Journal
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
Volume 11, Issue 1, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PORTFOLIO
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-02804-z
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Funding
- Wenner-Gren Foundation
- Leakey Foundation
- National Geographic Society Waitt Program [W391-15]
- Hyde Family Foundation [via the Human Origins Migrations and Evolutionary Research (HOMER) consortium]
- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant [430-2018-00846]
- University of Colorado Denver
- Washington University
- ERC [724046]
- European Research Council under the European Union [803147]
- Max Planck Society. CHEI (University of California San Diego)
- European Research Council (ERC) [724046, 803147] Funding Source: European Research Council (ERC)
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The highly decorated infant burial AVH-1 from Arma Veirana in northwestern Italy, dating back to the early Holocene, provides insights into social status based on sex/gender, funerary treatment, and the attribution of personhood to young individuals among prehistoric hunter-gatherer groups.
The evolution and development of human mortuary behaviors is of enormous cultural significance. Here we report a richly-decorated young infant burial (AVH-1) from Arma Veirana (Liguria, northwestern Italy) that is directly dated to 10,211-9910 cal BP (95.4% probability), placing it within the early Holocene and therefore attributable to the early Mesolithic, a cultural period from which well-documented burials are exceedingly rare. Virtual dental histology, proteomics, and aDNA indicate that the infant was a 40-50 days old female. Associated artifacts indicate significant material and emotional investment in the child's interment. The detailed biological profile of AVH-1 establishes the child as the earliest European near-neonate documented to be female. The Arma Veirana burial thus provides insight into sex/gender-based social status, funerary treatment, and the attribution of personhood to the youngest individuals among prehistoric hunter-gatherer groups and adds substantially to the scant data on mortuary practices from an important period in prehistory shortly following the end of the last Ice Age.
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