Archaeological Neglect of Children’s Material Culture The speaker, a specialist in hair lulitic and other plasticine age, reflects on the neglect of children’s material culture in archaeology. They observed their baby girl manipulating toys and saw similarities between her toys and archaeological artifacts. The speaker suggests that archaeology has long neglected the leavings of children due to the dominance of male academics who traditionally focused on men’s activities. The emergence of feminist archaeology highlighted the importance of women in prehistory and their equally important contributions. Transcript: Speaker 1 Sure. I get this question all the time. So I am a specialist in hair lulitic and other plasticine age. So before 11,000 years old artifacts made out of hard animal materials. So ivory, barn, teeth, shell, that kind of thing. And after my PhD and returning to Australia, I had my baby girl. And I would come home from work at the end of the day and watch her manipulating her toys and playing with things and interacting with the environment. And a specific example happened where she had those really large street chalk that you used for sidewalks. And she would use this to draw on the side of our house and at the front of our house. And when they got too small, she’d hand them to us. And they look exactly like ocarpe pieces that we find in the archaeological records. Speaker 2 And these got me thinking about what things were actually made or produced by children and that we’ve always ashamed for adults. So in some of your papers, you do talk about this phenomenon that archaeology has just long neglected the leavings of children, the sort of material culture of children and so on. So why is that? What do you think has gone into that neglect? Speaker 1 I think it’s more than twofold, I would say. The first thing is archaeology has long been dominated by male academics. This is all academia. And men are interested in what men do. They want to talk about hunting, they want to talk about stone tools, they want to talk about all the things that are surrounding men’s lives. So there’s been a traditional focus on men’s activities, which is where feminist archaeology came back in and pointed out that there were women in prehistory too doing equally important Things. And also women could make stone tools. (Time 0:04:09)
Archaeological Neglect of Children’s Material Culture The speaker, a specialist in ancient artifacts, observed her baby manipulating toys and began to consider the production of items by children in the archaeological record. She noticed that children’s items were often mistaken for adult artifacts. The neglect of children’s material culture in archaeology is attributed to male dominance in the field, leading to a traditional focus on men’s activities. This neglect has been challenged by feminist archaeology, which highlights the equally important contributions of women and the existence of women in prehistory, capable of making stone tools. Transcript: Speaker 1 Sure. I get this question all the time. So I am a specialist in hair lulitic and other plasticine age. So before 11,000 years old artifacts made out of hard animal materials. So ivory, barn, teeth, shell, that kind of thing. And after my PhD and returning to Australia, I had my baby girl. And I would come home from work at the end of the day and watch her manipulating her toys and playing with things and interacting with the environment. And a specific example happened where she had those really large street chalk that you used for sidewalks. And she would use this to draw on the side of our house and at the front of our house. And when they got too small, she’d hand them to us. And they look exactly like ocarpe pieces that we find in the archaeological records. Speaker 2 And these got me thinking about what things were actually made or produced by children and that we’ve always ashamed for adults. So in some of your papers, you do talk about this phenomenon that archaeology has just long neglected the leavings of children, the sort of material culture of children and so on. So why is that? What do you think has gone into that neglect? Speaker 1 I think it’s more than twofold, I would say. The first thing is archaeology has long been dominated by male academics. This is all academia. And men are interested in what men do. They want to talk about hunting, they want to talk about stone tools, they want to talk about all the things that are surrounding men’s lives. So there’s been a traditional focus on men’s activities, which is where feminist archaeology came back in and pointed out that there were women in prehistory too doing equally important Things. And also women could make stone tools. (Time 0:04:09)
