Ancient Graves Reveal When Elderly Gained Power

It's not easy to study the elderly in a society where life was all too often cut short by disease, childbirth and injuries. But new research on people living in the Bronze Age suggests the elderly began to gain power over a 600-year period in Austria.

The findings rely on skeletal aging and a comparison of objects placed in graves of individuals of different ages. As time passed in the small farming hamlets of lower Austria, researchers reported online July 15 in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology, older men began to be buried with copper axes, a privilege not granted to younger men. That might indicate that in some ancient societies, the elders were in charge, said study researcher Jo Appleby, a research fellow in archaeology and anthropology at the University of Cambridge.... 

Studying the social status of the elderly is difficult, because scientists have a hard time pinning down the age of older adult bones. You can determine that a person was elderly, Appleby said, but it's hard to tell whether "elderly" meant 65 or 85.

Researchers often assume that in ancient societies, the elderly had power. But Appleby noted that in modern life, older people are often shunted aside. We assume they're forgetful or degenerating, she said. The question was whether our ancestors would have thought the same, or whether they really did respect their elders.

Appleby used data from two cemeteries in the Traisen valley of Austria. These cemeteries were the final resting places for Bronze Age farmers that populated the region about 4,000 years ago. The older cemetery was used between 2200 and 1800 B.C., while burials at the more recent cemetery took place between 1900 and 1600 B.C.....