Infanticide in Roman Britain.

Infanticide in Roman Britain. Age-distributions of perinatal infants from Romano-British sites anda medieval site are different and may reflect different major causes ofdeath. 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 infanticide(ĭnfăn`təsīd)[Lat.,=child murder], the putting to death of the newborn with the consent of the parent, family, or community. Infanticide often occurs among peoples whose food supply is insecure (e.g. .IntroductionInfanticide, the killing of unwanted babies, usually at or soon afterbirth, has been shown to be practised in human societies on everycontinent and at every level of social complexity from hunter-gatherersto urbanized industrial societies (Williamson 1978; Langer 1974a; 1974b;Scrimshaw scrimshawDecoration of bone or ivory objects, such as whale's teeth and walrus tusks, with fanciful designs, traditionally carved by Anglo-American and Native American whale fishermen with a jackknife or sail needle and emphasized with black pigments (e.g., lampblack). 1984). Although infanticide has received much attention fromhistorians and anthropologists (e.g. W.V. Harris 1982; papers inHausfater & Hrdy 1984), it has been less discussed byarchaeologists.In Roman Britain Roman Britain refers to those parts of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire between AD 43 and 410. The Romans referred to their province as Britannia. infanticide has sometimes been suggested as apossible explanation for the finding of infant burials outsiderecognizable cemetery areas, on villa and settlement sites (discussionin Merrifield 1987: 51; Watts 1989; Collis 1977).The interpretations of infant burials as evidence for infanticide inRoman Britain simply because they were interments outside recognizablecemetery or 'religious' areas is somewhat speculative, asethnographic evidence shows that in many societies infants may beaccorded different burial treatment from the rest of the population(Ucko 1969; O. Harris 1982; Woodburn 1982). Thus simply that Romaninfants were often treated in a different manner in burial does notnecessarily suggest that they were victims of infanticide.A recent paper by Smith & Kahila (1992) studying infant bonesfrom a late Roman-early Byzantine sewer at Ashkelon, Israel suggestsinfanticide. They found, using a study of long-bone lengths, that theinfants were all of approximately the same age at death (around fullterm); they argued that this pattern is consistent with infanticide, asit is generally carried out immediately after birth. The present paperreports a parallel study from the other end of the Roman Empire, usingages at death of perinatal infants from British sites. The results arenot precisely comparable with those from Ashkelon as I was unaware ofSmith & Kahila's work when I was preparing this paper, but, aswill be shown below, the results are clearly similar.MethodsThe regression equations of Scheuer et al. (1980) allow gestationalage ges��ta��tion��al agen.See estimated gestational age.Gestational ageThe estimated age of a fetus expressed in weeks, calculated from the first day of the last normal menstrual period. (from the first day of the last menstrual period last menstrual periodGynecology The most recent time that a ♀ notes menstruation, a datum recorded in a chart during a routine gynecologic visit. See Menstruation. -- also known asmenstrual age) of perinatal infants to be estimated to within about 2weeks using long-bone lengths. Their linear regression Linear regressionA statistical technique for fitting a straight line to a set of data points. equations areused here.The data used in the present work come from late Romano-Britishsites. Sites were selected on the basis that they had reasonable numbersof perinatal infant burials and that these were aged using theregression equations of Scheuer et al. (1980) in the original report, ordata on long-bone lengths were presented in such a way that ageestimates could be made by the present writer. Six Romano-British siteswere chosen: two cemeteries (Poundbury, Dorset (Molleson n.d.) andAncaster, Lincolnshire (Cox 1989)); two villas (Winterton (Denston 1976)and Rudston, Humberside (Bayley 1980)); and two settlements (OldWinteringham, Humberside (Denston 1976) and Thistleton, Leicestershire(Powers et al. n.d.)). In order to provide archaeological data tocompare with the Romano-British sites, the perinatal infants from thelarge assemblage of human skeletons excavated from the churchyard at thedeserted medieval village Deserted medieval village (DMV) sites are former settlements which have been abandoned for one reason or another over the years, usually leaving little but the remains of earthworks or ghostly cropmarks. of Wharram Percy Wharram Percy is a deserted medieval village (DMV) site on the western edge of the chalk wolds in Yorkshire, England. The site is about one mile south of Wharram le Street and is clearly signposted from the B1248 Beverley to Malton road. grid reference SE858646. , North Yorkshire North Yorkshire,county (1991 pop. 698,800), 3,209 sq mi (8,313 sq km), N England. The county comprises the districts of Craven, Hambleton, Harrogate, Richmondshire, Ryedale, Scarborough, Selby, and York. (Maysforthcoming) were also examined. The results are shown in TABLE 1 andFIGURES 1a-c. The average length of gestation, measured from the firstday of the last menstrual period is 40 weeks, but there is somevariation about this mean -- the limits of normal gestation are about38-41 weeks (Tanner 1989: 43).FIGURES 1a & b reveal a striking similarity between the agedistributions of infants from TABULAR DATA OMITTED Romano-Britishcemetery and non-cemetery sites, both distributions showing a strongcentral tendency at around full term. In contrast the Wharram Percydistribution is much flatter, showing a less pronounced centraltendency. