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Childhood in the Past 4, 2011

Editor: Eileen M. Murphy

Contents
Editorial
Eileen M. Murphy
Obituaries
Professor Beryl Rawson
Dr Geoffrey Egan

5
8

Invited Paper
Childhood, Art and Education in Late Nineteenth Century Berlin:
An Autobiographical Account
Original German Text: Paul Jacobsthal
Introduction and Translation: Katharina Ulmschneider and Sally Crawford

11

Part 1: Research Papers

Child Burials in Mesolithic and Neolithic Southern Greece: A Synthesis
Mercourios Georgiadis

31

Reconciling Identities in Life and Death: The Social Child

in the Early Helladic Peloponnese
David Michael Smith

46

Microcosms of Migration: Children and Early Medieval Population Movement

D. M. Hadley and K. A. Hemer
Children and Agency: Religion as Socialisation in Late Antiquity
and the Late Medieval West
Sari Katajala-Peltomaa and Ville Vuolanto
Part 2: Special Section on Ancient Mayan Childhood
Editorial
Traci Ardren

63

79

101

ii

Contents

Maya Sub Adult Mortality and Individual Physiological Frailty:

An Analysis of Infant Stress by Means of Linear Enamel Hypoplasia
Andrea Cucina

105

Becoming Maya: Infancy and Upbringing Through the Lens

of Pre-Hispanic Head Shaping
Vera Tiesler

117

Empowered Children in Classic Maya Sacrificial Rites

Traci Ardren

133

Buried with Children: Reinterpreting Ancient Maya Toys

Betsy M. Kohut

146

Book Reviews

162

Childhood in the Past 4, 2011, 6378

Microcosms of Migration: Children and Early

Medieval Population Movement
D. M. Hadley and K. A. Hemer

Abstract
This paper discusses the participation of children in migration during the Viking Age.
While the written evidence is limited, it, nonetheless, reveals the presence of children
alongside the viking1 armies and their involvement in the acculturation process,
especially older children. A small number of unusual Viking-Age burials of older
children support the deduction drawn from the written record of the importance of
this stage of the lifecycle. Finally, stable isotope analysis, especially where multiple
teeth are sampled, offers new insights into migration, and reinforces the impression
conveyed by the written record that children were involved in migration, and sometimes
migrated on multiple occasions.
Keywords: migration, stable isotopes, Early Medieval, inter-marriage, vikings,
acculturation

Introduction
Early Medieval Britain experienced a succession of migrations from continental
Europe and Scandinavia. While they have generated a wealth of scholarship (e.g.
Hadley 2006; Lucy 2000, 1115, 15573; Thomas 2003), there has been little discussion
of the roles and experiences of children during these migrations and in the ensuing
processes of acculturation. In exploring this neglected topic, this paper outlines an
interdisciplinary approach to the study of Early Medieval children and migration,
combining archaeological and documentary evidence with the new insights offered
by stable isotope analysis, and drawing on examples from the period of Scandinavian
raids and settlement in Britain (c. AD 8001000). The paper addresses migration in

Authors addresses: D. M. Hadley and K. A. Hemer, Department of Archaeology, University of

Sheffield, Northgate House, West Street, Sheffield, S1 4ET, Email: d.m.hadley@sheffield.ac.uk,
k.a.hemer@cantab.net

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D. M. Hadley and K. A. Hemer

its broadest sense, since the Early Medieval period was characterised not only by
wholesale population movements, but also by small-scale movements of individuals
and families for an array of reasons. In seeking to broaden the traditional focus on
adult experiences of migration this paper discusses the multiple migrations that some
individuals experienced during childhood, and argues that children were important
social agents in the processes of Early Medieval acculturation.

