This image from Chamber A1 of Rouffignac Cave was created by a young girl we posit to be between four and five years old from her height and the places in the cave where she has chosen to make her flutings. She was part of a group of people who visited the cave during the Upper Paleolithic Period (sometime between 20,000 and 11,000 years ago). It seemed she was part of a group which included 8 individuals, of whom at least 3 were children. This panel is at the entrance to a chamber a half km into the cave and what is striking about it is not only its design but also that it was drawn with two hands at the same time which means this individual wasn't holding a torch at the time of her drawing. This young girl is one of the most prolific fluters in Rouffignac. We find her flutings in almost every chamber and a panel very similar to this one appears 1.5 km further into the cave. She also produced the first known tectiform, a symbolic form, produced by a child. As time goes on, we hope to learn more and more about the people who visited and decorated Rouffignac cave during the Paleolithic.

These images show a stone grave marker carved with symbols and a terracotta funerary urn containing the charred remains of an infant. The Tophet of Carthage is a cemetery for infants in the ruins of the North African city of Carthage, now located in a suburb of Tunis. It was once located on the edge of ancient Carthage, which was destroyed by the Romans in 146 BCE. The cemetery is the subject of historical controversy because both ancient texts and archaeological evidence point to the possibility that the children buried in the tophet were child sacrifices. The cemetery was used for over 600 years, between 730 BCE and 146 BCE. Changes in the grave markers and burials indicate three different periods of use.

The Carthage tophet has no adult graves, and many of the grave stelae are marked with dedications to Baal and Tanit, the patron deities of Carthage. The word tophet comes from the Hebrew topheth derived from "drum" or "place of burning," an open area for sacrifice. Numerous tophets have been identified in the eastern Mediterranean region. The Tophet of Carthage, excavated between 1920 and 1970, shows burials of young infants, interred in small vaults with beads and amulets, and sometimes the bones of small animals. Low thrones or stones marked the early graves.

In later periods, buried a layer above the original graves, sandstone markers were covered with stucco and painted yellow, red, or blue. Narrow, limestone grave stelae with pediments appear, inscribed with representations of Baal and Tanit. Many featured the sign of Tanit shown on the stela in the image—a triangle with a disc at the apex and a line through the apex with upturned ends, which looks perhaps like a child or a doll with outstretched arms.

Jewish and Christian scriptures refer to places of child sacrifice. Roman writer Diodorus Siculus described the sacrifice of upper class children to the deity Baal in 310 BCE, a reference seen as the main source of the claim of child sacrifice. Later elaborations made by writers even into the 19th century include the description of a metal fire pit in the form of the deity, with grates that mechanically tipped infants into the fire. Sacrifices to appease the deities or to ask favors seem to be supported by some inscriptions, but there may also be evidence that small animals were sacrificed in place of the children.

On the other side of the controversy are claims that the archaeological evidence is too sparse and inconclusive, and the texts may have been written out of ulterior motives, especially in view of Rome's wars with Carthage. No other classical sources mention the practice, and biblical references do not mention the tophet of Carthage.

There is also evidence that children's burial grounds were merely separated from adult cemeteries as well as pictorial evidence that the graves were regularly kept and supplied with offerings. The fact that burials were sometimes massed, and that some graves contain more than one child, may be evidence of disease epidemics as the population of Carthage grew. The inscriptions that refer to gifts and offerings may refer to sacrifice, or may refer to the hope of regeneration or fertility to the family who lost the child, meanings included in concepts surrounding both Tanit and Baal as deities.

The hand-modeled, terracotta, wheeled figurine of a bird with a ram's head was excavated from an archaeological site in the Indus Valley called Mohenjo-daro, a city that flourished between 2600 and 1900 BCE. Museum curators added the wooden axle attaching the wheels to the body as the original had not been preserved. Excavations from sites in the Indus Valley included many figurines made from terracotta, some of which were clearly for entertainment, including whistles shaped like birds, small animals with moveable heads, and toy carts. Such figurines are about 2.5 inches (ca. 5 cm) in length.

The carved stone relief is from the interior of Candi Mendut, a Buddhist temple in Central Java. Mendut was built during the early Shailendra dynasty in about 824 CE. It may have been built on the site of a Hindu temple from a previous century. The rectangular, stone temple is 26.4 meters (86.6 feet) tall and is constructed on a 2 meter (6.5 feet) platform. The surrounding wall is covered with reliefs that relate stories from Buddhist teachings along with lush carvings of plants, fruits, and flowers. This relief is one of a pair showing the goddess Hariti and her husband Kuwera (or Kubera in Sanskrit).

The relief panel on the north wall opposite Hariti depicts her consort or husband, a figure by the name of Kuwera, or the yaksha Avataka, also sometimes called Panchika. Kuwera is a god of wealth and well-being, and is a guardian of children. According to legend, Kuwera is king of the yakshas, the god of wealth who was transformed by an encounter with the Buddha into an important defender of Buddhism. Kuwera is depicted sitting on a bench surrounded by children playing and helping each other climb fruit trees. Kuwera wears an ornate headdress surrounded by flying parrots, and his right leg is extended over the edge of the bench, under which sit pots filled with jewels or other riches. Versions of such depictions of Kuwera and Hariti are found in many Buddhist temples. In Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist mythology, figures called yakshas are derived from nature spirits who may be benign or monstrous.

