Research paper

Feminine Deficiency: Childbirth in Archaeology At opposite ends of the spectrum of life, birth and death appear, at a glance, to stand

in stark contrast: the beginning versus the end, feminine creation versus the demise of

man. While serving as opposites, birth and death serve incredibly similar purposes as social

life events. Birth and death touch the boundaries of human experience, as well as human

understanding. They serve as perhaps the largest rites of passage every person, regardless

of gender, race, or class, will undergo. While these events cause massive social impact

across cultures, this impact is not proportionally reflected in scholarly writings. “Rituals

surrounding human death are multiple and varied” throughout early history and

prehistory, while childbirth practices happening within the same time period are mainly

limited to studies of the female pelvis and fertility, overlooking the equally rich social

practices surrounding childbirth (Held, 371, O’Donnel 163). Here I will amass the many

similarities between birth and death and upon compounding this evidence argue that the

failure to recognize the similarities in the social aspects of both phenomena stunts a full

understanding of either. In order to move forward in a modern, feminist, scholarly society,

the immense similarities between birth and death need to be recognized, and due emphasis

placed on researching birth practices of the past.

Birth and death have arguably, throughout time, served an incredibly important

cultural role as rites of passage. Scholarly writings around both events frequently reference

Arnold van Gennep’s model for such transitions from his work concerning cultural

celebrations, “Les rites de passage”. Van Gennep outlines three “distinct phases” of rites of

passage, with the transitioning individual first separated from society, then undergoing a

liminal phase (often with some element of danger), and finally being reintegrated into

society within the new role they have earned (Rakita, 97-98, van Gennep 11). Though both

birth and death largely conform to van Gennep’s model in a variety of contexts, they are

notably different than other rites of passage in several key ways.

Perhaps the most obvious difference, rather than transitioning from one life phase

to another, birth and death serve as “transitions into and out of life”, or “existence

transitions” (De Vries 1074-75). As “a previously non-existent individual appears” at birth

and “an existing individual passes into non-existence” at death, both events reach past

humanity’s understanding of existence and cross into the unknown (De Vries 1074). In

addition to their finitude, birth and death also differentiate from other rites of passage in

their universality. Regardless of gender, race, or class, every person will be born, and,

inevitably (barring any major scientific advancements in the future) die, without exception.

While there are other rites of passage that are prevalent in some form or another

worldwide, such as puberty, marriage or even parenthood, it cannot be said that any of

them will be experienced with the certainty of birth and death.

Thirdly, birth and death are unique from other rites of passage in that the individual

going through the transition does not consciously experience the rite of passage. Whether

passing into or out of existence, neither participant is fully aware (as far as we can

scientifically understand at this point) of the transition they are undergoing (De Vries

1075). Returning to van Gennep’s model referenced above, it can be observed that the

“distinct phases” of rites of passage outlined in the van Gennep’s model do not directly

apply to the individual undergoing transition in the cases of birth and death (Rakita, 98).

Rather, the phases in these two events apply more easily to the persons surrounding the

transitional event. The mother giving birth is separated in pregnancy, experiences the

“dangerous liminal” in birth, and is later reintegrated as a mother (Rakita 99, Bolger 157,

Held 368). The mourning family of a deceased person is separated through loss,

experiences the liminal stage as grief, and is later reintegrated in their new roles without

the deceased member (Rakita 98). Because the person going through the transition does

not “directly” experience the event, the event is thus rendered a solely community

experience rather than an individual one. While many other rites of passage include a

community element, it is in conjunction with the highly personal experience of the

individual undergoing transition. In birth and death, though attention is centered around

the individual in transition, the majority of social experience is concerned with those

related to the transitioning individual in both cases (parents of the child in birth, relatives

of the deceased in death). It is this element that ties together the many similarities of birth

and death, and the aspect that I argue makes studying birth practices with the same focus

as death practices of such importance.

Further than their multiple similarities, death and birth do, at times, happen

simultaneously. Prior to modern medicine, throughout the majority of history childbirth

was an incredibly dangerous event for women, and death of both mother and child was not

infrequent. In these cases not only are materials surrounding the social or cultural aspects

of both childbirth and death present, but also skeletal remains of mother and fetus.