Children and Migration: Anthropological Insights

Studies of recent migrations by anthropologists and sociologists offer some potentially
useful analogies for our understanding of Early Medieval child migrants. While the
perils of drawing on such studies must be borne firmly in mind, they can assist us in
opening up the possibilities of the Early Medieval record (e.g. Redmond 2007, 5468;
Trafford 2001, 256). Analysis of recent migrations has highlighted the capacity of
children to embrace the opportunities offered by migration, through, for example, the
adoption of important roles in the workplace (Camacho 1999; Huijsmans 2008). Children
can also be shown to act as mediators of cultural interaction and assimilation, and may
prove better at adapting to language change and creating new networks of acquaintances
(Moinian 2009, 413; Myers 1999; Schieffelin and Ochs 1986). As a consequence, they
can be instrumental in extending adult social networks in new settings. Children can
also be shown to handle the dissonance between the identities of their homelands and
those of their new environments very differently from adults, and they may also be
acutely aware of the differences between how they are seen by adults and how they
feel about themselves (Moinian 2009, 413). Following migration the transmission of
cultural norms from adults to children can be a very uncertain process, as children do
not invariably replicate the behaviour and social norms of their parents. In particular,
the socialisation of children can be profoundly affected as they move from one social
environment to another where they and their families may encounter very different
attitudes to the legal rights of children, rites of passage, definition of family units,
gender roles, work, marriage and sexuality, to name but a few (DeLoache and Gottlieb
2000; LeVine and New 2008).
Early Medieval children are, in contrast, rarely assigned such rich and varied
experiences, if, indeed, children are discussed at all in the context of migrations. Of
course, it may be that modern analogies are not directly relevant, and we also have to
be mindful of the limitations of our evidence. Yet, it is worth challenging some of our
assumptions, especially about those broad social processes that are routinely discussed
without consideration that they may have had profound implications for, or have been
shaped by, children.

Children and Warfare

The earliest phases of Scandinavian conquest and settlement probably involved
disproportionate numbers of young adult males, as they are likely to have made up the
majority if not the entirety of the viking armies (Barrett 2008, 6767, 6801; Redmond
2007, 5568). Such a deduction has recently been reinforced by the discovery of what

Microcosms of Migration

65

appear to be the remains of a viking raiding party at Ridgeway Hill near Weymouth,
Dorset. The cemetery contains the decapitated remains of fifty-one individuals, which
have been radiocarbon dated to AD 9101030, and stable isotope analysis of samples
taken from ten individuals reveals that they were from Norway, Sweden, and, in one
case, the Arctic circle.2 Almost all of these individuals were in their late teens or early
twenties, which is precisely the profile one might anticipate of an Early Medieval army
(Halsall 2003, 35, 4951, 58). Yet, even so, children were clearly sometimes present
alongside viking armies, even if they were not directly involved on the battlefield. For
example, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that in AD 893 the English captured the
viking fortress at Benfleet, Essex, and seized everything inside it, both property and
women and also children (Whitelock 1961, 55). In an entry for 895 the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle records that the viking army placed their women in safety in East Anglia
and we may deduce that if women accompanied the army then children, even if not
specifically mentioned, are also likely to have been present (Whitelock 1961, 57). Such
a deduction is reinforced by similar references in continental chronicles to the presence
of women and children alongside the viking armies that raided Frankia (Jesch 1991,
1045). For example, Regino of Prm, writing in the early tenth century, recounts the
arrival of a viking army at the deserted town of Angers in the Loire valley, where the
raiders based themselves in 873 with their wives and children (MacLean 2009, 168),
while the Latin poem Bella Parisiacae Urbis, written in the late ninth century by Abbo,
a monk of St-Germain-des-Prs, refers to the presence of women alongside the viking
army that besieged Paris in 885 and 887 (Dass 2007, 35, 835).
There is also tantalising archaeological evidence to reinforce the written references
for the presence of women and children amidst the armies. For example, the remains
of females and at least one juvenile have been recovered from the unique cremation
cemetery at Heath Wood, Derbyshire, which was almost certainly the burial ground
of a late ninth-century viking army (Richards et al. 2004, 334, 77). The funerary
display consists of human and animal cremations accompanied by weapons and other
metalwork placed under mounds, which the excavators interpret as demonstrating a
clear commitment to paganism [and] a statement of religious, political and military
affiliation in unfamiliar and inhospitable surroundings (Richards et al. 2004, 104).
Whether the infant or juvenile whose remains were recovered from Mound 50 was a
victim of warfare, or died of some other cause, is impossible to tell (Richards et al. 2004,
77). Yet children were certainly sometimes the victims of warfare, as recounted by the
more detailed continental sources. For example, during an attack on Paris in 885 the
Bella Parisiacae Urbis describes those killed as including infants, boys and girls, youths
and claims that children perished right before the eyes of their parents (Dass 2007,
379), while the Annals of St-Vaast claim that babies were among the large numbers of
corpses left in the wake of viking armies in 884 (von Simson 1909, 54). These accounts
may not necessarily be entirely reliable, since there were a variety of agendas informing
the manner in which chroniclers described the alleged depredations of opposing armies
(Nelson 2003). Even so, if armies were attacking settlements it is implausible to suppose
that children were not affected and did not sometimes lose their lives, no matter how
embellished the contemporary accounts.

