Growing Up in the Ice Age : Fossil and Archaeological Evidence of the Lived Lives of Plio-Pleistocene Children

In prehistoric societies children comprised 40–65% of the population, yet by default, our ancestral landscapes are peopled by adults who hunt, gather, fish, knap tools, and make art. But these adults were also parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles who had to make space physically, emotionally, intellectually, and cognitively for the infants, children, and adolescents around them. __Growing Up in the Ice Age__ is a timely and evidence-based look at the lived lives of Paleolithic children and the communities of which they were a part. By rendering these ‘invisible’ children visible, readers will gain a new understanding of the Paleolithic period as a whole, and in doing so will learn how children have contributed to the biological and cultural entities we are today. **Table of Contents** Acknowledgements Foreword by Jane Baxter 1. Toward an archaeology of Paleolithic children 2. Birth and the Paleolithic ‘family’ 3. Toys, burials and secret spaces 4. Stone tools, skill acquisition and learning a craft 5. Children, oral storytelling and the Paleolithic ‘arts’ 6. Adolescence in the Ice Age 7. Paleolithic children as drivers of human evolution Appendix 1. Chronology of the Paleolithic and timeline of fossil hominins Appendix 2. Table of subadult fossils in the Plio-Pleistocene (perinatal–ca. 10 years) Appendix 3. Table of subadult fossils from the Plio-Pleistocene (ca. 10 years–20 years). Bibliography Index Winner of the 2023 European Association of Archaeologists Book of the Year Award In prehistoric societies children comprised 4065% of the population, yet by default, our ancestral landscapes are peopled by adults who hunt, gather, fish, knap tools, and make art. But these adults were also parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles who had to make space physically, emotionally, intellectually, and cognitively for the infants, children, and adolescents around them. Growing Up in the Ice Age is a timely and evidence-based look at the lived lives of Paleolithic children and the communities of which they were a part. By rendering these invisible children visible, readers will gain a new understanding of the Paleolithic period as a whole, and in doing so will learn how children have contributed to the biological and cultural entities we are today. Table of Contents Acknowledgements Foreword by Jane Baxter 1. Toward an archaeology of Paleolithic children 2. Birth and the Paleolithic family 3. Toys, burials and secret spaces 4. Stone tools, skill acquisition and learning a craft 5. Children, oral storytelling and the Paleolithic arts 6. Adolescence in the Ice Age 7. Paleolithic children as drivers of human evolution Appendix 1. Chronology of the Paleolithic and timeline of fossil hominins Appendix 2. Table of subadult fossils in the Plio-Pleistocene (perinatalca. 10 years) Appendix 3. Table of subadult fossils from the Plio-Pleistocene (ca. 10 years20 years). Bibliography Index It is estimated that in prehistoric societies children comprised at least forty to sixty-five percent of the population, yet by default, our ancestral landscapes are peopled by adults who hunt, gather, fish, knap tools and make art. But these adults were also parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles (however they would have codified these kin relationships) who had to make space physically, emotionally, intellectually, and cognitively for the infants, children and adolescents around them. The economic, social, and political roles of Paleolithic children are often understudied because they are assumed to be unknowable or negligible. Drawing on the most recent data from the cognitive sciences and from the ethnographic, fossil, archaeological, and primate records, 'Growing Up in the Ice Age' challenges these assumptions. This volume is a timely and evidence-based look at the lived lives of Paleolithic children and the communities of which they were a part. By rendering the "invisible" children visible, readers will gain a new understanding not only of the contributions that children have made to the biological and cultural entities we are today but also of the Paleolithic period as whole