The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Childhood

Abstract

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.

Care of Infants in the Past: Bridging evolutionary anthropological and bioarchaeological approaches

“…Since the mid-1990s there has been a rapid increase in the amount of research on children and childhood in the past from anthropological, archaeological and bioarchaeological perspectives (Baxter, 2005 ; Crawford et al, 2018 ; Lillehammer, 2015 ; Mays et al, 2017 ), and the start of the recognition of the value of assessing the young and the intricate relationship between the mother and infant (Blake, 2017 ; Gowland & Halcrow, 2020 ; Halcrow et al, 2017 ; Le Roy & Murphy, 2020 ). The recognition of the wealth of information that can be gleaned from the study of infants and children has resulted in a large number of bioarchaeological studies investigating mortality, palaeopathology, growth and growth disruption (Lewis, 2007 , 2017 ; Halcrow & Tayles, 2008 ).…”

Activation of Cognitive Activities of 5-6 Grade Students on Lessons of Labor Learning

“…The quality of the organization of the educational process is directly dependent on the professional training of teachers, their knowledge of factual material and knowledge of teaching students the basics of everyday activities and self-care, awareness and realization of conditions that contribute to improving the cognitive activity of students in the classroom (Crawford et al, 2018;Sulasminten, 2016).…”