The carved stone relief is from the interior of Candi Mendut, a Buddhist temple in Central Java. Mendut was built during the early Shailendra dynasty in about 824 CE. It may have been built on the site of a Hindu temple from a previous century. The rectangular, stone temple is 26.4 meters (86.6 feet) tall and is constructed on a 2 meter (6.5 feet) platform. The surrounding wall is covered with reliefs that relate stories from Buddhist teachings along with lush carvings of plants, fruits, and flowers. This relief is one of a pair showing the goddess Hariti and her husband Kuwera.

Hariti, depicted in the south panel, is a symbol of good fortune and fertility, but this was not always so. The narrative of Hariti represents the dangers of childhood mortality. In a story with several versions, Hariti was a, ogress, or demoness who had many children, but who hunted and ate human children. One day, the Buddha hid her children and as she searched frantically to recover them, she saw the evil of her ways. She repented and became a guardian to children and a symbol of fertility and good fortune.

The relief panel, shown in many Buddhist temples, depicts Hariti sitting on a bench with a child on her lap and another climbing onto her shoulder. Children play all around her, helping each other climb fruit trees and enjoying games. Under the bench is a bowl of mangoes, a symbol of fertility. Parrots fly above her head. Hariti’s cult as a special guardian of children and women in childbirth traveled widely, expressing the ever-present threat of death especially to children. Hariti is known in Central Asia and in China, and possibly even Japan, where she is similar to the protective boddhisattva Kannon.

The top photograph shows the mummified remains of the 15-year-old Inca child, known as the "Llullaillaco Maiden," who was sacrificed with two other children, a boy of seven years old, shown in the photograph below, and a six-year-old girl, whose mummy had been struck by lightning and was charred. The children had walked or been brought to the top of Mt. Llullaillco, in northern Argentina, elevation 22,000 feet (6706 meters), a volcano near the Chilean border today. According to archaeologists and cultural historians, the children were victims of a sacrificial ritual called capacocha. The children were chosen for their beauty and possibly nobility, honored by their selection, and well-fed and cared for before their ritual deaths. According to Inca beliefs, such children were to serve as guardians over their villages from the heights of the mountains, joining the ancestors and honored in death. Before their deaths, they had participated in ceremonies at Cuzco, possibly walking hundreds of miles. They were taken to the top of Mt. Llullaillaco. Their deaths may have been painless, as they were given chicha, a strong alcoholic beverage made from maize. The older girl had pieces of coca leaves on her mouth. They would have fallen asleep from intoxication before they were placed in burial niches where they froze to death in the thin air.

The children wore shoes or slippers as well as colorful clothing elaborately decorated with metal, bone, and cords. The children were not wrapped into bundles, but loosely wrapped in shawls. They sat cross-legged or crouched as they would have fallen asleep. The older girl’s face, which showed red ochre markings, was creased from the place it rested on her shawl. The girl’s long hair was plaited into fine braids that are still fully intact. Among the artifacts placed with them were figurines donning headdresses decorated with colorful bird feathers.

The Yin Yu Tang house provides a perspective on childhood in a period that bridges the conclusion of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) and the rise of a new 20th-century republic in China. The house was built for a merchant family named Huang at the turn of the 19th century and, with the consent of later generations of the Huang family, would be painstakingly deconstructed, moved, and rebuilt to open in 2003 as a permanent exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum in Massachusetts.

The museum offers a virtual tour of the house that serves as a useful tool for exploring the lived space and material culture of a family setting, as experienced by adults and also, as detail of the exhibit reveals, by children. Students may explore this virtual exhibit as if they are setting foot in the house themselves, gaining their own perspective on the domestic space that certain children experienced as well as the household objects that were dedicated to a child’s management and education.

The earthenware mold for casting a figurine of an infant was found in Tangyangu China, and is likely dated to between 960 and 1279 CE, during the Song dynasty. The mold measures 3.2 inches long, and belongs to a collection of molds depicting men, women, and animals. The molds were likely used to make tomb figurines that were placed with the dead for burial, a ritual practice that was becoming less widespread by the Song dynasty. The mold for an infant figurine shows the widespread practice of swaddling, or tightly binding newborn infants with strips of cloth. In cultures from western to eastern Asia, it was believed that the practice was necessary, and helped form the child's body by preventing too much movement. The practice of swaddling has been abandoned in modern times, but a recent pediatric article noted that it may help newborns to sleep, calm their heartbeat, and prevent sudden infant death.

The two children whose skeletons are shown in this photograph were both under 10 years of age, and were probably buried at the same time. An earlier burial of a baby was found at a slightly lower level in the space between them. Archaeologists found these burials in the floor of a house at Çatalhöyük, a Neolithic agricultural settlement in Turkey that was continuously occupied between 8000 BCE and 6400 BCE. Many of the settlement's hundreds of houses contained multiple burials. The pits, which were sealed with white plaster lids, lay beneath raised platforms where people slept and worked, living close to their ancestors. Some of the houses were ritually closed and collapsed upon the death of an important family member. According to analysis of skeletons found at Çatalhöyük, life expectancy averaged 34 years for men and 28 years for women.