Children in the mines? Tracing potential childhood labour in salt mines from the Early Iron Age in Hallstatt, Austria

Abstract

ABSTRACT The analysis of subadult skeletons from the Iron Age Hallstatt graveyard and archaeological findings from the contemporaneous salt mine close-by, yield promising new insights. The cemetery is located in a barely accessible mountain valley, next to the highly organised Iron Age salt mining manufacture. The way of mining is largely known from finds in the ancient mines, including distinct, repeated tasks for the miners. The finding of small-sized leather shoes and a child's cap in these salt mines posed the question whether children were involved in the mining process. Therefore, the 40 available subadult skeletons were analysed systematically for joint changes maybe related to early workload. Signs of osteoarthritis, on selected joint surfaces of long bones and the vertebrae, high skeletal robusticity, vertebral osteochondritis and compression, and osteochondritis dissecans were among the skeletal lesions observed. The cervical vertebrae and the distal femoral joints were affected to the greatest extent.