Mors Immatura I

Chapter 6 analyses published data from cemeteries in Britain, Egypt, Gaul, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, North Africa and Spain in order to explore infant mortality and the location of infant burials within or outside the communities of the living, and discusses the inclusivity of infant burials in communal cemeteries and the choice of inhumation or cremation for children of such a young age. It seeks to recognize differences, similarities, and tensions between regional burial traditions that might have survived the Roman conquest and the adoption of mainstream Roman funerary practices related to infancy and earliest childhood. It also explores intramural burial and practices such as exposure, infanticide, and potential child sacrifice.