The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Childhood 9780199670697, 0199670692
Real understanding of past societies is not possible without including children, and yet they have been strangely invisi
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Table of contents :
Cover
The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Childhood
Copyright
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Abbreviations
List of Contributors
SECTION I INTRODUCTIONS: THE HISTORY AND IMPACT OF THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF CHILDHOOD
1. The Archaeology of Childhood: The Birth and Development of a Discipline
2. The History of the Archaeology of Childhood
SECTION II DEFINING CHILDREN AND CHILDHOOD
3. Techniques for Identifying the Age and Sex of Children at Death
4. The Study of Growth in Skeletal Populations
5. Cultural Models of Stages in the Life Course
6. Infants and Mothers: Linked Lives and Embodied Life Courses
SECTION III CHILDREN, FAMILY, AND HOUSEHOLDS
7. Prehistoric Households and Childhood: Growing Up in a Daily Routine
8. Archaeological and Epigraphic Evidence for Infancy in the Roman World
9. Roman Household Organization
10. Material Culture and Childhood in Harappan South Asia
11. Working-class Childhood in Nineteenth-century New York City
SECTION IV LEARNING, SOCIALIZATION, AND TRAINING
12. Learning the Tools of Survival in the Thule and Dorset Cultures of Arctic Canada
13. Educating Victorian Children: A Material Culture Perspective from Cambridge, England
14. Above and Below the Surface: Environment, Work, Death, and Upbringing in Sixteenth- to Seventeenth-century Sweden
15. Boys at Sea: An Osteological and Historical Analysis of Ships’ Boys in the Late Eighteenth- to Early Nineteenth-century British Royal Navy
16. Training Children for Work in the Nineteenth Century: Material Culture Approaches
SECTION V SELF, IDENTITY, AND COMMUNITY
17. Portrait of a Palaeolithic Family: Art, Ornamentation, and Children’s Relationship with their Community
18. Care and Socialization of Children in the European Bronze Age
19. Representations of Children in Ancient Greece
20. Children’s Graffiti in Roman Pompeii and Herculaneum
21. Vecino Archaeology and the Politics of Play in New Mexico, USA
22. Children and Migration
SECTION VI HEALTH, DISEASE, AND ENVIRONMENT
23. The Developing Forager: Reconstructing Childhood Activity Patterns from Long Bone Cross-sectional Geometry
24. Feeding Infants from the Iron Age to the Early Medieval Period in Britain
25. Disease and Trauma in the Children from Roman Britain
26. Infant Head Shaping in Eurasia in the First Millennium ad
27. The Contribution of Stable Isotope Analysis to the Study of Childhood Movement and Migration
SECTION VII DEATH, MEMORY, AND MEANING
28. Where Are the Children? Locating Children in Funerary Space in the Ancient Greek World
29. A World Without Play? Children in Ancient Egyptian Art and Iconography
30. Roman Sarcophagi and Children
31. Child Sacrifice in the Ancient Andes: Power and Sociopolitical Dynamics in Antiquity
32. Adult Appearances? The Representation of Children and Childhood in Medieval Art
33. Children’s Burial Grounds (cillíní) in Ireland: New Insights into an Early Modern Religious Tradition
SECTION VIII SEEING, PRESENTING, AND INTERPRETING THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF CHILDHOOD
34. Gazing on the Past (and Being Photobombed by Children): Archaeology, the Early Years of Modern Photography, and the Visible/Invisible Child
35. From the Archaeology of Childhood to Modern Children Visiting Archaeological Museums: An Italian Perspective
36. Material Culture, Museums, Movies, and Make Believe: Representing Medieval Childhood
37. Presenting Children from the Distant Past in Museums
Author Index
Subject Index
Citation preview
T h e Ox f o r d H a n d b o o k o f
THE A RC HA E OL O G Y OF C H I L DHO OD
The Oxford Handbook of
THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF CHILDHOOD Edited by
SALLY CRAWFORD, DAWN M. HADLEY, and
GILLIAN SHEPHERD
1
3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, ox2 6dp, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Oxford University Press 2018 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First Edition published in 2018 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2018940968 ISBN 978–0–19–967069–7 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
Contents
List of Figures List of Tables List of Abbreviations List of Contributors
xi xxi xxiii xxv
SE C T ION I I N T RODU C T ION S : T H E H I STORY A N D I M PAC T OF T H E A RC HA E OL O G Y OF C H I L DHO OD 1. The Archaeology of Childhood: The Birth and Development of a Discipline Sally Crawford, Dawn M. Hadley, and Gillian Shepherd 2. The History of the Archaeology of Childhood Grete Lillehammer
3 38
SE C T ION I I DE F I N I N G C H I L DR E N A N D C H I L DHO OD 3. Techniques for Identifying the Age and Sex of Children at Death Jo Buckberry
55
4. The Study of Growth in Skeletal Populations Simon Mays
71
5. Cultural Models of Stages in the Life Course M. Annette Grove and David F. Lancy
90
6. Infants and Mothers: Linked Lives and Embodied Life Courses Rebecca Gowland
104
vi Contents
SE C T ION I I I C H I L DR E N , FA M I LY, A N D HO U SE HOL D S 7. Prehistoric Households and Childhood: Growing Up in a Daily Routine Brigitte Röder
123
8. Archaeological and Epigraphic Evidence for Infancy in the Roman World Maureen Carroll
148
9. Roman Household Organization Penelope Allison
165
10. Material Culture and Childhood in Harappan South Asia Supriya Varma
179
11. Working-class Childhood in Nineteenth-century New York City Rebecca Yamin
197
SE C T ION I V L E A R N I N G , S O C IA L I Z AT ION , AND TRAINING 12. Learning the Tools of Survival in the Thule and Dorset Cultures of Arctic Canada Robert W. Park
213
13. Educating Victorian Children: A Material Culture Perspective from Cambridge, England Craig Cessford
228
14. Above and Below the Surface: Environment, Work, Death, and Upbringing in Sixteenth-to Seventeenth-century Sweden Anne Ingvarsson, Jan Mispelaere, and Ylva Bäckström
251
15. Boys at Sea: An Osteological and Historical Analysis of Ships’ Boys in the Late Eighteenth-to Early Nineteenth-century British Royal Navy Ceridwen Boston
275
16. Training Children for Work in the Nineteenth Century: Material Culture Approaches Vicky Crewe
297
Contents vii
SE C T ION V SE L F, I DE N T I T Y, A N D C OM M U N I T Y 17. Portrait of a Palaeolithic Family: Art, Ornamentation, and Children’s Relationship with their Community Jessica Cooney Williams
315
18. Care and Socialization of Children in the European Bronze Age Margarita Sánchez Romero
338
19. Representations of Children in Ancient Greece Olympia Bobou
352
20. Children’s Graffiti in Roman Pompeii and Herculaneum Katherine V. Huntley
376
21. Vecino Archaeology and the Politics of Play in New Mexico, USA B. Sunday Eiselt 22. Children and Migration Dawn M. Hadley
387 404
SE C T ION V I H E A LT H , DI SE A SE , A N D E N V I RON M E N T 23. The Developing Forager: Reconstructing Childhood Activity Patterns from Long Bone Cross-sectional Geometry Lesley Harrington and Benjamin Osipov
429
24. Feeding Infants from the Iron Age to the Early Medieval Period in Britain Rebecca C. Redfern
447
25. Disease and Trauma in the Children from Roman Britain Mary E. Lewis
467
26. Infant Head Shaping in Eurasia in the First Millennium ad Susanne Hakenbeck
483
27. The Contribution of Stable Isotope Analysis to the Study of Childhood Movement and Migration Katie A. Hemer and Jane A. Evans
505
viii Contents
SE C T ION V I I DE AT H , M E M ORY, AND MEANING 28. Where Are the Children? Locating Children in Funerary Space in the Ancient Greek World Gillian Shepherd
521
29. A World Without Play? Children in Ancient Egyptian Art and Iconography Nicola Harrington
539
30. Roman Sarcophagi and Children Janet Huskinson 31. Child Sacrifice in the Ancient Andes: Power and Sociopolitical Dynamics in Antiquity Deborah E. Blom
557
573
32. Adult Appearances? The Representation of Children and Childhood in Medieval Art 590 Sophie Oosterwijk 33. Children’s Burial Grounds (cillíní) in Ireland: New Insights into an Early Modern Religious Tradition Colm J. Donnelly and Eileen M. Murphy
608
SE C T ION V I I I SE E I N G , P R E SE N T I N G , A N D I N T E R P R E T I N G T H E A RC HA E OL O G Y OF C H I L DHO OD 34. Gazing on the Past (and Being Photobombed by Children): Archaeology, the Early Years of Modern Photography, and the Visible/Invisible Child Sally Crawford and Katharina Ulmschneider
631
35. From the Archaeology of Childhood to Modern Children Visiting Archaeological Museums: An Italian Perspective Claudia Lambrugo
651
Contents ix
36. Material Culture, Museums, Movies, and Make Believe: Representing Medieval Childhood Mark A. Hall
668
37. Presenting Children from the Distant Past in Museums Sharon Brookshaw
687
Author Index Subject Index
701 725
List of Figures
1.1 A 10–12-year-old buried with a spear and shield. Plan of the early Anglo- Saxon grave 50 from Westgarth Gardens (Suffolk, England).
5
1.2 The surviving teeth from Westgarth Gardens (Suffolk, England) grave 50, indicating that the skeleton had achieved 10–12 years at the age of death.
6
1.3 The fingerprints of children on a ceramic jug, where they had affixed the handles during experimental pottery making.
8
1.4 Substantial gravestone commemorating the deaths of two infants from the goldmining ‘children’s cemetery’ at Pennyweight Flat Cemetery, Castlemaine (Victoria, Australia).
9
1.5 Osteologist analysing foetal skeletal remains.
12
1.6 Funerary monument of the first century bc from Rome (Italy), depicting a freed couple, Quintus Servilius and Sempronia Eune, and their freeborn son, Globulus.
15
1.7 Boys playing at ploughing, Tripoli (Libya), c.1890. 19 1.8 Porotic hyperostosis evident on the cranial vault of a child.
25
1.9 Ancient Greek child and adult sarcophagi from the West Necropolis, Megara Hyblaea (Sicily, Italy), seventh-to sixth-century bc. Not in situ. 26 3.1 Radiograph of the jaws of a c.3-year-old.
58
3.2 Femur, tibia, and fibula of a 7-to 8-year-old.
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3.3 Sequence of development of the femur, from neonate on the left to adult on the right, showing appearance and then fusion of epiphyses and apophyses. 62 3.4 Comparison of average femur length of individuals of different ages for modern and archaeological populations.
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4.1 Estimated stature plotted against dental age for the Wharram Percy (Yorkshire, England) children.
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7.1 A young servant combing her mistress’s hair.
127
7.2 Wooden sword of a child or weaving sword?
132
7.3 Rattle in the form of a bird, and a feeding bottle from the Late Bronze Age lakeside settlements of Mörigen (Canton of Berne, Switzerland) and Grandson-Corcelettes (Canton of Vaud, Switzerland).
133
xii List of Figures 7.4 Small handaxe made for a child’s hand or rather a special tool for adults: found in the Palaeolithic site of Nadaouiyeh Ain Askar (Syria).
134
8.1 Reconstruction of a baby wearing a necklace strung with apotropaic amulets, based on artefacts from infant burials.
150
8.2 Terracotta votive of a swaddled infant wearing an apotropaic necklace, from Bomarzo (Italy).
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8.3 Scenes of infancy and childhood on the marble sarcophagus of M. Cornelius Statius, from Ostia (Italy).
153
8.4 Gravestone of a mother breastfeeding her infant in the company of her husband and other children, from Dunaújváros (Hungary).
154
8.5 Gravestone of the infant Aeliola wrapped in swaddling bands, from Metz (France). 158 11.1 Aerial view of excavation done on the Courthouse (Five Points, New York, USA) site in 1991.
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11.2 Plan view showing archaeological features identified on the Five Points (New York, USA) site.
200
11.3 Marbles, dominos, and a die recovered from Feature J on the Five Points (New York, USA) site.
201
11.4 Lewis Hine photograph of children using the street as a playground.
204
12.1 Map showing locations mentioned in the text, including regions of land and sea ice occupied by prehistoric Arctic populations.
214
12.2 Full-sized and miniature Dorset culture harpoon heads from a single site in Arctic Canada.
221
12.3 Histogram of harpoon head length of 357 Dorset harpoon heads from sites throughout the Canadian Arctic.
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12.4 Thule culture harpoon heads.
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13.1 Location map, containing Ordnance Survey data.
232
13.2 Plan of Sarah Dobson’s property based upon Ordnance Survey map of 1885, showing locations of archaeological features, and view of Planting Bed 3 showing deliberately added material in the base of the feature.
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13.3 Child-specific material from Planting Bed 3: near complete whiteware cup with transfer printed decoration and the Isaac Watts text ‘For I have food while others starve or beg from door to door’, plus sherd from identical vessel and cup with industrially slipped coloured decoration. 234 13.4 Adult material from Planting Bed 3: transfer printed Sicilian pattern serving dish and plate, matching sets of bone china cup and saucer with transfer printed decoration marked FELSPAR PORCELAIN/1803/Blue/
List of Figures xiii M, and whiteware cup and saucer with transfer printed Two Temples pattern.
236
13.5 View of Planting Bed 17, plus material from it including whiteware bowl with transfer printed decoration scene with the pattern name Indian Temple and the makers mark EKB, of Elkin, Knight and Bridgwood of Lane End (1827–40) and base from a whiteware chamber pot with transfer printed decoration with the pattern name The/Serenade and the makers mark R&C of Reed and Clementson of Hanley (1832–9).
238
13.6 Material from Planting Hole 1: whiteware child’s cup with part of the text of Isaac Watts Innocent Play and slate pencils.
239
13.7 Material from posthole F.6378: slate pencils and eighteenth-century copper-alloy Georgian style furniture drop handle.
239
13.8 Child-sized cup and plate fragments from an assemblage deposited c.1882–5 associated with the ceramic retailer Barrett & Sons.
241
13.9 Deaf child’s sign language plate from an assemblage deposited c.1913–21 associated with the Robert Sayle Department Store hostel.
242
13.10 Percentages of material deposited in different contexts.
246
14.1 Distribution of age groups in the grave types excavated at the Sala (Sweden) mining cemetery.
253
14.2 Age distribution of the individuals from the Sala (Sweden) mining cemetery in comparison to the age distribution of individuals from the medieval cemetery of Västerhus and the documentary evidence of deaths at Gunnilbo and Sala town.
256
14.3 The girl with the coronet.
259
14.4 Growth profile for the children at Sala (Sweden) mining cemetery in comparison with post-medieval British children and modern American children. 264 14.5 Age and sex distribution of the skeletal stress markers cribra orbitalia and LEH in the Sala (Sweden) mining cemetery.
265
14.6 Prevalence of cribra orbitalia (CO) and linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH) in children (11.9 years (p-values).
439
23.5 Humerus J left (L) or right (R) side dominance for juveniles aged under and over six years.
440
24.1 Summary of developmental milestones.
449
24.2 Changes in the properties of human milk from birth to weaning, and over a feed (MJ/d: millijoule per day, ml: millilitre).
450
24.3 Weaning age: anthropological data.
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31.1 Male and female life age categories according to Poma de Ayala.
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List of Abbreviations
AICP
Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor
BP
years before present
CO
cribra orbitalia
CR Cremona DOHaD
Developmental Origins of Health and Disease
EBA
Early Bronze Age
EN
Early Neolithic
HCI
Historical Conservation and Interpretation
HEIR
Historic Environment Image Resource
ICOM
International Council of Museums
IMR
infant mortality rate
ISG
Isakovo–Serovo–Glaskovo
IsMEO
Associazione Internazionale di Studi sul Mediterraneo e l’Oriente
KA
Kammararkivet [Archives of the Board of Mines]
LA-ICP-MS
laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry
LEH
linear enamel hypoplasia
LIA
Late Iron Age
LIP
Late Intermediate Period
LN
Late Neolithic
LOESS
locally weighted regression
MJ/d
millijoules per day
MNI
Minimum Number of Items
RA
Riksarkivet Stockholm [Swedish National Archives]
RB
Romano-British
RN Royal Navy SSCIP
Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past
TB tuberculosis TIMS
thermal ionization mass spectrometry
xxiv List of Abbreviations TPQ
terminus post quem
ULA
Uppsala landsarkiv [Regional Archives Uppsala]
UNESCO
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
YMCA
Young Men’s Christian Association
YWCA
Young Women’s Christian Association
List of Contributors
Penelope Allison, Professor of Archaeology, University of Leicester (United Kingdom) Ylva Bäckström, Doctoral Student, Lund University (Sweden) Deborah E. Blom, Associate Professor, University of Vermont (United States of America) Olympia Bobou, Affiliated Lecturer, University of Cambridge (United Kingdom) Ceridwen Boston, Freelance Osteoarchaeologist (United Kingdom) Sharon Brookshaw, Programmes Co-ordinator, Arts and Humanities Research Council (United Kingdom) Jo Buckberry, Reader in Biological Anthropology, University of Bradford (United Kingdom) Maureen Carroll, Professor of Roman Archaeology, University of Sheffield (United Kingdom) Craig Cessford, Cambridge Archaeological Unit, University of Cambridge (United Kingdom) Jessica Cooney Williams, Curator of History at Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums (United Kingdom) Sally Crawford, Senior Research Fellow, University of Oxford (United Kingdom) Vicky Crewe, Learning and Teaching Services, University of Sheffield (United Kingdom) Colm J. Donnelly, Director of the Centre for Archaeological Fieldwork and Senior Research Fellow, Queen’s University Belfast (United Kingdom) B. Sunday Eiselt, Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies, Southern Methodist University (United States of America) Jane A. Evans, Research Scientist, British Geological Survey (United Kingdom) Rebecca Gowland, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology, Durham University (United Kingdom)
xxvi List of Contributors M. Annette Grove, Coordinator, Center for New Directions, College of Western Idaho (United States of America) Dawn M. Hadley, Professor of Medieval Archaeology, University of York (United Kingdom) Susanne Hakenbeck, Lecturer in Historical Archaeology, University of Cambridge (United Kingdom) Mark A. Hall, Curator of Archaeology at Perth Museum and Art Gallery (United Kingdom) Lesley Harrington, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Alberta (Canada) Nicola Harrington, Honorary Research Associate, University of Sydney (Australia) Katie A. Hemer, Lecturer in Bioarchaeology, University of Sheffield (United Kingdom) Katherine V. Huntley, Assistant Professor of Ancient and Medieval History, Boise State University (United States of America) Janet Huskinson, Visiting Research Fellow, Open University (United Kingdom) Anne Ingvarsson, Chief Curator at Uppsala University Museum, Uppsala University (Sweden) Claudia Lambrugo, Senior Lecturer in Classical Archaeology, University of Milan (Italy) David F. Lancy, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, Utah State University (United States of America) Mary E. Lewis, Associate Professor in Biological Anthropology, University of Reading (United Kingdom) Grete Lillehammer, Emerita Professor of Archaeology, Museum of Archaeology, University of Stavanger (Norway) Simon Mays, Human Skeletal Biologist, Historic England (United Kingdom) Jan Mispelaere, Post-Doctoral Researcher, Uppsala University (Sweden) Eileen M. Murphy, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology, Queen’s University Belfast (United Kingdom) Sophie Oosterwijk, Honorary Research Fellow in Art History, University of St Andrews (United Kingdom) Benjamin Osipov, Doctoral Candidate, University of Alberta (Canada) Robert W. Park, Professor of Anthropology, University of Waterloo (Canada)
List of Contributors xxvii Rebecca C. Redfern, Curator of Human Osteology, Museum of London (United Kingdom) Brigitte Röder, Professor of Prehistory and Early History, University of Basel (Switzerland) Margarita Sánchez Romero, Professor of Prehistory, University of Granada (Spain) Gillian Shepherd, Director, A.D. Trendall Centre Research Centre for Ancient Mediterranean Studies, La Trobe University (Australia) Katharina Ulmschneider, Senior Research Fellow, Worcester College, University of Oxford (United Kingdom) Supriya Varma, Associate Professor of Archaeology, Jawaharlal Nehru University (India) Rebecca Yamin, Retired from John Milner Associates, Inc., now Commonwealth Heritage Group (United States of America)
SECTION I
I N T RODU C T ION S : T H E H I STORY A N D I M PAC T OF T H E A RC HA E OL O G Y OF C H I L DHO OD
Chapter 1
The Archa e ol o g y of Childh o od The Birth and Development of a Discipline Sally Crawford, Dawn M. Hadley, and Gillian Shepherd
Philip Ariès (1962: 134) memorably suggested that, in the medieval period, there was no ‘sentiment de l’enfance’, by which he meant that childhood as a concept, as a specific and separate state of ‘being’ to adulthood, belongs to the modern period and has no rele vance when applied to the medieval past, still less to earlier times (Tinsley 2010: 888). Though Ariès’s theory has long since been refuted by historians (Heywood 2010), there is still room to debate a rephrasing of Ariès by stating, instead, that until 30 years ago archaeologists had no ‘concept’ of childhood. Through the middle decades of the twen tieth century, archaeology was changing from an antiquarian pursuit to a scientific discipline; the theory and methodologies of archaeology were being vigorously tested, disputed, and expounded (Johnson 1999), but the notion that childhood was an import ant issue for archaeologists to think about in their assessments of archaeological sites was simply not part of the discourse. Still less did the study of childhood cause archaeolo gists to rethink their framing of past societies, or to address how some of the large-scale social, economic, political, and religious processes in which they were interested—such as trade, migration, technological change, agricultural revolution, and transformations in belief systems—could have unfolded without the involvement of children. The pre sent volume stands as testament to how far archaeology has come in recent decades in grasping the immense importance of considering children in archaeological interpreta tions and narratives.
4 Sally Crawford, Dawn M. Hadley, and Gillian Shepherd
Children in the archaeological record Trailblazing articles on the archaeology of childhood emerged in the 1970s and early 1980s (e.g. Bonnichsen 1973; Gräslund 1973; Hammond and Hammond 1981; Knutsson 1986), but were, as Grete Lillehammer (2015: 80) has observed, ‘in a curious state of iso lation’. Unquestionably, the publication that propelled the field into existence was a bril liant paper from 1989 by Lillehammer herself: A Child is Born: The Child’s World in an Archaeological Perspective. This was a clarion call to archaeologists to develop the means to study children. She advocated the analysis of both direct evidence for children, in the form of their remains from funerary contexts and material culture that can be directly assigned to them, such as toys, as well as indirect evidence, through analogy with histor ical and ethnographic evidence. Lillehammer argued that children should be of interest in their own right, through study of the lives they led but also as individuals learning to be adults, and with respect to ‘their engagement to receive and assimilate the cultural traditions of the adult world’ (Lillehammer 1989: 90). While Lillehammer focused on the most obvious sources of available evidence, namely toys and skeletal remains, she raised some important questions about much broader issues, including transference of cultural traditions through the generations and the impact of differing socioeconomic conditions on the lived experiences of children. A raft of papers on the archaeology of children and childhood were published over the course of the following decade or so. Early ‘archaeology of childhood’ research focused specifically on toys, those objects most obviously associated with children (e.g. Egan 1988, 1996, 1998; Mirsky 1993; Park 1998; Pearson and Mullins 1999). More controversially, other research turned the spotlight on issues of the definition of the idea of a ‘child’ itself, specifically in mortuary contexts (e.g. Crawford 1991, 1993; Lucy 1994). Comparisons between sites or between chronological periods were—and, as Margarita Sánchez Romero (Chapter 18 of this volume) makes clear, still are—difficult, because individual site reports often lack clarity about how terms such as ‘child’ and ‘infant’ are being used. As Sally Crawford (1991) has demonstrated, vague and incon sistent application of child ages and descriptors in archaeological reports can have a skewing and distorting effect on readings of burial ritual. Age matters, and all archae ologists need to be sensitive to the fact that the mortuary archaeology of childhood is dependent on being able to identify what age ranges are being used in site reports, and what definitions of ‘child’, ‘infant’, ‘young adult’, ‘adolescent’, and so on, are being employed by archaeologists. Equally important is an understanding that modern ideas of ‘child’ and ‘adult’ do not map directly onto the past: childhood is a cultural construct (Figures 1.1 and 1.2). Progress in understanding the relationship between child mortuary ritual and bio logical age advanced through the 1990s with the refinement of skeletal subadult ageing techniques (e.g. Saunders 1992; Liversidge 1994; Lampl and Johnston 1996; Schurr 1998),
The Archaeology of Childhood 5 Teeth and fragments of skull
Spearhead
Knife? Buckle Ferrule Fragmentary bone
Shield boss
Fragmentary bone
Figure 1.1 A 10–12-year-old buried with a spear and shield: a child buried with adult weaponry, or evidence that this individual had achieved cultural adulthood? Plan of the early Anglo-Saxon grave 50 from Westgarth Gardens (Suffolk, England). Drawing by Sally Crawford after West (1988: 33).
and analysis of aspects of childhood health and morbidity (e.g. Stuart-Macadam 1985; Goodman and Armelagos 1989; Saunders and Hoppa 1993; Anderson and Carter 1995; Ribot and Roberts 1996; Lewis and Roberts 1997; Ortner and Mays 1998). Attempts, albeit controversial, to devise methods to sex skeletal remains of subadults emerged (e.g. de Vito and Saunders 1990; Schutkowski 1993; Faerman et al. 1997; Molleson, Cruse, and Mays 1998). Concerns over how far the skeletal record of children was representative of the living population were also raised, with a focus on issues surrounding taphonomy and the potential exclusion of children from community cemeteries (e.g. Morris 1987; Guy, Masset, and Baud 1997; Sellevold 1997; Buckberry 2000). Around the turn of the new millennium, however, these sporadic articles turned into a series of important monographs, papers, and edited volumes dedicated to an understanding of the child in archaeology (e.g. Johnsen and Welinder 1995; Crawford
6 Sally Crawford, Dawn M. Hadley, and Gillian Shepherd
Figure 1.2 The surviving teeth from Westgarth Gardens (Suffolk, England) grave 50, indicat ing that the skeleton had achieved 10–12 years at the age of death. Photograph by Sally Crawford.
1999; Scott 1999; Sofaer Derevenski 2000; Lewis 2002; Neils and Oakley 2003). The field has seen the publication of a plethora of major extended studies on every aspect of the archaeology of childhood and children, with a focus on such topics as burial practices (e.g. Lohrke 1995; Bacvarov 2008; Beilke-Voigt 2008; Guimier-Sorbets and Morizot 2010; Nenna 2012), bioarchaeology (e.g. Rega 2000; Loth and Henneberg 2001; Mays and Faerman 2001; Lewis 2007), material culture (e.g. Forsyth and Egan 2005; Hermary and Dubois 2012; Mori, Lambrugo, and Slavazzi 2012), the spa tial dimensions of childhood (e.g. Sánchez Romero, Alarcón García, and Aranda Jiménez 2015), processes of socialization (Lillehammer 2010), the nature of child hood in specific periods and regions (e.g. Baxter 2005a; Ardren 2006; Cohen and Rutter 2007; Mygland 2007; Stoodley 2011; Gläser 2012; Hadley and Hemer 2014), or across time and space (e.g. Wileman 2005; Baxter 2005b; Crawford and Shepherd 2007; Bacvarov 2008; Dommasnes and Wrigglesworth 2008; Lally and Moore 2011; Romanowicz 2013; Cosçkunsu 2015). Papers on the archaeology of childhood found homes in a new dedicated international journal—Childhood in the Past—as well as proliferating in a wide array of regional, period specific, scientific, and interdiscip linary journals, and one can list many volumes on an array of topics that now rou tinely feature chapters on childhood (e.g. Khoroshev 2007 in a volume on medieval Novgorod; Egan 2011 in a volume on the English pottery industry; McAlister 2013 in a volume on Viking-Age towns). Few would assert today that there is no idea of child hood archaeology.
