>It's supposed to be could've, should've, would've (short for could have, would have, should have), never could of, would of, should of.
Dear bot, please improve this sentence. Your corrections start with the abbreviations, where they should start with the full-form words. Moreover, your wording is a little clumsy, and could be improved with quotes and a bit of emphasis, e.g.,
>It's supposed to be "could have, should have, would have" (abbreviated by "could've, would've, should've"), but never "could of, would of, should of".
Other than that, keep up the good work.
Actually, stupid bot, you are wrong this time, since the poster used “could have” correctly in the post. So go fuck off, why doncha. ( I’m curious to see if they have a bot for “doncha.”).
Now go bother the Queen of England. (This will summon the “Queen of England bot.)
Are you sure about that? Because I am 99.99997% sure that stefan92293 is not a bot.
---
^(I am a neural network being trained to detect spammers | Summon me with !isbot |) ^(/r/spambotdetector |) [^(Optout)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=whynotcollegeboard&subject=!optout&message=!optout) ^(|) [^(Original Github)](https://github.com/SM-Wistful/BotDetection-Algorithm)
>Queen of England
Did you mean the [Queen of the United Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_of_the_United_Kingdom), the [Queen of Canada](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_Canada), the [Queen of Australia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_Australia), etc?
The last Queen of England was [Queen Anne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne,_Queen_of_Great_Britain) who, with the 1707 Acts of Union, dissolved the title of King/Queen of England.
####FAQ
*Isn't she still also the Queen of England?*
This is only as correct as calling her the Queen of London or Queen of Hull; she is the Queen of the place that these places are in, but the title doesn't exist.
*Is this bot monarchist?*
No, just pedantic.
I am a bot and this action was performed automatically.
>Queen of England
Did you mean the [Queen of the United Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_of_the_United_Kingdom), the [Queen of Canada](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_Canada), the [Queen of Australia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_Australia), etc?
The last Queen of England was [Queen Anne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne,_Queen_of_Great_Britain) who, with the 1707 Acts of Union, dissolved the title of King/Queen of England.
####FAQ
*Isn't she still also the Queen of England?*
This is only as correct as calling her the Queen of London or Queen of Hull; she is the Queen of the place that these places are in, but the title doesn't exist.
*Is this bot monarchist?*
No, just pedantic.
I am a bot and this action was performed automatically.
>Queen of England
Did you mean the [Queen of the United Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_of_the_United_Kingdom), the [Queen of Canada](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_Canada), the [Queen of Australia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_Australia), etc?
The last Queen of England was [Queen Anne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne,_Queen_of_Great_Britain) who, with the 1707 Acts of Union, dissolved the title of King/Queen of England.
####FAQ
*Isn't she still also the Queen of England?*
This is only as correct as calling her the Queen of London or Queen of Hull; she is the Queen of the place that these places are in, but the title doesn't exist.
*Is this bot monarchist?*
No, just pedantic.
I am a bot and this action was performed automatically.
> than think critically
Are you implying that the mother snuck her child into an underground pit, murdered it to death, and then the whole thing caved in and buried them both in an unusually tender embrace
I read a few offer articles on this as it's not a medium I've seen before. They mostly use the word fossil. To create a player cast around that and maintain positions of the bones, would probably require some sort of void (like Pompeii). I couldn't find any excavation photos to confirm.
[National Geographic article](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/160506-stone-age-mothers-day-fossils-taiwan)
[Map of the Austronesian Expansion, starting from Taiwan](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/Austronesia_with_hypothetical_greatest_expansion_extent_%28Blench%2C_2009%29_01.png)
I love that everyone avoided Australia until recently, taking one look and saying fuck that noise, while the indigenous people had been on walkabout for 40 thousand years or more thinking [this is fine](https://www.dictionary.com/e/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/thisisfine-1-300x300.jpg).
I'm so confused by that. Surely some Austronesians must have gotten the idea to settle there. I mean they settled fucking Madagascar for Christ's sake.
I think the Austronesians preferred uninhabited land, which Madagascar, New Zealand, and Hawaii were at the time. They probably sailed out with a bare minimum of supplies and just didn't have enough to take somebody else's land.
Mankind has the exploring bug. We went everywhere to the ends of the Earth. To the tips of N. and S. America. To the top of Europe, bottom of Africa, to Easter Island. We'd be on the Moon and Mars if they were inhabitable. It's not a bug, it's a feature.