Material evidence from cases such as these date back as far as 7000 years ago, with the

recovered skeleton of a young female deceased with two fetal skeletons located in the

pelvic area, written about by Lieverse et al. in “Death by twins: a remarkable case of

dystocic childbirth in Early Neolithic Siberia”. Lieverse et al. acknowledge the significance

of circumstances such as these immediately, in both the abstract and introduction; noting

that “only about 20 cases of pregnant or labouring females” have been published in

archaeological literature since the 1970s, and that burials such as these are often disturbed

because of “special ritual practices associated with this type of death” (Lieverse 23-24).

Rather than looking to cases such as these solely for information on maternal

fertility and mortality in relation to the occurrence of multiple births in the past, it is

incredibly important that possible ritual behaviors surrounding events such as these are

researched. If the possibility for disturbance by special ritual treatment is acknowledged in

consideration of the taphonomy, where is the subsequent study or speculation of what

those ritual behaviors may have been?

Lieverse et al. argue while maternal mortality was high prior to modern medicine,

“little direct evidence for it” may be found, as it requires the death and interment of both

mother and fetus simultaneously, which rarely happens for a multitude of reasons

(Lieverse 24). By this argument it may be reasoned that birth practices cannot be studied

in the same depth as death practices because of a lack of materiality surrounding the

events. Given that death deposits a body and, frequently, grave goods, it may seem that

death provides more physical material for study than birth practices. This is simply not the

case, however. Though the physical arrangement of the happening may not be preserved as

it is in death, material surrounding the childbirth process has been found dating back as far

as 3000 BC (Bolger 146).

Written about by Diane L. Bolger in “The Archaeology of Fertility and Birth: A Ritual

Deposit from Chalcolithic Cyprus”, a pit discovered in the Mediterranean containing

numerous stone figurines and pottery vessels believed to be linked to fertility and birthing

rituals provides insight into the impact on our knowledge of prehistoric birthing rituals the

study of material culture surrounding childbirth can have. The clay and stone figurines

present with a “massive body, wide hips, and swollen belly” in a variety of positions, some

standing while others sit on stools (likely a birthing stool) with abrasive wear suggesting

they were “ clutched or rubbed as fetishes”(Bolger 149, 155). Rather than serving as

isolated depictions of fertility, however, the figurines are coupled with ceramic depictions

of buildings with unique, rectangular hearths found infrequently throughout the buildings

unearthed (Bolger 145, 156). Hearths throughout early history were incredibly important

for birthing as they regulate the body temperature of the newborn, and the inclusion of

them here indicates the buildings were likely birthing structures (O’Donnel 168).The

combination of fetishized rubbing along with separate, specialized buildings in this finding

paints a picture not only of a birthing woman, but also of the environment she may have

given birth in. The prevalence of multiple figurines with architecture to match suggests

there was a culture of women surrounding birth within the community, perhaps not

entirely unlike midwifery practices of modern day (O’Donnel 167). This not only provides

insight into the use of these particular objects and vessels, but also a multitude of similar

findings which, prior to this association, had no concrete evidence of their enacted use

(Bolger 145).

The findings at Cyprus prove that not only is there materiality surrounding the

culture of childbirth, but there is social meaning regarding ritual practices to be gleaned

from it. While each individual will die only once in their lifetime, an individual woman may

give birth upwards of a dozen times in her lifetime, adding to the potential material,

architecture, and culture surrounding the birth practice to be studied. Just as modern

medical birth procedures have roots in folk practices, folk practices hold origins in early

history and prehistory (Rouhier-Willoughby, 235, O’Donnel 167). Further study of the

rituals surrounding childbirth will provide a better understanding of the behaviors of the

past. This could potentially lead to the knowledge necessary for identifying the type of

graves referenced by Lieverse et al. as being disturbed by rituals we do not currently

understand, and come full circle in thus providing more examples of archaeological

childbirth for scholarly analysis.

As the Western scholarly world moves forward in the 21st century, academia by and

large is adopting an approach that is much more politically correct, inclusive, and feminist.

Areas of previous disinterest, including childbirth and motherhood, are coming under

scientific scrutiny through this transition. While the reasons for imbalanced study of

childbirth practices of the past is another argument which could be unpacked at great

length, it is undeniably an imbalance which needs correction in light of feminist academia.

Through the points outlined here it is clear that birth and death practices hold a great many

similarities on cultural, philosophical, and academic levels, and these similarities demand

that the degree of research should match. To reduce childbirth practices of the past to

statistics regarding fertility and mortality mitigates the cultural value of the event and the

rituals surrounding it, and archaeologists have much to gain from correcting this deficit.

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