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"I think it’s important to come at it from these [more traditionally scientific] perspectives and I also think there’s a lack of appreciation for that kind of detailed understanding of the past. It was like what kind of scientific hypotheses can we test and how do we find evidence for that? Which is super important, but at the same time, how do we look at this through a more human lens so we can actually relate to how people were living in the past?"
Dr. Hodgkins is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at University of Colorado Denver. She is known for her discovery of the remains of the 10,000 year old infant Neve in northwestern Italy. She is also one of the co-authors of "Impossible Choices at the Crossroads of Motherhood and Fieldwork" with Dr. Jessica Thompson, where they write about their experiences as mothers doing scientific fieldwork and how institutions can better recognize and support mothers. This article was also one of the main inspirations for my project.
In our interview, she emphasized a sense of connection to prehistoric mothers, being pregnant and then a mother herself while excavating Neve’s remains. She argued for a more “human lens” being brought to anthropology and archaeology. In her view, it is “super important” to take a more objective, scientific approach, but she also asked, “At the same time, how do we look at this through a more human lens so we can actually relate to how people were living in the past?”
"Truly I think all of us, every single person, can relate to that story just on a human level. But having been a pregnant soon to be mother nourishing my own child it was just a very different experience."
Dr. Hodgkins believes that we can all relate to the story of Neve and her mother “just on a human level,” but that her status as a mother gave her a special insight into Neve and her mother’s lives. She told me that, “I truly think going through this experience, had I found this infant before being pregnant or before becoming a mother I just wouldn’t have had as many insights as to the experience of that that I did when it sort of occurred in my life.”
She spoke on studying Neve's teeth and learning that Neve's mother was likely going through trauma while pregnant before losing her very young infant. Seeing what Neve's mother was using to nourish her child was a very moving experience for Dr. Hodgkins.
"And the irony of that is that when we’re looking at a child who was born 10,000 years ago, the community support was much stronger, even though we think of this time period as being less sophisticated or less complex, less modern, in fact it was much more adapted to supporting motherhood and childhood and fatherhood and community relationships."
Dr. Hodgkins argues for learning from our predecessors and returning to this community support of mothers and parents. While our lives today are fundamentally different from those of our predecessors, we can still look at the model of community support prehistoric groups practiced and learn to better support parents today.
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