WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS: CHILDHOOD MORTALITY AND BURIAL PRACTICE IN LATE NEOLITHIC ATLANTIC EUROPE

Towards the end of the fifth millennium BC, a new funerary tradition developed in Iberia and elsewhere in Atlantic Europe involving the use of megalithic tombs and natural or artificially constructed caves for the collective burial of the dead. Ancestor worship has been the most common theoretical framework used to explain this Neolithic burial tradition, despite demographic information which indicates that these burials house the remains of a significant percentage of children and adolescents. Using data from Late Neolithic (3500–2500 BC) tombs in south‐western Iberia as a departure point, in this paper we suggest that by reconsidering the impact that childhood mortality had upon burial and grave visitation practices in Neolithic communities, archaeologists can gain valuable phenomenological information which will allow for a more robust, multivocal interpretative approach.     

The wires crossed: What dowsing reveals about environmental knowledge in Britain

Dowsing is a customary means of finding hidden things – especially water and minerals – and is found across northern Europe and the Americas. It recently became the subject of some controversy after a scientist revealed that 10 out of the 12 British water companies stated on Twitter that they used the practice, despite a lack of scientific evidence for its efficacy. In this article, the author analyzes the contours of this controversy in order to identify underlying cultural attitudes towards knowledge and the landscape it reveals. He concludes by sounding two notes of caution regarding the critical posture adopted by scientists who are rushing to condemn this customary practice, stressing the importance of understanding the nature of dowsing as a cultural form regardless of its efficacy and the need for scientists to be mindful of their own biases and preconceptions.