Traces of Disease in Cremated Children’s Bones

including those that practised cremation as a dominant burial rite. This paper focuses specifically
on children’s health status in the Late Bronze and Iron Age (circa 1500–600 BC) inferred from the
osteological analysis of cremated human remains. We have analysed skeletal material from four
Croatian (Poljana Križevačka, Slatina, Batina and Sotin) and four Austrian (Franzhausen-Kokoron,
Unterradlberg, Inzersdorf, St. Pölten) cemeteries to demonstrate that despite the fragmentation,
distortion and selective recovery process of the funerary activities, cremated remains still yield
important information on the life and death of children in later European prehistory. Children in the
Croatian graveyards were more frequently affected from pathological lesions (38%) than children in the
Austrian sample (3%). Cranial porosity, cribra orbitalia, and endocranial lesions dominated, probably
related to metabolic diseases such as rickets and scurvy which were noticed primarily in children
younger than six years at death. Differences between the Croatian and Austrian samples are likely
associated with taphonomic processes as indicated by differences in bone weight and fragmentation
size. Since children are the most vulnerable part of communities, a focus on children’s morbidity and
mortality can elucidate the living conditions of prehistoric societies as a whole.