Some Features of Children’s Grave Goods from the Polack Land from the End of the Tenth to the 12th Century

The article presents an attempt to determine some features of children’s grave goods in inhumation burials in barrow cemeteries in the Polack land at the end of the tenth to the 12th century. The study is based on a comparison of the grave goods of children and adults in individual cemeteries, geographic micro-regions and the whole of the Polack land, as well as the detection of a correlation between changes in grave goods and the age of the buried individual. In this paper, the results of an analysis of 78 children’s burials (up to 14 years old) from 35 barrow cemeteries are presented. As a result of the study, some types of grave goods were identified that can mark the ‘children’s’ status of the buried individual. Such grave goods include miniature jewellery, jewellery of ‘secondary’ use, and inaccurately made temple rings of indefinable types. These objects are most often found in the burials of children under seven years of age (group infans I) and are absent in the burials of children over 12 years old. Also, some items were identified that may indicate the transition of the buried child to the status of an adult. Usually, such items are found in the graves of adolescents. For male burials these are weapons, for females headbands and neck-rings. It was determined that the age of about 12 years old could most likely be a stage in the maturation of a person, which was reflected in the burials.