989. Social implications of mortality patterns of juveniles from Poundbury Camp, Romano-British cemetery, Anfhropoiogisciie Anzeiger 47: 27–38.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Molleson, T.I. 1993. The human remains, in Farwell, D.E. & Molleson, T.I. (ed.), Excavations at Poundbury 1966-80 II: The cemeteries. Dorchester: Dorset Natural History & Archaeological Society. Monograph 11.Google Scholar
Molleson, T.I.N.d. Unpublished data on long-bone lengths of Poundbury infants.Google Scholar
Pomeroy, S.B. 1975. Goddesses, whores, wives & slaves. New York (NY): Schoken.Google Scholar
Powers, R., Cullen, R. & Jarman, S.. N.d. Notes on the human bones from Thistleton. MS on file at the Ancient Monuments Laboratory.Google Scholar
Scheuer, J.L., Musgrave, J.H. & Evans, S.P.. 1980. Estimation of late foetal and perinatal age from limb bone length by linear and logarithmic regression, Annals of Human Biology 7: 257–65.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Scrimshaw, S.C.M. 1984. Infanticide in human populations: societal and individual concerns, in Hausfater & Hrdy (1984): 439–62.Google Scholar
Siegel, S. 1956. Nonparametric statistics for the behavioural sciences. London: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Shahar, S. 1990. Childhood in the Middle Ages. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Smith, P. & Kahila, G.. 1992. Identification of infanticide in archaeological sites: a case study from the late Roman-early Byzantine periods at Ashkelon, Israel, Journal of Archaeological Science 19: 667–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stuard, S.M. (ed.). 1976. Women in mediaeval society Philadelphia (PA): University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Tanner, J.M. 1989. Foetus into man. 2nd edition. Ware: Castlemead.Google Scholar
Ucko, P.J. 1969. Ethnography and the archaeological interpretation of funerary remains, World Archaeology 1: 262–80.Google Scholar
Watts, D.J. 1989. Infant burials and Romano-British Christianity, Archaeological Journal 146: 372–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiedemann, T. 1989. Adults and children in the Roman empire. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Williamson, L. 1978. Infanticide: an anthropological analysis, in Kohl, M. (ed.), Infanticide and the value of life: 61–75. Buffalo (NY): Prometheus.Google Scholar
Woodburn, J. 1982. Social dimensions of death, in Bloch & Parry (1982): 187–210.Google Scholar