Ghost Children: Delayed Personhood and Culture-specific Models of Infancy in Western Anatolia

Abstract

Abstract Most societies view infants and partially children, up to a certain age, as not fully human beings and/or persons. This paper takes a longue durée perspective to examine built spaces shared by the living and dead infants during the four millennia (seventh to third millennium BC) in Anatolia. Evidence of infant burials within and around houses in several prehistoric periods and sites is analysed through a child-centred approach to mortuary remains, which does not equate adults with subadults or fully human with not fully human beings. This allows us to gain new perspectives of how age, age groups and infancy or childhood were perceived in prehistory. By perceiving houses as social spaces where ritual and non-ritual mimesis is embodied in shared practices and beliefs, where the material and social collide, rather than simply as signifiers of social units, we are better able to grasp subadult identities and decipher the personhood of infants and children through mortuary practices. Through our Anatolian case study, we provide socio-anthropological explanations for keeping the ‘ghost children’, buried close to houses, due to delayed personhood. We argue for constructing culture-specific models of infancy based on the archaeological evidence in Anatolia and beyond.