The Archaeology of Childhood 7
Children and the formation of the archaeological record So much for the child in archaeological research, but what of the child and the archaeo logical record? Even before the advent of discussion of the archaeological child, anthro pologists had identified the possible impact of the child on the archaeological record. In the late 1960s, a recently abandoned campsite in the Canadian Rockies offered an opportunity to test interpretations based on inference drawn from ethnographic ana logy through discussion with one of the former inhabitants of the camp (Bonnichsen 1973). The study revealed some important errors of interpretation by the anthropolo gists. In part this was because of misidentification of individual artefacts and in part because of adherence to a synchronic model of analysis rather than an appreciation of changing uses of space over time (even within a single week) and a recognition that multiple activities might take place across areas that they had interpreted as single activity zones. The need for more sophisticated analogies emerged from this study. A particularly insightful observation for the field of childhood archaeology concerned misinterpretation of material culture associated with children as relating to economic activity: Accuracy of the economic interpretation was affected by the misidentification of material remains. The steel trap from activity area 1 was not used for trapping game animals, but was used as a mouse trap. Dynamite wire recorded in area 1 and area 6 was used as a plaything rather than for snare wire. The stick with a wire strung across it did not relate to hunting activities, but instead was used as a stick horse by the youngest member in camp, Millie’s son. Bonnichsen 1973: 285
There has since been a great deal of research exploring children’s production and cre ation of material culture (e.g. Finlay 1997; Greenfield 2000; Grimm 2000; Crown 2002; Smith 2006; Dugstad 2008; Högberg 2008; Králik, Urbanová, and Hložek 2008; Sternke and Sørensen 2009; Mellor 2014; see also Grove and Lancy this volume; Figure 1.3), but there has been much less acceptance of the part children may have played in creating the archaeological record itself (e.g. Crawford 2009; Cunnar and Högberg 2015: 76). Most archaeological evidence reveals little about the age or sex of the people or per sons responsible for its creation, which makes it very difficult to identify children in the material culture evidence, but this lack of identifiers is no reason to assume adult agency as a default position in archaeological explanation. The burden of proof placed on archaeologists assuming children’s activities should be no greater—or less—than that placed on archaeologists making any form of assertion about the agency of given indi viduals. Children made up a significant proportion of early populations and anthropo logical evidence insists that, after their initial stage of infantile dependence, children
8 Sally Crawford, Dawn M. Hadley, and Gillian Shepherd
(a) (a)
(b) (b)
Figure 1.3 The fingerprints of children on a ceramic jug, where they had affixed the handles during experimental pottery making. The involvement of children in aspects of craft production is increasingly being identified by archaeologists. Photograph by Charlotte Howsam; courtesy University of Sheffield.
should be assumed to have had significant levels of social, political, and economic com petence (Lancy 2008; Montgomery 2008). It is now recognized that children had a role in collecting, curating, caching, losing, and redepositing artefacts in the past, and the implications of that for archaeological interpretations are beginning to be recognized (Crawford 2009; Lewis 2009). Future excavation and post-excavation analysis might now also engage fully with the possibility that children will also have been participants in the creation of larger scale features, such as the building and destruction of structures, and the burial of the dead. Why has there been such a persistent lack of awareness of children in archaeological interpretations? One explanation may be that, consciously or unconsciously, childhood and children are deeply emotive words that affect our readings and engagement with the past (Figure 1.4). Archaeology has been slow to recognize the role of emotion in the creation and articulation of archaeological assemblages, and the literature on the subject is limited (Williams 2007; Tarlow 2012), but it is tightly interwoven in the archaeology of childhood, both in the archaeological record, and modern archaeological readings of the past. Modern emotional responses to childhood are bound up in our acculturated ideas of what a child is (Murphy 2011), and this has a significant impact on the place of children in archaeology—or, more specifically, the lack of children.
The Archaeology of Childhood 9
Figure 1.4 Substantial gravestone commemorating the deaths of two infants from the gold mining ‘children’s cemetery’ at Pennyweight Flat Cemetery, Castlemaine (Victoria, Australia). Photograph by Sally Crawford.
One of the criteria we use to distinguish children from adults is competence, or lack of it. Incompetence—social, political, and economic—characterizes the modern west ern child. In part this reflects biological and cultural reality—in a complex society, it takes longer to develop and learn competencies, and incompetence persists, but this also establishes an embedded presumption of incompetence in children that informs much archaeological interpretation, to the extent that incompetence is interpreted as lack of agency and dependence on others. If children have no agency and are depend ent on adults, then why would they be relevant in archaeological investigation? That this is an erroneous starting point is demonstrated clearly by the chapters in the pre sent volume, which discuss a wide array of evidence for the contributions of children
10 Sally Crawford, Dawn M. Hadley, and Gillian Shepherd to both prehistoric and historical societies, examining their involvement in produc tion, economic structures, household organization, ritual activity, and commemora tive strategies.
The present volume In constructing this volume, the editors wanted to provide the reader with a sense of the range and depth of research into the archaeology of childhood, and therefore, we have drawn on an international panel of scholars who discuss case studies from across the globe that span prehistory to the present day. Such a diverse range of chapters enables the reader to appreciate the extent to which the single word ‘childhood’ encapsulates a wide range of life experiences, culturally constructed, and socially organized both at a macro level—‘Roman childhood’ is not the same as ‘Victorian childhood’—and also at a micro level: each child’s personal experience is different, even where private lives are constructed around a community of ‘social imaginaries’, or what are deemed socially appropriate behaviours. There are different ways in which a volume on childhood could have been struc tured. It could have followed the child’s life stages, beginning with chapters focusing on foetuses and infants, moving through chapters on adolescents, and perhaps finish ing with the deaths of children. However, while a chronological structure might have been useful, it would have been counterproductive in terms of presenting the chal lenge of childhood in archaeology. This is because a life-course approach would have to have been based on implicit or explicit sets of criteria about the boundaries of any age group, which as the contributions to the volume show are not cross-cultural uni versals. Moreover, as several chapters in this volume (e.g. by Buckberry and Mays) demonstrate, chronological age, biological age, and cultural age are not interchange able (see also Gowland 2006). To have adopted an age-based structure would also have reinforced the subconscious view, against which archaeologists of childhood continue to work, that childhood is about waiting for the child to grow up, become adult, and become meaningful: that childhood represents a stage before ‘proper’ archaeology, and life experience, begins. A chronological structure, beginning with the prehistoric period and ending with modern childhood, was likewise rejected because it would tend to suggest that child- rearing is an evolutionary narrative leading up to the present day. Childhood is a con struct and process, responding to, having an effect on, and developing in conjunction with, complicated narratives in wider society. We have chosen, therefore, to structure the volume around themes that resonate across archaeological investigation, to provide a platform to indicate how the lives and archaeologies of children are inextricably inter woven into the discipline itself. The broad view taken by this volume draws attention to the interlinking themes in childhood. Identity is bound up with material culture, which in turn is situated within
The Archaeology of Childhood 11 social space, which is contingent on socially constructed ideas of how children should be taught, trained, and conditioned for adulthood. The volume begins with chapters that discuss the methodological and theoretical issues involved in identifying children in the archaeological record. They are followed by chapters addressing settlement and households, the processes and contexts of learning, socialization, and training, and the creation of identity within the community. Then health, disease, and the environmen tal conditions of childhood are explored, followed by chapters focusing on death and memory. The challenges of engaging researchers and the public with the archaeology of childhood is the subject of the final group of chapters: how to break down fixed ideas about childhood in the past, and how to set aside the ridiculous preconception that chil dren and childhood are in some way separate from ‘mainstream’ archaeology, when in fact, as every chapter in this volume demonstrates, there is no archaeology without chil dren. However, such is the nature of the subject that each section of the book speaks to other chapters in other sections: strands and themes weave throughout the volume, interlinking and drawing the whole together. It is appropriate that this volume in the Oxford University Press Handbook Series begins with an introduction to the subject by Grete Lillehammer (Chapter 2), widely regarded as the founder of the archaeology of childhood and unarguably the greatest ambassador of the discipline, who offers a thoughtful and invigorating overview of the history of the subject. She sends out a challenge to all archaeologists to recognize that the single most important and exciting area for new discoveries in archaeology and our global understanding of the past is through a study of the archaeology of childhood, in all its facets. The present volume shows how far we have come in the last 30 years in responding to Lillehammer’s challenge issued in 1989.
Defining children and childhood There are many ways of defining age—socially, chronologically, biologically—and although these categorizations have broad areas of overlap and congruence, they cannot be simply mapped one onto another. For archaeologists, the most accessible age is the biological age at the time of death, which is normally relatively closely linked to the pas sage of time since birth (chronological age). Biological age is assessed by skeletal indica tors. These, however, are not absolute, universal, and fixed in relation to chronological age. Social, cultural, genetic, and environmental factors may affect biological age; hun ger may delay puberty, for example (Lewis and Garn 1960; Buckberry this volume; Mays this volume). Jo Buckberry (Chapter 3) provides a clear overview of the key methods and principles underlying the identification of biological age at death from skeletal analysis. She also presents the main discussions, debates, and areas of dispute in the field. This is a chap ter any archaeologist who excavates skeletal material should read and apply in the field; equally, it is important reading for those who use cemetery reports in their research
12 Sally Crawford, Dawn M. Hadley, and Gillian Shepherd
Figure 1.5 Osteologist analysing foetal skeletal remains. Photograph by Diana Mahoney- Swales; copyright University of Sheffield.
(Figure 1.5). It is crucial to know the extent to which a skeletal report’s confident asser tion of a chronological age associated with a child is derived from a series of educated guesses based on current interpretations—which may be subject to review in the future. The identification of age ranges, far from being an exact science, is still developing and has as-yet unresolved controversies, as Buckberry makes clear. Understanding patterns of growth in early populations is also challenging. It is, however, a challenge that must be accepted, since there is a close relationship between childhood growth and non-genetic influences, especially nutrition, but also environmental factors such as climate, exposure to toxins, and stress. Simon Mays (Chapter 4) assesses current techniques for charting growth and provides case studies that illustrate the importance of childhood growth as a tool for assessing environment, social status, nutrition, and the impact of changes in technology, agriculture, and settlement patterns on height. The relationship between biological age and social identity is addressed by M. Annette Grove and David F. Lancy (Chapter 5), who have undertaken a multicultural study of nearly a thousand societies. They have identified a model of life stages from pregnancy to adulthood, and have established that these phases, linked to biological development but contingent on cultural constructs, represent broadly universal transitional phases. Their survey has created a model for the most distinctive age-related developmental stages across human societies, but the wide range of their survey shows that the sig nificance accorded to these stages varies between societies, that different cultures use and experience these stages in diverse ways, and that life stages may be marked for par ticular audiences—public, private, familial, by gender groups, or within age cohorts, for example. Any model of childhood that portrays it as a fixed entity, associated with equally fixed material culture, is repeatedly challenged by the chapters in this volume. Childhood and
The Archaeology of Childhood 13 its accoutrements are part of a constantly changing and shifting picture; childhood is a phase in the life course, with transmuting and translating properties. All human society is relevant to childhood, and childhood touches and translates everything, in a tangible but transient way. That is to say, places, objects, and people are all at some stage part of childhood; it is woven into their biographies (Crawford 2009). Yet, it is very rare for spaces, objects, or people to be addressed with respect to childhood unless an exclusive association can be made (e.g. in the form of, say, nursery wards, toys, or children’s skel etal remains). Similarly, materials and spaces associated with children are typically only interpreted with reference to children, without consideration that they may have wider biographies. Moreover, adults—the primary focus of so much archaeological research— are routinely addressed without consideration of the relevance of the ‘child phase’ of their lives and experiences. Grove and Lancy offer a typical example of the transitional nature of children’s material culture in the form of the bilum of the Papua New Guinea Highlands. The bilum is a crocheted or knotted string bag, and babies are traditionally carried in a bilum: bilums and babies go together. However, the bilum used to carry a baby may later be used for other purposes, such as carrying sweet potatoes from the gar den, or shopping from the market. Archaeologists need to think very carefully about the grounds on which any object, child-related or not, might be thought to have an exclusive purpose, especially in a material-poor culture. As Grove and Lancy note in their survey, infant-specific items are predominantly associated with material-culture rich societies. Anthropological evidence flags up other areas of acute importance to archaeologists by identifying geographies of childhood, such as the area termed by Lancy (1996: 85) ‘the mother ground’, where children play next to watchful adults. Where is the ‘mother ground’ in relation to excavated settlements? Archaeologists could—indeed, should— be attempting to find it based on Lancy’s model, and once found, in a reversal of current practice, the challenge will be to prove that any material culture found cached or depos ited in that area is related to adult activity, because the a priori assumption, contrary to conventional approaches to archaeological spaces, should be that material culture here is more likely to be child-related than adult-related. The implications of such insight are profound. The chapter by Grove and Lancy emphasizes another facet of the child’s develop ment with importance for archaeologists, and that is that some phases of childhood are linked to a significant increase in child-specific artefacts or spaces. Above all, the phase around the age of five to seven years frequently has archaeological visibility because, as the anthropological survey of Grove and Lancy shows, this is the age of training and learning where children need scaled-down versions of adult tools to develop skills. Yet while the phase of middle childhood may be more visible archaeologically in terms of material culture, the adolescent phase is likely to show in terms of social space and building structures. Anthropological surveys show that this is a crucial phase in which adult society needs to negotiate and control the tension between adolescent challenges and procreative potential, on the one hand, and the existing power structures of the social group, on the other (an issue discussed by Hadley in Chapter 22 with respect to Viking-Age burials of older children). This is the phase in which adolescents, both boys
14 Sally Crawford, Dawn M. Hadley, and Gillian Shepherd and girls, are likely to be segregated from the rest of the community, at least some of the time; again, archaeologists may well be recording this aspect of childhood without recognizing it. In early Anglo-Saxon settlements, for example, women’s weaving areas may have had an important function as a place to segregate adolescent girls from young adult males (Crawford 2015: 116). The wide-ranging survey by Grove and Lancy reveals a repeated pattern of constructing temporary structures for adolescent segregation or rit ual that are destroyed or dismantled once the initiation process has passed; such struc tures are capable of archaeological identification. The close link between the archaeology of infancy and mothering are explored in Rebecca Gowland’s (Chapter 6) study of the social context of infancy. One reason why understanding childhood is important for understanding society is that children, espe cially infants, are the focus of social networks. How complex those networks are, and what kind of input these networks have in the lives and deaths of children, is instructive about wider society. Furthermore, as Gowland demonstrates, the social universe of a single infant does not end with its birth or growth to adulthood: a child is the product of generations of environmental and social circumstances. Life courses are intertwined over generations, as discussions in epigenetic research for the biological effects of social deprivation indicate. Archaeologists can draw on this fascinating and methodologically interesting research concerning ‘entangled life courses’: a single child burial provides information not only about its own life and times but about previous generations.
Children, family, and households The archaeology of families and households is one of the most difficult areas to access (Crawford 2015). Both household and family are complicated to define and ambigu ous concepts when applied to past societies. As Brigitte Röder (Chapter 7) shows—in a chapter looking at the meanings and uses of the words—both household and family resonate with the psyche at a deep and subconscious level, so that assumptions and pre sumptions may enter research unnoticed; these are similar issues to those surrounding the uses of the words ‘child’ and ‘childhood’, of course. Oft-repeated assumptions are that ‘household’ and ‘family’ can be mapped onto each other, and that both words carry some unambiguous meaning. Yet both are used to measure against a norm that com prises modern western social imaginaries of parents and their children, with additional members—such as aged grandparents or servants—‘added on’. In reality, many western dwellings are occupied by co-dependent groups that do not resemble the nuclear fam ily at all, while the ‘family’ and ‘household’ models, largely developed in the nineteenth century, take no account at all of the single occupant of dwellings (Figure 1.6). The situation is complicated by an assumption that ‘household’—a group of co- dependent people that the very word identifies as being primarily linked by their iden tification with a specific building—is the same as a family, which identifies people primarily linked through their actual or perceived consanguinity. Further difficulties
The Archaeology of Childhood 15
Figure 1.6 Funerary monument of the first century bc from Rome (Italy), depicting a freed couple, Quintus Servilius and Sempronia Eune, and their freeborn son, Globulus. Drawing by Jerneja Willmott; reproduced courtesy of Maureen Carroll.
arise through the modern insistence—for tax purposes if nothing else—on distinguish ing buildings that are places of business (and where families, by contrast, do not live) from those that are dwellings, where families live and where business is not conducted (see also Yamin, Chapter 11). The opposition between a mutually exclusive concept of ‘work’ and ‘family’, so central to modern Western cultural ideas (the ‘work/life balance’), is meaningless in many societies, and cannot be mapped onto the past in any simple way, if at all. Indeed, Dawn M. Hadley (Chapter 22) discusses evidence from nineteenth- century Chinese households in the United States, which were largely devoid of women and children, with family relations being conducted on a transnational, rather than household, level. Just as the category of ‘child’ starts to multiply its meanings and definitions according to its cultural settings, in the same way households are dynamic and fluid, and have their own biographies. Brigitte Röder (Chapter 7) throws down a challenge to archaeolo gists: ‘childhood’ and ‘household’ are such fluid and dynamic processes, are they even useful terms to think with in archaeology? Are they ‘useful and productive’ categories? In fact, it is their fluidity that makes them so useful for the archaeologist: households are ‘social processes’ (see also Crawford 2015). Understanding these processes at work within cultures is crucial to interpreting the archaeology of spaces, buildings, and settle ments. The uses of space and the creation, modification, and abandonment of rooms, or whole buildings, are all at least partly governed by the household and family dynamics. A ‘household’ may be defined as the group of people who inhabit a specific space, and are therefore closely inter-and co-dependent within a physical area, and this ‘house hold’ may be synonymous with a family at some times. However, at other times it may be a group who are not part of a family at all, as in the case of the school household
16 Sally Crawford, Dawn M. Hadley, and Gillian Shepherd investigated by Craig Cessford (Chapter 13), the nineteenth-century Chinese house holds and Australian institutions where convict women were housed studied by Hadley (Chapter 22), or the ‘neighbourhood communities’ identified by Bleda Düring and Arkadiusz Marciniak (2006: 166) in Early Neolithic Central Anatolia. The challenge for archaeologists is to recognize that an excavation shows structures in a state of change, not as static entities (see Allison, Chapter 9; and Huntley, Chapter 20). For archaeologists studying the Roman world, one of the most difficult challenges is to recognize and understand the discrepancy between what Romans wrote about chil dren and the evidence of the archaeological sources. Maureen Carroll’s (Chapter 8) evi dence comes in the form of mortuary epigraphy and burial ritual. Roman childhood in general has been relatively well served by scholarly analysis, but the very youngest group—foetuses and neonates—have received rather less consideration. In part, this gap is a result of influential legal and other normative sources that placed little value on infant lives and sought to prevent bereaved families from making emotional investment in infant deaths. Yet interdisciplinary discussion of Roman epigraphy ranging widely across Roman Europe provides ample evidence that many parents wanted to express public feelings for their children—joy at their births, misery at their deaths—and felt the need to invest their lost babies with social and civic status. Carroll makes the important point that, in the Roman world, there is a discrepancy between public and private atti tudes towards children, which merits analysis. Penelope Allison’s study (Chapter 9) continues the focus on the Roman world, explor ing archaeological evidence for children at two sites: the town of Pompeii (Italy) and a military fort at Ellingen (Germany) on the outskirts of the Roman Empire. Of 6,000 artefacts recovered from Pompeii, Allison shows that none can be attributed to children or children’s activities using current methodologies to interpret the artefacts, and there were also relatively few children’s bodies recovered from the site. By contrast, there is more evidence of children at the military site than the documentary sources would lead one to suspect. Children were clearly present in the associated cemeteries, and there is also some evidence for children’s artefacts in the form of shoes. These findings are of considerable significance for the ability of archaeologists to recognize childhood at sites, such as towns, where children most certainly lived and died. Allison’s chapter also draws attention to the fluidity of assigned spatial function. Documentary sources describe a delivery room, but it is highly likely that the space used for delivery, while having desig nated attributes—on the upper floor with one single entrance—was normally used for other purposes. Identifying children’s spaces in the archaeological record is important, but, as with objects-that-become-toys, it is also crucial to recognize that their use of, and access to, spaces might vary at different times of the day: the courts/atria were used by children as play spaces only after the adult business and meetings had ceased (see also Huntley, Chapter 20). The visibility of children in the archaeological record is affected by where they play, and the possibility that play spaces may also have other designated functions in the adult world. If Pompeiian children normally spent time on the upper floors of build ings, then their material culture would be less visible since archaeology tends to focus
The Archaeology of Childhood 17 on basement or ground floor areas. The absence of child-centred material culture in the archaeological record might more generally be an active signifier that children occu pied the less publicly accessible areas of buildings—the upper floors, identified in ‘access analysis archaeology’ as ‘deep’ spaces, associated with higher status (Hillier and Hanson 1984: 108–13). One way of finding children in domestic spaces might be to try to look at any material culture specifically associated with them. The most obvious category of archaeological artefact signifying childhood today comprises the toys designed and marketed specif ically for children to play with. But ‘toy’ is an awkward word carrying a culture-specific baggage for the study of childhood in the past, and one that has proven to be problem atic at several levels (Crawford 2009). On the one hand, to identify an archaeology of childhood away from the skeletal evidence, ‘toys’, so readily and confidently associated with children in contemporary western culture, seem to be the obvious material ‘evi dence’ for childhood in the past. Where there are toys, there are children, so children cease to be ‘invisible’ in material culture form. However, that same modern western association between ‘toys’ and ‘children’ is inextricably linked to a third modern western concept that positions ‘children’ at the opposite end of the spectrum from work. Work is serious, important, adult; children’s activities are, by contrast, playful, unimportant, childish. This may be a simplistic framing of a complex social and cultural response to a word such as ‘toy’, but the impact of this response has been identified, demonstrated, and explored in many analyses of the archaeology of childhood. Moreover, the identi fication of an object as a ‘toy’, which in theory should make the study of childhood at a site relatively accessible, typically ensures that this class of objects will receive no further detailed consideration: toys are not relevant to ‘mainstream’ archaeological study. This is the toy paradox. Supriya Varma (Chapter 10) draws attention to this paradox in her study of the third millennium bce culture of Harappan Mohenjodaro (Pakistan), which is unusual in pro ducing a rich and diverse range of objects that have been identified as toys on the basis of their size, patterns of wear, and location within the settlement. However, as Varma notes, once identified as toys, they were set aside as requiring no further research: this is the ‘toy paradox’ in the archaeology of childhood in action. Varma addresses two major Indian Harappan Culture cities: Mohenjodaro, now in the Larkana District on the right bank of the Indus, in Sindh, Pakistan—one of the world’s earliest urban settlements— and Harappa, now in Punjab, Pakistan. Her work is based on reports from excava tions conducted in the 1930s and 1940s. One of the striking characteristics of Harappan Culture is the number of toys found in its urban settlements, in contrast to the absence of toys in the cultures that preceded and followed it. What was it about Harappan society that is expressed in the material culture of child hood, and which characterized Harappan society unlike others? Although toys were readily identified in the comprehensive site reports (Mackay 1931a, b; Marshall 1931; Vats 1940), the fact that they were classified as playthings meant that they were almost auto matically downgraded in terms of significance for study. This huge dataset, fully pub lished since the 1940s, has received negligible research attention through the twentieth
18 Sally Crawford, Dawn M. Hadley, and Gillian Shepherd century. It was only in the twenty-first century that Elke Rogersdotter (2006, 2008) drew attention to the toys and has subjected them to theoretical and critical scrutiny. Rebecca Yamin (Chapter 11) focuses on a series of excavations in another city but pro duces results strikingly different from those of Harappan civilizations. Yamin’s sites are in nineteenth-century New York, where the expectation might be that we would find a variety of toys in association with tenement housing. However, toys were few and far between, which leads Yamin to question more carefully the whole relationship between children, toys, and private and public spaces. Marbles are one of the most common toy finds from her sites, and she notes that some recorded games of marbles for this period involved using street furniture such as gutters. Indeed, marbles are good games to play on the way to somewhere else. Yamin’s chapter draws attention to where and how children play; in the New York tenements of her chapter, there was probably very little space for playing inside, and instead children would have spent most of their time on the streets. But did this mean that children had unhappy or ‘bad’ childhoods? Yamin cites contemporary documentary evidence for happy working-class children who took pride in their (significant) contribution to the family finances. She challenges the model of a toy-filled, domestic, safe life as being either ‘normal’ or even ‘desirable’ for children, thus challenging archaeologists to look beyond the toy in the search for childhood in the pasts. Yamin’s chapter draws attention to the need to study childhood as it is positioned by class, and to recognize the possibility that toys are not synonymous with ‘positive’ childhoods (see also Eiselt, Chapter 21; and Hadley, Chapter 22). Indeed, wealthier nineteenth-century New York children led lives constrained within the domestic sphere, and were consequently not given the liberty to exercise their imaginations through exploration, interaction with other children, and use of the street as a dangerous and exciting play place; the abundance of toys that more affluent households bought were to keep these ‘captive’ children entertained.
Learning, socialization, and training Throughout childhood, a child is preparing, one way or another, for the place they will take in their adult society. How they are prepared will depend on social, economic, and, above all, cultural factors. In this section of the book, five very different forms of preparation are presented. Socialization may fall into several categories that are archaeologically visible—it is created by the practice of taking care of the child, feeding it, clothing it, and nurturing it. Socialization may develop through play, entailing access to spaces (as described in Allison’s chapter where children accessed courtyards after the male adult business of the day was over), and learning about safe behaviour and unsafe behaviour and places. Toys are important in socialization, helping to frame and constrain social roles, gen der roles, status, and to help develop motor and physical skills, though crucially, not
The Archaeology of Childhood 19 all societies rely on toys for this purpose (Figure 1.7). The importance of imitation and emulation in the education of children for adult life tasks is stressed in Robert W. Park’s (Chapter 12) study of the Thule and Dorset cultures of Arctic Canada in which he com bines ethnographic and archaeological evidence. The connections between Thule and contemporary Inuit material culture suggest that Thule children were expected to learn through observation and practice, rather than through more structured teaching; mini aturized tools and related objects played a critical role in this process. In comparison, the Dorset culture evidence comprises far fewer miniaturized implements apart from harpoons, yet has a greater range of small carvings of humans and animals, raising intriguing questions about differences in learning and play between the two cultures. Craig Cessford (Chapter 13) assesses the archaeological evidence from excavations at a Victorian educational establishment in Cambridge (England). In theory, the archae ology of this space should demonstrate a close link between formal, constructed educa tion and children. However, Cessford argues that it is limiting and even unhelpful to focus only on material culture for children: children’s material culture is inclusive of everything with which they came into contact, including ‘adult’ objects, and if we are to
Figure 1.7 Boys playing at ploughing, Tripoli (Libya), c.1890. Photograph by J. L. Myres; repro duced courtesy of the Institute of Archaeology, Oxford.