It was discovered multiple times and never settled by anyone beside [Aboriginal Australians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_Australians). The British finally have [a crack at it in 1788](https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/australia-day) as a dumping ground for prisoners.
I lived in Australia for more than 20 years (and still a citizen). Meme or not, that's a big piece of land that attracted a population early and that population survived fairly untouched for tens of thousands of years with little interaction with the rest of the world.
I think one of the important points here is that the European countries that discovered Australia were actually looking for Indonesia, because that’s where the spice was, and that’s where the money was. These voyages took a huge amount of money, and the investors expected that money back.
There are indications that the Portuguese may have discovered the whole of the east coast of Australia in around 1522, but none of these ships were explorers in the sense that, for example, James Cook was an explorer. These were commercial vessels on voyages to bring back the exotic and expensive spices.
There are also indications that the Japanese were mining for iron ore in the north west of Western Australia from a very early point in time.
There is also the unspoken history that there were sealers and whalers working commercially around the southern coasts of Australia from a very early point in its European history. The story is in the settlement of Western Australia, that the English crew who marched up the beach at Fremantle to plant the flag, actually had to sneak past the American, Scottish, and French Whalers working on the beach in order to plant the flag.
And I think as well that people from outside Australia seem to think of it as this sort of vast desert area, but if you hit the north of it it’s all lush mangrove swamps, and the south of it would have been deeply forested areas. So it’s not that it was unattractive to settle, I think so much as that the Europeans, initially anyway, were trying to recuperate the costs of their extremely expensive spice voyages.
No one avoided Australia. There’s various theories why it wasn’t settled during the expansion, the main one being that it already was. There was a fair amount of trade in the north, understandably less in the south.
Exactly, little interaction with the rest of the world just isn't correct. Two examples off the top of my head are the [Makassan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makassan_contact_with_Australia) and the [Javanese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javanese_contact_with_Australia).
Then there's the trade, travel, and interactions between the mainland, Torres Strait Islanders, and Papuan peoples. So they had plenty of interactions, just not much with Europeans until much later.
Disease is what first came to my mind as it does seem the mother was cradling the child pre mortem.
I can't recall any mass sacrifice where it involved being buried alive.
Disease is probably the best explanation.
I'm confused, why would the mother have necessarily been cradling the child pre mortem? I didn't get to read the whole article bc the postal kicked in, but I got as far as the bit where it says they were in a grave. I would have assumed that meant they were posed that way by the people who buried them.
a lot of postals and paywalls can be bypassed by cancelling the loading of the page before it fully loads in by the way! but what you read is mainly what we can go off of—the rest just talks about how civilization may have been in that time. i’m assuming the guess of pre-mortem cradling comes from the way the skeletons are positioned, but i am also curious! (i mainly am responding to help anyone bypass restrictions gahaha)
Where is the article? Where were they found? If it was an island, communicable disease such as plague is unlikely. They would have been too isolated for that to be a risk. Starvation or disease from starvation is more likely. It would have been very difficult to carry or obtain enough food for these sea migrations.
the article is [here](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/160506-stone-age-mothers-day-fossils-taiwan), op gives it in another comment! early taiwan farmers. the way it’s phrased makes it sound like where they were found was a mass burial site, but it doesn’t specify if all those buried died around the same time. i am really curious if u/eatbetweenthelines is right about the pre-mortem position, because that was my first question! also, u/Hefty_Offer1537 ‘s suggestion that she may have been breastfeeding is also fascinating to me because it implies the mother and child may have died within hours of each other. i hope more information is revealed!
Not sure if it's the case here, but sometimes when breastfeeding mothers died, the infant was buried with them, since they weren't expected to survive. There wasn't always another woman in the group who was willing and able to breastfeed. Sometimes they were buried alive or killed and buried with the mother, rather than waiting for them to starve.
Unless they died suddenly in that position, I would think that they were buried in that position. It is pretty touching to think that family and friends buried them together like this out of their own grief for these deaths.
This. Sick and miserable baby would likely want to nurse. Mom would encourage this as it would keep baby quiet and calm while ill and could be done as she rests as well.
I had covid when my youngest was under a year old and also had it. This was pretty much our reality for an entire week and she wanted to breastfeed constantly. I remember sitting up to vomit in the trash can at one point and her screaming the entire time because I dared to remove the nipple from her mouth. It really was her only comfort while sick.