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D. M. Hadley and K. A. Hemer

Children as Mediators of Migration and Acculturation

There are hints in the written record that children played important roles in the
acculturation process following military conquest and the earliest phases of settlement.
This is, for example, apparent from a series of events recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
in the wake of the aforementioned encounter at Benfleet. The wife and two sons of the
viking leader, Hsten, were taken to the West Saxon king, Alfred, but were released
because one of the sons was his godson and the other was the godson of Ealdorman
thelred of the Mercians (Whitelock 1961, 55). The baptism of the sons had occurred
at some unknown time prior to the arrival of the viking army at Benfleet, when Hsten
had given the king oaths and hostages, and the king had also made him generous gifts
of money. This had not, however, prevented him from subsequently ravaging Mercia,
which was ruled by Ealdorman thelred. Nonetheless, doubtless motivated by the
bonds of spiritual kinship he had established with Hsten and his family (Nelson 2003,
25), Alfred allowed his captives to go free and he apparently made another endowment
when he gave back the boy and the woman (Whitelock 1961, 55). The account of this
peculiar turn of events, in an unusually detailed passage, suggests that behind the more
typically brief statements in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle about battles won and lost the
processes of acculturation had commenced, and that this involved children.
This sequence of events prompts questions about the ethnic and religious composition
of the family of Hsten. His wife was not necessarily Scandinavian. She may have been
English, but if she was the mother of his sons then, since Hsten had not been in England
long, it may be more plausible to deduce that she was from Frankia, where Hsten had
previously raided (Jesch 1991, 97); either way, she would have been Christian. Hsten is
perhaps to be identified with the viking leader Alsting (probably a Frankish attempt at
the Norse name Hastein) who was active on the Loire in 882 and who was subsequently
encouraged by King Louis III to move to the Channel coast, later establishing a base on
the River Somme and allying with the abbot of St-Vaast, Normandy, before attacking
that monastery (von Simson 1909, 69, 71). It is possible, but far from certain, that he had
converted in Frankia (Nelson 2003, 24), although his sons had apparently not done so.
Whatever the case, once in England Hstens sons became enmeshed in local political
networks in which Christianity was crucial, and baptism served, as so often, to reinforce
political ties and the forging of peace (Hadley 2006, 2930). Indeed, and perhaps because
of their mother, the sons may have been deemed more reliable potential allies than their
evidently duplicitous father. We appear to see a family that was ethnically mixed and
at least partly Christian living amidst an army that was probably also both ethnically
and religiously diverse. Early Medieval pagan and Christian communities had divergent
perspectives on, for example, marriage, sexuality, reproduction and family (Crawford
1999, 121; Kuefler 1991, 824; Stafford 2001), and therefore complex layers of group and
personal negotiation must have been occurring by, and on behalf of, children even
during warfare.
Another young convert among the sons of viking warriors was Oda, who went on
to become Bishop of Ramsbury (from c. 927) and Archbishop of Canterbury (94158).
According to the Life of St Oswald written by Byrhtferth of Ramsey (c. 970c. 1020),
Odas father was a Dane who raided eastern England in the late ninth century. Yet Oda
developed an early zeal for church-going, despite the threats of his father who did