20 Sally Crawford, Dawn M. Hadley, and Gillian Shepherd understand childhood, all material culture is a legitimate part of that study. He takes this further, noting that when ‘childhood’ objects are missing in the archaeological record, childhood is ignored by archaeologists as an area of study, even though childhood is also present in everyday, ‘adult’ objects. As an example, he notes that the evidence from his site indicates that while children had special cups, they also used small adult plates from an adult service. In any other archaeological context, the latter would not have been con sidered items with relevance for the study of children. Cessford also notes that there is a tendency to privilege certain types of artefact when trying to talk about the archae ology of childhood—toys, for example—but, this represents an ethnocentric approach to childhood: other kinds of objects might have been much more significant in shaping and creating childhood. Cessford, like Allison (Chapter 9), also considers site layout, and begins to identify a theory of childhood space, noting that, in more than one example from British his torical archaeology, areas in the far south-west corner of the garden are places where children appear to play and cache objects. Does this model hold for other kinds of settlements in other periods or geographies? The geography of childhood in archaeo logical contexts is an area ripe for development, and a better understanding of where children play in relation to households could guide archaeologists to be sensitive to the possibility that the archaeology they are recovering could be child-related (see also Lewis 2009; Smith 2014). In many societies, subadults are expected to have the physical and mental capacity to labour alongside adults, sharing their interaction with the material culture and envir onment alongside older members of the community. Anne Ingvarsson, Jan Mispelaere, and Ylva Bäckström (Chapter 14) investigate mortuary ritual, osteological evidence, and documentary sources to understand the place of childhood and child labour in a seventeenth-century Swedish mining community. The written records indicate that, in a community where males were valued not only for their skill and experience but also for their strength, wages were linked to physical development more than to chrono logical age: a strong boy would have wages commensurate with his working capacity, rather than his birthday. In theory, children in this community should have come into contact with toxins on a daily basis, from their work in and around the mines, and from the pollutants in their everyday environment. While skeletal analysis did not conclu sively confirm this, the study did reveal that there was extensive lead contamination of the soil in the vicinity of the mine, which would have had a deleterious effect on health. Studies such as this one add to a growing corpus of detailed evidence for the impact of industrial activity on children’s physical development in the past (e.g. Mellor 2014), which in turn has relevance for planning and policy today. The long-term effects of a life of labour that started in childhood or adolescence are explored in Ceridwen Boston’s study (Chapter 15) of skeletal evidence from three British Royal Navy cemeteries of late eighteenth-to early nineteenth-century date. Combining the osteological evidence with documentary sources, she charts the effects of the hazards of life at sea and naval warfare on children. However, she also identifies the visible impact of the training and diet provided by the Royal Navy on the health and
The Archaeology of Childhood 21 development of boys recruited into service, many of whom may have escaped a worse life in the urban slums of Britain. Vicky Crewe (Chapter 16) examines the evidence provided for training nineteenth- century working-class children for a life of long-term labour. She specifically addresses identifiable child-related objects in terms of preparation for adult gender roles. The material, which includes toys and ‘moralizing’ ceramics, comes from domestic sites in Britain, America, and Australia and displays remarkable similarities despite geograph ical distance; the archaeology also testifies to the importance placed upon instilling not just practical skills but also appropriate attitudes towards diligence, industry, and even economic and social aspiration into children growing up in nineteenth-century working-class homes. Crewe, Yamin (Chapter 11), and Hadley (Chapter 22) all show that childhoods in different parts of the globe may be linked in the nineteenth century.
Self, identity, and community A recurrent question in the study of childhood in the past is the point at which a child was deemed to be a full member of a society—a point often raised in the case of the very young, where mortuary practices can in certain places and periods indicate seg regation or exclusion (Shepherd, Chapter 28; and Donnelly and Murphy, Chapter 33), and can also reveal discrepancies between public policy and private practice (Carroll, Chapter 8). The chapters in this section, however, look at the other side of the question with studies of the means of integration of children into communities and spaces, the acquisition of local identities, which must have accompanied that process, and the roles of children in the definition of those identities, including in multicultural contexts. Here too we see clear evidence of child agency, a reminder that children were active individ uals within their communities. Jessica Cooney Williams (Chapter 17) brings our understanding of children’s cog nitive development to bear upon the position of children in Upper Palaeolithic com munities in Europe in her examination of body ornaments in mortuary contexts and of parietal art in caves. The latter provides a rare glimpse both of child agency—there is evidence that children participated in the creation of cave art—and of learning, as children imitated the shapes created by adults, in all likelihood with adult assistance. Children were integrated into both the process of creating cave art and the spaces cho sen for it. The evidence of body ornaments in graves likewise indicates that children were incorporated into the community, while at the same time their specific age status was indicated, in particular through miniaturized items. Margarita Sánchez Romero’s chapter (18) introduces the concept of maintenance activities, which provides a crucial methodological tool for accessing ‘mute’ groups, especially children, and their socialization. She also draws on the concept of the social imaginary in which children reside. This chapter highlights issues relevant to the study of childhood that are still awaiting any notable levels of research, such as maternity and
22 Sally Crawford, Dawn M. Hadley, and Gillian Shepherd material culture. Maternity has suffered, as childhood used to do, from a general and ill-founded assumption that it has remained unchanged over the centuries—that it is ‘natural’ and a biological fact, rather than a cultural concept. Maternity practices, and their relationship with childcare, are areas in serious need of scholarly investigation. As Sánchez Romero notes, any publications that touch on maternity are still at the stage of describing the archaeology, rather than approaching it with any sense of analysis or theoretical or methodological intent. Meanwhile, studies of paternity and alloparenting have not even reached the point of basic descriptive study and lag even further behind than maternity in archaeological theory. Olympia Bobou’s survey (Chapter 19) of children in ancient Greek art from c.700 bc to the third century ad documents the characteristics by which they can be identified and traces the integration of children via their imagery into wider community contexts. She observes a distinct shift in the fourth century bc in terms of greater naturalism and also of focus, as children emerged as subjects for depiction in their own right. The con texts for this art are also revealing. Relatively little of it was destined for the domestic milieu, which was also the case for Greek art in general; instead, sanctuary and ceme tery environments reveal that children had a role also in illustrating issues of status, the life course, and religious procedures, as well as divulging an increasing interest in the experiences of childhood. Bobou’s children were displayed in art in public places: child ren were being used to convey messages about family and society. The fact that art is used to convey or assert specific messages is not surprising, but the depiction of children as integral to those aims reminds us that even if modern archaeological scholarship has had a tendency to dismiss the potency of children in material culture, the ancients did not (see also Harrington, Chapter 29; and Huskinson, Chapter 30). Children themselves may also be used to intrude wider social messages into private, domestic spaces, such as the concept of slavery as a form of childhood as seen on the painted figured pottery used in Greek households. The private sphere is discussed by Katherine V. Huntley (Chapter 20), who traces children through the evidence of figural graffiti in the Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum, where once again we have compelling evidence for child agency. Like Cooney Williams (Chapter 17), Huntley applies our knowledge of the similarities in the cognitive development and processes of children across time and place to the identifica tion of particular graffiti (amongst hundreds of examples) as the work of children. She argues that graffiti can be informative of children’s social worlds, as they represent aspects of their physical and cognitive development, and of the spaces they occupied and their full integration at both household and community level. In Pompeii and Herculaneum, the evidence from their graffiti suggests that children were not confined to specific rooms, but circulated within the house. The evidence also reveals something of the levels of supervision to which children were subject. Few graffiti are found in spaces where super vision of their activities may have been greatest—such as cooking areas, with their inher ent dangers, and the atrium, which is where guests would be received and where working, especially weaving, was undertaken. Graffiti by children are much more commonly found in smaller rooms and wings of houses where they were seemingly more able to
The Archaeology of Childhood 23 escape from the responsibilities placed on them, and perhaps also those meant to be supervising them. Animals feature prominently, indicative not only of the importance of childhood pets but also of the tasks assigned to children in animal husbandry. These graffiti are in fact even more commonly found in public spaces, including in important Roman social arenas like public baths, usually simply envisaged as adult spaces. Once again, we see that it is not the presence or absence of children that determines archaeo logical traces of them, but rather a complex array of factors concerning use of space and community and household behaviours. The material culture of childhood may also be used in attempts to challenge, dis mantle, or supress cultural identities. B. Sunday Eiselt (Chapter 21) examines how chil dren’s toys have been used to impose a foreign, politically motivated, and consumerist ethos onto a resistant culture. In her study of a twentieth-century Mexican commu nity, toys are a barometer of social change and an indication that childhood is being manipulated—by both external and internal forces—to promote or resist that change. Eiselt further draws attention to the cultural nature of the idea of toys. Veccino children and their parents had no western concept of toys as a necessary part of childhood. This contrasted with the profound (western) belief that a lack of toys was a clear measure of poverty in communities, and that to give (culturally specific, and to an extent under mining and discordant) toys to these ‘lacking’ children was an act of charity, and a dem onstration of power relations and cultural dependency. The use of children to display contested identities is even more acute in migrant com munities, as Dawn M. Hadley (Chapter 22) discusses. Hadley investigates the archae ology of childhood from nineteenth-century migrant families who moved from Europe to the United States and Australia, and children who were part of the Viking expansion in the ninth and tenth centuries. She shows that, in both cases, children were central to community concepts of identity, and were active agents of social change. She also dem onstrates that the responses of migrant communities to new environments might, how ever, be diverse, reflecting such factors as social class, ethnicity, and family structure. The visibility of children in the archaeological record varies according to such circum stances. She also argues that, in contrast, in some migrant communities children were genuinely, and quite deliberately, absent; control over families, marriage, reproduc tion, and sexuality was sometimes a concomitant of migration, and a means for those in authority to limit the options for other migrant groups. The centrality of children to the migratory experience emerges clearly from such cases of genuine absence.
Health, disease, and environment In modern western society, chronological age is the primary measure by which the social and biological body is characterized. Children are noted to be ‘early’ or ‘late’ in developing, where the chronological age is supposed to be the determining factor in a universal ‘norm’. Some chapters in this volume (e.g. Chapter 14 by Ingvarsson,
24 Sally Crawford, Dawn M. Hadley, and Gillian Shepherd Mispelaere, and Bäckström; Chapter 15 by Boston) illustrate that chronological age may not be the important factor in determining a child’s perceived developmental stage: in contrast, in some communities, ‘age’ is effectively determined by biology, capability, or appearance. The rate of physical development of a child is closely linked to other inter connected factors, such as stress, disease, and environment. Chapters in this section of the book look in more detail at the importance of environment in creating and mould ing the developing child’s body. Lesley Harrington and Benjamin Osipov (Chapter 23) open the debate by examin ing the skeletal remains, specifically the long bones, of juveniles in foraging communi ties, from two regions: the Cis Baikal region of Siberia (Russia) and the Cape region of southern Africa, providing a bioarchaeological perspective on child foraging and the timing of adult skill development. Rebecca C. Redfern (Chapter 24) draws on a wide range of disciplines to explain the biological processes of breastfeeding and weaning, and the social contexts in which these take place. She then turns to case studies—largely drawing on stable isotope evidence—from the Iron Age (Britain), Roman Empire (Europe-wide), and Anglo-Saxon England to explore infant feeding in an archaeo logical context, highlighting the heterogeneous nature of breastfeeding and weaning practices. Thanks to a series of well-excavated cemetery sites with good bone preservation, Mary E. Lewis’s study (Chapter 25) of disease and trauma among children in Roman Britain demonstrates the wide range of afflictions suffered by children in this society, the care afforded to sick children, and also, depressingly, that well-intentioned parents may not be the best (Figure 1.8). Transferring the cultural practices of child-rearing from one environment (the Mediterranean) to another (a cold, wet outpost of civilization) had a deleterious effect on children’s health and survival. Some archaeologically identifiable changes to children’s bones may have been caused by the unwitting or inadvertent actions of parents and carers, but other body modifications are imposed on the developing child in a deliberate performance of cul tural identity. Susannne Hakenbeck (Chapter 26) investigates the beliefs, cultural nar ratives, and social pressures to create conformity to the community through difference from others by the practice of infant head shaping. Cranial modification, a permanent deformation in the shape of the skull, is a very visible reminder to archaeologists that adults are the product of their childhood, and without knowledge of the child, there is a lacuna in our understanding of adult society. Adults with cranial modification dis play the energy and care their parents or carers once invested in them at the outset of their lives. In an earlier section of the book, Hadley (Chapter 22) considered the relationship between migrating children and material culture, and Katie A. Hemer and Jane A. Evans (Chapter 27) pick up the theme of migration, but here the focus is the effect of migra tion on the body, particularly visible through the study of stable isotopes. The poten tial of stable isotope analysis to tell us about children and migration has yet to be fully addressed: the place of childhood origin usually serves as a mere backdrop to discus sions about where they went as an adult. Methodological in focus, Hemer and Evans
The Archaeology of Childhood 25
Figure 1.8 Porotic hyperostosis evident on the cranial vault of a child. The aetiology of this condition is disputed but may relate to inherited anaemia, acquired anaemia from dietary defi ciencies, or malaria. Photograph by Petra Verlinden; copyright University of Sheffield.
take examples drawn from the Neolithic, Bronze Age, and early medieval periods in Britain, and from the Inca (see also Blom, Chapter 31). They identify the diverse methods now available for tracing migration from stable isotope evidence, reviewing the insights not only from those isotopes that have long been studied as markers of migration— strontium and oxygen, in particular—but also dietary isotopes—carbon and nitrogen— which can, in some circumstances, permit insights into childhood migration, reflected in transformations in diet. This chapter also makes a case that where serial sampling of teeth from a single individual occurs it is possible to trace examples of childhood migration taking place on multiple occasions, which can illuminate aspects of child hood experience hitherto scarcely considered in stable isotopes studies.
Death, memory, and meaning As many chapters in this volume discuss, childhood is a time for learning about culture, for carrying the memory of past generations, significant cultural events, long-standing
26 Sally Crawford, Dawn M. Hadley, and Gillian Shepherd beliefs, and laws and customs, from the previous generations forward into the next gen erations. Social change can happen, accidentally or deliberately, by the act of not learn ing and repeating, or forgetting, or recalibrating ancestral pathways, ways of doing things, and social imaginaries. When a child dies, however, it is a direct challenge to the process of memory, a lost opportunity to pass on knowledge and beliefs to the next generation; but that death might also be harnessed to supply an image that encapsulated a range of social priorities. The mortuary record is one where children are often most visible, but it is also a constructed one highly susceptible to social manipulation. How communities incorporated children into commemorative processes, endowed them with significance reflective of adult aims and anxieties, and used children’s burials to remember, to forget, or to change, is the subject of this section. The theme of the spaces occupied by, or assigned to, children also recurs throughout this volume and that is no less the case in death, where the physical location of children is critical to understanding their location in the social fabrics and mores that surrounded them. Nor, as has again been illustrated throughout this volume, were approaches to the (dead) child static: diachronic changes indicate that the burials and commemoration (or not) of children can provide a sensitive barometer for, and were integral to, community- wide and shifting social, political, economic, and religious attitudes (Figure 1.9). Archaeologists may have routinely forgotten to think about children in the past (as discussed by papers in, for example, Moore and Scott 1997, and by Kamp 2001), and in so doing often failed to distinguish them even in contexts where they were most
Figure 1.9 Ancient Greek child and adult sarcophagi from the West Necropolis, Megara Hyblaea (Sicily, Italy), seventh-to sixth-century bc. Not in situ. Photograph by Gillian Shepherd.
The Archaeology of Childhood 27 conspicuous, such as cemeteries. It is also the case that for a variety of environmental and taphonomic reasons the remains of children may be very hard to detect, or may even have been ‘systematically eliminated’ (Gordon and Buikstra 1981: 569) from mor tuary contexts, regardless of the sophistication of excavation techniques. Yet for cer tain times and places, it is clear that none of these factors apply, and there may be other explanations for the suppression of archaeological evidence for children: cultural pri orities and shifts are preventing us from seeing deceased children where we first look for them, namely in formal community cemeteries. Gillian Shepherd (Chapter 28) examines the locations chosen for child burials in the ancient Greek world, with a particular focus on archaic Greek Sicily (Italy). Greek cemeteries do often include sig nificant numbers of formally interred children but not always consistently over time; explanations might include exclusion from cemeteries, changes in disposal methods, informal burial outside city cemeteries, and the allocation of particular spaces both within and outside main community burial grounds. The locations chosen for chil dren’s burials, and changes to the burial process over time, are related to strategies for remembering and giving meaning to brief lives, but potentially also for social denial and forgetting; together with the intended permanence or impermanence of burials, especially of foetuses and babies, the most liminal of humans, these (missing) burials express much about cultural, social, political, and possibly also now impenetrable reli gious attitudes. The depiction of children in ancient Egyptian art is largely to be found in mortuary and religious contexts; as a consequence, it is also essentially related to wealthier lev els of Egyptian society. Nicola Harrington (Chapter 29) examines the criteria by which children can be identified, particularly through hairstyles and dress. She observes that these images are not necessarily directly drawn from reality, but instead reflect artistic conventions (such as nudity for children). Scale and proportions were often dictated by conventions of hierarchy in art rather than realism, while tomb scenes where the inclu sion of children does not seem to reflect specific family realities might indicate stock scenes at the cheaper end of the market, or the desire to present the appearance of an ideal family in the context of afterlife and legacy, such as in daily life scenes. Deceased children were commemorated with adults in paintings in family tombs also, especially in the nineteenth dynasty when scenes shifted from themes of daily life to the afterlife but possibly only when they were buried in the tomb itself; such burials could also be vehicles not only for demonstrating the importance of the child but also the wealth and status of the wider family. Throughout, Harrington observes that approaches differed markedly over time and in tandem with other cultural shifts. In addition to more for mal depictions on carved stelai or tomb paintings, an important category of evidence is figured ostraca (pot sherds), which enlarge an otherwise selective repertoire of activ ities, including through illustration of the contribution children made to the economy, including through agriculture and ceramics production—again an important issue reiterated throughout this volume. Janet Huskinson’s study (Chapter 30) of Roman marble sarcophagi for children also highlights the variability and flexibility of child-related iconography over both time and
28 Sally Crawford, Dawn M. Hadley, and Gillian Shepherd place. Her chapter concentrates on sarcophagi produced for the city of Rome where, as elsewhere, a fundamental problem lies in the secure identification of all relevant material. The imagery reveals a range of themes and approaches indicative of varied adult attitudes to childhood, death, gender, and commemoration, with associated prac tical issues of the production and expense of a marble sarcophagus. This could include the ‘translation’ of mythological scenes common on adult sarcophagi by convert ing adult protagonists to children, or by the insertion of child portraits; ‘biographical’ scenes, especially for boys, envisage the ideal achievements of adult Romans and allude to Roman social values, rather than providing a direct reflection of some of the realities of Roman life. Again, we are viewing children through the filter of the wealthier levels of society and changing iconography over time reflects shifting priorities within those groups. In addition, the significance of these sarcophagi lies not just in their decoration but also in their location: where their placement in family or collective tombs is known, the evidence suggests that children could be emphasized as important occupants and special areas allocated to them accordingly. The ways in which the deaths of children could be used to work through adult pri orities and anxieties were not always derived through unavoidable or accidental child mortality. Deborah E. Blom (Chapter 31) explores the practice of child sacrifice in the Andes between c.5000 bc to the sixteenth century ad, drawing on evidence from art historical sources, ethnographic accounts, and human skeletal remains. The children chosen by the Inca (ad 1400–1532) for sacrifice—the capacocha—were aged between five and 15 years, and the ethnographic accounts, supported by archaeological evidence, suggest that they were typically non-locals from elite backgrounds, who were well-fed and bestowed with rich grave goods before sacrifice. The deaths of these children were interwoven in processes of political negotiation. Yet, despite this practice evidently being important, it was not depicted in art historical sources, which may in part be due to the general lack of figural art among the Inca, but even among Andean peoples who did depict acts of sacrifice, children were rarely depicted among those sacrificed. Blom concludes that even where child sacrifice occurred it was not regarded as suitable for public consumption in artistic media. It is the ethnographic and archaeological sources that reveal the practice of child sacrifice, another reminder that the presentation of the role and importance of children in a given society may be obscured in some sources, stressing the importance of multidisciplinary approaches. Evidently, in many Andean societies the deaths of certain children held considerable importance, and Blom high lights the future potential of biomolecular analysis to elucidate the lives and experiences of the children who were sacrificed. Just as in ancient Egypt, Rome, and the Andes, children in medieval Europe could also be obscured, altered, or idealized in their representation at death. Sophie Oosterwijk (Chapter 32) explores remembrance and commemoration of children, through analysis of depictions of children especially in funerary art of the medieval period in Europe, and England in particular. Although we are again glimpsing those sections of society who could afford to engage in such social practices, Oosterwijk also reminds us of the myriad
The Archaeology of Childhood 29 intangible ways in which children could be remembered in a society where remem brance entailed salvation as well as affection. She argues that in medieval funerary art, size and overall appearance are not necessarily indications of age but rather that other criteria dominated depictions and identifications of individuals, including family hier archies (in such group images offspring could be, but were not necessarily, deceased), artistic composition, baptismal status, and the concept of the ‘perfect age’ in heaven, which was relevant not only for deceased children but also adults as well. The com memoration of children is not always readily disentangled from that of adults through monument size, where smaller size may reflect the custom of heart or viscera burials, sometimes revealed by the gestures of miniature effigies; this mark of status could also be applied to children, such as the two sons of Edward I (King of England, 1272–1307) who were both accorded heart burials. Children were thus subject to conventions, rather than absent in art as has been long argued; only in the late medieval period did children garner more naturalistic representation. Colm J. Donnelly and Eileen M. Murphy (Chapter 33) bring the themes of death, memory, place, and meaning into sharp focus in their investigation of a specific type of infant burial ground, the cillíní of Ireland. The cillíní were the final destinations for unbaptized children, and some other adult ‘outsiders’, such as criminals and sui cide victims, who were not accorded burial in consecrated ground. It is interesting that these burial sites, long identified as transgressive and unusual, and a distinctive form of burial treatment for the very youngest members of Irish communities, have been a focus of archaeological attention and debate for over a century, in contrast to otherwise prolonged indifference to children in archaeological contexts. It is also very notable that it has taken the best part of that century to place the burials in their correct chronological period—post-medieval, not pre-Christian—and to realize that, rather than belonging to a distant and therefore ‘other’ past, in fact they were in use right up to the middle of the twentieth century. Archaeologists were at one and the same time identifying a mortuary practice as medieval, ‘liminal’, and unusual, whilst failing to notice that it was a practice that flourished in the seventeenth cen tury and continued into living memory. Children’s non-churchyard burial was a part of contemporary social mortuary practice in Ireland, and, as Donnelly and Murphy argue, children’s burial grounds are not perceived to be transgressive or liminal sites at all by the people who, within living memory, buried their dead infants in these special places. This chapter also reflects how great the impact of a few individuals may be on wider social practice and on the treatment of infants. The widespread development and use of the cillíní may be read as a direct response by grieving families to Church edicts, promul gated by a few men, which were in direct contradiction to how parents actually felt about their lost children, and about bereavement. The phenomenon of the cillíní in Ireland provides an important case study of the extent to which infant burial practices were a highly sensitive indicator of religious, political, and economic pressures and changes on a local, district, and national scale.
30 Sally Crawford, Dawn M. Hadley, and Gillian Shepherd
Seeing, presenting, and interpreting the archaeology of childhood There are many reasons why the archaeology of childhood is a relatively new discipline, even though children have always been present in the archaeological record. Is it pos sible to pin down the social, economic, or cultural factors that lead to the invisibil ity of childhood in the past and the growth of interest in the subject in recent years? Sally Crawford and Katharina Ulmschneider (Chapter 34) take a visual, psychological approach to the problem, as they investigate the ways in which some late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century archaeologists did, or did not, ‘see’ children in their trav els, and the cultural context that promoted the invisibility of the child in archaeological thought and theory. In the nineteenth century, it became conventional to include chil dren in photographs of landscapes, as part of the process of ‘seeing’ the image. Many of these photographs were also intended for sale, and the inclusion of children was a deliberate addition to represent an idealized and happy image. In archaeological photo graphs of sites across the British Empire, however, children were used as a means of representing the ‘other’, the uncivilized ancient cultures that were the focus of much archaeological investigation. Archaeologists of the nineteenth and early twentieth cen turies often considered children in their interpretations only when those children came to their attention as tourists rather than as archaeologists, and ‘when they were engaged in “charming”, and essentially ephemeral, behaviour’. They also argue that archaeolo gists of the period did not see the children around them because they themselves were like children, ‘slightly outside, slightly apart, observing, and learning’. Claudia Lambrugo (Chapter 35) documents the relatively recent rise of an ‘archae ology of childhood’ in Italy, and notes it has emerged especially in the context of mor tuary archaeology, here as elsewhere the context in which children are often most prominent. She goes on to analyse recent Italian innovations in archeologia didattica, or ‘didactic archaeology’, which aims to engage children with the past through techniques that emphasize the role of the child in the learning experience, and notes also recent museum exhibitions that have focused on aspects of childhood in the past, often as part of a reinterpretation of older archaeological collections. Here again—much as in the case of the Harappan Culture toys (Varma, Chapter 10)—we see the value in revisiting and reassessing material from older excavations with fresh eyes as well as enlarging our approaches to current and future archaeological work. Mark A. Hall’s study (Chapter 36) adds another dimension to the material culture of medieval childhood and its representation in museums: he examines the nexus of these two domains with that of modern movies set in the medieval period. The production of the latter is often dictated by commercial aims (such as the lucrative teenage mar ket) and overlaid with modern themes (such as feminism and the rejection of religious authority) in the creation of narrative frameworks. Nevertheless, Hall makes the tell ing point that movies—despite varying authenticity and intertwining of twentieth-and
The Archaeology of Childhood 31 twenty-first-century issues—are uniquely placed to illustrate aspects of medieval child hood through their visualization of extended periods of time, augmenting the more ‘snap shot’ versions of archaeology and recent innovative museum displays. Films also explore some of the grimmer aspects of medieval childhood, such as disease (in the films The Seventh Seal (1955), The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey (1988) and Book of Days (1988), which all depict the impact of the Black Death) and child abuse (depicted in the films Hour of the Pig (1993) and Anchoress (2003)). Hall argues that museums occupy a middle ground, mediating between academic investigation of material culture and fictional storytelling about the medieval past in film but also suggesting that museums have much to learn from the medium of film. Museum displays and film also, he con cludes, have a role to play in portraying the darker sides of medieval childhood—and in the case of child abuse, an aspect of the past only too tragically relevant to today’s mod ern societies. Sharon Brookshaw (Chapter 37) comments on the paradoxical nature of the represen tation of children and childhood in museums. Despite the high proportion of children at any one time in a population, they are usually given less attention than other minor ity groups, and the wide range of childhood experiences is often relegated to specific ‘childhood’ museums and often romanticized. While museums of ‘adulthood’ do not explicitly exist as a concept, that is effectively what many modern museums become in their obliviousness to non-adults. She goes on to point out the underrealized potential of museum collections, especially for children in the more distant past, and analyses curatorial attitudes and approaches to this material. Despite the obstacles, the enthu siasm and innovation of curators of museums in Britain has resulted in some recent highly successful exhibitions, much as in Italy also (Lambrugo, Chapter 35).
Conclusion The chapters in this volume indicate the complexity and the richness of the discipline. Some archaeologists focus on childhood—the socially constructed state of being that (usually) preceded adulthood. They examine what, for any society, the ‘rules’ are about childhood and what causes a child to transgress those rules. In modern western society, someone in their childhood is expected to be violent (toddler tantrums) but is trans gressive if they kill. Then there is the study of the child itself as a constructed concept— was the body in the grave, in the terms of that society, and in the terms of its construct of childhood, a child or not? How have environmental factors, social factors, educational factors, and generational factors shaped the body and life experience of a child? There is the question of child agency—what did children do? Those who research the archaeology of childhood are in no doubt as to its import ance, a fact which continues to be reiterated in the burgeoning numbers of volumes on childhood in the past that have appeared in the last decade (e.g. Crawford and Shepherd 2007; Bacvarov 2008; Romanowicz 2013; Hadley and Hemer 2014; Sánchez Romero,
32 Sally Crawford, Dawn M. Hadley, and Gillian Shepherd Alarcón García, and Aranda Jiménez 2015). However, in spite of the growing body of research into the archaeology of childhood, it is still a fact that childhood and the impact of children on the archaeological record have not yet moved into ‘mainstream’ archaeology (Cunnar and Högberg 2015: 76). The editors hope that this benchmark vol ume, which brings together chapters by established scholars and new researchers from around the world, will promote awareness that the relationship between childhood, material culture, and the archaeological record cannot be ignored by any archaeologist, and that a study of children and childhood is fundamental to enhancing our knowledge of the past.
Acknowledgements The editors are deeply indebted to Dr Charlotte Howsam for preparing the manuscript of this volume for publication.
