Abstract
This thesis discusses the evidence for funerary practices afforded to children in the Earlier
Bronze Age in Britain (circa 2500BC to 1400BC) focusing on three key case study areas:
Scotland, Yorkshire and Wessex. A long -view of the Earlier Bronze Age has been adopted to
enable broad patterns to be determined and discussed. The wider aim is to offer a fuller
understanding of the perception and importance of children within Earlier Bronze Age
society.
Following the theoretical and methodological framework adopted throughout the study the
evidence for the mortuary treatment of children and the grave furnishings provided for them
is discussed with particular reference to how children's graves compare to those of adults in
the same chronological period. To accompany this study, a comprehensive catalogue of
previously recorded children's burials both by inhumation and after cremation has been
compiled by the writer for the three case study areas. This includes data both from
antiquarian sources and from modern excavation reports detailing aspects of grave location,
positioning of the body and associated material culture in the form of grave goods. The
corpus is then reviewed and discussed for each of the case study areas. The aim of each
study is to analyse the significance of aspects of funerary practice and the role of grave
goods in association with children of fifteen years of age or younger within regional burial
traditions. This study indicates that children are under -represented in the burial record and
suggests that formal burial was not open to all immature individuals. In each of the case
study areas funerary rites afforded to children are generally consistent with those of adults
but this study demonstrates that the inclusion of certain objects found in adult graves (such
as bronze knife- daggers) were not considered appropriate for inclusion in the grave of a
child. A number of exceptional and highly- furnished graves are present which indicate that it
was possible for children to be perceived as significant members of Earlier Bronze Age
society during life and in the Otherworld.
