The Archaeology of Tenderness: What Two Ancient Baby Burials Tell Us About Being Human

Send us Fan Mail 📖 Read the companion article About Love, Grief, and Being Human In northwestern Iran, at a site called Chaparabad, archaeologists recently uncovered something that rewrites not what we know about the past, but how we feel about it. Two ceramic vessels, dating back 6,500 years to the mid-5th millennium BCE, contained fetal remains preserved against impossible odds. One jar was buried beneath a kitchen floor, alongside the bones of a sacrificed sheep. The other rested near grai...