title: Upper Palaeolithic infant burials.
abstract: Decorations on the bodies of newborns indicate that they were probably important in their community. Several adult graves from the Stone Age (Upper Palaeolithic period) have been found but child burials seem to be rare, which has prompted discussion about whether this apparently different treatment of infants could be significant. Here we describe two recently discovered infant burials from this period at Krems-Wachtberg in Lower Austria, in which the bodies were covered with red ochre and decorated with ornaments and were therefore probably ritually buried. These findings indicate that even newborns were considered to be full members of these hunter-gatherer communities about 27,000 years ago.
authors.affiliation: Prehistoric Commission of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, 1010 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Einwögerer
authors.forename: Herwig
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Friesinger
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Händel
authors.forename: Christine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Neugebauer-Maresch
authors.forename: Ulrich
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Simon
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Teschler-Nicola
mesh_terms: D001317:Austria / Q000208:ethnology; D002048:Burial / Q000266:history* / Q000379:methods; D049690:History, Ancient; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D012863:Skeleton