Microcosms of Migration

67

not wholly seek to serve Christ (Lapidge 2009, 17). In order to pursue his Christian
leaning, Oda the boy of God left home to be educated in the household of a certain
venerable thegn, one who believed faithfully in God, by the name of thelhelm, with
whom he enjoyed the blessing of fatherly love (Lapidge 2009, 1719).
This account of the early life of Oda highlights the importance of the Church as an
environment in which the children of newcomers were acculturated to Anglo-Saxon
society, and Oda was not alone in his experiences. For example, in his Life of King Alfred,
Asser comments on a man of pagan presumably Scandinavian origins who had been
brought up in the monastery at Athelney, Somerset. He was as quite a young man
living there in the monastic habit, and was assuredly not the last of them to do so
(Keynes and Lapidge 1983, 103). Asser also records that Alfred had acquired individuals
of Gallic origin and ordered that certain of their children be educated in the monastery
and at a later time to be raised to the monastic order (Keynes and Lapidge 1983, 103).
These individuals of Gallic origin had possibly been taken into slavery by viking raiders
on the continent and subsequently brought to England (Keynes and Lapidge 1983, 272).
From these accounts the monastery emerges as an ethnic melting pot, in which children
were central to new religious and political developments and to the broader acculturation
process. Oblation offered a means of promoting alliances between families and with the
Church (Crawford 1999, 138) and it also offered a means of support and protection for
children. This would have been especially important if their parents were either dead
or else newcomers with poorly established networks of patronage.
The account of Odas early life also emphasises the importance of fosterage. The
age at which Oda left home is unclear, but the fostering of sons in Early Medieval
elite households appears typically to have occurred when a child was seven or eight
years old (Crawford 1999, 125). Fosterage was an important means of forging alliances
among aristocratic families, and it appears to have been employed in the wake of
Scandinavian settlement as alliances were formed between the rulers of the newcomers
and the local populations. A later Scandinavian tradition records that the son of the
Norwegian king, Harald Finehair, was sent to the court of King Athelstan of Wessex in
the early tenth century following diplomatic negotiations between the two rulers, and
from then on the son, Hakon, was known as Aalsteinfstri (Athelstans foster-son).
This act of fosterage is recorded in various contexts and Athelstan took sons of other
elite families into his court on other occasions, suggesting that the basic elements of
this account are probably reliable (Page 1995, 304).
The younger Scandinavian settlers played a role in political accommodation. This
emerges, in particular, from the account in the Historia de Sancto Cuthberto of the events
surrounding the peace forged in the 880s between a viking army raiding in the north
of England and the religious community of St Cuthbert. Inspired by a vision from the
saint, the abbot went to the army and suggested that they go to a certain boy, Guthred,
son of Harthacnut, who is the slave of a certain widow and make him king (South
2002, 53). The ensuing coronation ceremony combined pagan and Christian elements.
It took place at a hill called Oswigesdune which was associated with a seventh-century
Christian king of Northumbria, Oswiu and it involved the giving of a gold armlet,
which appears to have been a pagan symbol of office (Abrams 2001, 37; South 2002,
53). We know little of Guthreds early life whether or not he converted to Christianity
while living with the widow is, for example, uncertain (Abrams 2001, 37). While later

68

D. M. Hadley and K. A. Hemer

sources need to be treated with caution, it may be significant that they claim that
Guthred was the son of a king and that he had been sold into slavery by the viking army
(South 2002, 878). That the monks were instrumental in his election as king certainly
suggests that Guthred was a particularly notable captive, and his experiences with the
viking army at a young age may have made him appear susceptible to overtures from
the most prominent religious community in northern England; thus, Guthred became
the focal point for the playing out of local political and religious negotiations.
In none of these cases concerning the sons of viking raiders do we know their
precise ages. The sons of Hsten are referred to simply as a sunu (son) or bearnum
(children). The term puer, which is used of both Oda and Guthred, was employed in a
variety of ways in Early Medieval Latin texts, sometimes retaining its Classical meaning
of boy or child, although in an ecclesiastical context it could also mean oblate. In
Late Antiquity pueritia was understood as the period from seven to fourteen years,
while infantia was the period up to the age of seven years (Crawford 1999, 53). Thus,
while we cannot determine the precise age of any of the aforementioned individuals,
both the terminology employed and the context of the events described suggest that
they were older children on the cusp of adulthood, which in late ninth- and tenthcentury society would place them in the age bracket of roughly eight to twelve years.
The pivotal importance of this stage of the lifecycle is, as we shall see, reflected in the
funerary record where a number of unusual burials of older children can be found. In
sum, although the written record offers but fleeting glimpses, the accounts of the sons
of Hsten, Oda, Guthred and the oblates at Athelney reveal that the younger members
of the migrant communities played important roles in the processes of acculturation.