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Chapter 2
The History of the Archae ol o g y of Childh o od Grete Lillehammer
Archaeologists are frequently asked what keeps challenging us. The media knocks at academia’s doors searching for excitement in the latest news about the past. What do they expect to discover—the latest oddity from the past? In this chapter, the intention is not to present scientific results based on childhood studies over the years. It is to encour age the curiosity of everyone interested in searching for the innermost core of humanity and what it meant to become human in past societies. The archaeology of childhood challenges the mindset of the student and researcher, both in terms of collected archaeological material, and when they go out into the field to make hypotheses about where the settlements have been in the past, and who the people were who once lived there. For current archaeologists, the most stimulating research is in the ‘discovery’ of children. Like the banging in the nutcracker’s orchestration of Peter Tchaikovsky, it is the thrilling experience of cracking the innermost core of social and biological codes about human life. Children are the bridge that link past with the future. Knowledge and understanding of their realms of childhood are essential to the identifi cation of children in the archaeological record. Were they associationless or universally linked to adult worlds at the same time as they were kids who liked to run off and play? What circumstances of time, space, and structure affect childhood? To enquire how geographic continuity, variation, and change in social, economic, political, and religious environments led a population majority of children to a decimated adult population are crucial parts of this story. At first glance, to think of the archaeology of childhood as a rare specialization and a curiosity of no real wider interest in general, is setting humanity off in the wrong direction. Real explanation about past societies is not possible without including chil dren. The sophistication of archaeological theory and practice steadily increases the knowledge and understanding of cultural and biological aspects of life course, gender,
The History of the Archaeology of Childhood 39 identity, socialization, and acculturation in past societies. However marginal the traces of children’s bodies and bricolage may seem compared to adults, archaeological evi dences of childhood are spread to the most astonishing spaces and places. It is hidden within and below a variety of surfaces and beyond in the depths of human mind and body of both children and adults. Crucial proof of the interrelationships between chil dren and the environment at macro/micro levels in human society is that the history of the archaeology of childhood is not all about children. Then what kith and kin are parts of childhood? To give answers to this major question we will have to grant children some flights with the global wings of jet-set archaeology. In setting off for the past, we will have to free ourselves by dusting off the refuse bins of archaeology and first inves tigate the idea of childhood. The story has been written down many times from differ ent academic positions. From a cross-cultural perspective we will primarily follow the threads of two historical positions—modernity and antiquity.
Ideas of childhood A significant start is to acknowledge the paradoxical position of looking mainly at children relationally from the outside. Childhood is a cultural construction devel oped in retrospect by humans who experienced being children. In the present defin ing a sociobiological phenomenon in the human life course made in part by adults and adult institutions, childhood is a representation of historical complexity, contradiction, and controversy both as ideal and as an experience of social, economic, political, and religious networks of particular time, space, and structure. Based on observation and experience of humans in history, it seems appropriate to view the idea of childhood in the context of the whole package of perceptions, attitudes, and behaviours, interdiscipli nary and transdisciplinary. Altogether, the part of human development to consider is the integral and structural complexity of childhood. In modern English ‘childhood’ is a term that defines the social, conditional, and qualitative state, stage, time, and age from birth to puberty. However a first and a second childhood in the human life course is essential to point out—one for children and one for the extreme old age or dotage of adults.1 Comparably the term ‘chil dren’ refers to young human beings below the age of puberty or the legal age of majority but also to adult attitudes and behaviour characteristic of children.2 Spatiality seems to be disconnected from sociality and temporality in the restricted sense of both terms (cf. note 1–2), but connotations to larger entities of state or age personified exist such as ‘world’ or ‘realm’. The classical and Christian literature of western Antiquity defines two categories—infants and early childhood—among the six ages for the stages of life (Lewis-Simpson 2008: 3). The Norse language shows a discrepancy, however, between vernacular and literary perceptions in the medieval classification of age. The vernacu lar classification operates with three categories of age groups (children, adults, and old people), while the literary classification divides the ages of man into four categories
40 Grete Lillehammer (child, young adults, people in the prime of life, and the elderly) (Sigurðsson 2008: 230). Questions about thresholds of age and growth, whether the stage of childhood was short or long in the human life cycle, and how it is reflected in the material and immaterial culture are therefore important to the advancement of the archaeology of childhood. What are the specific social, economic, religious, and political relationships connected with childhood? To identify variety in the cultural perceptions of childhood between vernacular and literary traditions seems relevant, but this is not how modern childhood discourse started in the academy. It began with the European Enlightenment of the eighteenth century and its interest was in Homo Erudutio, man the learner. The Swiss-French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau published Emile in 1762, which was a contro versial novel and treatise on the education of children and on human nature and the child’s innocence. His introduction of virtuous ideas about natural ways of socializing children had great impact on the later romanticization of childhood. Thus from the end of nineteenth century onwards, Homo Ludens, man the player, in the guise of chil dren’s traditional games, caught scholarly interest in history and folklore (Crawford and Lewis 2008: 8). Writing on child psychology and education on the background of antiquity, Christianity, Darwinism, and Nietzsche, the eminent Swedish feminist, suf fragist, and teacher Ellen Key published The Century of the Child (1909). She regarded childhood as a precious developmental stage of the child’s natural instincts, but a tor ment of repetitive adult enforcement, which destroyed the childhood of new gen erations. While scholars had long been writing about childhood and children in the classical world (Beaumont 2012: 3–7), the principal discourse took off in 1960 with the French medievalist Phillip Ariès and his Centuries of Childhood (1962). The his tory of the subject represents Ariès as having contrasted modernity with the past and advocating a romantic view of the ancient world (Fass 2013). His idea is that childhood is the creation of a special stage of life requiring a particular and elaborate treatment, but which is an invention in the western development of early modern Europe. Based on adult indifference to childhood, it is the earliest and least historically accessible stage of humans and did not exist in the past, but is an important element of change in human history. A heavy critique of Ariès was launched by the psychoanalyst Lloyd deMause, which fuelled a controversy. On the long-term scale of two millennia, a psycho-evolutionary model of historical child rearing was presented in The History of Childhood (1974), which set the focus on the dark side of adult–child relations. Thought by historians to be too ambitious, schematic, unfamiliar, and wanting (Cunningham 2005: 8), as with Key’s adult enforcement, his views about abusive parenting indicated gateways, however, for considering variations of childhood, and boundaries of children’s behaviour moving in and out in different sociocultural contexts (Brockliss and Montgomery 2010: 9–14). The controversy widened the scope for looking at structural principles in the ‘sameness’ and ‘otherness’, ‘universality’ and ‘individuality’, of childhood. Mundane conditions and trivial circumstances affect children’s life and experience, and their relations to the natural and cultural environment. Children’s biological variation, health, nutrition, and
The History of the Archaeology of Childhood 41 mortality, intertwine greatly with a diversity of social aspects such as birth order, centre of family life, parenthood, gender, identity, ethnicity, discipline, punishment, violence, exploitation, deprivation, poverty, and neglect. Questioning the idea of childhood as a modern invention of the western world, and related to change in the privileged classes, was a significant turn. It altered the focus to consider traditions of idealism, romanticism, and realism in the long-term history of childhood. While in early Christianity eastern religious sources emphasized a child’s innocence, and society tended to see newborn children as incomplete human beings, the Church saw them as complete from birth, but there were differences between east and west on the matter of a child’s innocence and original sin (Bakke 2005: 281–2). Ariès argued that ancient children were dressed and expected to behave as miniature adults. Indifference and detachment from children was a parental coping strategy for the con stant threat of child’s mortality (Lewis 2007: 3). But medieval studies have found no evi dence to support the assertion of childhood indistinctiveness (Orme 2001), rather an opposite pattern of devotion which is visible in the material culture (Gilchrist 2012: 145). From the modern perspective, the ability of a child’s agency to represent, unknowingly, a new potential resource is indicated by adult attitudes and behaviours in the past, which present infants and children as both strong (Ardren 2011) and vulnerable, unwanted, disabled, and demonic (Mustakallio and Laes 2011). Historical recognition of childhood reveals social tensions and contradicting traditions in the functions between society, group, family, and individuals in the past. As Paula Fass (2013) has stressed, by limiting his geographical and chronological scope in historicizing childhood privilege and change, Ariès flattened the past and set childhood apart, but paved the way for a new sociopolitical awareness about childhood and family life. The history of childhood tells a real story that twists and turns, one that may seem unfair in view of the ideals and visions in western philosophy and science since the Enlightenment; i.e. a child’s innocence, and childhood as the basis for human experience. The idea of childhood has grown to include a state of experience, a space of development, and an agent of future promise. To argue that love of children began at a certain point in history, or that their callous treatment stopped with western ideas and visions of modernism, seems futile. Children’s circumstances are conditioned by priv ileges, such as race, ethnicity, class, status, rank, gender, wealth, religion, and world view. Everyone who lived long enough had a childhood, but its privileges were historically enjoyed by few. For childhood to be a privileged state would mean to bestow honour, favour, and freedom unevenly upon children, and not unrestricted by temporality or geography. In Mycenaean Greece, children participated in religious acts, and girls spent several years in the service of a goddess (Aamodt 2012). In Roman Italy, conditions for children of the free-born compared to foster children and slave children relied on the social and legal status of parents and family relations, and economy (Rawson 2003). For childhood to be associated with change would mean considering children—and not merely adults—as formative agents of socialization and acculturation, and as an essential factor in the cultural processes of transmission, transformation, and alteration in past
42 Grete Lillehammer societies. The biggest shift in human history—from hunter and gatherer to agriculture— implicates changes in childhood conditions (Stearns 2006: 8–17), and which required a restructuring of spatial knowledge (Gamble 2008: 260). The consequences of climate change, the introduction of technology and religion, and conditions of diaspora in response to critical events such as catastrophe, famine, disease, migration, unrest, and war, indicate a diversity of challenges for the survival of children. Regarding continuity and change in the extended history of childhood, questions have therefore arisen as to the value of children’s potentiality in past societies. Relational social tensions created in the ontological and epistemological gap between children and adults show ideas of childhood contrast between idealism, romanticism, and realism. Importantly to the archaeology of childhood, the social sciences implicate a number of perspectives for modelling children which each may lead to a change of percep tions and different conclusions about childhood (Lillehammer 2010a: 12–13). Studies in anthropology (Lancy 2008) and history (Stearns 2006) indicate variety in the per ceptions of childhood (Baxter 2005: 4), and ethnographic evidence confirms the con cept of childhood to be diverse, elastic, and heterogeneous (Montgomery 2009: 3). Discussions about the duration and character of childhood have led to the application or reconciliation of the theory that childhood equals culture acquisition and/or growth (Lancy 2008: 4–7). In advancing our knowledge of methodological developments in the study of both subadults and adults (Mays 2013), the identity of biological age indica tors has furthered debates about the definition and identification of physiological age, chronological age, and social age in the biology of the human body (Halcrow and Tayles 2008), which have all been shown to be different and culturally loaded (Gowland and Thompson 2013: 23). In our understanding and explanation of childhood we are deal ing with numerous ideas that are multidimensional on one side, and with social and biological factors incorporated in the dynamic processes of historic construction and deconstruction of childhood on the other. As shown from the global agenda of UNICEF, children are no longer separate causes but have become part of every cause (Sham Poo 2010: 146). The academic debate indi cates ideas that picture historical patterns of universalism in the cultural traditions of childhood, but in which individual things such as any class of children are variously thought contradictive—complete or incomplete, strong or vulnerable, and natural or copies compared to adults. The aims, purposes, and roles of infants and children in society, and the thoughts or suggestions as to a possible course of social action towards them, are deeply embedded in the different ideas about childhood. Disputes about the construction and deconstruction of childhood have redefined and modulated the potentiality and limitation of seeing children’s faculties and functions as an integral part of agency, role, and resource in society. Awareness of age development to a child’s sexuality, growth, and identity, and the different sets and forms of attentiveness, sup port, ignorance, manipulation, and subordination of a child’s ability and skill to learn, partake, work, circulate, migrate, and go to war within or without family relations, are significant aspects in the global package of childhood. In seeing the long-term scale of society, group, family, or carers to be more or less child-centred or child-conscious,
The History of the Archaeology of Childhood 43 the childhood debate has brought forward unnoticed children and the identification of those that at first glance may seem outside childhood.
Flying with wings This survey has revealed a historical turning point of international consequence from 1960 onwards in the West. In the political aftermath of the student Paris riots in 1968, a reactive period broke out against academic authority among the wartime, baby boom, and atomic bomb generations of the 1970s. In the upheaval, one of the fruits grown to ripe was the legitimated right and privilege of students to ask questions and inquire critically about the basis of definitions of power in theory and method, and to search for new directions that could lead to paradigmatic shifts in theory and practice in the academy (Lillehammer 1999). In the 1980s and 1990s, and seen from the waves of femi nistic critique about the origins of the failures and shortcomings of previous approaches and interpretive frameworks (Sørensen 2013: 398), new generations started cracking new codes. Inquiries about ‘were they all men’, and how did they become gendered (Bertelsen, Næss, and Lillehammer 1987) were seen in the disciplinary tensions and movements in archaeology. The change in the narrative of not seeing or noticing arch aeological evidence of children was made possible in a large part due to the liberal spirits of colleagues and educators in academia. In the 1970s and 1980s the initial searches were individual, and were carried out tentatively or experimentally, for example by examining the contents of prehis toric burials (Gräslund 1973), settlements (Bonnichsen 1973), and modern garbage dumps (Hammond and Hammond 1981). Partly the archaeological narrative was done randomly, partly directly as the result of the UN’s Year of the Child in 1979. From Scandinavia (Lillehammer 1989), England (Crawford 1991), and beyond, the topic grew gradually into another small-scale archaeological discipline to supplement aca demic interests (Lillehammer 2010b). The bold cries were accounting for children, but definitions and boundaries between the categories of children and childhood blurred and blended in with each other. Children were understood to be the object of investiga tion, but childhood matters were not clear and obvious. The direct approach towards childhood studies seemed additive, intertwined, or subverted in the bosoms of gender (Gero and Conkey 1991; Johnsen and Welinder 1997; Moore and Scott 1997; Sørensen 2000) and life cycle research (Gilchrist 2000). Children may have been a ‘third gender’ (Bolger 2003: 127) and a part of multiple genders grouped according to age and social standing (Ribeiro 2002: 197). In the 1990s, major efforts were launched to focus on ‘children’ and ‘childhood’ in material culture respectively (Johnsen and Welinder 1995; Sofaer 1996, 2000). A key advantage on the international scene was the inclusion of the child-subject in read ers (Hays-Gilpin and Whitley 1998; Gilchrist 1999) and lexical publishing (Lohrke 2000). Supplementing the monographs of classicists (Golden 1990; Huskinson 1996;
44 Grete Lillehammer Coulon 2004), Stig Welinder (1998), and Sally Crawford (1999) leaped forward to focus comprehensively on long-term or short-term perspectives of childhood. The efforts demonstrated variations in children’s steps towards adulthood. Altogether these calls were mainly done by prehistorians who had to think creatively to compensate for relying entirely on material culture (Beaumont 2012: 9). The childhood narrative went from being associated with evidence of children, which was understood and con nected by similarities or by a common source., but not the main object of research, to being understood as significant and requiring a systematic attention and research. Childhood deserved explicitly to be classified, recorded, and analysed in the study of material culture. Kathryn Kamp, in her study of prehistory (2001), and Jane Eva Baxter from a study of historical archaeology (2005) both postulated an archaeology of child hood, developing a metatheory, method, and critique on the invisibility and socializa tion of children. The biggest leap occurred with the Kent conference in 2005 (Lally and Moore 2011). The event led to the inauguration (2005) and establishment (2007) of the Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past (SSCIP), and to the running of the international SSCIP journal, Childhood in the Past (from 2008). SSCIP institutionalized a forum for the involvement and communication of research into all aspects of children in the past across disciplinary, geographical, and chronological boundaries (Murphy 2008). This milestone confirmed the subject as having grown under the umbrellas of history, gender, and life cycle studies, and specializing in particular in socioarchae ology and osteo/bioarchaeology. Behind the new disciplinary position was a strong concern for the baby to stand on its own feet, less with what to call it—archaeology of childhood or children. A stream of research outputs indicates the range of activi ties from projects, seminars, and conferences leading up to or occurring after these events. Depending on archaeological materials, approaches, and perspectives of study, the creation is of a separate academic field of various interests where childhood and children are examined (cf. Rawson 2003; Beausang 2005; Wileman 2005; Lewis 2007; Mygland 2007; Rogersdotter 2008; Mejsholm 2009; Howcroft 2013).The diver sity of topics presents new challenges to cross over conventional academic boundaries (cf. Alt and Kemkes-Grottenthaler 2002; Baxter 2006; Crawford and Shepherd 2007; Galanidou and Dommasnes 2007; Dommasnes and Wrigglesworth 2008; Bacvarov 2008; Lewis-Simpson 2008; Lillehammer 2010a; Fahlander 2011; Rawson 2011; Darian- Smith and Pascoe 2012; Vicente 2012; Thompson, Alfonso-Durruty, and Crandal 2014; Sanchez Romero, Alarcon García and Aranda Jimenez 2015). The contents centre on agency, hybridity, liminality, otherness, alteration, and transformation of childhood in the life and death perspective of children in the environment. Together with journals, anthologies, monographs, and academic events staged worldwide, the archaeology of childhood covers macro/micro studies of interest such as biological and cognitive development, genetics, DNA, isotope, fertility, birthing, mothering, weaning, age, gender, identity, life course, mortality, nutrition, health, death, burial, religion, ritual, forensics, economy, technology, education, play, literature, music, cultural heritage, museums, and landscape.
The History of the Archaeology of Childhood 45
Cracking the codes Becoming human is a matter of looking for changing perspectives in the emergence of human values and symbolic thought (Renfrew and Morley 2009). In the metaworld of archaeology, the self-evident standpoint for what comes first has been to regard the past essentially from an adult-biased position. However trendsetting the new directions of processual and post-processual archaeologies in the 1970s onwards have been, the normative paradigms set childhood perspectives aside reductively from the discourse of a competitive archaeology. Children were the muted group relegated to the state of minors repeatedly omitted from artefact pathways into the archaeological record (Crawford 2011: 627–31, fig. 32.1). They were rarely to narrate the past in authorized heritage discourse (Högberg 2012: 154–5). The cultural memory of childhood, of which adults are also carriers, lingered in a forgetfulness of the present. Child–adult relation ships seemed to be restricted to a maternal occupation of cultural intimation that dealt with the incompleteness of children’s fulfilment. At the inauguration of SSCIP, an existential desire of belonging somewhere sought to accentuate the interdisciplinary laboratory of science and/or the transdisciplinary cross ings of archaeology. To create a holistic approach to the past, the major challenge was then—and still is—to keep an open mind on how to approach, define, and handle the body of archaeological material. How about turning adult-biased models upside down? History shows child labour to go hand in hand with adult labour. Then how can archae ologists be confident that the archaeological evidence from surveys and excavations is wholly representative of the products of grown-ups? From the very beginning, acting upon this insight about something that was obviously there in the archaeological record, the task was to find the gaps and fill the holes in an expanding children/childhood puz zle of invisibility. How to overcome it became the greatest challenge! The first step was clearly the simple recognition of a well-founded reason for asking directly and explicitly about identifying children, and then to search for them in the archaeological record. The next step was acknowledging that looking for children necessitated arguments to prove seeing what was found, and then yet another step to ask about explanations in the find ings of what was seen—how the material culture of childhood combines, blends, and divides in the material and immaterial culture of child and adult worlds. In managing a separation of the one from the other, we have come to realize the importance of keeping cross-cultural aspects integrated in studying variations in childhood beyond the rela tionships of the worlds of 1) children, 2) adults, and 3) children and/or adults in-between. In keeping together the intertwined aspects of overlapping disciplinary interests, and advancing even further the sophistication of childhood studies, the nature–culture, and child–adult divides between science and the arts have bridged the sociality and biology of children. In the crossing, we have refrained from the reductionist approach in seeing only adults and not children. We have verified that not only adults, but also children, represent guides in the search for the archaeological evidence of childhood.
46 Grete Lillehammer Now in the aftermath of a return to archaeology as an archaeology of the mixture of things from the past and the present (Olsen 2012), the focus on materiality has survived the orientation towards basics. However, even more than that, the vast potentiality in the archaeology of childhood has been understood to rely heavily on continuity in a meticu lous archaeology of practice. In the advancement of archaeological knowledge, consid eration of the interactions between culture, biology, and environment (to paraphrase Crawford 1999: xviii) seems necessary: what we as archaeologists mean by ‘childhood’ should be what adult society in the past conceived children to be. How has the archae ology of childhood shouldered this position of scientific idealism with academic realism in the identification of children? In examining the archaeological record, several types of childhood identities have been approached, such as active agents, copycats, passive appendages, dead, liminal, remembered, and sacred children. Contrasting the past and the present to look for iconographic representations of socialization in writing, drawing, painting, photographs, frescoes, mosaic, sculpture, or mummies and skeletal remains of children, the cultural image and memory of childhood have been appropriated. On the mundane level, investigating the material culture of children’s experience from their deeds and doings through the scarcity of skeletal remains and habitation layers has proved painstaking and difficult. In particular, contesting biases about the marginality of children in the material record is why childhood studies keep exciting archaeologists. In being mediators between worlds, children use the reality between the internal and external experience of childhood to initiate social relationships through transitional objects, and objects of playing and working in the environment. New levels of sophis tication have lead methodology to specialize between studying ‘childhood’ (socializa tion) and ‘children’ (biological) (Sofaer 2006). Child/child and child/adult relationships are biosocial and integral to both perspectives, and imply great potential for the exam ination of childhood through a variety of materials. In a short time, we have come full circle from the very start of the journey. In socioarchaeology, work focuses on the inter relationships between learning, work, and play in cultural transmission, such as flint knapping (Sternke and Sørensen 2009) and toys (Morrison and Crawford 2013), and in bioarchaeology on investigating age as both a category and a process of biology and culture, understood in the meaning of ‘social’ and related to the human body (Sofaer 2011: 303). To stress the importance of studying the changing worlds of children’s thresh olds (Fahlander 2012) and the physical experience embodied in children’s negotiation of the world (Bolger 2003: 126), research efforts have crossed over far-ranging sociocul tural aspects such as signalling the rise of patriarchy (Budin 2012) and acculturation in the movements of population (Hadley and Hemer 2011).
Conclusion Children’s genuine experience of childhood in the past contests the metatheo retical stance of archaeology in the present. The society in the past could neither be
The History of the Archaeology of Childhood 47 approached nor explained properly in the archaeological record without the study of childhood. Like a serial cartoon looking forward and backward for childhood within, around, in-between, and beyond children or adults, the process of doing an archae ology of childhood challenges the knowledge of social complexity in the past, and how sociality and biology link, combine, blend, hybridize, and divide in the development of the multiple roles of society, family, and individuals. Children are imitators, mediators, and transformers of material culture, so what about children the innovators? The study of their learning and play goes side by side in the archaeology of childhood. In theory and method examining the development of becoming human in the environment, the archaeological study of materiality on macro/micro levels poses great prospects for future discovery. Paramount for the advancement of knowledge in archaeology is to inquire critically about theories and methods about continuity, transformation, and change in past societies. In practice, searching for the diverse variations of interrela tionships between society, children, and the environment, the student and researcher have to optimize childhood and push the disciplinary boundaries of former gener ations, not least what it means to contest the past through the lens of childhood.
Notes 1. (cf. http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/idea?q=childhood, available online April 2015). 2. (cf. http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/child?q=child, available online April 2015).
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50 Grete Lillehammer Mejsholm, L. (2009). Gränsland. Konstruktion av tidig barndom och begravningsritual vid tiden för kristnandet i Skandinavien. Occasional Papers in Archaeology 44. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet. Montgomery, H. (2009). An Introduction to Childhood. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Moore, J. and Scott, E. (eds) (1997). Invisible People and Processes. Writing Gender and Childhood into European Archaeology. London: Leicester University Press. Morrison, W. and Crawford, S. (2013). ‘Re-assessing Toys in the Archaeological Assemblage: A Case Study from Dorchester-on-Thames’. Childhood in the Past, 6/1: 52–65. Murphy, E. M. (2008) ‘Editorial’. Childhood in the Past, 1: 1–2. Mustakallio, K. and Laes, C. (eds) (2011). The Dark Side of Childhood in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Childhood in the Past Monograph Series 2. Oxford: Oxbow. Mygland, S. S. (2007). Children in Medieval Bergen. An Archaeological Analysis of Child-Related Artefacts. Bryggen Papers Main Series 7. Bergen: Fagboklaget. Olsen, B. (2012). ‘After Interpretation: Remembering Archaeology’. Current Swedish Archaeology, 20: 11–34. Orme, N. (2001). Medieval Children. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Rawson, B. (2003). Children and Childhood in Roman Italy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rawson, B. (ed.) (2011). A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Renfrew, C. and Morley, I. (eds) (2009). Becoming Human. Innovations in Prehistoric Material and Spiritual Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ribeiro, E. R. (2002). ‘Altering the Body: Representations of Pre-pubescent Gender Groups on Early and Middle Cypriot “Scenic Compositions”, in D. L. Bolger (ed.), Engendering Aphrodite: Women and Society in Ancient Greece. Atlanta, GA: American Schools of Oriental Research, 197–208. Rogersdotter, E. (2008). Socializing Children’s Toys. Berlin: VDM Verlag Dr. Müller. Rousseau, J.-J. (2003) Emile, or Treatise on Education (trans. by W. H. Payne). Amherts, NY: Prometheus Books. Sanchez Romero, M., Alarcon García, E., and Aranda Jimenez, G. (eds) (2015). Children, Spaces and Identity. Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past Monograph 4. Oxford: Oxbow. Sham Poo, K. H. (2010). ‘UNICEF—60+ years for and with children’, in G. Lillehammer (ed.), Socialization: Recent Research on Childhood and Children in the Past. Stavanger: AmS- Skrifter 23: 145–55. Sigurðsson, J. V. (2008). ‘Ageism and Taking Care of the Elderly in Iceland c.900–1300’, in S. Lewis-Simpson (ed.), Youth and Age in the Medieval North. Leiden: Brill, 227–42. Sofaer, J. D. (ed.) (1996). ‘Editorial: Perspectives on Children and Childhood’. Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 13/2: 1–5. Sofaer, J. D. (ed.) (2000). Children and Material Culture. London: Routledge. Sofaer, J. D. (2006). The Body of Material Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sofaer, J. D. (2011). ‘Towards a Social Bioarchaeology’, in S. C. Agarwal and B. A. Glencross (eds), Social Bioarchaeology. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell: 285–311. Sørensen, M. L. S. (2000). Gender Archaeology. Cambridge: Polity Press. Sørensen, M. L. S. (2013). ‘History of Gender Archaeology in Northern Europe’, in D. Bolger (ed.), A Companion to Gender Prehistory. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 396–412. Stearns, P. N. (2006). Childhood in World History. New York, NY: Routledge.
The History of the Archaeology of Childhood 51 Sternke, F. and Sørensen, M. (2009). ‘The identification of Children’s Flint Knapping Products in Mesolithic Scandinavia’, in S. B. McCartan, R. Schulting, G. Warren, and P. Woodman (eds), Mesolithic Horizons, Volume II. Oxford: Oxbow, 722–9. Thompson, J. F., Alfonso-Durruty, M. P., and Crandal, J. J. (eds) (2014). Tracing Childhood. Bioarchaeological Investigations of Early Lives in Antiquity. Gainsville, FL: University Press of Florida. Vicente, D. J. (ed.) (2012). Niños en la Antigüedad: Estudios sobre la Infancia en Mediterráneo Antiguo. Zaragoza: Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza. Welinder, S. (1998). ‘The Cultural Construction of Childhood in Scandinavia 3500 bc–1350 ad’. Current Swedish Archaeology, 6: 185–204. Wileman, J. (2005). Hide and Seek: The Archaeology of Childhood. Stroud: Tempus.
SECTION II
DE F I N I N G C H I L DR E N A N D C H I L DHO OD
Chapter 3
Techniqu e s for Ide ntify ing th e Ag e a nd Sex of Children at De at h Jo Buckberry
The skeletal remains of infants and children are a poignant reminder of the perilous nature of childhood in the past, yet they offer valuable insight into the life histories of individuals and into the health of populations. Many osteoarchaeological and bioarchaeological analyses are dependent on two vital pieces of information: the age and sex of the individual(s) under study. This chapter will outline how age and sex can be estimated from the skeletal remains of non-adults and will discuss the complexities and controversies surrounding different methods.