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov D statistic (Siegel 1956: 127-36)indicates that the distributions of ages of perinatal infants from theRomano-British cemetery and non-cemetery sites do not differ at the 5%level (|D.sub.obs~ = 0.17, |D.sub.95~ = 0.21). However, the distributionof the ages at death of the Romano-British perinatal infants (fromcemetery and non-cemetery sites combined) differs significantly at the5% level from that at Wharram Percy (|D.sub.obs~ = 0.24, |D.sub.95~ =0.20). Thus, to summarize, the distributions of perinatal ages at deathsfor burials from the Romano-British cemetery and non-cemetery sites aresimilar to one another and the distribution of Roman burials issignificantly different from that observed for the medieval site atWharram Percy.DiscussionPerinatal burials may be stillbirths, infants who died of naturalcauses in the immediate post-natal period or the victims of infanticide.The infants buried on an archaeological site may have died as a resultof a combination of one or more of these factors. The age distributionsof modern stillbirths, live births dying of natural causes within 7 daysof birth and total live births were used as a background against whichto investigate whether the difference in the distributions of perinatalages at death between the Roman and medieval sites studied was areflection of different major causes of death. The data for thestillbirths and total live births, from Hoffman et al. (1974), are forUS white children born in 1968. The data for the live births who died inthe first week of post-natal life, taken from Gibson & McKeown(1951), relate to births in Birmingham, England in 1947.The distribution of stillbirths is skewed towards the lower gestationperiods, and although there is a tendency for the distribution to peakabout full term this tendency is not very pronounced.The distribution of live births dying within the first weekpost-partum seems also to be skewed towards the lower gestation ages(but note that no data are available here for ages less than 28 weeks),and the peak corresponding to full term is more pronounced than is thecase for the foetal foe��tal?adj. Chiefly BritishVariant of fetal.Adj. 1. foetal - of or relating to a fetus; "fetal development"fetal deaths.The distribution of the gestational ages of total live births shows avery strong central tendency corresponding to the age at full term andis approximately symmetrical.Before attempting to interpret the archaeological data, the possibleeffects of preservation and recovery biases must be considered. Otherfactors which might compromise the use of the modern data to helpunderstand the archaeological patterns must likewise be discussed.Skeletons of perinatal age often survive relatively well; they areoften better preserved than those of older infants (Molleson 1989; 1993:175). Furthermore, very similar age distributions of perinatal deathsare obtained at the Romano-British sites over a wide variety of soilconditions -- this would not be expected were preservation factors asignificant influence on the age distributions. It is thus difficult toimagine how the patterns observed (the similarities between the Romansites and the difference between these and the medieval assemblage)could be an artefact See artifact. of preservation conditions. It is unlikely thatfailure to recover some perinatal infant burials on excavation couldexplain the results reported here: the pattern of the distribution ofages is very similar over the Romano-British sites excavated under awide range of conditions, and it seems very unlikely that small infantsare being missed in significant numbers when large numbers of onlyslightly larger infant perinatal skeletons clearly are being recoveredfrom all the sites studied. Furthermore, the pattern at the Roman siteswhereby we have large numbers of full-term infants but very few of thesomewhat older ones is the opposite of what would be expected weredifferential recovery factors having an important influence. It is thusdifficult to imagine how the patterns observed could be an artefact ofrecovery factors.There are no good biological reasons to suppose that the shape of thedistribution of gestational ages for all births was very different inantiquity from what it was in the mid 20th century, nor would any markeddifference in the age-distribution of stillbirths be expected. Clearlythe medical care available to the newborn in England in 1947 would havemeant that fewer infants in each age class would have died in the firstweek post-partum. It may also have meant that a greater proportion ofvery premature infants would have died in the immediate post-natalperiod in antiquity than in the mid 20th century, meaning that inantiquity the distribution of live births dying in the first week oflife may have been rather more skewed to the lower gestation ages thanwas the case in the 1947 study. This does, to some extent, prejudice thecomparison between the modern and the archaeological age distributionswhen investigating the possibility that the archaeological burialsrepresent mainly infants dying of natural causes in the immediatepost-natal period. However, in the absence of reliable data ongestational ages of those dying in the immediate post-natal period fromearlier than the mid 20th century, the Birmingham data are the mostappropriate comparanda available. Moreover, as will be discussed, thearchaeological distributions do resemble the modern ones -- the Romandata that for total live births and the Wharram Percy data those forstillbirths and for infants dying of natural causes soon after birth.The Romano-British distributions of perinatal ages at death aredissimilar in terms of skew (1) The misalignment of a document or punch card in the feed tray or hopper that prohibits it from being scanned or read properly.