A study of 77 Bronze Age children in Serbia found sex-linked burial customs dating back 4,000 years

In Bronze Age communities of present-day Serbia, boys and girls did not have the same burial treatments as adult men and women. Even children who died at a young age received different burial treatment, with rules that distinguished males from females, with the direction of their heads and position of their bodies following different traditions. A new study published in Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, which analysed 77 children and young individuals from two Bronze Age cemeteries, has confirmed this practice using proteins preserved in ancient teeth.The research examined Mokrin and Ostojićevo, two cemeteries associated with the Maros culture, which occupied parts of present-day Serbia, Hungary and Romania during the Bronze Age. Mokrin was used between approximately 2100 and 1800 BC, while the Maros cemetery at Ostojićevo dates to around 1900–1550 BC. The study also identified six graves that did not follow the usual pattern, raising questions about how these communities expressed gender distinctions during childhood.Males generally lay on their left sides with their heads pointing towards north and their faces turned east. Whereas females rested on their right sides, w...