Biological identity Human osteoarchaeologists use observed differences on skeletons to make inferences about the biological status of an individual. The methods used rely, to a certain extent, on the principle of uniformitarianism, meaning that if observation X correlates with age (or sex) Y in modern individuals, then if we see observation X in archaeological remains, the individual is probably of age (or sex) Y. Of course, the reality is much more complex. Many of the features observed on skeletal remains do not directly correlate to a specific age or sex; rather certain traits are more commonly observed in males, or the average age of attainment of a specific developmental stage is a certain age, but individuals will vary around these ‘ideals’. Osteologists combine data to produce age estimates and sex assessments,1 and methods are regularly tested to investigate ease of application, repeatability, accuracy, and variation between populations. For age estimation, many methods rely on clinical data pertaining to the mean age of attainment of a specific stage, and the standard deviation and range of ages seen around
56 Jo Buckberry this point. Growth-related studies usually record the average height or bone size of a certain age group, data that can be used to estimate age based on the average measurements of an age cohort. Care should be taken to consider the variation about the mean, which is typically much smaller when dealing with non-adult age in comparison to adult age estimates. The range of variation seen for some observations has led to the comparison of biological age (non-linear maturation stages) rather than chronological age (the linear passing of time since an individual’s birth) and can be used to investigate social age (Buikstra and Ubelaker 1994; Cox 2000). Studies of modern populations of different socioeconomic statuses have shown that children with poor access to resources are likely to grow and develop at a slower rate than their wealthier and/or healthier counterparts (Lewis and Garn 1960). Empirical observation has shown that certain aspects of development are more likely to be influenced by external factors; thus, osteoarchaeologists will rely on methods shown to be more resistant to these external factors, such as dental development and, to a lesser extent, dental eruption, as will be shown later. Sex assessment of non-adults is a much more controversial topic than age estimation; the observed differences between males and females are typically quite small (resulting in greater inter-and intra-observer error) and accuracy levels for published methods are typically much lower for non-adults than for adults. Many osteologists prefer not to assess the sex of non-adults due to these lower accuracy levels, but doing so makes it impossible to investigate the different life (and death) experiences of boys and girls.
Estimating age-at-death Estimating non-adult age-at-death is less problematic than estimating adult age-at- death, as the growth and development of bones and teeth occur in a fairly regular and well understood sequence. This allows the ages of children to be estimated with fairly high degrees of accuracy and precision, providing their skeletons are complete and not fragmentary. Naturally, the accuracy of an age estimate will decrease considerably for skeletons missing important elements, particularly the dentition. Many studies have shown that there is some variation in the timing of developmental stages between the sexes, with girls generally more advanced than boys of the same age, particularly during puberty. As discussed below, sex assessment of non-adults is controversial; if sex is not assessed then age estimates for males and females must be combined, producing wider age ranges (Scheuer and Black 2000a). Non-adult age- at-death can be estimated using the formation and eruption of the dentition, and the growth and fusion of bones. Individual age estimates are typically given as an estimated age range (e.g. two to four years), rather than point age estimates (e.g. 2.5 years) to reflect variability in age estimates from different areas of the same skeleton, and variation in the age at which different individuals reach the level of maturation seen. Comparisons are often made between
Techniques for Identifying the Age and Sex of Children at Death 57 Table 3.1 Comparisons of stages of development and associated age ranges. Data taken from Lewis (2007: 2, Table 1.1), and Scheuer and Black (2000a: 10, Table 1). Scheuer and Black
Lewis
Embryo
First 2 months in utero
First 8 weeks in utero
Foetus
Third month to birth
8 weeks in utero until birth (c.38 weeks)
Perinate
Around the time of birth
Around birth–24 weeks gestation to 7 post-natal days’
Neonate
Birth to the end of the first month
Birth to 27 post-natal days
Infant
Birth to the end of the first year
Birth to one year
Young child
To the end of the fifth year
1 to 14.6 years
Old child
About 6 years to puberty
Child
Adolescent
–
14.6 to 17 years
Non-adult
–
≤ 17 years
different populations, or subgroups of the same population, using age groups. However, the age groups used vary between researchers, which can make comparison of different datasets difficult (Crawford 1991: 19–20; see Table 3.1). Indeed, it has been argued that the names used for many age categories (e.g. infant, child, juvenile) have specific meanings in different social contexts and thus are culturally loaded (Gowland 2006: 144).
Estimating age-at-death from the dentition Humans have two sets of teeth. Deciduous teeth start to develop in utero, erupt by age two to three years, and are exfoliated during older childhood (c.five to 12 years); most humans develop 20 deciduous teeth, which are replaced by (usually) 32 permanent teeth. The first permanent teeth to start developing are the first molars, which start to form in dental crypts distal to the deciduous molars in utero. The anterior permanent teeth develop in crypts above/below the corresponding maxillary/mandibular deciduous teeth; as the crowns develop the roots of the deciduous teeth resorb until the deciduous teeth are exfoliated, at which point the permanent teeth can erupt. Permanent molars are not preceded by deciduous teeth but develop in the same way before erupting into the mouth. In skeletal remains, age-at-death can be estimated by looking at the level of formation of teeth, the eruption of teeth relative to the alveolar bone, the resorbtion of deciduous teeth, or a combination of these (AlQahtani, Hector, and Liversidge 2010).
58 Jo Buckberry
Tooth formation The mineralization of dental enamel and dentine follows a well-understood sequential pattern (Whittaker 2000), is genetically controlled, and is little affected by external environmental factors (Lewis and Garn 1960; Elamin and Liversidge 2013). This makes tooth formation the most reliable indicator of non-adult age (Smith 1991; Scheuer and Black 2000a; Mays 2010). Teeth are formed in crypts within the alveolar bone. The teeth develop initially from the enamel-dentine junction. Enamel forms towards the occlusal (biting) surface, dentine towards the root with the sides of the crown then growing to form the complete enamel cap. Root growth continues with the formation of dentine and cementum at a regular rate that completes with closure of the root apex. Eruption usually occurs one to two years prior to the completion of root development (Hillson 1996). These stages can be observed macroscopically on loose teeth and radiographically for teeth embedded within jaws (Figure 3.1). All but the earliest stages can be seen in archaeological individuals. These stages of tooth formation have been recorded in living children, and ages of attainment of the different stages for deciduous and permanent teeth have been recorded (Smith 1991). Many studies have been undertaken,
Figure 3.1 Radiograph of the jaws of a c.3-year-old. The deciduous molars are erupted, but the roots of M2 have not finished developing. The anterior deciduous teeth have been lost postmortem. Developing teeth can be seen in the dental crypts, but the second permanent molars have not yet initiated formation. © BARC, Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford.
Techniques for Identifying the Age and Sex of Children at Death 59 utilizing populations around the world, and variation in the rate of maturation and development of teeth in different populations have been observed (see Lewis 2007: 40), but development does not appear to be affected by malnutrition (Elamin and Liversidge 2013). The standards published by Coenraad Moorrees and colleagues (1963a, b) for assessing age based on the formation of teeth are considered by many to be the most accurate, as their sample population included many younger individuals, thus not truncating the lower age ranges (Smith 1991). Usefully, each tooth can be assessed independently, although combining the ages for several teeth increases accuracy in age estimation (Moorrees, Fanning, and Hunt 1963a, b). Girls were found to be more advanced than males throughout the sequence of development, although this was less marked for the deciduous dentition (Smith 1991; Hillson 1996). B. Holly Smith (1991) reworked the data collected by Moorrees and colleagues for permanent teeth to make it more suitable for age estimation (rather than for assessing dental maturity), presenting the mean age of attainment for each stage for males and females in tables. The Smith (1991) method was found to be substantially more accurate for age estimation than the original Moorrees, Fanning, and Hunt (1963a) method when applied to the Christ Church, Spitalfields, known-age collection (Liversidge 1994). In contrast, testing on the Belleville, Ontario, known-age sample (Saunders et al. 1993) revealed that the unmodified Moorrees, Fanning, and Hunt (1963a) method for permanent teeth was more accurate than that of Smith (1991). Other standards of dental development have also been developed. The Anderson, Thompson, and Popovitch (1976) method was found to overestimate the age of young children, probably due to the lack of individuals in the reference sample under three years of age (Saunders et al. 1993). The applicability of the Demirjian and colleagues (1973) method of age estimation has been criticized for use with archaeological material as it does not allow for missing teeth (Hillson 1996). Their four-tooth systems (Demirjian and Goldstein 1976), however, can be applied to archaeological samples, providing the correct four teeth (M2, M1, P2, P1 or M2, P2, P1 I1)2 are present.
Dental eruption Dental eruption refers to the process where teeth migrate from within the jaw, through the alveolar bone and gums, to the occlusal plane. This process continues throughout life, compensating for occlusal wear or loss of the opposing teeth (Hillson 1996; Scheuer and Black 2000b). Clinical or gingival eruption refers to the appearance of teeth through the gums. This stage of development cannot be assessed on archaeological skeletons; however, eruption through the alveolar bone and the entry of the crown onto the occlusal plane can be recorded (Hillson 1996). Most clinical studies of dental eruption are based on gingival eruption, and have shown that both the timing and sequence can be variable both within and between populations (Hillson 1996), with eruption generally occurring later for those from a lower socioeconomic background (Garn et al. 1973). In addition, dental eruption can be affected by caries, premature tooth loss, and malnutrition (Smith 1991). Despite these
60 Jo Buckberry problems, dental eruption is frequently used to assess non-adult age, particularly when used in combination with data regarding dental development, usually presented in atlas form.
Dental atlases Data regarding dental development and dental eruption can be combined visually into a dental atlas. Many osteologists use the dental chart produced by Douglas Ubelaker (1989), which is based on the dental atlas of Isaac Schour and Maury Massler (1941), but modified to acknowledge differences in dental eruption seen in Native American populations (Ubelaker 1989; Buikstra and Ubelaker 1994; Hillson 1996). More recently, the London Dental Atlas has combined and compared data from 704 individuals, comprising skeletal remains under two years of age (n = 176) and radiographs of individuals aged two to 28 years (n = 528), a much larger sample size than used in previous studies. The resultant atlas has increased detail and information for the older stages of dental development, yet maintains the level of detail seen for younger individuals in earlier charts. By using equal numbers of individuals in each age cohort, it reduces the risk of the reference population structure skewing resultant age estimates. A recent test has found better accuracy for the London Dental Atlas when compared to Schour and Massler (1941) and Ubelaker (1989); however all three methods tended to underage older individuals (AlQahtani, Hector, and Liversidge 2014).
Skeletal development Most of the major bones of the body begin to ossify during foetal life, although the primary ossification centres of some smaller bones, including the carpals and tarsals, start to ossify during infancy and childhood (Mays 2010). Secondary ossification centres form as separate bones and fuse to the primary centres during development; these are called epiphyses (which relate to joints) and apophyses (which relate to muscle attachments). Epiphyses and apophyses are separated from the rest of the bone by cartilaginous growth plates, which allow bones to grow rapidly without having to continually remodel articular surfaces and other structures. During development, bones fuse together and, in the case of long bones (which fuse during adolescence), terminate longitudinal growth and hence increase in stature (Ubelaker 1989; Mays 2010). As these fusion events occur sequentially, epiphyseal and apophyseal fusion can be used to estimate non-adult age, particularly during early childhood, when the vertebrae fuse, and during adolescence when fusion of the long bones occurs. The timing of epiphyseal fusion varies between the sexes, with union generally occurring in females one to two years before males (Ubelaker 1989). If sex is not assessed for non-adult remains, it is necessary to combine the age ranges for both sexes for the timing of each fusion event. Many publications detail the age at which different fusion events occur, some giving great detail about a specific bone or group of bones (e.g. Redfield 1970; Weaver 1979) and others giving a broad overview of fusing of the major epiphyses (e.g. Ubelaker
Techniques for Identifying the Age and Sex of Children at Death 61
Figure 3.2 Femur, tibia, and fibula of a 7-to 8-year-old. The epiphyses have not fused; the proximal epiphysis of the fibula was not recovered at excavation. © Jo Buckberry.
1989; Buikstra and Ubelaker 1994; Schaefer 2008; Mays 2010). Probably the most comprehensive discussion was by Louise Scheuer and Sue Black (2000b), where the data is combined with the age at which ossification centres appear (Figures 3.2 and 3.3). The appearance of ossification centres can also be used to estimate age (Scheuer and Black 2000a); however, these are often very small and are frequently lost during excavation. When ossification centres are recovered, it can be difficult to identify them with confidence due to a lack of diagnostic features during early stages of formation. In practical terms, the appearance of ossification centres is rarely used to estimate age in archaeological populations, as it is usually impossible to ascertain whether the absence of particular centres was real or an artefact of the recovery process. Exceptions occur where remains are partially mummified. Here radiographs can be used to identify which ossification centres are present. The wrist/hand is a particularly diagnostic area, with the
62 Jo Buckberry
Figure 3.3 Sequence of development of the femur, from neonate on the left to adult on the right, showing appearance and then fusion of epiphyses and apophyses. © Jo Buckberry.
eight carpals appearing between birth and the ages of 13 (for girls) or 15 (for boys), with the fusion of the distal radius and ulna extending this range to 16–17 years (Greulich and Pyle 1959; Cameriere et al. 2012).
Bone size Age estimates from bone size (most frequently estimated from long bone lengths) rely on the assumption that chronological age is directly related to height/body size, and hence bone length/size. Whilst there is a general relationship between the two, height will vary amongst children within a given year group. However, on average, a group of older children will be taller than a group of younger children. Bone growth allows non- adult age to be estimated from long bone lengths; however, it gets increasingly inaccurate when applied to older children. Skeletal growth is influenced by genetic inheritance, disease, and nutritional status (which in turn are linked to socioeconomic status). Once an infant has been weaned it becomes much more susceptible to external stressors. Those affected by under-or malnutrition and disease are likely to exhibit a slower rate of bone growth and delayed skeletal development (Eveleth and Tanner 1990; Scheuer and Black 2000a; Mays, Chapter 4
Techniques for Identifying the Age and Sex of Children at Death 63 of this volume). Long bone length has been shown to be more affected by external factors than epiphyseal fusion and especially dental development, which appears to be unaffected (Lewis and Garn 1960; Cardoso 2007; Conceição and Cardoso 2011; Elamin and Liversidge 2013). Significantly, the skeletons of children recovered from archaeological sites are, by definition, less healthy than those who survived to adulthood. Many studies have shown that age estimates derived from long bone lengths are younger than those estimated from the level of dental development in the same individual (e.g. Hoppa 1992; Schillaci et al. 2011: fig. 2), and that this disparity increases with increasing age. Applying modern growth standards (e.g. Maresh 1970) to archaeological material will usually underestimate the age of non-adults (Figure 3.4), therefore age estimates derived from long bone lengths should be used with caution; instead emphasis should be placed on dental age estimates, which have been shown to be less influenced by external factors such as poor nutrition and/or prolonged ill health. Where dental age estimates cannot be obtained, it is possible to use population-specific standards created using large samples of non-adults’ skeletons with both dental ages and long bone lengths (e.g. Primeau et al. 2012, 2016). Long bone length and other bone dimensions should ideally only be used to estimate age in the very young, or where no other indicators of age can be observed. Comparison of estimated age from dental development and long bone length provides significant information about rates of growth in the past (see Mays, Chapter 4 of this volume). 450 400 350 Average modern population
Femur length (mm)
300 250
Variation seen in modern population
200
Average medieval population
150 100 50 0
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
Age (years)
Figure 3.4 Comparison of average femur length of individuals of different ages for modern and archaeological populations. Modern data from Maresh (1970); medieval data (Raunds, Northamptonshire, England) from Hoppa (1992).
64 Jo Buckberry
Foetal and neonatal age estimation from bone size Bone growth appears to be much more constant cross-culturally for individuals under one year of age than for older children, probably reflecting the fact that once weaned, children are far more susceptible to the external pressures that influence growth (Hoppa 1992). This allows the age of foetuses and infants to be estimated from bone size with higher degrees of accuracy than for older children. István Fazekas and F. Kósa (1978) collected osteometric data from a series of modern foetal skeletons. They used the linear correlation between foetal crown-heel length and age to create age estimation standards for 67 measurements on 37 bones. They found that the long bones, mandible, and clavicle provided the most accurate age estimates, but that any bone could be used to estimate age (Kósa 1989). Scheuer, Musgrave, and Evans (1980) found that accuracy was increased if age estimations were made directly from bone length rather than via crown-heel length. Their study of modern British material included perinatal infants, thus increasing the range of age estimates that could be obtained from the long bones. They found that most cases fell very close to their regression lines (i.e. there was little spread or variability), and hence concluded that the regression equations could be used to estimate age. The authors cautioned that these equations were population- specific, and that due consideration of this should be given to any age estimates obtained using this method for different populations (Scheuer, Musgrave, and Evans 1980). Rebecca Gowland and Andrew Chamberlain (2002) used Bayesian statistics to better understand the influence that the variation about the mean reported by Scheuer and colleagues (1980) would have on perinatal age estimation in Romano-British cemeteries, addressing previous claims of evidence of infanticide at rural Romano-British sites (Mays 1993). They found that when the degree of spread was taken into consideration using prior probabilities, biases in the age distributions produced by the age estimation method were removed, and no peak indicative of infanticide was evident (Gowland and Chamberlain 2002). While evidence for infanticide in Roman Britain is still debated (Mays 2003; Mays and Eyers 2011; Bonsall 2013), the study by Gowland and Chamberlain (2002) suggests that error margins need to be included in age estimates from long bone length to allow for variation about the mean. Overall, age estimates for non-adults should be made using dental development wherever possible, with epiphyseal and apophyseal fusion for all age groups, and long bone lengths for foetal and neonate remains, also providing accurate age estimates. The lengths of long bones can be used to give an indication of age, but if modern standards are used, they are likely to underestimate age. If possible, methods developed on appropriate reference collections (ideally geographically and temporally similar, although the latter will always pose a problem) should be utilized. Age estimates should acknowledge variation in the ageing process between individuals, with ages given as age ranges rather than as point estimates. ‘Most likely’ and ‘cannot be excluded’ age ranges are often utilized in forensic anthropology (Lynnerup et al. 2008: 242.e5). The use of similar ranges may help raise awareness of the imprecision of age estimates from skeletal remains, although this is less of a problem for non-adults compared with adult skeletons (Buckberry 2015).
Techniques for Identifying the Age and Sex of Children at Death 65
Assessment of sex Biological sex is determined by the presence or absence of the Y chromosome (XY = males, XX = females for most individuals). The secretion of male or female hormones in sufficiently high quantities causes the body to develop male or female characteristics, which can vary in their degrees of expression during life. Studies have shown that the female phenotype is the norm, and that males develop male physical features due to the presence of male hormones during gestation (Wilson, George, and Griffin 1981). These sex differences manifest themselves in both soft tissues and eventually in bone, and the latter can be used to assess the sex of skeletons (Mays and Cox 2000).
Assessing non-adult sex The levels of hormones secreted by the body vary throughout life. The increase in the levels of androgen during puberty cause males to develop male physical features (Mays and Cox 2000), increasing levels of sexual dimorphism, and allowing us to estimate adult sex with high levels of accuracy. Prior to puberty, however, sex hormone levels are low, giving rise to very low levels of sexual dimorphism and making assessment of childhood sex very difficult. The exception to this is foetal sex, as testosterone levels rise in males from about eight weeks in utero and are maintained until birth; arguably, this might result in a higher level of sexual dimorphism in neonatal skeletons than for other non-adults (Mays and Cox 2000). Methods of non-adult sex assessment have focused on the morphological differences in the ilia, mandible, and facial bones (Weaver 1980; Schutkowski 1993; Molleson, Cruse, and Mays 1998; Loth and Henneberg 2001). The levels of sexual dimorphism observed in non-adults are less dramatic than those evident in adult remains, and are less evident in populations where lower levels of sexual dimorphism is observed in adults (Loth and Henneberg 2001); this makes reliable recording of the traits more dependent on the experience of the observer. Some studies have found reliability of sex assessment for these traits is similar to that reported for adult skeletons (Schutkowski 1993; Sutter 2003); others have found levels of accuracy to be much lower (Vlak, Roksandic, and Schillaci 2008; Wilson, MacLeod, and Humphrey 2008). Levels of sexual dimorphism have been shown to vary at different ages, and it has been argued that some of the morphological features used to assess non-adult sex have a higher correlation with increasing age than with biological sex (Vlak, Roksandic, and Schillaci 2008). Metrical and geometric methods of sex assessment have produced lower accuracy levels, as low as 54 to 60 per cent (Schutkowski 1987; Holcomb and Konigsberg 1995). In addition, metrical methods of sex assessment are known to be population-specific, even in adults. Once individuals hit adolescence, the sexually dimorphic features of the pelvis begin to develop adult form, and can be used tentatively for sex assessment; features of the pubic
66 Jo Buckberry bone are especially useful in this regard, with a precursor of the highly diagnostic ventral arc being present in females as young as 14 years old, but more commonly observed by 20 years (Sutherland and Suchey 1991). Teeth are generally larger in males than females; however, like all metrical methods of sex assessment, tooth size will be population-specific. In the case of permanent teeth, which do not change in size once developed (beyond the loss of crown height due to dental wear), the measurements of adult teeth can be used to develop population- specific standards for older children, whose permanent tooth crowns begin to develop in the first few years of life (Hillson 1996). One problem with this approach is that smaller children are more likely to die prior to adulthood (see discussion above; and Mays, Chapter 4 of this volume). It has been suggested that if these children also had stunted growth in their teeth, then there could be a bias towards the female sex using this approach (Mays 2010). While the rate of tooth formation is unlikely to be affected by external environmental forces (Lewis and Garn 1960; Elamin and Liversidge 2013), the extent to which this affects tooth size is unclear. Sex can be assessed using the analysis of DNA, providing DNA has survived the burial environment and samples have not been contaminated by the DNA of anyone who has handled the remains (Brown 2000; Smith et al. 2001). As biological sex is determined by the presence/absence of the Y chromosome, the presence/absence of the Y chromosome in ancient DNA can be used to determine whether an individual is male or female respectively (Brown 2000). While this expensive approach is unlikely to be utilized for sexually dimorphic adult remains, there is great potential for investigating the sex of non-adults, with the reducing cost of DNA analysis. Indeed, aDNA analysis has been used to investigate if male-preferential infanticide was practised during the Roman period (Faerman et al. 1998; Mays and Faerman 2001; Hassan et al. 2014); however, the results were limited by the levels of DNA survival in the samples studied. At present, the methods used to investigate the sex of non-adult remains are fraught with concerns over reliability. While some appear to work well on some populations, the current standards cannot be used universally. At present, many scholars prefer not to attempt sex assessment prior to the later teenage years (Lewis 2007; Scheuer and Black 2000b: 15). This difficulty in assessing sex adds uncertainty to age estimation, as males and females generally have different rates of growth and development.
Summary Overall, the methods used to assess the age of non-adults are well understood, and have been shown to have good levels of accuracy. This is particularly true for dental development. Thus, the age of non-adults can be estimated with a high degree of confidence, usually to within a few years. Sex assessment, on the other hand, remains problematic, but seems to be more successful for populations with marked sexual dimorphism amongst adults. If applied at all, sex assessment methods should be used under carefully controlled conditions and with a degree of caution.
Techniques for Identifying the Age and Sex of Children at Death 67
Notes 1. Osteologists do not determine age or sex. The word ‘determine’ hides the uncertainty that is inherent when inferring age or sex from skeletal remains. Thus, the phrasing age estimation and sex assessment are preferred. 2. In this shorthand notation, a tooth is referred to by the first letter of its name (incisor, canine, premolar, or molar). A number is used to indicate its position in the jaw, with subscript denoting a mandibular tooth and superscript indicating a maxillary tooth. Hence M2 refers to the lower second molar.
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68 Jo Buckberry Demirjian, A., Goldstein, H., and Tanner, J. M. (1973). ‘A New System of Dental Age Assessment’. Human Biology, 45: 211–27. Elamin, F. and Liversidge, H. M. (2013). ‘Malnutrition Has No Effect on the Timing of Human Tooth Formation’. PloS One, 8/8: e72274. Eveleth, P. B. and Tanner, J. M. (1990). Worldwide Variation in Human Growth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Faerman, M., Bar-Gal, G. K., Filon, D., Greenblatt, C. L., Stager, L., Oppenheim, A., and Smith, P. (1998). ‘Determining the Sex of Infanticide Victims from the Late Roman Era through Ancient DNA Analysis’. Journal of Archaeological Science, 25/9: 861–5. Fazekas, I. G. and Kósa, F. (1978). Forensic Fetal Osteology. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. Garn, S. M., Nagy, J. M., Sandusky, S. T., and Trowbridge, F. (1973). ‘Economic Impact on Tooth Emergence’. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 39: 233–8. Gowland, R. (2006). ‘Ageing the Past: Examining Age Identity from Funerary Evidence’, in R. Gowland and C. Knüsel (eds), Social Archaeology of Funerary Remains. Oxford: Oxbow, 143–54. Gowland, R. and Chamberlain, A. T. (2002). ‘A Bayesian Approach to Ageing Perinatal Skeletal Material from Archaeological Sites: Implications for the Evidence for Infanticide in Roman- Britain’. Journal of Archaeological Science, 29/6: 677–85. Greulich, W. and Pyle, S. I. (1959). Radiographic Atlas of Skeletal Development of the Hand and Wrist. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Hassan, N. A-M., Brown, K. A., Eyers, J., Brown T. A., and Mays, S. (2014). ‘Ancient DNA Study of the Remains of Putative Infanticide Victims from the Yewden Roman Villa Site at Hambleden, England’. Journal of Archaeological Science 43: 192–7. Hillson, S. (1996). Dental Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Holcomb, S. and Konigsberg, L. W. (1995). ‘Statistical Study of Sexual Dimorphism in the Human Fetal Sciatic Notch’. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 97/2: 113–25. Hoppa, R. D. (1992). ‘Evaluating Human Skeletal Growth: An Anglo- Saxon Example’. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 2/4: 275–88. Kósa, F. (1989). ‘Age Estimation from the Fetal Skeleton’, in M. Y. İşcan (ed.), Age Markers in the Human Skeleton. Springfield, IL: Thomas, 21–54. Lewis, A. B. and Garn, S. M. (1960). ‘The Relationship between Tooth Formation and Other Maturational Factors’. The Angle Orthodontist, 30: 70–7. Lewis, M. (2007). The Bioarchaeology of Children. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Liversidge, H. M. (1994). ‘Accuracy of Age Estimation from Developing Teeth of a Population of Known Age’. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 4/1: 37–46. Loth, S. R. and Henneberg, M. (2001). ‘Sexually Dimorphic Mandibular Morphology in the First Few Years of Life’. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 115/2: 179–86. Lynnerup, N., Belard, E., Buch-Olsen, K., Sejrsen, B., and Damgaard-Pedersen, K. (2008). ‘Intra-and Interobserver Error of the Greulich–Pyle Method as Used on a Danish Forensic Sample’. Forensic Science International, 179: 242.e1–e6. Maresh, M. M. (1970). ‘Measurements from Roentgenograms’, in R. W. McCammon (ed.), Human Growth and Development. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 157–200. Mays, S. (1993). ‘Infanticide in Roman Britain’. Antiquity, 67/257: 883–8. Mays, S. (2003). ‘Comment On “A Bayesian Approach to Ageing Perinatal Skeletal Material from Archaeological Sites: Implications for the Evidence for Infanticide in Roman Britain” By R. L. Gowland and A. T. Chamberlain’. Journal of Archaeological Science, 30/12: 1695–700. Mays, S. (2010). The Archaeology of Human Bones. London: Routledge.
