Reconsidering the Personhood of Gravettian Infants

There is a widely held belief among archaeologists that the paucity of infant burials in the European Gravettian (ca. 33,000–22,000 cal. bp) can be attributed to societal attitudes toward these young individuals. Specifically, it has been argued that infants were “discriminated” against by members of Gravettian society who did not consider infants as “people” until after weaning. Infants who died before this process was complete were not worthy of burial. This paper challenges this characterization of Gravettian infants by considering a wide range of taphonomic factors, drawing on newly discovered as well as existing but reinterpreted burial data, and contextualizing infant burials within the larger context of Gravettian burial practices. It concludes that at certain times and certain places, some Gravettian peoples buried their infants, and when they did, it was with great care and likely with great emotion at their passing.