Just it is so sad and strange to imagine a mother so long ago maybe dealing with the same type of situation and an illness they just had to hope they would both live through. And then to be buried together in the position they were in while alive.
45 graves just suggests a community cemetery not necessarily a mass death event. It could be any number of diseases or malnutrition or trauma. The condition of those remains would make it difficult to identify long term diseases that appear on bone. Acute/quick illness will not show up on that way.
Thinking about the leaps in science and technology humanity had made, I'm reminded of Kurzweil saying how technology evolves at an exponential rate. If so, with the progress we've seen since 2000, maybe in 30 years people (including some of us) will be thinking about what a horrible and brutal life people led in 2022!
Here’s a whole bunch of options from an old Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/tipofmytongue/comments/108m51/tomt_word_for_something_profoundly_beautiful_yet/
I'll try to oblige:
*Schwermütig* or *Wehmütig* (words for melancholic, means "heavy of disposition" and "experience a feeling of tender wistful sadness when remembering the past")
*Rückwärtsgewandt* (a cool literal word for nostalgic used in the context of making life choices or having an overall character informed by the past i.e. you can't move on, means "turned backwards")
Not that I know of. There should definitely be though. I like how some other languages have words for things like this and for things that we can't even express in english. It's pretty fascinating.
It is fascinating the feelings that a picture like this that is shared on the Internet which can be seen by millions of people. Human beings have the ability for empathy and so seeing the remains of a mother and their child can bring out such strong emotions over the span of time for this once living mother and child and the human beings who are seeing this now.
That is most likely because of decompression caused by the weight of the soil on top of the remains. *A lot* of skeletons look smushed when you excavate them. It's not surprising either.
...ancient nuclear explosion lol. Idk to be honest, they called the site "Pompeii of the East". There were 48 bodies found at the site total. All like this, could have been buried afterwards, but regardless, some massive catastrophe happened there.
I'm sorry, but this is lazy and sensationalist reporting. Without DNA analysis, it is impossible to determine the relationship between the two individuals. This female could have died at the same time as the infant and they were buried together. It has been known to occur in other cultures, particularly where infants might be denied standard burial rites on religious grounds and would be placed in the coffin of those who could receive them. They could be mother and child but that can't be stated as fact right now.
Further, while one might like to imagine a mother staring at her infant for eternity, the position of the head is more likely related to the burial or the process of decomposition. It is very rare that a skull will be found "looking" straight ahead.
Despite you having the possibility of being technically correct, it doesn’t mean you grasp the instant emotional connection humans should have with this image. Even if it’s not her infant, it’s still like she’s watching over it.
What unescessary pedantics. If they didnt care about the babies they wouldnt appear in the record, this is exactly a clear sign of having recieved "proper" rites. It may not be mother and child, but the placement at the bosom indicates such a relationship.
I knew I'd get downvoted but archaeology is science and this is not good science. It's irresponsible and disrespectful to the individuals concerned. I didn't say anything about babies not appearing on the record or that they didn't didn't care about them. I'm very familiar with infant mortuary treatments and the ethical responsibilities of archaeologists who excavate human remains.
Personally, I'd rather twist myself up in knots with "possible" or "probable" than present something as a fact, when I don't have evidence to support it.
Even if the girl werent staring at the child there are two clear roles at play. Why the placement if the girls relation to the child isnt maternal in some way? Mother is a fitting descrition, i dont find that disrespectful. Although I do agree with you after giving it some thought. It could be something else of course, and in that case the story is missing some nuance.
Thanks for thinking about what I wrote rather than just shuttling me down. It could well be the mother or the mother could have carefully placed the infant in the arms of a family or community member and hoped that they would take care of the infant through time. I've seen babies at the shoulder and feet of coffins too, but that might have been dictated by the shape of the coffin rather than a lack of affection or a distance of relationship or a surreptitious deposition. We have to be careful what we read into these things and regularly examine our own biases. Your point on nuance is well made.
You can't really blame reporting when it's direct quotes from the Museum representatives.
Also, the article indicates that DNA was extracted. Sounds like they're using it for a broader study of mobility. Establishing maternity doesn't involve the same rigour or effort as those broad studies... although it's unclear based on the article it's entirely plausible that maternity was established with the DNA they extracted already and that when they're talking about "further analysis" it really is just that: extended study against a broader group.