Techniques for Identifying the Age and Sex of Children at Death 69 Mays, S. and Cox, M. (2000). ‘Sex Determination in Skeletal Remains’, in M. Cox and S. Mays (eds), Human Osteology in Archaeology and Forensic Science. London: Greenwich Medical Media, 117–30. Mays, S. and Eyers, J. (2011). ‘Perinatal Infant Death at the Roman Villa Site at Hambleden, Buckinghamshire, England’. Journal of Archaeological Science, 38/8: 1931–8. Mays, S. and Faerman, M. (2001). ‘Sex Identification in Some Putative Infanticide Victims from Roman Britain Using Ancient DNA’. Journal of Archaeological Science, 28/5: 555–9. Molleson, T., Cruse, K., and Mays, S. (1998). ‘Some Sexually Dimorphic Features of the Human Juvenile Skull and Their Value in Sex Determination in Immature Skeletal Remains’. Journal of Archaeological Science, 25/8: 719–28. Moorrees, C. F. A., Fanning, E. A., and Hunt, E. E. (1963a). ‘Age Variation of Formation Stages for Ten Permanent Teeth’. Journal of Dental Research, 42/6: 1490–501. Moorrees, C. F. A., Fanning, E. A., and Hunt, E. E. (1963b). ‘Formation and Resorption of Three Deciduous Teeth in Children’. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 21/2: 205–13. Primeau, C., Friis, L., Sejrsen, B., and Lynnerup, N. (2012). ‘A Method for Estimating Age of Danish Medieval Sub-Adults Based on Long Bone Length’. Anthropologischer Anzeiger, 69/ 3: 317–33. Primeau, C., Friis, L., Sejrsen, B., and Lynnerup, N. (2016). ‘A method for estimating age of medieval sub-adults from infancy to adulthood based on long bone length’. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 159/1: 135–45. Redfield, A. (1970). ‘A New Aid to Aging Immature Skeletons: Development of the Occipital Bone’. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 33/2: 207–20. Saunders, S. R., DeVito, C., Herring, A., Southern, R., and Hoppa, R. D. (1993). ‘Accuracy Tests of Tooth Formation Age Estimations for Human Skeletal Remains’. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 92/2: 173–88. Schaefer, M. C. (2008). ‘A Summary of Epiphyseal Union Timings in Bosnian Males’. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 18/5: 536–45. Scheuer, L. and Black, S. (2000a). ‘Development and Ageing of the Juvenile Skeleton’, in M. Cox and S. Mays (eds), Human Osteology in Archaeology and Forensic Medicine. London: Greenwich Medical Media Ltd, 9–21. Scheuer, L. and Black, S. (2000b). Developmental Juvenile Osteology. London: Academic Press. Scheuer, L., Musgrave, J. H., and Evans, S. P. (1980). ‘The Estimation of Late Fetal and Perinatal Age from Long Bone Length by Linear and Logarithmic Regression’. Annals of Human Biology, 7/3: 257–65. Schillaci, M. A., Nikitovic, D., Akins, N. J., Tripp, L., and Palkovich, A. M. (2011). ‘Infant and Juvenile Growth in Ancestral Pueblo Indians’. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 145/2: 318–26. Schour, I. and Massler, M. (1941). ‘The Development of the Human Dentition’. Journal of the American Dental Association, 20: 379–427. Schutkowski, H. (1987). ‘Sex Determination of Fetal and Neonate Skeletons by Means of Discriminant Analysis’. International Journal of Anthropology, 2/4: 347–52. Schutkowski, H. (1993). ‘Sex Determination of Infant and Juvenile Skeletons: I. Morphological Features’. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 90: 199–205. Smith, B. H. (1991). ‘Standards of Human Tooth Formation and Dental Age Assessment’, in M. A. Kelley and C. S. Larsen (eds), Advances in Dental Anthropology. New York, NY: Wiley Liss Inc., 143–68. Smith, C. I., Chamberlain, A. T., Riley, M. S., Cooper, A., Stringer, C. B., and Collins, M. J. (2001). ‘Not Just Old but Old and Cold?’. Nature, 410: 771–2.
70 Jo Buckberry Sutherland, L. D. and Suchey, J. M. (1991). ‘Use of the Ventral Arc in Pubic Sex Determination’. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 36: 501–11. Sutter, R. C. (2003). ‘Nonmetric Subadult Skeletal Sexing Traits: I. A Blind Test of the Accuracy of Eight Previously Proposed Methods Using Prehistoric Known-Sex Mummies from Northern Chile’. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 48/5: 927–35. Ubelaker, D. H. (1989). Human Skeletal Remains: Excavation, Analysis, Interpretation. Washington DC: Taraxacum. Vlak, D., Roksandic, M., and Schillaci, M. A. (2008). ‘Greater Sciatic Notch as a Sex Indicator in Juveniles’. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 137/3: 309–15. Weaver, D. S. (1979). ‘Application of the Likelihood Ratio Test to Age Estimation Using the Infant and Child Temporal Bone’. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 50/2: 263–9. Weaver, D. S. (1980). ‘Sex Differences in the Ilia of a Known Sex and Age Sample of Fetal and Infant Skeletons’. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 52/2: 191–5. Whittaker, D. (2000). ‘Ageing from the Dentition’, in M. Cox and S. Mays (eds), Human Osteology in Archaeology and Forensic Medicine. London: Greenwich Medical Media Ltd, 83–99. Wilson, J. D., George, F. W., and Griffin, J. E. (1981). ‘The Hormonal Control of Sexual Development’. Science, 211: 1278–84. Wilson, L. A., MacLeod, N., and Humphrey, L. T. (2008). ‘Morphometric Criteria for Sexing Juvenile Human Skeletons Using the Ilium’. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 53/2: 269–78.
Chapter 4
T he Study of G row t h i n Skeletal P op u l at i ons Simon Mays
The growth of infants and children in a population is a key indicator of the wellbeing of the non-adult cohort and may also form a useful index of the living conditions of the population as a whole. In addition, departures of individuals or subgroups from the general curve of growth for the population may serve to aid the understanding of particular problems experienced by them. This contribution aims to highlight some of the more important current research themes in the osteoarchaeological study of skeletal growth in the past. Growth patterns are an outcome of complex interactions between genetic and environmental variables. Among the non-genetic influences on growth, nutrition plays a key role. Deficient nutritional intake in relation to bodily requirements leads to retarded growth (Stinson 2000). Thus, both defective diet and excessive energy expenditure in relation to intake have an effect (Eveleth and Tanner 1990). Infection may lead to growth failure, for example by causing individuals to reduce their food intake or by impairing absorption of nutrients (Stephenson 1999). Although other extraneous factors, including altitude, climate, exposure to toxins, and psychological stress may also affect growth (Bogin 1988), nutritional status and disease load, and the synergistic interaction between the two, are the prime causes of retarded growth in human populations (Stinson 2000). Most osteoarchaeological growth studies concentrate on long-bones. Long-bones are found in the limbs and take the form of hollow tubes, closed at both ends. The walls of the tube enclose the bone marrow, and are lined internally by a membrane, the endosteum. Human long-bones grow via a combination of endochondral and appositional growth. Endochondral growth involves deposition of new bone upon the ends of the diaphysis (bone shaft) beneath the epiphysial growth plates, increasing the length of the bone. In appositional growth, bone is deposited beneath the periosteum (a membrane surrounding the bone), thereby increasing bone width. Over the growth period, there is
72 Simon Mays net bone resorption from the endosteal surface, widening the medullary cavity, but this is normally outstripped by subperiosteal apposition so that as well as an increase in bone width, there is also an increase in cortical thickness—i.e. the thickness of the bony walls enclosing the marrow cavity (Garn 1970). Osteoarchaeological investigations of skeletal growth using remains of infants and children (hereinafter ‘subadults’) from archaeological sites began to be published more than 50 years ago (Johnson 1962). Since that time, a great many such studies have been undertaken (reviewed in Hoppa and Fitzgerald 1999; Humphrey 2000; Lewis 2007: 68– 80; Saunders 2008). In general, the approach taken is to construct a growth profile by plotting some aspect of bone size against individual age, estimated from dental development, in subadult remains. Small bone dimensions-for-age are taken to indicate growth deficits. Most skeletal growth studies use long-bone lengths, and thus focus on endochondral rather than appositional bone growth. There are several reasons why long- bones have been the elements of choice in skeletal growth studies. They tend to survive well in the burial environment relative to other parts of the skeleton, and this helps to maximize sample size. Their large size means that growth perturbations are more easily seen than in smaller elements. In studies of living individuals, stature is a primary indication of growth status (Eveleth and Tanner 1990). The lower limb long-bones contribute directly to stature and their lengths bear a fairly predictable relationship to it. As long as the fact that body proportions vary during growth (Ruff 2007) is recognized, lengths of lower limb long-bones can, to an extent, be considered a surrogate for stature in skeletal studies. In general, interpopulation variation of growth in stature (and, by implication, in long-bone length) in adolescence tends mainly to reflect genetic factors, but pre- pubertal growth is more sensitive to environmental variables (Stinson 2000). In most populations, mortality during adolescence is low, so even quite large skeletal collections often have few adolescent skeletons. Most growth studies of skeletal populations perforce concentrate mainly or entirely on pre-pubertal growth. Consistent with this, almost without exception, they use growth as an indicator of health and nutrition in the communities under study, poor growth being equated with poorer nutrition and/or heavier disease burden (Larsen 1997: 8–13).
Methodological considerations in skeletal growth studies A number of methodological considerations arise when using plots of bone size against dental age to study growth in skeletal populations. Firstly, for this approach to be valid, dental development must be little affected by adverse environmental factors (or at least less affected than bone growth). That this is so is amply supported by empirical studies (Lewis and Garn 1960; Cardoso 2007; Concieção and Cardoso 2011).
The Study of Growth in Skeletal Populations 73 Skeletal growth studies are, by their nature, cross-sectional in design—that is they construct a composite growth profile for a population by measuring different children at different ages. Cross-sectional studies are not directly comparable with longitudinal growth studies in which individuals are measured at intervals as they grow older. Cross-sectional growth studies do not allow study of growth velocity and how this changes with age. For example, the adolescent growth spurt is not visible in cross- sectional data: because it is imperfectly synchronized between individuals its effects are smoothed-out in composite growth curves (Tanner, Whitehouse, and Takaishi 1966; Humphrey 2003). A skeletal assemblage is a collection of the dead, and this introduces a so-called mortality bias. This is because, in skeletal studies, we can only construct growth profiles for those who died during childhood, and patterns thus revealed might not be representative of those who did survive to become adults. This has been recognized as a potential problem since the first skeletal growth studies were carried out (Johnson 1962), but published considerations of the issue (Sundick 1978; Saunders and Hoppa 1993) have concluded that any biasing effect is probably minor. Growth in long-bone lengths in males and females diverges in adolescence, and sex differences in some other skeletal dimensions manifest earlier than this (Humphrey 1998). Sexing subadult skeletal remains is problematic (Mays 2013). This means that sex- specific growth profiles cannot normally be obtained, unless the remains are of documented sex (e.g. via names on coffin plates), and most skeletal studies perforce combine the sexes. An additional methodological question is whether bone size should be expressed in terms of raw dimensions or as a percentage of mean final adult size for the population under study. Most osteologists have taken the former approach, but there is an argument for the latter, especially in interpopulation comparative work. Per cent mean adult dimension is a measure of progress toward final size, and controls for population differences in adult size. This approach may be justified if, for instance, one is comparing growth to investigate subadult health and nutrition in populations widely separated temporally and geographically so that genetic factors may play a part in dissimilarities in adult size (Hoppa and Fitzgerald 1999; Humphrey 2003). Early growth studies often compared mean dimensions of bones in different dental age classes (e.g. Johnson 1962) or used scatterplots of bone size versus dental age without a mathematical description of the relationship between the two (e.g. y’Edynak 1976). Such approaches may be adequate for conveying an overall impression of growth in a population, but a mathematical description of the relationship between bone size and dental age establishes a datum for the population under study, any departures from which, associated with factors such as disease, nutritional, or social variables, can be evaluated statistically. It also enables statistical comparison of growth profiles from different populations. The relationship between long-bone length and age appears, in cross-sectional samples, to be of approximately linear form from about two to 18 years of age (Mays, Brickley, and Ives 2008). Using linear regression to analyse this data is adequate, and means that intra-and interpopulation analyses can be readily conducted
74 Simon Mays using simple statistical methods, such as multiple linear regression or analysis of covariance. However, growth in bone length over the entire subadult age range is characteristically curvilinear in form, with growth velocity being substantially greater in the first two years of life than thereafter (Maresh 1955). Linear regression is, therefore, inappropriate when growth profiles over the full age range are considered. Polynomial regression or other curve-fitting procedures are needed. Intrapopulation patterning in departures from the growth profile, related to social or environmental factors, can be studied using analyses of residuals (e.g. Mays, Ives, and Brickley 2009; Schillaci et al. 2011; Pinhasi et al. 2014).
Growth in ancient and modern populations Most skeletal growth studies are orientated around interpopulation comparisons of growth profiles of long-bones. A significant strand in research, particularly in earlier studies, but also more recently (e.g. Schillaci et al. 2011; Ruff, Garofalo, and Holmes 2013), is to compare ancient and modern growth profiles. For modern comparative data, most osteologists use the study of Maresh (1955). This is one of the few studies on living children that uses bone lengths rather than anthropometric variables like stature, body weight, skinfold thickness etc. Maresh’s (1955) data were generated in the mid-twentieth century using well-nourished children from Denver, USA, radiographs being taken of the children at different ages between two months and 18 years. Comparisons with the Maresh (1955) data almost invariably show that growing individuals in palaeopopulations had shorter long-bones for their ages than did the mid-twentieth-century US children (Humphrey 2003; Saunders 2008). Although methodological considerations complicate interpretations, the data are consistent with the likelihood that nutrition was poorer and disease burden greater in premodern populations. Although the lesser bone length-for-age among children in archaeological populations is to a great extent an expected result, the disparity in growth profiles between twentieth-century and premodern data is often quite marked. For example, at the deserted medieval village of Wharram Percy (Yorkshire, England), femur length in those with dental ages of about 14 years, was only about the same as that for mid-twentieth- century ten-year-olds (Mays 1999). Stature in subadults can be estimated from long-bone lengths (Feldesman 1992; Ruff 2007), but for most purposes it is preferable to analyse bone dimensions directly, rather than convert them to stature estimates, because stature estimation entails its own assumptions and uncertainties (Humphrey 2000; Mays 2010: 130–4). However, in some instances it may be useful to work with estimated stature figures. As already mentioned, there are few studies of living populations that work with bone lengths,
The Study of Growth in Skeletal Populations 75 200
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1833 British
Figure 4.1 Estimated stature plotted against dental age for the Wharram Percy (Yorkshire, England) children (Mays 2007). Figures for recent (Freeman et al. 1995) and nineteenth-century British children (Tanner 1981) are included for comparison. Nineteenth-century data have been adjusted to take account of footwear (Tanner 1981: n. 7.5). Source: Mays (2010: fig. 5.3).
but there are a great many that use stature measurements, so using estimated stature opens up the possibility of comparative work with a much wider range of different living populations. Šereikienė and Jankauskas (2002, 2004) plotted estimated stature for subadult skeletal series from medieval Lithuania and Estonia to allow them to compare the growth profiles with living children from Lithuania and from Africa. The medieval Baltic children were not only shorter than their modern counterparts but also slightly shorter than modern Africans. This suggested that chronic undernutrition was a problem in the medieval populations studied. Converting the bone length data from medieval Wharram Percy into stature estimates enabled comparison with stature figures for modern British children and with data from an 1833 study of children employed to work in factories, which was the earliest height survey of British children. Results (Figure 4.1) suggested that not only were the medieval children markedly shorter than their modern counterparts, but that they were also shorter than the nineteenth-century children. This latter suggests that living conditions may have been even worse for children in this poor medieval rural community than they were for the urban poor of the Industrial Revolution. It may also suggest that the secular trend for increase in stature- for-age among children, seen over the last 150 years in the industrialized world (Tanner 1989: 158–62), may have originated well before the first child height surveys were begun in the early nineteenth century.
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Biocultural studies of growth patterns in palaeopopulations Reviewing the literature up to 2000, Humphrey (2000) indicated that comparative work studying different archaeological groups to address biocultural questions had become the dominant theme in skeletal growth studies. A perusal of more recent work (e.g. Domett 2001; Lewis 2002; Larsen et al. 2002; Humphrey 2003; Okazaki 2004; Bennike et al. 2005; Pinhasi et al. 2005, 2006; Cardoso and Garcia 2008; Mays, Brickley, and Ives 2008; Jakob 2009; Temple et al. 2014) shows that this continues to be the case. Themes that have been a focus for study include social status, subsistence change, and settlement type, and a selection of case studies is reviewed here.
Social status Cook (1984) found no link between social status, as indicated by grave goods, and long- bone growth in prehistoric (c.150 bc–ad 400) children from Illinois. Bennike et al. (2005) found no difference in growth patterns in pre-pubertal children from high-and low-status medieval cemeteries in Denmark. Looking at sixteenth-to nineteenth- century ad material from London, Pinhasi et al. (2006) found that growth in bone length was retarded among children interred at a low-status burial ground compared with those from a more prosperous part of the city. Mays, Ives, and Brickley (2009) studied femur length for age in those buried in brick-lined vaults (inferred high status) and those interred in simple earth-cut graves (inferred lower status) at nineteenth-century St Martin’s churchyard, Birmingham, England. In contrast to the findings of Pinhasi et al. (2006), there was no relationship with socioeconomic status, which may reflect lesser differences in living conditions among those buried at the Birmingham burial ground than among the Londoners studied by Pinhasi et al. (2006).
Subsistence change Mode of subsistence has a direct effect on diet, and hence potentially on nutrition, and change in subsistence strategy is often concomitant with alterations in settlement pattern and sedentism, which, in turn, affect infectious disease prevalence. We might therefore expect differences in growth profiles between groups pursuing different means of food production. Among foragers from Siberia, Temple et al. (2014) found that femur growth was depressed in early Neolithic compared with late Neolithic groups, and they linked this with greater resource availability and dietary breadth among the latter. Also looking at foragers, Mensforth (1985) compared two Native American groups,
The Study of Growth in Skeletal Populations 77 one from Kentucky dating to 2600–400 bc, and one from Ohio dating to ad 800–1100. Growth in long-bone length was poorer in the Ohio group. Mensforth (1985) argued that the food resources available to both groups would have been adequate, and he interpreted the difference in growth in terms of a difference in infectious disease burden. The Ohio group showed greater sedentism and increased population density compared with the Kentucky population. This would have rendered the Ohio people more vulnerable to the spread of infectious disease, a deduction supported by observations of a greater frequency of pathological lesions in the Ohio bones. Turning to agriculturalists, in medieval Croatia, groups from the coastal plain, with economies based on livestock grazing, showed greater subadult long-bone length-for-age than inland arable agriculturalists, among which documentary sources suggested a poorer dietary regime (Pinhasi et al. 2014). An important focus in studies of subsistence change is the transition from economies based on foraging to those based on agriculture. In Native Americans from Georgia, Larsen et al. (2002) found that subadults in a pre-contact forager group showed greater rates of growth in femur length than in later pre-and post-European contact groups who practised maize agriculture. This pattern was consistent with other indicators suggesting more favourable living conditions among the foragers due to plentiful resource base, low population density, and lack of exposure to European diseases. At Dickson Mounds (Illinois, USA), Goodman (1998) observed that prehistoric agriculturalists showed lesser long-bone length-for-age than did earlier foragers buried at the same site. A deterioration in dietary quality and quantity due to agriculturalists’ overreliance on maize may be implicated. A more complex picture emerges from some other Illinois populations. Cook (1984) found that following the introduction of maize agriculture, populations showed poorer growth in long-bone length than did earlier hunter-gatherer populations. This did not seem to reflect a nutritional deficiency associated with maize consumption because later populations, more highly dependent on maize agriculture, actually showed better growth. She suggests that population pressure, which may have forced a transition from foraging to the cultivation of maize, lay behind the poor health of the early maize horticulturalists. Sciulli and Oberly (2002) looked at growth in femur length in child remains from the upper and middle Ohio River valley, in the eastern USA. They compared early forager groups with later communities practising maize agriculture and found little difference between them, a result consistent with the similar rates of skeletal markers of disease and nutritional stress seen in the two groups. Turning to Europe, Pinhasi et al. (2011) found little difference in long-bone growth profiles between Mesolithic and Neolithic groups in the Danube Gorges region of Serbia. They argue that this may reflect local continuity of economic and cultural practices across the Mesolithic– Neolithic transition, but, as the authors acknowledge, sample sizes in their study were small. The diversity of the results from different studies serves to emphasize that the health effects of the transition to agriculture were highly contingent upon local social and environmental factors.
78 Simon Mays
Urbanization Another aspect of social evolution that has been investigated using growth studies is the rise of urbanism. Lewis (2002) compared growth in long-bone length between urban and rural populations in medieval and post-medieval England and found little difference between them. Mays, Brickley, and Ives (2008) report similar findings from comparison of two low-status populations, one from a medieval village and one from a nineteenth-century urban industrial centre. Cardoso and Garcia (2008), working on material from Portugal, compared a prosperous medieval town with early twentieth-century Lisbon, a densely urbanized/industrialized environment lacking adequate sanitation. There was little difference in long-bone growth between the two. Due to the absence of modern medical care and, especially sanitation, infectious disease burden would have been severe in pre-modern urban centres. The expectation in these studies was that growth should have been poorer in the more heavily urbanized communities, reflecting more unfavourable living conditions. The expected health effects of one of the major transitions in human society, from a rural agrarian to an urban industrialized living environment, in general appear not to be manifested in longitudinal long-bone growth. This has led to a suggestion (Mays, Brickley, and Ives 2008) that, although it is undoubtedly influenced by nutrition and disease, growth in long-bone length may nevertheless be a rather crude measure of a population’s well-being.
Cortical thickness: a more sensitive indicator of adverse conditions than long-b one length? An alternative to growth in long-bone length as a measure of living conditions is growth in cortical thickness in long-bones. This can readily be measured on radiographs. Whereas growth in bone length reflects endochondral bone growth, increase in cortical thickness is a result of a relationship between endosteal resorption and subperiosteal apposition. Studies of living populations show that acquisition of cortical thickness is retarded when nutrition is poor (Garn et al. 1964, 1969; Adams and Berridge 1969; Garn 1970; Barr, Shmerling, and Prader 1972; Himes et al. 1975). Consistent with this, cortical thickness-for-age is generally less in ancient populations than in modern reference groups (e.g. Mays 1999). Although the literature is not completely consistent, the consensus appears to be that acquisition of cortical bone is a more sensitive index of environmental stress than is growth in bone length (Garn et al. 1964; Huss-Ashmore, Goodman, and Armelagos 1982; Hummert 1983; Mays 1999, 2007: 103; cf. Barr, Shmerling, and Prader 1972; Briers, Hoorweg, and Stanfield 1975).
The Study of Growth in Skeletal Populations 79 A complication in interpreting cortical thickness data is that not only nutrition, but also physical activity, influences the gain of cortical bone during growth. The preponderance of evidence seems to suggest that undernutrition generally affects cortical thickness by increasing endosteal resorption (Garn et al. 1964, 1969; Garn 1970; cf. Himes et al. 1975), whereas activity levels primarily affect bone at surfaces actively undergoing apposition—in pre-pubertal children this means the subperiosteal surface (Ruff, Walker, and Trinkaus 1994; Specker and Binkley 2003; MacDonald, Cooper, and McKay 2009; Toumis et al. 2010; cf. Bradney et al. 1998). Therefore, by determining whether deficiency in cortical bone represents increased diameter of the marrow cavity (i.e. increased endosteal resorption) or lesser external bone width (i.e. reduced subperiosteal apposition), it may be possible to tease out nutritional from biomechanical factors. At St Martin’s burial ground in Birmingham, low-status subadults showed lesser femoral cortical thickness for age. All subadults studied were aged 12 years or younger, and the deficiency of cortical thickness in the low-status group reflected greater resorption at the endosteal surface rather than lesser subperiosteal apposition of bone. This suggests deficient nutrition rather than lesser biomechanical forces on the bones as a cause. That there was a difference between high and low status subadults in cortical thickness but not, as we saw above, in long-bone length at this site, is consistent with the idea that cortical thickness is a more sensitive indicator of adverse conditions (Mays, Ives, and Brickley 2009).
Interaction between bone growth and skeletal markers of disease/malnutrition Another way of teasing out differences in conditions during the growth period is to combine the study of bone growth with the study of skeletal lesions indicating disease or malnutrition. Harris lines are markers of episodes of arrested bone growth that can be seen on radiographs. Although they occur in apparently normal individuals, they are more common among those suffering adverse conditions during the growth period (Mays 1995). Following a period of growth arrest, growth will, if sufficient resources are available, restart at an accelerated rate, returning the individual to his or her original growth trajectory, a phenomenon known as catch-up growth (Prader, Tanner, and von Harnack 1963). If insufficient resources are available to sustain a period of catch-up growth, growth may restart at a normal or slowed rate, with a result that the individual will continue to be small for their age. Investigation of the relationship between Harris lines and bone size in subadults potentially sheds light on whether, following the incidents that gave rise to the lines, sufficient resources were available to sustain
80 Simon Mays catch-up growth. At Wharram Percy, subadults with Harris lines were deficient in both bone length and cortical bone (Mays 2007: 101), suggesting insufficient resources to sustain a spell of catch-up in either longitudinal or appositional growth following the incidents which led to the Harris lines. At another site, the Romano-British town of Dorchester (Dorset), subadults with Harris lines were deficient in neither measure of bone growth, suggesting full catch-up occurred in both endochondral and appositional growth (Mays 1985). This would appear to suggest that malnutrition/poor health was more severe or more chronic at Wharram Percy, than at Roman Dorchester. This was consistent with the lower social status of the Wharram Percy community and the harsher environment in which it was situated (Mays 2007: 101–2). Relationships between growth in subadult skeletons and other skeletal indicators of disease or poor nutrition have also been investigated. Looking at British medieval subadults, Ribot and Roberts (1996) found no relationship between long-bone length and Harris lines, dental enamel hypoplasias (markers of episodes of arrest in tooth crown formation), abnormal subperiosteal new bone deposition or porotic changes to the cranium (both markers of disease). They suggest that the episodes that led to these lesions were short-lived and so did not impede catch-up growth. In a Native American group from the US Southwest, Schillaci et al. (2011) found that those with porotic changes to the cranium actually had greater femur length-for-age than did those without. This suggested successful catch-up growth following illness, but why the femur lengths were actually greater was unclear. Taking a slightly different approach, Pinhasi et al. (2014) compared bone growth in subadults from medieval Croatia with periostitis and porotic cranial lesions that were active at time of death with those showing healed lesions. In each case, subadults with healed lesions exhibited larger dimensions for age than did those with active lesions. This suggests catch-up growth had occurred by the time of death in those with markers of past episodes of disease but that this had not had the chance to occur in those where the diseases in question were still active at time of death. These results illustrate the value of distinguishing healed from active lesions in studies of the interaction between disease and growth. Markers such as Harris lines or dental enamel hypoplasias are non-specific indicators of stress during the growth period, in that we cannot identify the particular conditions that caused them. Other researchers have looked at the interactions between specific disease conditions and growth in the past. At the St Martin’s burial ground in Birmingham, a study was made of a group of infants and young children under six years of age, some of whom had signs of rickets (Mays, Brickley, and Ives 2009). Rickets is a result of vitamin D deficiency and in historic skeletal series principally reflects exclusion of sunlight due to prolonged hours spent indoors, airborne particulate pollutants attenu ating solar ultraviolet, or other causes (Mays 2003). Modern studies show that rickets can lead to retarded growth, and this study attempted to ascertain whether this was so in this population. Individuals with rickets had shorter long-bone lengths for age than did those without. This held both for those with healed lesions and for those where disease was active at time of death. The deficit increased with increasing age. This was interpreted as suggesting that repeated episodes of vitamin D deficiency (probably seasonal
The Study of Growth in Skeletal Populations 81 in nature) coupled with insufficient growth recovery in between, or long duration of disease, was a factor leading to growth deficit. Pinhasi et al. (2006) compared long-bone growth in sixteenth-to nineteenth-century subadult skeletons with and without rickets from London, and did not find a difference. They suggest that a reason might be that catch-up growth successfully occurred following recovery from rickets (all but one of their cases were healed). Alternatively, because their cases were aged three years or less at death, they may have been too young to have experienced sufficient episodes or dur ation of vitamin D deficiency for significant stunting to become evident.
