[Petty Dwarf]

Very impressive post, Child.

Just some anthropological tidbits to toss out there: Burials and burial mounds are likely the most ancient form of funerary practice. In lesser-developed agrarian societies there are burials on the home premises or in the house itself. Honoring these nearby dead relatives probably gave rise to worship of household divinities.

Hobbits don't seem closer to ancestor worship than they do to postmortem cannibalism, but in lieu of Christian churchyards the idea of home burials seems fitting. Probably one place existed for entire extended families. If "The Stone Troll" is gleaned for insight into hobbit tradition, it gives us a "graveyard" of "bones that lie in a hole" belonging to a "father's kin".

But thinking about what else ain't there, again it's in the Shire. Again, the reasons for excluding both probably lie somewhere in-between keeping the Shire an ideal, or close to it, and necessities of a steamlined plot, or close to it.

Alcoholism Given the amount of beer hobbits consume, the frequent gathering at pubs and inns, and the later trauma of a foreign invasion (surely an occupation worse than the book describes) how likely is it that there are lots of alcoholics, if not lots of gout?

High Infant Mortality I've seen this suggested somewhere before, and it sadly seems like a topic that ought to be when considering the high rate of successful childbirths. Unless the prolific hobbits have some evolutionary advantage in childbirth, most hobbit-mothers would have lost a child, if not more.