An infant burial from Steenbokfontein Cave, West Coast, South Africa: Its archaeological, nutritional and anatomical context

Excavations at Steenbokfontein Cave revealed a burial hollow containing the naturally desiccated partial body of an infant who died during the first f ew weeks after birth. The cause of death was not apparent. There were no gr ave goods, nor were there any notable features of the grave other than a wa d of grass that had been used to cover the body. The extent of preservation of soft tissue is unusual, and probably results from the very dry environm ent within the cave. A sample of bone has been accelerator radiocarbon date d to the middle of the third millennium BP. Stable carbon and nitrogen isot ope measurements show that the mother ate a diet rich in marine foods. The infant was clearly interred with care, and in a manner similar to other pre colonial Holocene burials of older children and adults. We suggest that thi s is consistent with the idea that this child was already integrated into i ts social group at the time of its death.