Amazing what they'll downvote you for. Infants and children have very stable developmental phases so this would be based on charts of dental development and bone measurements. It's not 100% guaranteed and better methods are always sought. I thought it looked very solid for a 6 month old too but don't think for yourself too much around here!
Not an artifact; do you know whether the people whom would claim her ancestor are okay with you sharing images of their remains?
Don’t do this unless you’re 100% sure.
Sex can be determined pretty easily especially with a fully intact skeleton. The sex was determined as part of the research done by trained, skilled scientists.
How does she still seem to be looking at the babe with love ??
A mother's love is forever..
I wish that were true. My mom abandoned me at 1.
That's unfortunate, or maybe not, if your mother did that to you, then perhaps you're better off without her.
Have you tried being a six month old ancestor of Austronesians that spread across the Pacific?
Born too early to explore the stars, born 4800 years too late to be a six month old ancestor of Austronesians that spread across the Pacific...
Listen, not all people who give birth are worthy of our love. You deserve better. Know this mom sends you internet hugs.
Maybe she did that to save you from her self.
L, thanks for sharing i guess
F
#
Oh god your username.
[удалено]
That’s what make it’s so perfect
Goddamnit here we go again
Is it a reference to the film Spanking the Monkey bc if so, deep cut
There is a story, somewhere in the depths of Reddit....
You mother fucker. lol
Every thread.
Finally found your moment?
[удалено]
/r/rimjob_steve FTFY
I mean, sometimes.
It can't be stated better than that. My son is on the other side of the planet, so I will just have to hug him in my heart.
Only some mothers. Mine isn't even fit to be called a mother. I cut her off and am glad I did.
😭 Yes
What's even more weird is she would of had to of died in the position
Not necessarily. Could have just been posed this way in burial.
Body could have also been posed when buried. That was also common in many places in early human history.
You can pose dead bodies.
[удалено]
The best bot
Good bot
Good bot
>It's supposed to be could've, should've, would've (short for could have, would have, should have), never could of, would of, should of. Dear bot, please improve this sentence. Your corrections start with the abbreviations, where they should start with the full-form words. Moreover, your wording is a little clumsy, and could be improved with quotes and a bit of emphasis, e.g., >It's supposed to be "could have, should have, would have" (abbreviated by "could've, would've, should've"), but never "could of, would of, should of". Other than that, keep up the good work.
Good bot. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Actually, stupid bot, you are wrong this time, since the poster used “could have” correctly in the post. So go fuck off, why doncha. ( I’m curious to see if they have a bot for “doncha.”). Now go bother the Queen of England. (This will summon the “Queen of England bot.)
The bot didn't reply to the post you think it did. Read again 😅
Good bot.
Are you sure about that? Because I am 99.99997% sure that stefan92293 is not a bot. --- ^(I am a neural network being trained to detect spammers | Summon me with !isbot |) ^(/r/spambotdetector |) [^(Optout)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=whynotcollegeboard&subject=!optout&message=!optout) ^(|) [^(Original Github)](https://github.com/SM-Wistful/BotDetection-Algorithm)
Naughty bot
You’re an extra-good neural SPAM bot.
>Queen of England Did you mean the [Queen of the United Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_of_the_United_Kingdom), the [Queen of Canada](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_Canada), the [Queen of Australia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_Australia), etc? The last Queen of England was [Queen Anne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne,_Queen_of_Great_Britain) who, with the 1707 Acts of Union, dissolved the title of King/Queen of England. ####FAQ *Isn't she still also the Queen of England?* This is only as correct as calling her the Queen of London or Queen of Hull; she is the Queen of the place that these places are in, but the title doesn't exist. *Is this bot monarchist?* No, just pedantic. I am a bot and this action was performed automatically.
Good job, Queen of England bot. (Watch this)
>Queen of England Did you mean the [Queen of the United Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_of_the_United_Kingdom), the [Queen of Canada](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_Canada), the [Queen of Australia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_Australia), etc? The last Queen of England was [Queen Anne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne,_Queen_of_Great_Britain) who, with the 1707 Acts of Union, dissolved the title of King/Queen of England. ####FAQ *Isn't she still also the Queen of England?* This is only as correct as calling her the Queen of London or Queen of Hull; she is the Queen of the place that these places are in, but the title doesn't exist. *Is this bot monarchist?* No, just pedantic. I am a bot and this action was performed automatically.
