Children in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Hungary and Poland

Children have received much more attention from archaeologists in East Central than in Western Europe. It was not before Grete Lillehammer’s 1989 article that a self-conscious approach to the archaeology of childhood appeared in the West. ¹ Sally Crawford was among the first to call attention to age categories and rites of passage, and to emphasize the impact of Christianity on the development of new attitudes towards children. ² In contrast, the special treatment of child burials in medieval cemeteries in Poland had already been recognized in the early 1980s. ³ In Hungary, however, medieval cemeteries were analyzed only in terms of chronology and the interpretation of artifacts regarded as typical (e.g., lock rings with S-shaped ends). Before 1990, very few church graveyards had been completely published. ⁴ Until recently, child burials received no attention whatsoever. Only recently, has the problem of children in medieval cemeteries been approached through the lens of bioarchaeology. ⁵ No comparison exists between child burials in various parts of East Central Europe. Several questions would nonetheless invite such an approach. Was there a radical change in the status of children, presumably visible in funerary rites, following the conversion to Christianity? Were child burials different in cemeteries with and without churches? Can any age categories be distinguished in terms of funerary rites and/or grave goods among the child burials in post-conversion cemeteries?