The purpose of this study is to examine how childhoodness was constructed through the burial artifacts and structures in Silla tombs of the High-mound Tomb Period, and to explore the implications of this perception of children in Silla society. Throug...
The purpose of this study is to examine how childhoodness was constructed through the burial artifacts and structures in Silla tombs of the High-mound Tomb Period, and to explore the implications of this perception of children in Silla society. Through theoretical review, it was recognized that childhood can be defined as a multidimensional concept, and a comprehensive study of historical literature indicated that the distinction between adults and children was considered to be around the age of 15. Based on osteological data, the analysis was conducted on approximately 110 tombs and around 1,200 burial items from the Three Kingdoms period, focusing on the Imdang A, B, G districts and the Yaean-ri site in Gimhae, where a certain number of children's and adults' tombs could be distinguished.
The results revealed that although jar-coffin tombs have traditionally been regarded as representative of children's burials, in reality, more children were interred in tomb types such as stone-lined and wooden-chamber tombs, which were also used for adults. While children buried in these tombs could be distinguished from adults by the long-axis length of the burial chamber (set at 2m), about half of the children were buried in tombs longer than 2m. Without osteological evidence, distinguishing between adult and child tombs based on the scale of the burial structure, contents, and quantity of burial items alone may be challenging.
It is estimated that children's tombs, including jar-coffin tombs, constituted about 15-34% of the total tombs. However, considering the high child mortality rate at the time, this proportion is relatively low, and most infants under the age of one year appear to have been handled in ways that have not been detected in current findings. Therefore, jar-coffin tombs can be seen as a burial type for only a small portion of child deaths, although the criteria for selection remain unknown.
Ultimately, jar-coffin tombs do not represent the child population, and it is difficult to identify exclusive characteristics unique to children's burials within the broader funerary practices. The reason why the expression of childhood is not prominently emphasized in the extant tomb data is not necessarily indicative of the neglect of childhoodness. Rather, some children were treated as ‘small adults,’ implying that their social membership was acknowledged, and they were interred in a manner equivalent to that of adults.