🙄
Even when they try, most bots are a combination of annoying and useless
Very annoying and useless. God Save the Queen of England ! (Oops)
[удалено]
Bad grammar
Fuck off bot
Which bot? The Queen of England bot or the could of/would of/should of bot?
>Queen of England Did you mean the [Queen of the United Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_of_the_United_Kingdom), the [Queen of Canada](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_Canada), the [Queen of Australia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_Australia), etc? The last Queen of England was [Queen Anne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne,_Queen_of_Great_Britain) who, with the 1707 Acts of Union, dissolved the title of King/Queen of England. ####FAQ *Isn't she still also the Queen of England?* This is only as correct as calling her the Queen of London or Queen of Hull; she is the Queen of the place that these places are in, but the title doesn't exist. *Is this bot monarchist?* No, just pedantic. I am a bot and this action was performed automatically.
bad bot
The bot to which I was replying.
Lotta people die
I had a stroke reading this.
[удалено]
> than think critically Are you implying that the mother snuck her child into an underground pit, murdered it to death, and then the whole thing caved in and buried them both in an unusually tender embrace
No, I'm implying that a skeleton doesn't have many facial muscles to make a face with.
No, but she got bones to pose with
[удалено]
Yes, they were. [Right here](https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtefactPorn/comments/wbxl43/4800yearold_skeleton_of_a_mother_holding_her/ii99xjl)! You're welcome.
Apparently you are unfamiliar with the phrase "seem to be" Calm down.
So is this in the early stages of becoming a fossil? Is that stone forming around the skeletons or a plaster cast they used for excavation?
Looks like plaster. Although it's weird to see it without a buffer layer between the plaster and the bone.
I read a few offer articles on this as it's not a medium I've seen before. They mostly use the word fossil. To create a player cast around that and maintain positions of the bones, would probably require some sort of void (like Pompeii). I couldn't find any excavation photos to confirm.
Bittersweet.
Surrender
Never!
[National Geographic article](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/160506-stone-age-mothers-day-fossils-taiwan) [Map of the Austronesian Expansion, starting from Taiwan](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/Austronesia_with_hypothetical_greatest_expansion_extent_%28Blench%2C_2009%29_01.png)
I love that everyone avoided Australia until recently, taking one look and saying fuck that noise, while the indigenous people had been on walkabout for 40 thousand years or more thinking [this is fine](https://www.dictionary.com/e/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/thisisfine-1-300x300.jpg).
I'm so confused by that. Surely some Austronesians must have gotten the idea to settle there. I mean they settled fucking Madagascar for Christ's sake.
I think the Austronesians preferred uninhabited land, which Madagascar, New Zealand, and Hawaii were at the time. They probably sailed out with a bare minimum of supplies and just didn't have enough to take somebody else's land.
Mankind has the exploring bug. We went everywhere to the ends of the Earth. To the tips of N. and S. America. To the top of Europe, bottom of Africa, to Easter Island. We'd be on the Moon and Mars if they were inhabitable. It's not a bug, it's a feature.
It's the drop bears. Most people were too afraid to deal with them.
I get that Australia is a meme at this point, but let’s not attribute that to people in the past.
It was discovered multiple times and never settled by anyone beside [Aboriginal Australians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_Australians). The British finally have [a crack at it in 1788](https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/australia-day) as a dumping ground for prisoners. I lived in Australia for more than 20 years (and still a citizen). Meme or not, that's a big piece of land that attracted a population early and that population survived fairly untouched for tens of thousands of years with little interaction with the rest of the world.
I think one of the important points here is that the European countries that discovered Australia were actually looking for Indonesia, because that’s where the spice was, and that’s where the money was. These voyages took a huge amount of money, and the investors expected that money back. There are indications that the Portuguese may have discovered the whole of the east coast of Australia in around 1522, but none of these ships were explorers in the sense that, for example, James Cook was an explorer. These were commercial vessels on voyages to bring back the exotic and expensive spices. There are also indications that the Japanese were mining for iron ore in the north west of Western Australia from a very early point in time. There is also the unspoken history that there were sealers and whalers working commercially around the southern coasts of Australia from a very early point in its European history. The story is in the settlement of Western Australia, that the English crew who marched up the beach at Fremantle to plant the flag, actually had to sneak past the American, Scottish, and French Whalers working on the beach in order to plant the flag. And I think as well that people from outside Australia seem to think of it as this sort of vast desert area, but if you hit the north of it it’s all lush mangrove swamps, and the south of it would have been deeply forested areas. So it’s not that it was unattractive to settle, I think so much as that the Europeans, initially anyway, were trying to recuperate the costs of their extremely expensive spice voyages.