The Children of Ethnically Mixed Marriages

Anthropological parallels indicate that the earliest phases of migration, even among
non-military groups, are liable to comprise disproportionate numbers of young adult
males, who were typically more capable of leaving their homelands to exploit new
opportunities, by military force if need be (Anthony 1990, 908; Barrett 2008; Redmond
2007, 5468). If so, marriage with local women must often have been a corollary, and
a significant element in the acculturation process. Inter-marriage was sometimes a
product of diplomatic negotiation. For example, following a meeting in 926 at Tamworth,
Staffordshire, between King Athelstan of Wessex and the Scandinavian ruler of York,
Sihtric Caoch, the latter married Athelstans sister (Whitelock 1961, 68). At a later date,
the intervention of the Norwegian king, Magnus Barelegs, in the politics of Ireland
was reinforced by the marriage of his twelve year old son to the eight year old daughter
of the Irish king, Muirchertach Ua Briain, in 1102 (Power 1986, 122). In other cases
inter-marriage can be inferred from the record of families with both Scandinavian and
indigenous names, as occurs, for example, among runic inscriptions on sculptures from
the Isle of Man (Holman 1996, 13741). That two Irish kings of the 850s both had the
Norse name Brir suggests inter-marriage between Scandinavians and Irish ( Floinn
1998, 163), while the emergence in the historical record in the mid-ninth century of the
Gall-Gaedhil (foreign Gaels) has been taken to refer to Irish-speakers of Scandinavian
descent and may be another indication of intermarriage between Irish and Scandinavian
groups (Mac Airt and Mac Niocaill 1983, 315).

Microcosms of Migration

69

Not all such marriages produced children, and an absence of children could be a factor
in their failure if it stemmed from differing attitudes towards sexuality and religion.
Nonetheless, where children were born into mixed ethnic unions it must have had
profound implications for them as they grew up. This has attracted surprisingly little
comment, even though scholarly attention has been directed towards the repercussions
for women of marriage strategies devised in the interests of protecting and manipulating
inheritance (e.g. Stafford 1994). The children of mixed ethnic marriages lived out the
reality of the ensuing acculturation experiments in their lives, in contrast to the abstract
realms in which acculturation is sometimes discussed by scholars. There are no detailed
insights from the Viking Age, but a later perspective on the implications of inter-marriage
is provided by the chronicler Orderic Vitalis, born in 1075 near Shrewsbury in the English
Midlands, who had a French father and an English mother (Chibnall 1980, 2). At the
age of ten years Orderic was sent by his father to a monastery in Normandy, where,
in his own words, he felt like an exile, unknown to all, knowing no one, his isolation
compounded by an apparent inability to speak French, despite his fathers origins (Like
Joseph in Egypt, I heard a language which I did not understand) (Chibnall 1972, 555).
As the offspring of a mixed ethnic union, it was evidently his mother that was decisive
in determining his language acquisition. Moreover, despite having a French father and
spending his adult life in Normandy, Orderic repeatedly identified himself as English
in his writing, which is striking at a time when chroniclers were frequently willing
to adopt multiple ethnic identities according to context and irrespective of language
(Thomas 2003, 7082). This rare insight reveals that the children of ethnically diverse
households had to negotiate the tensions that the acculturation process engendered,
and that this might have an impact that lasted into adulthood.

Child Burials
Archaeologists routinely analyse migration via the funerary record, although it is now
widely recognised that it is difficult to be certain that distinctive burial rites should
invariably be assigned to migrant groups (e.g. Hadley 2006, 23764; Lucy 2000, 16373).
Even if they should, it is especially problematic for the present study that among those
ninth- and tenth-century burials in Britain that reveal Scandinavian influences typically
in the form of grave goods or the cremation rite (Graham-Campbell and Batey 1998;
Hadley 2006, 23746; Floinn 1998; Wilson 2008) the burials of children are rare.
Nonetheless, the few that are known are striking. Examples include an extensively
furnished burial of a ten year old at Balnakeil, Sutherland, accompanied by weaponry,
clothing accessories, gaming pieces, a brooch of Irish manufacture and needle-working
and fishing equipment (Fig. 1). The varying date ranges of the artefacts suggests that
some were heirlooms, and there is a mixture of both Scandinavian and indigenous
material culture and items with masculine and feminine associations (Low et al. 2000).
The female and juvenile remains recovered from Mound 50 at Heath Wood (see above)
were accompanied by fragments of a sword hilt grip and iron clamps from a shield rim
(Richards et al. 2004, 5868, 77). Such artefacts are more typical of the burials of adult
males, but, while it has been speculated that the sex of the adult skeleton has been
misidentified (Richards et al. 2004, 91), it is not implausible in the context of Balnakeil
that the artefacts were associated with the juvenile.

