Becoming Adults: The state of children in the Middle Bronze Age of Western Hungary

Melis, Eszter (2023) Becoming Adults: The state of children in the Middle Bronze Age of Western Hungary. HUNGARIAN ARCHAEOLOGY, 12 (3). pp. 14-26. ISSN 2416-0296

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Abstract

The last few decades witnessed increasing attention to the study of the state and role of children in different historical and prehistoric periods. The graves of those who unfortunately died in their childhood are one of the most informative and important sources for this topic in prehistoric research, which, thanks to modern scientific methods, can provide information not only about the diseases or sex of the young deceased, but also about their lifestyle (e.g., their diet). However, we should not forget that the way children are buried and their grave goods reveal primarily the relationship of the adult community to the youngest generation and their loss and mourning. The period between 2200/2100 and 1600/1500 BC is the end of the Early Bronze Age and the whole Middle Bronze Age in Hungary. The territory of Western Hungary was then the borderland between the Central European Únětice and related cultures (e.g., Gáta-Wieselburg) adopting inhumation mortuary practice and the groups of the Carpathian Basin with cremation rites (Kisapostag and the Transdanubian Encrusted Pottery Culture). Children were buried in 30–40% of the excavated burials, and while archaeological analysis of these graves can provide limited insights into what it was like to be a child in the Bronze Age, it can also shed light on key aspects of social organisation between 3500 and 4000 years ago.

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