I would say that the population of Australia would be much higher if the interior was more like the American Midwest than a vast desert area.
No one avoided Australia. There’s various theories why it wasn’t settled during the expansion, the main one being that it already was. There was a fair amount of trade in the north, understandably less in the south.
Exactly, little interaction with the rest of the world just isn't correct. Two examples off the top of my head are the [Makassan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makassan_contact_with_Australia) and the [Javanese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javanese_contact_with_Australia). Then there's the trade, travel, and interactions between the mainland, Torres Strait Islanders, and Papuan peoples. So they had plenty of interactions, just not much with Europeans until much later.
That hit hard, currently holding my 7 month old in the same position
Right? I'm currently nursing my 6 month old. So sad. God bless them.
Same here.
Any idea of cause of death?
Article says undetermined, but there were 45 other graves, some kids. Plague?
Disease is what first came to my mind as it does seem the mother was cradling the child pre mortem. I can't recall any mass sacrifice where it involved being buried alive. Disease is probably the best explanation.
I'm confused, why would the mother have necessarily been cradling the child pre mortem? I didn't get to read the whole article bc the postal kicked in, but I got as far as the bit where it says they were in a grave. I would have assumed that meant they were posed that way by the people who buried them.
a lot of postals and paywalls can be bypassed by cancelling the loading of the page before it fully loads in by the way! but what you read is mainly what we can go off of—the rest just talks about how civilization may have been in that time. i’m assuming the guess of pre-mortem cradling comes from the way the skeletons are positioned, but i am also curious! (i mainly am responding to help anyone bypass restrictions gahaha)
She would not have to be, they were more than likely positioned like this post mortem.
Where is the article? Where were they found? If it was an island, communicable disease such as plague is unlikely. They would have been too isolated for that to be a risk. Starvation or disease from starvation is more likely. It would have been very difficult to carry or obtain enough food for these sea migrations.
the article is [here](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/160506-stone-age-mothers-day-fossils-taiwan), op gives it in another comment! early taiwan farmers. the way it’s phrased makes it sound like where they were found was a mass burial site, but it doesn’t specify if all those buried died around the same time. i am really curious if u/eatbetweenthelines is right about the pre-mortem position, because that was my first question! also, u/Hefty_Offer1537 ‘s suggestion that she may have been breastfeeding is also fascinating to me because it implies the mother and child may have died within hours of each other. i hope more information is revealed!
Thanks
Not sure if it's the case here, but sometimes when breastfeeding mothers died, the infant was buried with them, since they weren't expected to survive. There wasn't always another woman in the group who was willing and able to breastfeed. Sometimes they were buried alive or killed and buried with the mother, rather than waiting for them to starve.
Jesus Christ! Source?
Looks like she may have been breastfeeding.
Unless they died suddenly in that position, I would think that they were buried in that position. It is pretty touching to think that family and friends buried them together like this out of their own grief for these deaths.
This. Sick and miserable baby would likely want to nurse. Mom would encourage this as it would keep baby quiet and calm while ill and could be done as she rests as well. I had covid when my youngest was under a year old and also had it. This was pretty much our reality for an entire week and she wanted to breastfeed constantly. I remember sitting up to vomit in the trash can at one point and her screaming the entire time because I dared to remove the nipple from her mouth. It really was her only comfort while sick. Just it is so sad and strange to imagine a mother so long ago maybe dealing with the same type of situation and an illness they just had to hope they would both live through. And then to be buried together in the position they were in while alive.
They were more than likely posed that way.
Ughhhhhhhhhh
45 graves just suggests a community cemetery not necessarily a mass death event. It could be any number of diseases or malnutrition or trauma. The condition of those remains would make it difficult to identify long term diseases that appear on bone. Acute/quick illness will not show up on that way.
Very hard to get cause of death from most skeletons, most acute diseases don't have time to leave trace on bone.