70

D. M. Hadley and K. A. Hemer

Figure 1: Burial of a ten year old at Balnakeil, Sutherland, in Scotland. The range of grave
goods include items that, in adult graves, are associated almost exclusively with males (e.g.
weaponry) and also items that are characteristic of female graves (e.g. jewellery and needleworking equipment) (drawn by J. Willmott after Low et al. 2000).
An unusual triple interment in a boat at Scar, Sanday, Orkney, included an adult male
in his thirties, an older female and a child of ten or eleven years (Fig. 2). Unfortunately,
partial destruction of the deposit by coastal erosion makes it unclear whether there
were artefacts specifically accompanying the child (Graham-Campbell and Batey 1998,
13840). Another striking child burial occurs at Repton, Derbyshire, where a Viking-Age
grave contained the remains of three children aged eight to ten years and an adolescent
of around seventeen years (Fig. 3). It was excavated at the edge of a mound sealing a
former mausoleum, which contained a mass burial deposit comprising the remains of c.
264 individuals, with a possible central warrior burial, which has been associated with
the over-wintering of a viking army (AD 8734) (Biddle and Kjlbye-Biddle 2001, 6774;
Whitelock 1961, 48). The multiple burial of three children and an adolescent at the edge
of the mound has been interpreted as a sacrificial deposit (Biddle and Kjlbye-Biddle
2001, 74), although the skeletal remains offer no specific evidence concerning manner
of death. Nonetheless, this child burial, which appears to have been distinguished by
a grave marker, was associated perhaps as a closing deposit with the creation of a
striking funerary deposit. This has been interpreted as expression by the viking army

Microcosms of Migration

71

Figure 2: Boat burial from Scar, Sanday, Orkney. Three individuals were interred in this boat:
a male in his thirties, an older female and a child aged ten or eleven years. Partial destruction
of the burial by coastal erosion means that it is unclear whether the child was accompanied by
any artefacts (drawn by J. Willmott after Graham-Campbell and Batey 1998).

Figure 3: Burial of four individuals from Repton, Derbyshire. Three were aged between eight and
ten years at death, while the fourth was aged around seventeen years. This deposit was placed
adjacent to the mound covering the remains of c. 264 individuals, which had been interred in a
former mausoleum (drawn by J. Willmott after Biddle and Kjlbye-Biddle 2001).

72

D. M. Hadley and K. A. Hemer

of its conquest of the Mercian kingdom through appropriation of one of its holiest
places (Richards 2001, 99101).
In migrant situations, childrens graves may offer opportunities for communities
to experiment as the burials of children are less constrained by social convention than
are those of adults, and this certainly appears to be true of Scandinavian burials in
Britain. They also suggest that children on the cusp of social adulthood were immensely
important during the processes of acculturation and that their deaths sometimes needed
to be ameliorated with distinctive funerary rites.

Stable Isotope Evidence

Despite the limitations of the funerary record, it still offers considerable potential for
our understanding of Early Medieval childhood, through the application of stable
isotope analysis which utilises human hard tissues. This biomolecular method has been
applied to palaeodietary and migratory studies of archaeological populations over the
past thirty years, and there is a wealth of literature discussing the relevant principles
and methods (e.g. Budd et al. 2004; Chenery et al. 2010; Darling et al. 2003; Evans et al.
2010). The focus of this paper is the use of strontium and oxygen isotope evidence to
identify the mobility of Early Medieval children.
Strontium and oxygen isotopes both contribute to studies of migration as they reflect
local geology and climate respectively (Chenery et al. 2010). Strontium in the biosphere
(87Sr/86Sr) reflects the type and age of the underlying bedrock, and enters the food
chain via groundwater and soil (Evans et al. 2010). In contrast, oxygen isotopes in food
and drink derive from meteoric waters, and the isotopic composition of precipitation
is dependent on various factors including local climatic conditions, altitude and
topography (Chenery et al. 2010; Darling et al. 2003). Both strontium and oxygen isotopes
are incorporated into enamel phosphate at the time of tooth mineralisation and do not
change because enamel does not remodel (Budd et al. 2003, 199). Strontium and oxygen
isotope signatures can identify a persons place of childhood residence because adult
teeth form from birth until the age of twelve or thirteen years, and, as a result, we can
utilise adult skeletal remains to illuminate aspects of childhood experience.
While the application of stable isotope analysis to Early Medieval skeletal populations
is becoming increasingly common (e.g. Budd et al. 2003; 2004), it is arguable that the
insights that this analytical approach can offer into the processes of migration have yet to
be fully explored. Typical of current perceptions is the recent observation that isotopic
analysis can only show where people spent the first few years of their childhood, it
is not possible to say at what point in their lives people migrated (Groves 2010, 125).
Certainly, where studies of Early Medieval skeletal material have focused on stable
isotopes from only a single adult tooth (e.g. Budd et al. 2003; 2004), this does indicate
only where a particular individual had spent part of their childhood, but when such
analysis takes place on the remains of children themselves, then migration can be
deduced if the isotope results suggest they were not local to their place of interment.
For example, stable isotope analysis of the canine of a child aged eight to eleven years
from Repton, which dated to the late seventh century, indicates that they had spent
their early years (roughly between 6 months and 5 years of age) somewhere further
west and south within Britain (Budd et al. 2004, 138). Furthermore, the analysis of the

