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Real understanding of past societies is not possible without including children, and yet they have been strangely invisible in the archaeological record. In this volume, experts from around the world investigate childhood in the past, showing why it is important to understand childhood, why different cultures construct different ideas of how to rear children, what part children play in the community, and when and why childhood ends. The contributors also question why childhood has so often been missing from archaeological interpretation. Their answers are astonishing and thought provoking, challenging archaeologists to reconsider common assumptions about ways of looking at material culture in the past, and to reconsider the place of children in creating the archaeological record itself. However marginal the traces of children’s bodies and bricolage may seem compared to those of adults, archaeological evidence of children and childhood can be found in the most astonishing places and spaces, as well as in the most mundane. The archaeology of childhood is one of the most exciting and challenging areas for new discovery about past societies. Children are part of every human society, but childhood is a cultural construct. Each society develops its own idea about what a childhood should be, what children can or should do, and how they should be trained to take their place in the world. The archaeological record for children and childhood is regionally and chronologically diverse. Children are also increasingly being recognised as having played a part in creating the archaeological record itself. In this volume, the contributors ask questions about childhood—thresholds of age and growth, childhood in the material culture, the death of children, and the intersection of the childhood and the social, economic, religious, and political worlds of societies in the past. The volume spans the periods from earliest prehistory to the present day to provide a rich and nuanced perspective on childhood, revealing the commonalities and the very great differences in childhood experiences the world over.
Real understanding of past societies is not possible without including children, and yet they have been strangely invisible in the archaeological record. In this volume, experts from around the world investigate childhood in the past, showing why it is important to understand childhood, why different cultures construct different ideas of how to rear children, what part children play in the community, and when and why childhood ends. The contributors also question why childhood has so often been missing from archaeological interpretation. Their answers are astonishing and thought provoking, challenging archaeologists to reconsider common assumptions about ways of looking at material culture in the past, and to reconsider the place of children in creating the archaeological record itself. However marginal the traces of children’s bodies and bricolage may seem compared to those of adults, archaeological evidence of children and childhood can be found in the most astonishing places and spaces, as well as in the most mundane. The archaeology of childhood is one of the most exciting and challenging areas for new discovery about past societies. Children are part of every human society, but childhood is a cultural construct. Each society develops its own idea about what a childhood should be, what children can or should do, and how they should be trained to take their place in the world. The archaeological record for children and childhood is regionally and chronologically diverse. Children are also increasingly being recognised as having played a part in creating the archaeological record itself. In this volume, the contributors ask questions about childhood—thresholds of age and growth, childhood in the material culture, the death of children, and the intersection of the childhood and the social, economic, religious, and political worlds of societies in the past. The volume spans the periods from earliest prehistory to the present day to provide a rich and nuanced perspective on childhood, revealing the commonalities and the very great differences in childhood experiences the world over.
Within Linearbandkeramik (LBK) studies, several models of social structure and organisation have been debated since the 1960s, influenced by several major anthropological theories that even today guide the debates. We discuss here the notion of social interactions in LBK contexts by focusing on the primary form of LBK social unit: the household. Assuming that the solutions found by the LBK communities to navigate their ambivalent position regarding sedentism and mobility probably formed the basis of their social organisation, social networks would have played a crucial role in ensuring the longevity and spread of the LBK culture. The village pioneer stage crystallises several core mechanisms of LBK society and is particularly relevant for assessing the dynamic processes involved in the fundamental social interactions that structure LBK societies. Invoking rather the “hofplatz” or the “ward” models, the coexistence of different groups attached to specific expressions of identity within the same settlements was highlighted and led to several hypotheses of social organisation putting clan or lineage structures at the foreground. Differentiation or inequalities between individuals and groups were also debated, even recently based on new technological and bioarchaeological data. In the frame of the current ANR Homes project, our goal is to test the reliability of these models based on an evidence-based approach and deepen the economical model we recently proposed.
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