Posted on 07/03/2009 5:39:16 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Excavation of an ancient Vietnamese site has thrown up the earliest evidence of rice cultivation, while shedding new light on how the death of young children was viewed by community members. The excavation, led by professor Peter Bellwood and Marc Oxenham from the Australian National University (ANU) School of Archaeology and Anthropology, studied the site, some 3,000-4,000 years old, named An Son. The findings suggest that death in young children was so common that community members were unlikely to revere the death of their offspring until they had survived for more than five years. "The burial of a new born baby without any associated grave goods and positioned within discarded kitchen material may suggest high levels of infant mortality, as well as a reduced emotional investment in very young children that may not live long anyway," said Bellwood. "On the other hand, the burial of a 12-year-old child with high quality ceramics and stone tools might mean children that survived the danger years -- birth to five years old in most cases -- could be revered by family or community members in death." "While this excavation has revealed the earliest clear evidence of rice agriculture in southern Vietnam, their diets were extremely broad," said Oxenham.
(Excerpt) Read more at hindu.com ...
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The findings suggest that death in young children was so common that community members were unlikely to revere the death of their offspring until they had survived for more than five years.Nixon's Fault!
...say what?
We find the same situation with the deaths of babies and older children today...Nothing has changed....
Okay, what. There, I’ve said it. ;’)
The headline is a bit goofy, so I added that part in brackets, but that wasn’t sufficient clarification I suppose — this isn’t the earliest rice cultivation known in the *world*, just the earliest known site in Vietnam (specifically, in southern Vietnam).
If only they'd had Obamacare.
;’) Maybe they did, and that’s why the high infant mortality rate, oh, and why the culture went extinct.
Taxed to death.
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