Microcosms of Migration

73

Figure 4: The timing of tooth formation. Teeth form in broadly predictable phases and when
stable isotope analysis is undertaken the insights that can be gained into places of childhood
residency can be narrowed to specific age brackets according to which tooth/teeth are sampled
(drawn by J. Willmott).

strontium and oxygen isotopes of several teeth from an adult has the potential to reveal
multiple childhood migrations (Evans et al. 2006). This is possible because teeth form
at different and broadly predictable stages the permanent first molar crowns form
from birth until two/three years; the second molar crowns form between three and
seven years; and third molar crowns form between nine and thirteen years (Hillson
1996; Moorrees et al. 1963) (Fig. 4). The potential of such serial sampling has recently
begun to be addressed. For example, Skeleton 496 from the seventh- to tenth-century
cemetery at Peel Castle on the Isle of Man (Freke 2002, 3) was a mature adult male
whose second molar demonstrated both oxygen and strontium values consistent with
the island, but the isotopic signatures of his third molar indicated that he had moved
to an area with a more radiogenic bedrock and a colder climate such as north-west
Germany between the age of nine and twelve/thirteen years. It should be noted,
however, that the strontium and oxygen values from his second molar can be obtained
from the coastal regions of western and southern France as well as the Isle of Man, so
it is possible, if not certain, that he had moved a considerable distance on more than
one occasion as a child (Hemer 2010, 1467). Analysis of both the second and third
molars of an adult female, aged at least 3345 years, buried in the late ninth century
at Adwick-le-Street, Yorkshire, in a grave containing characteristically Scandinavian
oval brooches, indicated that she had relocated in childhood, although in this case it
was thought unlikely to have been over a long distance; it was unclear whether her
places of residence in later childhood had been in Norway or north-eastern Scotland
(Speed and Walton Rogers 2004, 613).
The application of stable isotope analysis to the late Anglo-Saxon cemetery population

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Figure 5: Skeleton 635 from Black Gate, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Three teeth from this young adult
female have been subject to stable isotope analysis, and this revealed that she resided during her
earliest years in western Britain, but between the ages of nine and twelve years had spent time
in northern or eastern Europe (reproduced by permission of Newcastle City Council).

at Black Gate in Newcastle-upon-Tyne by Pamela Macpherson (2006) has also

demonstrated that several individuals had undergone multiple childhood migrations.
For example, Skeleton 635, a young adult female, had spent none of her childhood in
the north of England (Fig. 5). Her first and second molars equating to the time from
birth to approximately seven years old had warm oxygen drinking water values
consistent with having spent these early years much further west, either in Wales, southwest England or central Ireland. In contrast, the drinking water value obtained from
her third molar showed that she had spent the period between the ages of nine and
twelve in a much colder climate consistent with northern and eastern Europe, before
travelling at some unknown point to her final resting place at Black Gate (Macpherson
2006, 130). Similarly, Skeleton 637, a middle-aged male, had drinking water values for
his first molar consistent with having spent his earliest years in either Cornwall, the
west coast of Ireland or the Outer Hebrides. However, the drinking water values for
his second and third molars indicate that between the age of three and twelve he had
moved inland, perhaps to Devon or the Scottish highlands, but certainly not far enough
for his drinking water values to reflect those of the Black Gate region, where he must
have arrived later in life (Macpherson 2006, 130; Macpherson et al. forthcoming). The
oxygen isotope results from Skeleton 053 revealed that this female could have been
local to the area until the completion of her first molar around the age of three, but
her second and third molars revealed that she had moved to a much colder climate,