Growth of skeletal elements other than long-b ones Fewer archaeological studies have investigated growth in skeletal parameters other than long-bone length or cortical thickness, but Merchant and Ubelaker (1977) and Hoppa (1992) studied iliac dimensions as well as long-bone lengths, and Sundick (1978) and Miles and Bulman (1994, 1995) present data on the bones of the extremities, and the shoulder and pelvic girdles. Pinhasi et al. (2005) showed that there were population differences in the growth of the ilium among some groups from Medieval Austria, even though there was little difference in long-bone growth profiles. This serves to emphasize that to gain a full picture of skeletal growth it is important not to restrict observations to long-bones. In her study of nineteenth-century London skeletons of known age at death, Humphrey (1998) demonstrated that growth patterns of different skeletal elem ents differ greatly. For example, long bones reach 90 per cent of their adult lengths by about the mid-teens, but 90 per cent of their final widths only by about the early 20s. Some cranial bones reach 90 per cent of their adult dimensions before five years of age. This suggests the potential for the study of different elements to shed light on growth at different times during the life cycle. However, relatively little work has yet been done in this direction.
Milestones in child development: weaning and puberty Weaning and puberty are considered important social milestones in most human soci eties. Timing of weaning can be studied in skeletal populations, principally through stable isotope analysis (Jay 2009). Weaning is a socially and physiologically important process. Many societies do not consider a newborn infant to be a fully-fledged member of society, and passing through the weaning process, marked by the decline of breastfeeding and the introduction of other foods, may be an important step toward attainment of
82 Simon Mays full ‘personhood’ (Mays 2000: 182). Weaning may also be a dangerous time for a child. Beneficial effects of the mother’s milk are attenuated and lost and, in premodern soci eties, inclusion in diets of other foods posed threats of infection and malnutrition. These problems might potentially impact upon growth profiles. At Wharram Percy, stable isotope analysis showed that breastfeeding generally continued until children were about 18 months old (Richards, Mays, and Fuller 2002). Growth data showed that until this age long-bone lengths matched those in Maresh’s (1955) recent US children. Unless breast milk is supplemented with other foods by about six months old, growth normally begins to falter (King and Ulijaszek 1999). That this did not appear to be the case at Wharram Percy suggests that supplementation of breast milk must have occurred by about this age, and the introduction of such potential sources of infection did not lead to problems sufficient to retard longitudinal bone growth (Mays 2007: 102–3). After weaning, the medieval children began to fall behind modern rates of longitudinal bone growth. These results showed the value of prolonged breastfeeding for the medieval children, but that after it ceased nutritional and disease problems began to cause retarded growth. Wall (1991) studied prehistoric Californian remains and found a growth retardation at two to three years of age. Ethnohistoric data suggested that this was the time of weaning, so she suggested that the growth retardation may reflect problems associated with this. Humphrey (2003) conducted a comparison between the Maresh (1955) femoral length data and published data from 11 archaeo logical samples from around the world. She noted that femur length-for-age was generally less in the archaeological populations, and that this deficit first became apparent from about six to 20 months of age, depending on the population. She suggests that this may be associated with the weaning period. Recently, researchers have attempted to investigate the timing of puberty using skeletal data. Puberty is considered an important marker of progress toward adulthood in most human societies, and the timing of events associated with it, such as the adolescent growth spurt and, in girls, the onset of menses, is responsive to environmental variables. As discussed above, the adolescent growth spurt is not visible in cross-sectional growth profiles, so other methods of identifying puberty are needed. Legge (2005) attempted to estimate age at puberty in a skeletal Native American population from prehistoric Alabama. He argued that the union of the three main bones of the innominate, and of the epiphyses of the humeral epicondyle, proximal radius and ulna, is associated with the hormonal changes that accompany the onset of puberty. On this basis, he suggested that puberty occurred at about 15 years in his study population, somewhat later than today. Shapland and Lewis (2013) attempted to identify age at puberty in a medieval population from Barton-upon-Humber (Lincolnshire, England). They argued that growth of the canine tooth, ossification of the hook of the hamate bone, and epiphyseal ossification, and union at the iliac crest, distal radius, and hand phalanges track events in puberty. Using this approach, they argue that at Barton, children entered the pubertal growth spurt at a similar age to modern children (despite the medieval children being markedly shorter for their ages), but the duration of the adolescent growth spurt was longer in the
The Study of Growth in Skeletal Populations 83 medieval group. Menarche in females was estimated to occur at about 14–15 years—later than today but one to three years earlier than documented in the nineteenth century. The same authors (Shapland and Lewis 2014) also argue that development of the cervical vertebrae can be used to assess pubertal stage in skeletal populations. Although these are intriguing studies, the biological basis for the idea that different aspects of dental development and epiphyseal formation and union can neatly be divided into those that track chronological age and those that track events in puberty is rather unclear, and the empirical evidence that traits can be divided in this way is rather slender. The aforementioned authors state that their methods require further testing before they can be accepted, and this is surely so.
Conclusions Comparison of long-bone length growth profiles between ancient and modern populations and, especially, between different palaeopopulations to investigate biocultural questions continue to be the dominant themes in skeletal growth studies. Stature can be estimated from long-bone length measurements. Although it introduces its own errors and assumptions, working with stature estimates rather than bone lengths, whilst unnecessary for comparisons between skeletal populations, potentially allows comparison with a wider range of modern growth studies. It also permits comparison with historic growth surveys undertaken on living individuals. Body weight can also be estimated from skeletal dimensions. Although the errors of estimates are substantial, and markedly greater than for stature (Ruff 2007), plotting estimated body weights is another way of facilitating comparisons between skeletal studies and data generated on living populations (e.g. Ruff, Garofalo, and Holmes 2013). It is clear that growth studies will continue to be a key tool for investigating biocultural questions concerned with past health and nutrition, but there are limitations to the value of endochondral bone growth—it may be a fairly crude index of conditions during the growth period. Investigation of appositional bone growth, by study of acquisition of cortical bone, may be a more sensitive indicator of poor conditions during the growth period, but analysis of surface-specific patterns of deposition and resorption is needed to help distinguish effects of biomechanical variables from the effects of nutrition/disease. Measurement of cortical areas using CT scanning, rather than measures of thickness from conventional radiographs, may allow more subtle patterning in data to be teased out. Investigating the associations between bone growth and skeletal indicators of disease or malnutrition is increasingly a focus of research. This approach not only allows the investigation of the effects of disease on growth in palaeopopulations, but may also permit light to be shed upon the nature of disease or malnutrition experienced by a population (e.g. acute versus chronic). Within the limitations imposed by cross- sectional data sets, it also potentially allows investigation of the extent to which recovery, in the form of catch-up growth, occurred after episodes of disease/malnutrition.
84 Simon Mays Although skeletal growth profiles are likely to remain the mainstay of growth studies in palaeopopulations, attention has also been paid to investigating the attainment of milestones of development. Age at weaning can be identified using analysis of bone stable isotopes, and combining these data with growth studies has enabled the effects of weaning on growth patterns to be investigated. Recently, researchers have begun to investigate the possibility of studying age at puberty in the past. Unlike the identification of weaning, where the methodology is fairly well-established, we are only just beginning to tackle the methodological problems involved in identifying puberty from skeletal variables. However, the importance of puberty, both socially and, in its timing, as an indicator of health and nutritional status, makes this a compelling line of enquiry. Despite 50 years of growth studies using skeletal remains, the contribution of archaeological evidence has been rather overlooked by researchers concerned with the history of growth. It is to be hoped that, analogous to the increased recognition of palaeopathology in medical history, archaeological studies will begin to make an impact upon those who have hitherto relied solely on documentary evidence to reconstruct the story of human growth.
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88 Simon Mays Ruff, C. B., Garofalo, E., and Holmes, M. A. (2013). ‘Interpreting Skeletal Growth in the Past from a Functional and Physiological Perspective’. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 150/1: 29–37. Ruff, C. B., Walker, A., and Trinkaus, E. (1994). ‘Postcranial Robusticity in Homo. III: Ontogeny’. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 93/1: 35–54. Saunders, S. R. (2008). ‘Juvenile Skeletons and Growth-Related Studies’, in M. A. Katzenberg and S. R. Saunders (eds), Biological Anthropology of the Human Skeleton (2nd edn). Chichester: Wiley, 117–47. Saunders, S. R. and Hoppa, R. D. (1993). ‘Growth Deficit in Survivors and Non- Survivors: Biological Mortality Bias in Subadult Skeletal Samples’. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology, 36: 127–51. Schillaci, M. A., Nikitovic, D., Atkins, N. J., Tripp, L., and Palkovic, A. M. (2011). ‘Infant and Juvenile Growth in Ancestral Pueblo Indians’. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 145/2: 318–26. Sciulli, P. W. and Oberly, J. (2002). ‘Native Americans in Eastern North America. The Southern Great Lakes and Upper Ohio Valley’, in R. H. Steckel and J. C. Rose (eds), The Backbone of History: Health and Nutrition in the Western Hemisphere. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 440–80. Šereikienė, I. and Jankauskas, R. (2002). ‘Late Medieval Lithuanian Children Growth (According to Palaeoosteological Material of 14th– 17th cc. Alytus Burial Ground). Anthropologie, 40/2: 157–63. Šereikienė, I. and Jankauskas, R. (2004). ‘Lithuanian Children’s Growth Patterns in the Past— an Updated Medieval Sample’. Papers on Anthropology University of Tartu, 13: 226–38. Shapland, F. and Lewis, M. E. (2013). ‘A Proposed Osteological Method for the Estimation of Pubertal Stage in Human Skeletal Remains’. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 151/ 2: 302–10. Shapland, F. and Lewis, M. E. (2014). ‘A Proposed Method for the Assessment of Pubertal Stage in Human Skeletal Remains Using Cervical Vertebrae Maturation’. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 153/1: 144–53. Specker, B. and Binkley, T. (2003). ‘Randomized Trial of Physical Activity and Calcium Supplementation on Bone Mineral Content in 3-to 5-year old Children’. Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, 18/5: 885–92. Stephenson, C. B. (1999). ‘Burden of Infection on Growth Failure’. Journal of Nutrition, 129: 534S–538S. Stinson, S. (2000). ‘Growth Variation: Biological and Cultural Factors’, in S. Stinson, B. Bogin, R. Huss-Ashmore, and D. O’Rourke (eds), Human Biology: An Evolutionary and Biocultural Perspective. Chichester: Wiley-Liss, 423–63. Sundick, R. I. (1978). ‘Human skeletal growth and age determination’. Homo, 29: 228–49. Tanner, J. M. (1989). Foetus Into Man (2nd edn). Ware: Castlemead. Tanner, J. M., Whitehouse, R. H., and Takaishi, M. (1966). ‘Standards from Birth to Maturity for Height, Weight, Height Velocity and Weight Velocity: British Children, 1965’. Archives of Disease in Childhood, 41/220: 454–7 1, 613–35. Temple, D. H., Basaliiski V., Goriunova, O., and Weber, A. (2014). ‘Skeletal Growth in Early and Late Neolithic Foragers from the Cis-Baikal Region of Eastern Siberia’. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 153/3: 377–86. Toumis, S., Michpoulou, E., Fatouros, I. G., Paspati, I., Michalopoulou, M., Raptou, P., Leontsini, D., Avioniti, A., Krekoukia, M., Zouvelou, V., Galanos, A., Aggelousis, N.,
The Study of Growth in Skeletal Populations 89 Kambas, A., Douroudos, I., Lyritis, G., Taxildaris, K., and Pappaioannou, N. (2010). ‘Effect of Rhythmic Gymnastics on Volumetric Bone Mineral Density and Bone Geometry in Premenarcheal Female Athletes and Controls’. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 95/6: 2755–62. Wall, C. E. (1991). ‘Evidence of Weaning Stress and Catch-up Growth in the Long Bones of a Central California Amerindian Sample’. Annals of Human Biology, 18/1: 9–22.
Chapter 5
Cu ltu ral Mode l s of Stages in the L i fe C ou rse M. Annette Grove and David F. Lancy
It is clear that societies differ with respect to their locally constructed, cultural, or ‘folk’ models (Strauss 1992) of the life course. However, predictable transitions can be found as children progress through naturally occurring stages (walking, talking, gaining sense, puberty). Societies draw upon these predictable transitions to construct models of development. Ethnographic and historic records provide evidence of behavioural changes in children and the response of family members that signal a shift in the child’s status. Drawing on these data, we construct a broadly applicable cultural model of child development. This model coalesces around six life cycle stages, which correspond to evolutionary biologists’ analyses (Bogin and Smith 2012: 521). This entry draws on a long-term project designed to develop an anthropological perspective on human development (Lancy 2007, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2015; Lancy, Gaskins, and Bock 2010; Lancy and Grove 2011a, b). Our database consists of archival accounts of childhood from nearly 1,000 societies, ranging from the Palaeolithic to the present and from every area of the world.
Life stages Our survey of the ethnographic record indicates that stages are rarely formalized; instead, we must tease the existence of stages from descriptions of children’s behaviour and the behaviour of others towards the child (Mead 1928: 234). For example, Thomas Weisner and Ronald Gallimore refer to a widespread but unnamed phenomenon they call ‘toddler rejection’ (1977: 177), which defines how many societies view the post- weaning period conceptually. Anthropologists consistently note a shift in the status and treatment of the child between age two and three, but this stage is rarely labelled as such in folk models of development.
Cultural Models of Stages in the Life Course 91
Stage One: birth and the external womb The child’s birth may be cloaked in secrecy. Pregnancy is rarely acknowledged publicly as many factors can have a harmful effect on the outcome. The mother frequently adopts a wait-and-see attitude, as she may not be able to carry the foetus to full term due to poor health. Lack of support from the family or the community may force her to choose to terminate the pregnancy, if possible. This attitude continues through a post-partum period of seclusion where mother and infant may be tucked away behind a curtain of privacy. This allows for the disposal of an unhealthy or unwanted infant. After birth an infant is often perceived as still intimately linked with its mother. ‘[The Somali] conception is that the newborn child for a certain time after birth is still . . . part of the flesh and blood of the mother’ (Cerulli 1959: 25). The newborn is not fully human; its bones are soft (Helander 1988: 150). The [Lepcha] infant ‘is considered to be still in the womb . . . It is not even referred to as a human child; it is called a rat-child’ (Gorer 1967: 289). The [Ovimbundu] infant is ‘born pink’ and gradually becomes a person (omunu) (Childs 1949: 120–1). The idea of the post-partum womb is a key concept affecting how the infant is perceived and cared for. Mother and infant are considered as inseparable after birth as when the infant was in the womb. Among the Wari, ‘mother and infant are treated as a unit; for about six weeks after birth they remain secluded together inside their house . . . babies of both sexes are called arawet, which translates literally as “still being made” ’ (Conklin and Morgan 1996: 672). The use of swaddling and severely confining cradles or cradleboards is widespread. Nurzay women explained that ‘the newborn baby’s flesh is oma (lit. unripe) like uncooked meat, and that only by swaddling will it become strong (chakahosi) and solid like cooked (pokh) meat’ (Casimir 2010: 16). An even more common practice is that of recreating the womb externally, by attaching the baby to its mother with a piece of material such as the manta pouch (high Andes) (Tronick, Thomas, and Daltabuit 1994: 1009–10). Nursing occurs largely unnoted by others. The baby remains invisible (Lancy and Grove 2011a: 283) thereby protecting it from any threats including witchcraft and the supernatural. Swaddling prevents the infant from becoming agitated or moving its limbs vigorously (Nicholaisen 1988; Lancy 2014b): ‘[Navajo babies are kept] in a cradleboard to make them straight and strong. Some women let their children lie on sheepskins and roll about, but they are weak, sick children’ (Leighton and Kluckhohn 1948: 23). Another common notion (Razy 2007) is that the infant is in a liminal state, dangling precariously between the human and spirit worlds. There is the idea that the infant’s spirit and body are quite loosely connected and that, if the infant is not kept quiet and invisible, it may choose to return to the world of spirits (Leavitt 1998; Ardren 2011). The liminal state of the newborn is reflected in interment practices. A stillborn Tonga child is treated in the same way as the afterbirth. What comes from the earth is returned to the earth. A child that survives for at least a short period may be interred in a pot and ‘planted’ in an anthill. Somewhat older infants may be interred closer to the house (on
92 M. Annette Grove and David F. Lancy a continuum from wild to tame), but without any ceremony, and the mother is warned not to mourn a ghost. At age ten and older, the deceased child is afforded full adult burial treatment while its shade is not yet afforded full adult status—that only comes to those who have successfully sired/born children (Reynolds 1991: 97–8). The progression from informal, within the family to formal, community-wide mortuary treatment as a function of age is extremely widespread in the ethnographic and archaeological records (Lewis 2007: 31). Mortuary practices track the child’s transition from the status of spirit or semi-human, to fully human, to fully socialized being (Lancy 2014).
Stage Two: joining the community In Stage One, the infant is not yet considered a fully human, distinct entity. The threat of death or infanticide is so great that the passing of the infant goes unnoticed; there is no formal funeral, burial, or mourning (Gorer 1967: 209; Becker 2007: 282). Gestation continues after birth. The infant must exit from this socially constructed womb and pass through a second birth. This second or social birth (Lepowsky 1987; Fabian 1990) may be marked by a rite of passage, such as naming or the first haircut (Masters 1953). Among the Azande, when the survival of the infant seems likely, the whole community participates in the ceremony in which she or he is removed from the birthing hut and passed through the smoke of a greenwood fire (Baxter and Butt 1953: 72). After the infant has survived its first year, the Kurds of Rawanduz give him or her the first haircut (Masters 1953: 159). The Balinese undertake a similar rite at about the same age. Before the first haircut, the infant is not allowed to touch the ground and must be carried at all times (Geertz 1961: 104). The child is now viewed as human, or at least as almost human. Another aspect of the baby’s ‘coming out’ is the increased involvement of alloparents. Humans are cooperative breeders. The second-born infant is placed under the care of grandmother and/or older siblings (Hrdy 2006: 25) freeing the mother to return to her several duties. Mothers, eager to attract the assistance of allomothers, may ‘market’ their babies to neighbours and kin (Ochs and Schieffelin 1984: 279; Gottlieb 2004) because a thriving infant will attract the caring attention of many. Material remains associated with this stage are scarce and varied. Among contemporary peoples, infants are soothed by being given objects or bits of cloth that lie at hand rather than purpose-made rattles and teething rings. The child is said to ‘own’ the mother’s breast, which serves functions besides nourishment (Whittemore 1989: 97). While the use of child containers is widespread—such as the ubiquitous bilum of the Papua New Guinea Highlands, the West African lappa cloth, and the North American cradleboard, they may not be always be distinguishable in archaeological contexts. The bilum that holds an infant may be later used to haul sweet potatoes home from the garden. Similarly, while infants are quite likely to be protected with an amulet or two, these may be absent from the burial as grave goods of any kind are unlikely in an informal interment. As societies become more complex with greater accumulations of wealth,
Cultural Models of Stages in the Life Course 93 infant-specific artefacts become evident (Wileman 2005: 31). These include obvious comforting devices, simple toys, jewellery, and more durable (ante-and post-mortem) ‘containers’ (Meskell 1994: 39).
Stage Three: separation This stage corresponds to the Western ‘early childhood’ stage. A prominent feature of this stage is ‘toddler rejection’ (Weisner and Gallimore 1977: 176). Abrupt and severe weaning, sometimes well before the child might wean itself, is widely reported. Bofi mothers cover ‘their nipples with red fingernail polish, and/or a bandage to resemble a wound’ (Fouts 2004: 138), thus initiating the weaning process which may be completed by 18 months (Fouts 2005: 356). Extended nursing may be seen as prolonging infancy and creating a ‘weak, simpering’ adult (Turner 1987: 107). The mother, eager to wean the child from her back and return to her labours may be faced, yet again, with the same tearful resistance that occurred during weaning from the breast (Maretzki, Maretzki, and Whiting 1963: 447). The Nso of the Cameroons believe that ‘A standing baby . . . makes less work for the mother’ (Keller 2007: 124). Yoruba ‘mothers and grandmothers [prefer] wiry and agile babies who learn to walk early’ (Zeitlin 1996: 412). Aside from the attentions of allomothers, the lure of the neighbourhood playgroup provides a welcome diversion during this period of separation from the mother. Among the [Mandinka], once a new sibling arrives ‘dénanola (infancy) is over’. The child gains access to the social group of peers which aids in his/her ‘forgetting of the breast’ (Whittemore 1989: 92). The Kpelle call the area where children play together, the ‘mother ground’, as it is usually located next to a few working, but watchful adults (Lancy 1996: 85). Alloparents and the playgroup not only free up the mother, playmates and sibling caretakers provide important socialization for the growing child. Through imitation of their caretakers ‘toddlers learn to run, feed, and dress themselves, go outside to urinate and defecate and help with household chores’ (Martini and Kirkpatrick 1992: 124). In rural Bengal, ‘Little girls accompany older girls in gathering, and they gradually learn the needed skills’ (Rohner and Chaki-Sircar 1988: 33). Successfully weaned from the breast and back, the rejected toddler is readmitted into the family circle where it observes the behaviours and conversations of older children and family members. This creates a kind of classroom atmosphere in which the child rapidly learns its culture. Matsigenka ‘infants and young children are embedded in the middle of quotidian activities where they are positioned to quietly observe and learn what others are doing’ (Ochs and Izquierdo 2009: 395). A three-year-old Wolof child will choose his own place at the family meal where he is ‘encouraged to acquire and participate in social norms’ (Zempleni-Rabain 1973: 222). In addition to learning social graces, the child is slowly folded into the family economy (Lancy 2012). In Samoa, Margaret Mead offered one of the earliest descriptions of the phenomenon: ‘the tiniest little staggerer has tasks to perform—to carry water, to borrow fire brands, to fetch leaves to stuff the pig . . . learning to run errands tactfully is one of the first lessons of childhood’ (Mead
94 M. Annette Grove and David F. Lancy 1928: 633). Among the Giriama of Kenya, a child who falls between two and three years of age is a kahoho kuhuma madzi or ‘water carrier’ (Wenger 1989: 98). The most evident markers of the separation stage will be found in the osteology of child skeletal material. Malnutrition seems to be a nearly universal characteristic of childhood, but the cessation of weaning—especially if it occurs before 24 months— absent adequate weaning foods (the norm)—triggers a period of extreme privation (Dettwyler 1994; Sellen 1998). Aside from evident signs of malnourishment and stunted growth, evidence of abscesses and lesions suggest chronic infection (Friedl 1997; Berrelleza and Balderas 2006). Another feature of this stage echoed in the osteology, is the freedom that toddlers have to explore their environment and the objects in it. Numerous anthropologists have noted with alarm the sight of 18-month-old children wielding sharp tools or playing around the fire pit leading to the loss of digits and dramatic scars (Lepowsky 1987: 79). Because the parents were occupied elsewhere and the toddler’s sibling caretaker might be as young as four years of age, little supervision or restriction may be imposed on the child’s boisterous activity. A physician in fourteenth-century Europe refers to this stage as ‘the age of concussion’ (Heywood 2001: 97). In contrast, artefacts characteristic of this stage are ephemeral. While children are engaged in active, inventive make-believe play, this is carried on largely with found and cast-off items or naturally occurring materials such as sand, straw, pebbles, insects, and mice. Even in the fairly rare case of a parent making and donating a toy, these may be made of perishable materials. For example, ‘dolls [made] from sections of plantain raceme or corn cob, with holes for eyes and wooden sticks for limbs, are commonly presented to [Guara] children by their parents’ (Ruddle and Chesterfield 1977: 36).
Stage Four: getting noticed At around five to seven years, children are said to ‘gain sense’; they become ‘useful’. They are worthy of adults’ attention (Lancy and Grove 2011a). Although children may participate in household chores from an early age, they may not be trusted with more serious responsibilities until they reach a certain level of maturity (Grindal 1972: 28; Bugos and McCarthy 1984: 510). Until this time, the child’s lack of sense was excused and the child spared the criticism an older child might receive (Read 1960: 89; Maretzki, Maretzki, and Whiting 1963: 481). At this stage, however, patience wears thin, and a six- year-old Parakanã child must uncomplainingly, and without supervision, look after a crèche of younger children (Gosso 2010). Pashtun girls in middle childhood are sent by their mothers to discreetly collect local gossip and provide detailed reports on the latest events in the village (Lindholm 1982: 181). The workload and responsibility grows in proportion to the child’s size, strength, and competency. Javanese and Nepalese children work about four hours a day as six-to eight-year-olds, but by age 15 this rises to ten or more hours a day (Nag, White, and Peet 1978). Twelve-year-old Aka and Hadza children are already self-sufficient foragers (Hewlett and Cavalli-Sforza 1986: 930; Hill and
Cultural Models of Stages in the Life Course 95 Hurtado 1996: 223), and a 12-year-old Bakgalagadi girl is expected to be able to run an entire household (Lancaster 1984: 86). Gender differentiation increases at this time as well. Girls become more closely tied to the domestic sphere. In contrast, boys gain more freedom (Pope-Edwards 2005: 87), especially if they relocate to all-male housing (Morton 1996: 112). Limits are placed on interactions between boys and girls. Heightened modesty requirements are reflected in a change in clothing (Lawton 2007: 46). On Ulithi atoll children of both sexes are given scratchy plant based skirts at about age five or six. Children frequently attempt to remove these new garments which ‘results in scoldings, warnings, and rewards to keep [children] from discarding them’ (Lessa 1966: 98). The Dusun call boys ‘without loincloth’, and girls ‘without a skirt’, until about five years old when nomenclature changes. Boys are called ‘child man’; girls are called ‘virgin’ (Williams 1969: 86). Girls are expected to help with childcare and running the household (Nerlove et al. 1974: 275); their workload increases whereas boys, no longer under the control of their mothers, may have even more freedom to roam (Nag, White, and Peet 1978). Boys in Iran are ‘turned out in the morning like cows’, coming home only for food and sleep (Watson-Franke 1976: 194; Friedl 1997: 148). Children who have reached this stage come into sharp focus through the archaeologist’s lens. Because children are expected to learn and contribute to the domestic economy simultaneously, scaled-down ‘trainer’ tools are common (Kenyon and Arnold 1985). These range from child-sized hoes and mortars and pestles to digging sticks and bows and arrows. Not only are they smaller but they may be more crudely made than full-sized tools (Politis 2007). These tools are often presented to the child with some ceremony in a minor rite of passage, a Vlach shepherd’s first ‘crook’ for example (Campbell 1964: 156). We should also get a glimpse of the learning process. Ethnographers have provided rich documentation of children’s acquisition of useful skills, especially handicrafts (Lancy 2012, 2018; Lancy, Gaskins, and Bock 2010). Recovered artefacts parallel the ethnographic record and reveal children’s learning and involvement in various ways. At two Magdalenian sites in France, ‘highly skilled [flint] knappers occupied places closest to the hearth, the less skilled knappers and the novices sat further back from it’ (Shennan and Steele 1999: 375). An early Mesolithic site in Norway reveals a pattern—based on stone scatter and debris—where an expert knapper is observed and emulated by a circle of novices of varying levels of proficiency (Dugstad 2008: 70). We can also expect to find that child-produced epi-tools utilize less costly raw materials (Lancy 2017). Child- produced pottery can be identified by their fingerprints on shards (Kamp 2002: 87), as well as the poor quality of workmanship (Crown 2002). Experimental studies also confirm the likely similarity between the child’s skill acquisition process in prehistory and as deduced from the ethnographic record (Ferguson 2003).
