Introduction

One of the most commonly perceived limitations in the study of children from archaeological contexts is their poor, or total lack of, preservation. The absence of neonatal remains, or ‘infant-sized pits’ that no longer contain their ‘tiny occupants’ (Watts, 1989:377), has led to the belief that children rarely survive the burial environment, and even ‘dissolve’ in the ground. This issue has resulted in the widespread neglect of studies into infant and child skeletal remains, whose numbers are often believed to be too small for statistical analysis and meaningful research. However, large numbers of non-adult remains have been recovered from cemetery sites, and continue to be housed in museums and universities ready for study (Table 2.1). In the UK, for example, the largest include the multiperiod site of St Peter's Church, Barton-on-Humber (n = c.1000), Romano-British Poundbury Camp (n = 395) and St Mary's Spital in London, where so far, 1740 non-adults have been identified (White, pers. comm.). In North America, sites such as Indian Knoll have yielded 420 non-adults (Johnston, 1962). Collections of known age and sex also exist, most notably the 66 non-adults from Coimbra in Portugal with a known cause of death (Santos and Roberts, 2001).