Microcosms of Migration

75

consistent with northern Norway, western Sweden or the Alps, for the remainder of
her childhood (Macpherson 2006, 130). At some subsequent point, she returned to
England and was buried at Black Gate.
The potential of serial sampling of teeth in stable isotope analysis has scarcely been
explored, and can, of course, only be undertaken where extensive adult dentition
survives. Of course, as a destructive technique it may not be desirable for this to be
undertaken widely, although new methods, such as laser ablation inductively coupled
plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS), can measure isotopic ratios from very small
samples of enamel (Cucina et al. 2007). Yet, serial sampling has considerable capacity
to reinforce the impression generated by the scanty written evidence that individuals
might move considerable distances, often on more than one occasion, during childhood.
With more extensive sampling it may also be possible to illuminate gender-biased
mobility. This enquiry demands analysis of adult skeletons, as juvenile remains cannot
be reliably sexed through traditional osteological methods (Scheuer and Black 2000,
12). Insufficient analyses have been undertaken to produce any meaningful results,
but female children evidently did migrate, not only the male children with whom the
written record is more explicitly concerned. Whilst they may have moved for different
reasons, this new evidence highlights the potential significance played by both male
and female children in Early Medieval population movement, which both the written
and funerary records scarcely illuminate.
While we can never be certain why any individual moved, the age of the child may
provide a clue. Skeleton 053 from Black Gate moved to a significantly colder climate
between the ages of three and seven years and it is, accordingly, unlikely that she moved
independently; rather, she probably left because her kin group relocated. In contrast,
Skeleton 635 from Black Gate and Skeleton 496 from Peel Castle both moved to a colder
climate between the ages of nine and twelve years, which suggests a broader potential
range of explanations, including work opportunities, fosterage and marriage (Hemer
2010, 2081; Macpherson 2006, 1834; Macpherson et al. forthcoming). All of these
individuals may have been involved in a well-recognised element of migration, which
is the tendency for large numbers of migrants to return to their homelands taking with
them, as may be the case here, any children born in the new environment (Redmond
2007, 8792). Moreover, it is possible that all of these individuals subsequently returned
to their region of birth later in life. Migration was very often a two-way flow of people,
something that has been insufficiently addressed in the context of Early Medieval
migration. Stable isotope analysis offers, in sum, a new way of understanding the
broad range of migratory experiences in Early Medieval society.

Conclusions
An interdisciplinary approach reveals that children had diverse experiences of Early
Medieval migration, and that individuals may have experienced more than one
dislocation in their place of residence during childhood. In particular, serial sampling
of adult teeth for stable isotopes allows us to consider the age(s) at which a person
moved and the potential reasons for these movements. By drawing on the insights to
be gleaned from analysis of better-understood migrations we can have the confidence
to interrogate our Early Medieval evidence afresh. In doing so, this paper suggests that

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D. M. Hadley and K. A. Hemer

a focus on children in the context of migration prompts some fundamental questions

of the broad social processes that are central to the scholarly literature on migration,
including acculturation, ethnogenesis and conversion, all of which are routinely
discussed purely with reference to adults. Children were crucial to these processes, but
in seeking to understand this contribution the potential of the rich body of available
evidence has scarcely begun to be exploited.

Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the editor and the anonymous reviewers for helpful feedback on an
earlier version of this paper. Useful discussion was also provided by participants at
the third annual conference of the Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past in Miami
in 2009. We would also like to thank Dr Pamela Macpherson-Barrett for permission
to cite her unpublished thesis, and Manx National Heritage for permission to analyse
skeletons from Peel Castle. Funding for the stable isotope research was provided by
the Natural Environment Research Council, while the doctoral research of Katie Hemer
was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Received November 2010, revised manuscript accepted May 2011.

Notes
1. Throughout this paper, viking is mainly spelt with a lower case v, as the term is used to
describe a particular type of behaviour (principally raiding). As is conventional, the Viking
Age, is, however, capitalised.
2. Details are available only in recent media reports, and the radiocarbon date is cited as
presented in these reports (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/8563377.stm).

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