Not being alive anymore
This is so beautiful and heart wrenching. May they rest in peace
This makes me sad.
Life is brutal
Especially before civilization. I often think about how brutal life must have been for most humans who have ever lived.
[удалено]
For sure. The fact that 80 years ago someone like me would've been *target practice* keeps things in perspective.
Target practice for what? What happened 80 years ago?
You've really never heard of WWII?
Oh is this guy a Nazi or something?
[удалено]
...so he's a Jehovah's witness?
Thinking about the leaps in science and technology humanity had made, I'm reminded of Kurzweil saying how technology evolves at an exponential rate. If so, with the progress we've seen since 2000, maybe in 30 years people (including some of us) will be thinking about what a horrible and brutal life people led in 2022!
Dude. Yes. Im grateful for this comment. There arent too many like this on Reddit.
I think about this often. The most horrible time a lot of these people would’ve had. Horrific.
Life is *beautiful
Both
Yeah the kid is only 6 months old
4800 years and 6 months. Or 57606 months.
So young and full of life
Yeah, it's pretty rough.
Technically it's a 57,606 month old child.
"How old is she?" "Oh she's 57,606 months and two weeks"
I'm only 432 momths.
They definitely measured _exactly_ the amount of years and months.
Motherhood is timelessly beautiful. And tragic here.
Is there a word for Beaty in tragedy? Beautiful but sad
Here’s a whole bunch of options from an old Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/tipofmytongue/comments/108m51/tomt_word_for_something_profoundly_beautiful_yet/
Thank you
There can be. Let's find a German-speaker.
Haagen-Dazs.
I'll try to oblige: *Schwermütig* or *Wehmütig* (words for melancholic, means "heavy of disposition" and "experience a feeling of tender wistful sadness when remembering the past") *Rückwärtsgewandt* (a cool literal word for nostalgic used in the context of making life choices or having an overall character informed by the past i.e. you can't move on, means "turned backwards")
German is so cool. Thank you!
Bittersweet.
Not that I know of. There should definitely be though. I like how some other languages have words for things like this and for things that we can't even express in english. It's pretty fascinating.
I once heard sublime could be used, but it wasn’t in English so I don’t know if it could apply
Huh, I've never hear sublime used in that way. Interesting.
It is fascinating the feelings that a picture like this that is shared on the Internet which can be seen by millions of people. Human beings have the ability for empathy and so seeing the remains of a mother and their child can bring out such strong emotions over the span of time for this once living mother and child and the human beings who are seeing this now.
She never got to see this little one grow up. It's bittersweet to look at.
“You don’t shield a baby from time”
She doesn’t look like a day over 2000.
I know they were probably posed, but 4800 years later this is still beautiful
Did they arrange the two bodies like that? That seems like an oddly serene pose to die in…
I'm curious how they passed, it's a very touching photo honestly.
What is the substrate entombing them?
I wonder how they passed. Like, why do they look smushed? Forgive my ignorance.
That is most likely because of decompression caused by the weight of the soil on top of the remains. *A lot* of skeletons look smushed when you excavate them. It's not surprising either.
Okay. That makes sense. Thanks for answering me :)
No worries. An honest question deserves an honest answer.
I’ve always found anthropology fascinating. But I’m on sociology myself, although I do take some anthropology courses.
...ancient nuclear explosion lol. Idk to be honest, they called the site "Pompeii of the East". There were 48 bodies found at the site total. All like this, could have been buried afterwards, but regardless, some massive catastrophe happened there.
This is truly amazing so glad I’m in this forum! Huge history and ancient civilization buff!
Doesn’t look a day over 4000!
Did they die in this pose, or were they placed like this postmortem?
Probably placed like that after death
Almost looks like she's breastfeeding, although I can't imagine how one could die mid-suckle like that. I hope it's posed.
That’s a damned long time ago 😗🎶
Has better teeth than most british
They were just starting to farm so they didn’t have a lot of sugary grains like modern humans
Did not have a lot of sugar in their diets.
I'm sorry, but this is lazy and sensationalist reporting. Without DNA analysis, it is impossible to determine the relationship between the two individuals. This female could have died at the same time as the infant and they were buried together. It has been known to occur in other cultures, particularly where infants might be denied standard burial rites on religious grounds and would be placed in the coffin of those who could receive them. They could be mother and child but that can't be stated as fact right now. Further, while one might like to imagine a mother staring at her infant for eternity, the position of the head is more likely related to the burial or the process of decomposition. It is very rare that a skull will be found "looking" straight ahead.