Reevaluating the Focus of Archaeology Archaeology has historically focused on men’s activities, but feminist archaeology has highlighted the presence and contributions of women in prehistory. There has been a recent push to also recognize the role of children in prehistoric communities, as they have been overlooked due to the traditional focus on activities like hunting and tool-making. This oversight denies the significant impact that children have in their communities, where they actively support themselves and their families by gathering resources and assisting in various tasks. Transcript: Speaker 1 I think it’s more than twofold, I would say. The first thing is archaeology has long been dominated by male academics. This is all academia. And men are interested in what men do. They want to talk about hunting, they want to talk about stone tools, they want to talk about all the things that are surrounding men’s lives. So there’s been a traditional focus on men’s activities, which is where feminist archaeology came back in and pointed out that there were women in prehistory too doing equally important Things. And also women could make stone tools. So in the 70s, we saw this big push for women back in the picture. And now we’re doing the same thing with children. There are children in these communities doing things as well. So there was this lack of interest from the academics, but they’ve also been put in the too hard basket. The too hard, oh, what’s the too hard basket? So people have generally argued that because children aren’t doing important things like hunting or making baskets or other everyday items that we can’t see their record archaeologically, That they’re not leaving things in the archaeological world for us to find. I see. Speaker 2 So the too hard basket is where everything that sort of doesn’t leave quite a tangible enough trace, it gets shoved into that basket. Yeah. Speaker 1 And many researchers have pointed this out. This really denies the diverse impact that children have in their communities. Many communities, very young children, are supporting themselves as much as their family. They’re helping gather resources. They’re helping mom and dad, you know, make things or fix things. They’re not just, you know, sitting around the campfire doing nothing all day. Okay. (Time 0:05:21)
Interpreting Small Projectile Artifacts in Archeology The speaker discusses studying small projectile points and baton perdu in French and German museums, suggesting that they may have been used as miniature versions of normal tools. They mention a paper titled ‘Is it ritual or is it children?’ which challenges the tendency in archaeology to categorize unexplained artifacts as ritual objects. The speaker notes that there is often the assumption that unidentifiable artifacts must have had a ritual purpose because their actual use is unknown. Transcript: Speaker 1 And I’m doing this again now with the same data. When I was looking at material in the French and German museums, I was studying projectile points with the tips of spears or dots that you were throwing with spear thrower and looking At evidence for them being maintained. And amongst these many thousands of pieces of broken projectile technology were some very small ones and also some very small examples of what we call baton per se. It’s a long piece of antler with at least one hole in it in which we think there’s either a spear straightener, thongs smooth after making leather thongs, or could be some kind of engineering Tool to suspend food or heavy items off the ground out of reach of wolves or rats or anything. We don’t actually know what it is. And so I’m like, oh, well, there are these very small things like miniature versions, which is exactly what we’d expect to find. Okay. Speaker 2 So maybe we can start in by talking about this paper you had a few years back that has this nicely self-explanatory title. Is it ritual or is it children? So could you just tell us a little bit about sort of the main goal of that paper? Speaker 1 So in archaeology, there’s a long standing joke that anything that we don’t understand what it is or what its purpose was, we put in that it’s ritual bucket. It must be ritual because we don’t understand what that is. So it’s not a tool. (Time 0:08:15)
The Use of Ethnographic Analogy in Archaeology and Understanding Universal Patterns of Play in Children Ethnographic analogy, where written records of observations made by Western anthropologists of other communities are used to interpret archaeological findings, is debated. While modern cultures differ from those in the past, ethnographic records are useful in understanding tools and artifacts that are unfamiliar today. Additionally, universal patterns of play in children from diverse cultures and environmental contexts suggest that these behaviors can be confidently pushed back thousands of years. Transcript: Speaker 1 Sure, so there has been debate and discussion about the use of ethnographic analogy. So ethnographic analogy being where you’ll look at written records of observations made by Western anthropologists of another community and how they live their lives and how they Do things. And then using that information to help try to interpret an archaeological finding. Obviously there are problems with that in that modern people have had the advantage of X amount of additional years and their cultures are often going to be very different from those In the past. But they are very useful in helping us understand things that we have no knowledge of nowadays. So I tell my students there are a lot of tools that we use very common place in the past that us in Western nations have never seen before in our lives because we no longer have to make our Own things. We no longer have to hunt our own food. And so a lot of times we’ll find something and you’ll take it to an artist because you suspect it might have something to do with making baskets and they know exactly what it is and how to Use it and they can show you what it is. So the ethnographic records are saying you can find a tool or an artifact, you don’t know what it is. You can look in the ethnographic literature and see if you can find something that’s described that will help you identify it. But in the case of children, we’re trying to show that if you look at children all over the world from very different environmental contexts, from very different cultures, they have These same patterns of play. So because it’s so universal, we can push these things back very confidently thousands of years. (Time 0:14:15)
