Apuntes para una bioarqueología de la infancia en Uruguay

Apart from occasional descriptions of infant burials in the first half of the twentieth century, bioarchaeological studies of childhood in Uruguay have few precedents, particularly of a demographic and taphonomic nature. In this paper, we analyze the background and current situation of childhood bioarchaeology in Uruguay, including a detail of the archaeological record of infant skeletal remains. This record is fragmentary in three aspects. First, there is a lack of representation at the level of skeletal elements, with the remains consisting mainly of cranial and dental remains. Second, there is an underrepresentation at the level of individuals who died in the first year of life; the cause of these two fragmentarities is probably a bias at the level of recovery of the remains during excavation. Finally, there is a low number of dated remains; more datings are needed to increase the chronological resolution of the record. For the moment, the potential of the record for childhood bioarchaeology studies is limited, and it is possible to make significant advances in the short term at the level of dietary changes during early life and funerary patterns; further studies require a quantitative and qualitative increase of the sample.