VAR FINNS BARNEN? : En osteoarkeologisk specialstudie över vikingatida brandgravar från Stora Ihre, Hellvi socken, Gotland.

Sammanfattning: During the Viking Age, the burials on Gotland consisted of both cremations and inhumations. However, inhumation became increasingly common at the end of that period. Furthermore, several children have been identified around the island, but almost all of them are in inhumation graves. Only a few analyses of cremations from the Viking Age have been conducted. At the moment, there are only two burial grounds, dating to the Viking Age on Gotland, where the remains of cremated children have been noted. This study aims to try to locate children's graves, or possible children's graves, by studying cremations from the burial ground in Stora Ihre, Hellvi parish. Hopefully, this will contribute to future studies of cremations from Gotland in the early Iron Age and bring more knowledge on how children were treated. A total of 60 cremations have been analyzed, where only two graves contain the remains of non-adult individuals, but only one of these dates to the Viking age. At Stora Ihre, children of several ages have been buried in inhumation graves, like many other places in the rest of Gotland. In several cases, they have been buried together or secondarily next to an older individual, both in or around an inhumation or cremation grave, but in some cases, children have been given their own grave. This may indicate that a shift in burial traditions of children took place from the Vendel period to the Viking age, but it may also reflect social differences between the ages.