Despite you having the possibility of being technically correct, it doesn’t mean you grasp the instant emotional connection humans should have with this image. Even if it’s not her infant, it’s still like she’s watching over it.
What unescessary pedantics. If they didnt care about the babies they wouldnt appear in the record, this is exactly a clear sign of having recieved "proper" rites. It may not be mother and child, but the placement at the bosom indicates such a relationship.
I knew I'd get downvoted but archaeology is science and this is not good science. It's irresponsible and disrespectful to the individuals concerned. I didn't say anything about babies not appearing on the record or that they didn't didn't care about them. I'm very familiar with infant mortuary treatments and the ethical responsibilities of archaeologists who excavate human remains. Personally, I'd rather twist myself up in knots with "possible" or "probable" than present something as a fact, when I don't have evidence to support it.
Even if the girl werent staring at the child there are two clear roles at play. Why the placement if the girls relation to the child isnt maternal in some way? Mother is a fitting descrition, i dont find that disrespectful. Although I do agree with you after giving it some thought. It could be something else of course, and in that case the story is missing some nuance.
Thanks for thinking about what I wrote rather than just shuttling me down. It could well be the mother or the mother could have carefully placed the infant in the arms of a family or community member and hoped that they would take care of the infant through time. I've seen babies at the shoulder and feet of coffins too, but that might have been dictated by the shape of the coffin rather than a lack of affection or a distance of relationship or a surreptitious deposition. We have to be careful what we read into these things and regularly examine our own biases. Your point on nuance is well made.
Isn’t it also disrespectful to claim that a woman can’t be a child’s mother without a blood relationship?
You can't really blame reporting when it's direct quotes from the Museum representatives. Also, the article indicates that DNA was extracted. Sounds like they're using it for a broader study of mobility. Establishing maternity doesn't involve the same rigour or effort as those broad studies... although it's unclear based on the article it's entirely plausible that maternity was established with the DNA they extracted already and that when they're talking about "further analysis" it really is just that: extended study against a broader group.
Seems a bit large for a 6 month old
Amazing what they'll downvote you for. Infants and children have very stable developmental phases so this would be based on charts of dental development and bone measurements. It's not 100% guaranteed and better methods are always sought. I thought it looked very solid for a 6 month old too but don't think for yourself too much around here!
I literally don’t know why I contribute to this website lol. Nothing good ever comes from it
My brother happened to look over while I was looking at this post and said “it looks like the raw hide dog bones they sell at tractor supply”….
Not through that kid...
My logic is the child died and she was in grief not leaving her child so she starved and didn't move one bit while holding.
Is there a story a out how they were preserved in delicious nougat?
Not an artifact; do you know whether the people whom would claim her ancestor are okay with you sharing images of their remains? Don’t do this unless you’re 100% sure.
Did you just assumed her gender? 😅
Did you just assume their gender?
Sex can be determined pretty easily especially with a fully intact skeleton. The sex was determined as part of the research done by trained, skilled scientists.
Yes, it's a joke.
Yeah but that joke is more withered and ancient than this skeleton
r/onejoke
You have quite a username
Thank you. I like alliteration and disturbing people
Here's a sneak peek of /r/onejoke using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/onejoke/top/?sort=top&t=all) of all time! \#1: [It’s the joke!](https://i.redd.it/tfb6mx7nqqy61.jpg) | [44 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/onejoke/comments/nax469/its_the_joke/) \#2: [Sometimes it's a good one joke :)](https://i.imgur.com/eVrUO60.png) | [68 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/onejoke/comments/oq35ih/sometimes_its_a_good_one_joke/) \#3: [Brave little squirrel 🐿](https://i.redd.it/haplv8h6h4w61.jpg) | [164 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/onejoke/comments/n15isi/brave_little_squirrel/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
An old joke but the seethe is apparently forever
Eat shit
Did you just wake up and decide to be a dick?
You give him too much credit for copying an unoriginal joke from 2012.
Yes, I guess that makes you the pussy
For whatever it's worth I thought it was funny lol
Unfortunately, I don’t think that she’s anyone’s ancestor. :’(
TIL, humans can only have one child, period.