Episode 129 - The Archaeology of Childhood

Amber and Anna examine how different ancient cultures viewed children and childhood. We’ll also discuss how the archaeological interpretation of the lives of children in the ancient past has shifted as we’ve gained more and more evidence.

Links

• Children Are Not Small Adults: Significance of Biological and Cognitive Development in Medical Practice (Handbook of the Philosophy of Medicine)

• Childhood – an historical perspective (Good Childhood Blog)

• Cultural Relativism (Cultural Anthropology)

• Why babies in medieval paintings look like ugly old men (Vox)

• Role and Importance of Children in the Middle Ages (ThoughtCo.)

• Childbirth, Childhood and Adolescence in the Middle Ages (ThoughtCo.)

• Children in the ancient Middle East were valued and vulnerable — not unlike children today (The Conversation)

• The composition of a Neandertal social group revealed by the hominin footprints at Le Rozel (Normandy, France) (Proceedings of the National Academy of Science)

• Neanderthal children's footprints offer rare snapshot of Stone Age family life (ABC News

• Neanderthal children shivered and suffered in ancient Europe (Science)

• Neanderthal children grew and were weaned similar to us (EurekAlert)

• What ancient footprints can tell us about what it was like to be a child in prehistoric times (The Conversation)

• Prehistoric children as young as eight worked as brickmakers and miners (Nature)

• 400,000-year-old 'School of Rock' Found in Prehistoric Cave in Israel (Ha’aretz)

• These Miniature Tools Taught Ancient Children How to Hunt and Fight (Smithsonian)

• Archaeology and Developmental Psychology: A Brief Survey of Ancient Athenian Toys (American Journal of Play)

• What prehistoric toys can tell us about human evolution (ABC News)

• Why Ancient Toys Are Elusive Artifacts (Discover)

• Is It Ritual? Or Is It Children? Distinguishing Consequences of Play from Ritual Actions in the Prehistoric Archaeological Record (Current Anthropology)

• Discovering Childhood: Using Fingerprints to Find Children in the Archaeological Record (American Antiquity)

• Animation in Palaeolithic art: a pre-echo of cinema (Antiquity)

• Make your own version of a Palaeolithic Toy and a Thaumatrope (Beanie and J's Creative Adventures)

Image: Painted wooden toy horse from Karanis excavations, Roman period, 1st-4th centuries A.D. (KM 7692, Field number 28-204A*-D). University of Michigan