(2) In facsimile, the difference in rectangularity between the received and transmitted page. and kurtosis KurtosisA statistical measure used to describe the distribution of observed data around the mean.Notes:Used generally in the statistical field, it describes trends in charts. from the distributions ofmodern stillbirths and modern natural deaths in the immediate post-natalperiod; no combination of these two distributions could produce one likethat observed for the Roman infants. However, the Roman distributionsare very similar to that of total live births. The distribution ofperinatal deaths from Wharram Percy is similar to the distributions ofmodern stillbirths and modern infants dying of natural causes soon afterbirth. This suggests that, while the Wharram Percy infants probablyrepresent a combination of natural deaths in the immediate post-natalperiod and stillbirths, the Roman data are more likely mainly torepresent infanticides. The distribution of ages at death of theRomano-British infants is also similar to that observed by Smith &Kahila 1992 (FIGURE 1g, estimated from their figure 2 using the linearregression figures of Scheuer et al. 1980) for the infants disposed ofin the Ashkelon sewer. The above discussion does not of course implythat all the infants at the Romano-British sites were victims ofinfanticide, but rather that they are represented in sufficient numbersto have a dominant effect on the age distributions. This applies to boththe cemetery and non-cemetery sites examined.Documentary evidence A type of written proof that is offered at a trial to establish the existence or nonexistence of a fact that is in dispute.Letters, contracts, deeds, licenses, certificates, tickets, or other writings are documentary evidence. (W.V. Harris 1982; Langer 1974a; 1974b; Coleman1976; Pomeroy 1975; Brunt 1971; Wiedemann 1989) shows that infanticidewas practised in early Roman society, and the archaeological evidencenow suggests that it was practised in the provinces of the Roman empirein Britain and the Near East. Pliny defended the practice on the basisof the need to limit population size (Langer 1974a) and a law ascribedby Cicero to the traditional Roman law code of the Twelve Tables statedthat any child which is born obviously deformed should be quickly killed(Wiedemann 1989: 37). Other motives recorded for infanticide in ancientRome are that the child was not of the desired sex -- i.e. it was a girl(Wiedemann 1989: 37), or that the rich wished to limit family size tokeep their property intact (Brunt 1971: 150). However, it is clearlyimpossible to know the motivation for the practice in individualarchaeological cases (although it is perhaps worth mentioning that noneof the perinatal infants in the present study showed any evidence ofskeletal deformity DeformitySee also Lameness.Calmady, Sir Richardborn without lower legs. [Br. Lit.: Sir Richard Calmady, Walsh Modern, 84]Carey, Philipembittered young man with club foot seeks fulfillment. [Br. Lit. ); Scrimshaw (1984), from a study of theanthropological evidence shows that, in addition to the reasons citedabove, infanticide may be practised for a wide variety of motives,including poverty, illegitimacy illegitimacy:see bastard. Illegitimacybend sinistersupposed stigma of illegitimate birth. [Heraldry: Misc.]Clinker, Humphryservant of Bramble family turns out to be illegitimate son of Mr. Bramble. [Br. Lit. , that the infant is unattractive ordisliked for some reason or that the parents simply did not wantchildren.At the medieval site studied (Wharram Percy), it is not possible toinfer from the archaeological evidence whether infanticide was notpractised, or whether it was and the victims not interred in theexcavated parts of the churchyard. Although legal records of infanticidein the Middle Ages are few this may reflect the ease with which thecrime might be concealed rather than its rarity, and it may also be thatit was a tolerated practice, and perhaps not even consistently illegal,at that time (Kellum 1974; Hanawalt 1976; 1977). That infanticide waspractised in the Middle Ages can be inferred from the fact that thechurch felt the need to censure it, and the desire to preventinfanticide was also a reason given for the widespread establishment offoundlings' homes in medieval and post-medieval Europe (Shahar1990: 126f). It seems probable that poverty and, in particular,illegitimacy may have been important medieval motives for infanticide(Kellum 1974; Shahar 1990). In medieval times unwanted infants might bemurdered and buried surreptitiously sur��rep��ti��tious?adj.1. Obtained, done, or made by clandestine or stealthy means.2. Acting with or marked by stealth. See Synonyms at secret. in pits or ditches or they might beabandoned in areas away from human settlement (Kellum 1974; Shahar1990). So perhaps infanticide did occur at Wharram with disposal of theinfants outside the churchyard.Acknowledgements. 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