Insights on Universal Play Behaviors Children’s play behaviors using play things in recent times can be indicative of similar behaviors tens of thousands of years ago. Ethnographic records point to the universal presence of features like figurines and dolls as fixtures of children’s lives around the world. The play behaviors of children, such as playing with sticks like dolls, are also observed in other primates. Transcript: Speaker 2 Right. So the idea just to gloss what you were just saying is that if children universally or apparently universally have been doing these behaviors using these kinds of play things in the Recent past, we can be pretty confident that they were doing so tens of thousands of years ago. So maybe we could talk a little bit more about, you’ve already mentioned some of them, but maybe we could just linger a little bit on some of the interesting generalizations you pulled Out from the ethnographic record in this paper. So there’s a number of these features that you pinpoint as being just like fixtures of play, fixtures of children’s lives around the world. So yeah, maybe we could just walk through something. So you mentioned, for example, figurines, so small figures, sometimes made of mud and so on. So what are some of the other ones? Speaker 1 So it’s either dolls or figurines. So dolls are very popular with little girls. And even work done by primatologists, not so long ago, we’ll find that juvenile chimpanzees play with sticks like dolls. (Time 0:15:55)
Evolutionary significance of dolls and figurines in child play Dolls are popular with little girls and have been observed in juvenile chimpanzees, indicating deep evolutionary behavior. Figurines can be animal or machine-shaped, made by the child or a loving family member, and used for special occasions like coming of age. The technical distinction between doll and figurine is that dolls are human figurines, while figurines are more about animals or technologies. Children also enjoy miniaturized hunting and fishing equipment to imitate adults. Transcript: Speaker 1 So it’s either dolls or figurines. So dolls are very popular with little girls. And even work done by primatologists, not so long ago, we’ll find that juvenile chimpanzees play with sticks like dolls. So this is how we know this is very evolutionary deep behavior, but figurines, which can be at usually animal figurines, but if they’re in a culture, agricultural culture where they’ve Got carts and plows and things, I also have those kinds of machines. And they can be made out of anything. They will be made out of whatever raw materials are available in their environment. They could be something made by the child because they enjoy making them or it could be made for them by a loving family member or for a special occasion, like a coming of age. So sorry, just to clarify, is there a technical distinction that I’m not aware of between figurine and doll? Speaker 2 What is the? Speaker 1 Not really. So when we say doll, we’re talking about a human figurine. Okay. Where the other figurines are talking more about animals or technologies. And then you also talk about miniaturized like hunting and fishing kind of equipment, which is just very cute. Yeah, so the kids, I mean, and all parents know this, you know, kids want to try out whatever it is, mom and dad are using regularly (Time 0:16:43)
Cultural Significance of Objects in Children’s Practices Objects like hunting tools and musical instruments are used in children’s practices for ceremonial or playful purposes. Musical instruments range from full-size to miniature versions depending on the child’s ability to manipulate them. Ornamentation in children’s practices has a deep cultural and evolutionary significance, often providing important evidence for the evolution of human minds. Transcript: Speaker 2 Right, right. They must be used as part of some sort of like ceremonies or spells or that sort of thing, right? Yeah, that’s interesting. And then, okay, you also talk about musical instruments. Is this referred to musical instruments that are like smaller, like shrunken down in the way that the hunting tools would be or not necessarily? Speaker 1 Not necessarily. I think in terms of musical instruments, they’re often the full-size ones, but they can be toy miniature versions as well. I think it depends on how big the original instrument is and whether a child can manipulate that or if they need a smaller version. Speaker 2 And then one other one I wanted to mention was ornamentation, which struck me because like I hadn’t really thought much of ornamentation as sort of a child-specific or child-geared Speaker 1 Kind of practice, but you sort of make the case that there is a connection between ornamentation and children. Yeah, we bring that up because ornamentation is extremely important in human evolution and archaeology and how we understand the evolution of our minds. Right. So ornamentation is often the oldest evidence for our minds being as they are today or getting very close to how they work today. So whenever we find these things in very deep context, we all get very excited about it and want to know exactly how they were made and how they were used and how they fit in with everything Else we know about the people. (Time 0:20:16)