Prehistoric mums cared for kids better than we thought

Photo: Tracey Nearmy/ANU - A new study from The Australian National University (ANU) has revealed the death rate of babies in ancient societies is not a reflection of poor healthcare, disease and other factors, but instead is an indication of the number of babies born in that era. The findings shed new light on the history of our ancestors and debunk old assumptions that infant mortality rates were consistently high in ancient populations. The study also opens up the possibility mothers from early human societies may have been much more capable of caring for their children than previously thought. "It has long been assumed that if there are a lot of deceased babies in a burial sample, then infant mortality must have been high," lead author Dr Clare McFadden, from the ANU School of Archaeology and Anthropology, said.  "Many have assumed that infant mortality was very high in the past in the absence of modern healthcare.  "When we look at these burial samples, it actually tells us more about the number of babies that were born and tells us very little about the number of babies that were dying, which is counterintuitive to past perceptions."  The researchers examined United Nations (UN) data from the past decade for 97 countries that looked at infant mortality, fertility and the number of deaths that occurred during infancy. The analysis revealed that fertility had a much greater influence on the proportion of deceased infants than the infant mortality rate. Because there is very little known about early human societies, the UN data helped the researchers make interpretations about humans from the past 10,000 years.   "Archaeology has often looked at the proportion of deceased infants to learn something about infant mortality.