The Archaeology of Childhood: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on an Archaeological Enigma (SUNY Series, The Institute for European and Mediterranean Archaeology Distinguished Monograph Series)

Critical interdisciplinary examination of archaeology’s approach to childhood in prehistory. Children existed in ancient times as active participants in the societies in which they lived and the cultures they belonged to. Despite their various roles, and in spite of the demographic composition of ancient societies where children comprised a large percentage of the population, children are almost completely missing in many current archaeological discourses. To remedy this, The Archaeology of Childhood aims to instigate interdisciplinary dialogues between archaeologists and other disciplines on the notion of childhood and children and to develop theoretical and methodological approaches to analyze the archaeological record in order to explore and understand children and their role in the formation of past cultures. Contributors consider how the notion of childhood can be expressed in artifacts and material records and examine how childhood is described in literary and historical sources of people from different regions and cultures. While we may never be able to reconstruct every last aspect of what childhood was like in the past, this volume argues that we can certainly bring children back into archaeological thinking and research, and correct many erroneous and gender-biased interpretations. Introduction: Children as archaeological enigma / Güner Coskunsu -- Section 1. Theorizing (in)visbility, legitimacy, and biases in archaeological approaches to children and childhood -- The devil's advocate or our worst case scenario : the archaeology of childhood without any children / Jane Eva Baxter -- Making children legitimate : negotiating the place of children and childhoods in archaeological theory / Kathryn Kamp -- Considerations for method and theory in the archaeology of age / Scott Hutson -- Bodies and encounters : seeing invisible children in archaeology / Joanna Sofaer -- Modern biases, hunter-gatherers' children : on the visibility of children in other cultures / Nurit-Bird-David -- Section 2. Interdisciplinary and archaeological approaches to studying children and childhood in the past -- Grown up : adult height dimorphism as an archive of living conditions of boys and girls in prehistory / Eva Rosenstock -- Placing children in society : using ancient DNA to identify sex and kinship of child skeletal remains, and implications for gender and social organisation / Keri Brown -- Metaphors for understanding children and their role in culture / Jack Meacham -- Section 3. Case studies in the archaeology of childhood -- Children of the Ice Age / Paul Bahn -- Children in the anthropomorphic imagery of the European and Near Eastern Neolithic / Peter Biehl -- From playthings to sacred objects? : household enculturation rituals, figurines and plastering activities at Neolithic Çatalhöyük, Turkey / Sharon Moses -- The ends and means of childhood : mourning children in early Greece / Susan Langdon -- The Children's Cemetery of Lugnano in Teverina, Umbria : hierarchy, magic and malaria / David Soren -- Ethnicity and sexuality in Roman imperial relief : reconstructing the pederastic gaze / Jeannine Diddle Uzzi -- "A place for everything and everything in its place" : the cultural context of late Victorian toys / Kyle Somerville -- Section 4commentaries -- Theoretical issues in investigating childhood / Frank Hole -- Grubby little fingerprints : a commentary on the visibility of childhood / Traci Ardren Intro -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Tables -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction Children as Archaeological Enigma -- A Brief Overview -- Why are Children Missing in Archaeological Interpretations? -- Why Do Archaeologists Need to Care about Ancient Children? -- How Do We Rescue Children in Archaeological Records? -- Structure of the Book -- Acknowledgments -- References Cited -- Part I : Theorizing (In)visibility, Legitimacy, and Biases inArchaeological Approaches to Children and Childhood -- Chapter One: The Devil's Advocate or Our Worst Case Scenario: The Archaeology of Childhood Without Any Children -- The Enduring Question of the (In)Visibility of Children -- The Conflation of Value and Visibility: A Brief Historical Perspective -- The Visibility of Childhood at a Time of Disciplinary Advocacy -- Our Worst Case Scenario? The Archaeology of Childhood without Children -- Beyond "Miniature Adulthood": Childhood in Seventeenth-Century New England -- Bodies and Identities: Reconfiguring Ideas of (In)Visibility in the Archaeological Study of Children -- Identity and Personal Objects -- Identity and Biographical Objects -- References Cited -- Chapter Two: Making Children Legitimate: Negotiating the Place of Children and Childhoods in Archaeological Theory -- The Inadequate Knowns -- The Need for Archaeological Study of Children and Childhoods -- The Need for Methodological Rigor -- Texts and Art -- The Skeletal Remains of Children Themselves -- Burial Treatments and Grave Furnishings -- Finger, foot, and hand prints -- Artifacts -- Space Use -- The Role for Experiments, Ethnography, and Ethnoarchaeology -- Conclusion -- References Cited -- Chapter Three: Method and Theory for an Archaeology of Age -- Introduction -- Identity, Relationality, and Vision -- Evidence -- Figurines -- Children as Figurine Makers -- Figurines as toys