Stage Five: youth in limbo Adolescence is the most variable stage cross-culturally (Crawford 1991). Alice Schlegel and Herbert Barry, in a thorough review of the ethnographic literature, assert that
96 M. Annette Grove and David F. Lancy adolescence exists in all societies (1991: 18). However, puberty may begin as young as 12 years of age in well-nourished societies, or as late as 17 given poor nutrition (Eveleth and Tanner 1990: 170). The end of adolescence occurs when a couple creates an independently functioning household and begins bearing children. For example, in the traditional fishing village of Kau Sai, China, marriage and household formation may begin as early as age 16, immediately following first menses (Ward 1970: 115), while Masaii males expect to wait until they are in their 30s to marry (Spencer 1970: 137). In the first example, development from adolescent to adult proceeds without difficulty as children readily learn the gender appropriate skills of adults and are ready to assume adult level responsibilities at an early age. In the second example, a rigid male hierarchy prevents pubertal males from marriage and adult roles by assigning them to warrior status, a role that requires them to avoid women by living on the margins of the group’s territory. Pubescent girls marry into the polygynous households of older men of high status (Spencer 1970). In most societies, adolescence lasting longer than a year or two becomes problematic primarily due to the challenge of adolescent sexuality. Youth are likely to be interested in sex well before society thinks they are capable of taking on the responsibility of a family. The initiation rite is, therefore, one means to enforce emotional maturity and deference to one’s elders. Another tactic is seclusion. Guajiro (Venezuela) girls are secluded for up to five years in a dimly lit hut. ‘If the girl cries she will be severely criticized for her childish attitude and reminded of her new status as an adult woman who must exercise self-control’ (Watson-Franke 1976: 197). Among the Makiritare of the Orinoco basin, initiation and seclusion begin at the first signs of menstruation (Guss 1982: 264). The primary purpose of seclusion seems to be to preserve the girl’s ‘virtue’ to ensure a successful marriage, while the secondary purpose may be to shape the girl’s outlook more closely to match that of the older women. The parallel process for boys is removal to a men’s house or dormitory. Igbo boys move out of their natal homes into the bachelor’s house (Ottenberg 2006: 118). The proximity to men provides the young men a chance to observe and replicate male behaviours (Wagley 1977: 149). This sequestration erases the taint of femininity acquired during years of association with their mothers and other women. Many societies extend this process of gender socialization via an initiation period. Among the Sambia, the first stage in this initiation includes days of hazing, fasting, beating, sleeplessness, and sudden surprises, followed by forced nose-bleeding to remove female contaminants (Herdt 2001: 376). Around the world societies that choose to masculinize youth are often quite war-like, and male adolescence may be closely associated with learning to become a warrior. Alternately, they may be conscripted to serve in work ‘gangs’ that benefit the society as a whole. Young Rotuman males, for example, ‘form the nucleus of communal labour in every village’ (Howard 1973: 66–7). During their tenure as workers, they are often reminded of their subservient status by the village elite. This is a principal theme and objective of adolescent initiation rites. ‘When [a Chaga] adolescent flouts parental authority and has become a cause of public annoyance, father and mother agree that he should be curbed by the kisusa rite’ (Raum 1940: 303).
Cultural Models of Stages in the Life Course 97 Even after serving their time as warriors or members of a work gang, adolescents must still acquire the requisite property necessary to establish a household. These may include payment of a bride-price or dowry, doing bride-service for one’s future in-laws, the construction of a home for the new couple, or acquiring critical resources such as tools or livestock. Exceedingly few societies fail to accord deceased adolescents full burial rights. Consequently, they should be well represented in mortuary contexts. The most reliable osteological markers of adolescence will reflect the ‘growth spurt’. Nancy Howell, in fact, argues that it is the sudden spike in energy demand to fuel somatic growth that motivates !Kung youth to ratchet up their foraging activity (Howell 2010: 31). Skeletal examination will reveal evidence of first parturition and signs of injury related to the adolescent male’s occupation as a warrior, or bone fracture and wear suggesting heavy or dangerous work including hunting large mammals (Thompson and Nelson 2011: 269). With sufficient data of this sort, we might actually arrive at a reliable estimate of the typical transition point from middle childhood to adolescence in prehistory. Other characteristics of the adolescent stage that might leave traces would be structures associated with all-male ‘bachelor’ residence, and workshops for apprentices— such as the ‘tablet house’ at Mari where scribes were trained in a cohort (Kramer 1963). Even though the practice of secluding girls at first menses, and of boys and girls during the initiation rites is common, these structures tend to be hastily erected and temporary. They are usually destroyed at the end of the period of seclusion to prevent the associated pollution from dispersing in the community. Similar treatment is generally afforded the special clothing and decoration used in these ceremonies. The sacred cutting instruments used to circumcise are likely retained. In a very few societies with masking traditions, there are opportunities for young males to replicate the adult secret society patterns, including the carving of more durable masks that may be preserved (Binkley 2006).
Stage Six: adulthood Outside contemporary bourgeoisie society, most societies are organized as a gerontocracy where status is governed by fertility and age (Lancy 1996: 13, 2015: 2–3). Marriage may carry little weight. In most societies, ten-year-old children may already be capable of the full range of ‘adult’ subsistence tasks (Lancy 2012, 2018). So, neither is a reliable marker of adult status. A Bagisu bride is given a ‘woman’s’ skirt, but is not allowed to wear it until after the birth of her first child (La Fontaine 1959: 47). In Sumatra, there is no difference between a married Malay woman and her unmarried sisters—until she gives birth to her first child (Swift 1965: 124). The same criterion is often applied to young men (Leavitt 1998: 186). A Tzeltal Maya villager is not considered a full-fledged community member until he marries and has a child (Hunt 1962: 96). Viewing the adolescent stage through a cultural lens reveals wide variability in onset and termination. Among foragers, adolescence is prolonged relative to agrarian societies
98 M. Annette Grove and David F. Lancy because of the relative challenges of becoming a productive forager versus the ease with which children can herd or work in the fields (Hames and Draper 2004). However, successful child-bearing is often cited by anthropologists as the most significant aspect of the passage to full adulthood for males as well as females. Hence, the only reliable marker of the transition to adulthood that might be sought is skeletal evidence of parturition.
Conclusion Models of human development (Strauss 1992) vary cross-culturally, however patterns found in the ethnographic record have allowed us to construct a ‘universal’ model with six broadly applicable stages in the life cycle. In Stage One, the newborn, yet to be acknowledged by society and still seen as part of the mother, is kept tucked away in some form of an external womb, until its survival is sure. Stage Two proceeds when the infant’s survival becomes clear and he or she is introduced to and integrated into the community. Stage Three finds the child unhappily weaned from the breast and back and left under the care of sibling caretakers and allomothers. The unhappy state of the toddler is soothed by the lure of the playgroup. In Stage Four, children become useful. As they gain common sense, they are entrusted with ever more difficult tasks. Gender differentiation increases as girls become more closely tied to the domestic sphere, whereas boys are allowed more freedom. Stage Five or adolescence varies widely across cultures. Adolescence may be long or short, but controlling budding interest in sex and enforcing subservience and obedience among the young is a major focus of socialization practices such as seclusion and initiation. Stage Six begins with marriage, but it is the successful bearing and raising of children that earns one adult status.
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Cultural Models of Stages in the Life Course 103 Thompson, J. L. and Nelson, A. J. (2011). ‘Middle Childhood and Modern Human Origins’. Human Nature, 22: 249–80. Tronick, E. Z., Thomas, R. B., and Daltabuit, M. (1994). ‘The Quechua Manta Pouch: A Caretaking Practice for Buffering the Peruvian Infant against the Multiple Stressors of High Altitude’. Child Development, 65: 1005–13. Turner, D. M. (1987). ‘What Happened When my Daughter became a Fijan’, in B. Butler and D. M. Turner (eds), Children and Anthropological Research. New York, NY: Plenum Press, 92–114. Wagley, C. (1977). Welcome of Tears: The Tapirapé Indians of Central Brazil. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Ward, B. E. (1970). ‘Temper Tantrums in Kau Sai: Some Speculations upon their Effects’, in P. Mayer (ed.), Socialization: The Approach from Social Anthropology. London: Tavistock Publications, 107–25. Watson-Franke, M. B. (1976). ‘To Learn for Tomorrow: Enculturation of Girls and its Social Importance among the Guajiro of Venezuela’, in J. Wilbert (ed.), Enculturation in Latin America. Los Angeles, CA: UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 191–211. Weisner, T. S. and Gallimore, R. (1977). ‘My Brother’s Keeper: Child and Sibling Caretaking’. Current Anthropology, 18/2: 169–90. Wenger, M. (1989). ‘Work, Play, and Social Relationships among Children in a Giriama Community’, in D. Belle (ed.), Children’s Social Networks and Social Supports. New York, NY: Wiley, 91–115. Whittemore, R. D. (1989). Child Caregiving and Socialization to the Mandinka way: Toward an Ethnography of Childhood. Unpublished PhD dissertation, UCLA. Wileman, J. (2005). Hide and Seek: The Archaeology of Childhood. Stroud: Tempus. Williams, T. R. (1969). A Borneo Childhood: Enculturation in Dusun Society. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Zeitlin, M. (1996). ‘My Child is my Crown: Yoruba Parental Theories and Practices in Early Childhood’, in S. Harkness and C. M. Super (eds), Parent’s Cultural Belief Systems: Their Origins, Expressions, and Consequences. New York, NY: Guilford, 407–27. Zempleni-Rabain, J. (1973). ‘Food and Strategy Involved in Learning Fraternal Exchange among Wolof Children’, in P. Alexandre (ed.), French Perspectives in African Studies. London: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute, 220–33.
Chapter 6
Infants and Mot h e rs Linked Lives and Embodied Life Courses Rebecca Gowland
There is a burgeoning interest in the variable ways in which past and present societies construct the notion of foetal and infant entities and the beginnings of personhood (e.g. Moore 2009; Finlay 2013; Lupton 2013). The newborn baby has often been conceptualized as a tabular rasa, a blank slate, which progressively becomes moulded by biological, environmental, and social forces. Within this construct the infant is likened to clay and indeed this analogy is made explicit in early medical writings (e.g. Soranus’ Gynaecology of the first/second century ad). However, infants are conceived and born into social worlds and these impact on their nascent identities whilst still in utero. Likewise, cultural beliefs concerning gender identity, reproduction, and the pregnant body may have biological repercussions for the developing foetus. This chapter aims to explore the interplay between the body and society in the formation and conceptualization of infant bodies in the past. Foetal and infant development and early life experiences are now known to be of central importance for adult health and wellbeing (Barker et al. 2002). As a consequence, there has been a shift towards a greater focus on the relationship between early childhood development and social adversity within current medical research. In particular, over the last decade research into epigenetic processes (those which regulate gene expression) have become central to debates concerning infant and child care in the contemporary world. For example, a variety of epigenetic studies have highlighted the ways in which social processes such as inequalities (as a consequence of status, gender, ethnicity) can alter, not the genotype, but gene expression (Hertzman 2012). Through this mechanism, aspects of society come to be literally embodied within the biological tissues of infant bodies (Thayer and Kuzawa 2011). The implications of such research for the archaeological study of foetal and infant remains has yet to be explored within archaeological research. Furthermore, the impact of epigenetic research for our conceptualization of individual life courses is
Infants and Mothers 105 also potentially profound and requires consideration. The cumulative characteristics of individual and related biographies (e.g. mother/child) is discussed here, particularly in relation to early life experiences. It is argued that life courses become inter- woven over generations, thus challenging the Western concept of the life course as a discrete, individualized trajectory, with a beginning and an end. Instead, it is proposed here that in archaeological studies of childhood in the past we need to consider the concept of ‘linked lives’ (first coined by Elder in 1974) and entangled life courses, whereby biographical margins are fuzzy and overlap between the generations. Before progressing, it is worth briefly reviewing some of the theoretical developments within age and life course research over the past few decades in order to provide a context from which to explore the impact of epigenetics for archaeological approaches to infancy.
Cycles, cohorts, and courses Age has been conceptualized largely as a chronological phenomenon, which becomes embodied through the physiological processes of growth and, ultimately, degeneration. While ageing may be considered a universal, time-linked process, people grow up and grow old within different social and physical environments and these all impact upon the experience of ageing both physiologically and in terms of social identity (Gowland 2006; Sofaer 2006). The term ‘life cycle’ is no longer used to describe stages of life within social science discourse, though it may still feature in the medical literature. The concept is now considered to be too prescriptive and has been criticized as presenting life as a series of fixed chronological and biological phases (Hunt 2005). Social scientists now adopt a life course perspective when examining age, conceptualizing it as a series of ‘life pathways’ and transitions occurring over the trajectory from conception to death (Marshall 1996; Moen 1996: 181). This perspective on age has provided a useful framework for archaeologists to consider both the plurality of identity at any one moment in time as well as the fluidity of identity (e.g. gender and status) over an individual’s life (Hockey and James 2003). It also recognizes the cumulative nature of individual biographies; in other words, it explicitly considers the way in which identities and experiences in early life may impact upon later stages (Hockey and Draper 2005: 43). This is a departure from the earlier ‘life cycle’ approach to age, because rather than assuming a ‘pre-determined map’ for the ageing process, one’s identity and physiology at any moment in time is borne out of earlier phases which may have diverging effects on individual trajectories. A life course approach takes fully into account the fact that our lives are ongoing processes and not just single states or events that can be adequately captured and understood using snapshots. Levy and the Pavie Team (2005: 4)
106 Rebecca Gowland The life course experience is also one that is now understood as being embedded within the social and historical matrix of a society and hence can only be interpreted in relation to these factors (Hunt 2005). Engaging with the historical context allows a consideration of the impact of significant technological, political, or other societal events on individual and shared biographies (e.g. the experience of being a child during World War II, or the Great Depression: Elder 1974). As a consequence, there is a greater emphasis on the specificity of life experience and within this model, ‘age cohorts’ are regarded as particularly significant. A cohort refers to individuals who are born within a few years of each other and therefore experience similar historical and social events which impact upon their lives and identities (Hunt 2005). Individuals within particular age cohorts are the product of events that occurred during their lifetimes, and their identities (biologically and socially) are forged by these shared experiences, creating intragenerational bonds and intergenerational disconnects. For example, the values and attitudes of an older generation may differ from those of their children and grandchildren; not in any uniform, generic sense, but as a consequence of their particular upbringing and life histories. The cohort aspect to life course studies is problematic when examining the archaeo logical evidence. Within the funerary sphere, except in exceptional circumstances, such as catastrophic events (e.g. cemeteries arising in the wake of the Black Death which struck Europe from the mid-fourteenth century ad), age cohorts are almost impossible to isolate; we may identify individuals of the same age, but they were not necessarily from the same generational cohort and this potentially complicates interpretations. Nevertheless, the life course approach has been consequential for the study of age within archaeology, because it has enabled a greater exploration of the culturally contingent nature of age identity and the fluidity of identity over a person’s lifetime (e.g. Harlow and Laurence 2002; Gowland 2006; Gilchrist 2012). When considering age identity in the past, the cemetery context is a particularly fruitful form of evidence because of the direct link that it provides between the physiological body and the cultural aspects of burial practice. The importance of the skeletal remains of past bodies for interpreting funerary data has also been highlighted over recent years (e.g. Gowland and Knüsel 2006; Sofaer 2006; Knudson and Stojanowski 2008; Duday 2009). This is influenced by theoretical developments within the social sciences more broadly, which seek to integrate the physical body as an important component of social interaction. Since the 1990s, the body has been reconceptualized as a mediator of both social and biological processes (Shilling 1993). This represents an important departure from earlier approaches which viewed the body as a purely biological entity and largely irrelevant for interpretations of cultural practice. This traditional model has been critiqued for failing to engage with the physical reality of the body and the interaction between the body and society (Scheper-Hughes and Lock 1987; Shilling 1993; Krieger and Davey Smith 2004).
Infants and Mothers 107 In relation to age, the passing of time as a lived experience can be rather abstract, and while we are aware of it through the passing of days and seasons, it only crystallizes for many individuals through embodied experiences: through seeing our children grow, through greying hair and wrinkling skin, and our own embodied interactions with others; how they relate to us and we to them. This confrontation with embodied experience enables the reality of time and age to be made real to us in a way that is tangible. By considering life course stages, such as infancy in relation to biological remains, we are not returning to a position of biological determinism, but are instead acknowledging the ‘tripartite relationship between social environment, human agency and the body’ (Hockey and James 2003: 135). Age as an aspect of social identity differs in a fundamental way from other identities: we may know what it is to be either male or female within our own social context, but the age that we are at a particular moment in time is a cumulative one; we have passed in and out of numerous younger age transitions. As we grow and ultimately degenerate, fragments of our younger lives are retained within both our social and biological memories. In relation to the latter, we come to literally embody our life histories. For example, our childhood (and foetal environment) has the potential to impact on our health and wellbeing later in life (Barker et al. 2002). From an archaeological perspective, we retain traces of the lives that we have lived within the soft and hard tissues of our bodies, from the biomolecular to a macroscopic level. The tissues of our bodies become saturated by the social fabric in which we interact and these become fossilized within our bones and teeth (Robb 2002; Sofaer 2006; Gowland and Thompson 2013). In turn, aspects of our physicality forge our social identities—the relationship is dynamic. The temporal nature of the body is proving particularly important when examining past life courses. For example, when performing isotopic analysis on an adult skeleton, depending on which bones or teeth are sampled, information relating to a variety of earlier phases of life can be obtained, from infancy onwards, because each of these tissues was formed at a different age, or remodels at a different rate (Beaumont et al. 2015). A further development in life course research relates to a greater awareness of the interdependence of life course trajectories and roles. As Macmillan (2005: 6) notes: ‘lives unfold in multidimensional ways’; each individual experiences a number of different interlocking roles, leading to marked heterogeneity in age identity. Also related to this is the concept of ‘linked lives’ (Elder 1974): the recognition that individuals are not monadic entities; strong interdependencies exist in terms of the life course trajectories of related individuals (Levy and the Pavie Team 2005: 6). These relationships have been discussed briefly before in life course research in archaeology in relation to burial rites (e.g. Gowland 2006) and infant care (see Redfern, Chapter 24 and Lewis, Chapter 25 of this volume), but the interconnectivity of age identity is often not explicitly stated. Instead, archaeologists tend to focus on individual life courses and life course stages as discrete and separate entities.
108 Rebecca Gowland
The beginnings of life The beginnings of life and the treatment of foetal and infant remains have been a particular focus of scholarly interest within the social sciences over the last decade (e.g. Cecil 1996; Gottlieb 2000; Hockey and Draper 2005; Finlay 2013; Lupton 2013; Gowland, Chamberlain, and Redfern 2014; see also Carroll, Chapter 8 of this volume). In a special edition of World Archaeology, Finlay (2013: 207) brought together a number of papers on this subject stating that: Constructs of relational personhood highlight the fluid, contingent liminalities of the social project and the changing configuration of foetal ontologies . . . The myriad ways by which life is thus brought into social being condition the significances accorded to the agency and actions of the embryo/foetus and whether this nascent entity, the pregnant women herself, or others are given primacy.
Related to this is the concept of the beginnings of personhood, which is culturally ascribed and therefore highly variable (Kaufman and Morgan 2005: 321). This variability has been discussed in numerous anthropological accounts that identify delays in conferring personhood, long past the day of birth. While this appears to be such a strong marker of the beginning of life for us today, it is arguably an arbitrary point in the continuum. The acquisition of personhood is often marked by a discrete rite of passage (e.g. baptism, or the dies lustricus in the Roman world; see Carroll, Chapter 8 of this volume), though in actuality it tends more often to be a process rather than an event. For example, in the Western world a newborn is often referred to as ‘the baby’, for some time after being named, suggesting a transitional process of acquiring personhood (Gowland, Chamberlain, and Redfern 2014). For the many cultures that believe in reincarnation (e.g. some West African and Native American groups), the newborn may represent a particularly ambiguous entity; one which is simultaneously new and old (Kaufman and Morgan 2005). Reincarnation implicates a very different life course model and one far removed from the linear and individualized conception subscribed to in the Western world. This concept of reincarnation will be discussed again towards the end of the chapter in relation to the impact of epigenetics on life course biographies. Within archaeological discourse, unborn and newborn infants have often been conceptualized as passive and universal entities. However, the presence of an infant (both born and unborn) may have a profound influence on the behaviour of those around them, most particularly the mother (Gowland, Chamberlain, and Redfern 2014). Motherhood marks a transition towards a new embodied identity through cognitive and physiological changes (e.g. production of breast milk, changes in body shape), which may also be marked by shifts in material culture, such as clothing and adornment. For example, it has been argued by Fischler (1998) that a Roman female (who may marry from the age of 12 years) could only take on the truly gendered identity of a woman after she had given birth. For many, ‘parenthood’ is a strong marker of identity
Infants and Mothers 109 and adulthood (Macmillan 2007). Identities are forged from the societal and relational roles that we play and parenthood may be considered one of the most dominant. This leads to the question of whether a woman is still conceptualized as a mother if her infant dies. In many societies, the answer to this would be yes; an ethnographic example is provided by Woodburn (1969), who observed that, amongst the Hadza of East Africa, a female whose first child lived for only two days continued to wear the necklace that symbolized motherhood. This identity may be maintained even for those pregnancies which do not reach fruition, or for those whose infants die shortly after birth (Gowland, Chamberlain, and Redfern 2014). Transitions are often born in pain; the very act of going through childbirth may be viewed as a rite of passage as important as any other in terms of a woman’s identity. The death of the infant or the delivery of a stillborn child does not necessarily erase or invalidate this experience; indeed, it potentially taps into a more acute strand of pain in terms of the ensuing emotional rupture. The effect of losing an infant late in pregnancy on the mother is important to consider in archaeological interpretations of infant burials, because their funerary rites may be predicated more on the social perceptions of motherhood than of the dead infant. This is rarely considered, however, in interpretations of the archaeological burial evidence. For example, the presence of foetal remains, along with perinates (infants dying around the time of birth) is common at Romano-British sites, yet interpretations of these burials have been almost entirely dominated by discussions of infanticide (Mays 1993; Mays and Eyers 2011), rather than concepts of the beginnings of life and motherhood in Roman Britain (Gowland 2002; Moore 2009; Gowland, Chamberlain, and Redfern 2014; Millet and Gowland 2015). Indeed, the mothers of these infants have often been disregarded as prostitutes or slaves, who were disposing of their unwanted or murdered offspring (Mays and Eyers 2011). Another possible interpretation is that in the Roman world, foetal and perinatal infants were still considered to be an indivisible part of the mother and so were buried in close proximity to her (Millet and Gowland 2015). This is something that has been observed cross-culturally; for example, in Ecuador, abortion is considered self-mutilation because the foetus is not seen to be separate from the mother (Lupton 2013). In the Western world, where the developing foetus and mother has increasingly been conceptualized as distinct, nonetheless, some women even in late pregnancy have difficulty conceiving of the foetus as separate from themselves (Lupton 2013). Interpretations of infant burials, primarily in terms of disposal, deny the agency of infants to affect those around them emotionally, physically, and economically (Gowland, Chamberlain, and Redfern 2014). Murphy (2011: 413) has lamented the lack of engagement by archaeologists with the ‘powerful physiological responses that are associated with pregnancy, birth and motherhood’. She presents a variety of archaeological and historical data to highlight the fact that infants buried within cillinί, who appear to have been marginalized in death, were nevertheless mourned by their families (Murphy 2011). Recent work has begun to explore the variable cultural responses to miscarriage and stillborn infants in terms of grief and burial rites (e.g. Cecil 1996; Murphy 2011; Finlay 2013). Today, funerals may be held for foetuses lost even very early on in pregnancy and stillborn infants are now accorded a much greater visibility in the funerary sphere than observed in recent historical periods (Hallam, Hockey, and Howarth
110 Rebecca Gowland 1999). The changing ontological status of the foetus over time has received attention from a variety of sociologists. Most recently, this has occurred in relation to the impact of current medical imaging technologies, such as ultrasound, which allow the developing infant to be viewed in utero, and this has contributed to a reconfiguration of foetal identity (Lupton 2013). Hockey and Draper (2005: 54) have stated that studies of the life course have tended to be constrained by the ‘twin gateposts of birth and death’; thus omitting the significance of life before birth. With respect to foetuses this effectively ‘eradicates their potential importance for the living and so excludes them from any comprehensive account of the life course as a social, intersubjective process’ (Hockey and Draper 2005: 54). Hockey and Draper (2005) also refer to embodiment by proxy, and discuss the various ways in which the presence of the developing foetus becomes embodied through the performativity of the mother. For example, women today, even prior to conception, may adopt embodied strategies in order to improve their own preconception health through exercise, diet, vitamin supplements, and restricting alcohol intake. Once pregnant, the choice of bodily indicators that life has started is also culturally contingent (e.g. pregnancy test, halted menstruation, foetal movements, ‘quickening’) (Hockey and Draper 2005). The pregnancy, while initially ‘invisible’ to others, has immediate physiological consequences for the mother (e.g. tiredness, sickness). In turn, the developing embryo is conceptualized by the expectant mother, not as ‘a bundle of cells’, but as a future embodied child, encompassing parental hopes and dreams. The topic of motherhood and the way in which the developing foetus and infant can alter the identities of the pregnant women, as well as the families more generally, has been largely neglected within archaeological discussions, which have centred more on patterns of infant burial and infant care. While these topics are important to explore, we must consider that identities are situated within the trajectory of the life course and are relational and socially linked: husband/wife, parent/child. There is also an obvious biological link in terms of parents passing genetic information onto their infants. However, this concept can also be extended to the inheritance of social biographies and it is the repercussions of this concept for our conceptualization of foetal/infant entities and mother/infant biographies that is explored further below.
Embodiment, epigenetics, and ‘embedding’ A new generation of studies is advancing the prospect that epigenetic differences may constitute a biological vestige of early exposures, potentially altering the expression of genes affecting metabolic and physiological pathways and changing trajectories of individual development. Hertzman (2012: 17166)
Infants and Mothers 111 The role of molecular epigenetics in developmental plasticity has been the subject of intense investigation and interest over the last decade. Epigenetic factors refer to those which alter patterns of gene expression, while not changing nucleotide sequences of the DNA (see, amongst others, Landecker and Panofsky 2013, for a discussion of epigenetic processes). A dramatic and famous example of epigenetic processes in action is provided by the Dutch Famine (1944–5). Average food rations during this five month period in the Netherlands decreased in calorific content to as little as 400–800 kilocalories per day and slightly more for pregnant women. Food supplies returned to normal levels not long afterwards and so this period represents a discrete, well-documented, famine event affecting known individuals. The physiological ramifications of this event for those foetuses developing in utero at the time has been studied intensively. The harsh environment did not affect linear growth but resulted in ‘a disturbed central regulation of the accumulation of body fat in later life’ (for further details see Ravelli et al. 1999; Roseboom, van der Meulen, and Ravelli 2001). As a consequence, individuals affected by the famine during gestational development were found to be more susceptible to obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease later in life. In the case of the Dutch Famine, the epigenetic changes to gene expression occurred in utero as an adaptive response to maximize the infant’s chances of surviving when born into an environment in which food was scarce. The fact that they were, in fact, born into a world in which food supplies soon returned to normal meant that, in this instance, these processes resulted in a mismatch between the intrauterine signals and the post-natal environment (Gluckman, Hanson, and Low 2011: 13). The Dutch Famine event directly impacted on three generations: the expectant mother, the developing female fetus, and the grandoffspring, because the daughter produced all of the eggs that she will have during her lifetime, whilst still in utero (Barker 2012). There is now a new field of research known as ‘nutritional epigenetics’ that examines food as a crucial factor in the regulation of gene expression and phenotypic plasticity (i.e. altering appearance) (Landecker 2011). A substantial body of research has demonstrated the way in which suboptimal conditions during foetal development and infancy can have epigenetic effects that remain stable throughout the offspring’s life course (mitotic stability). As Landecker (2011: 177) discusses in regards to the Dutch example, ‘this is a model in which food enters the body and, in a sense never leaves it, because food transforms the organism’s being as much as the organism transforms it’. However, it is not just nutrition that influences gene expression, factors such as maternal stress have also been shown to be significant for mental and physiological wellbeing in later life (Hertzman 2012). For example, stress during pregnancy has been shown to have an effect on the stress reactivity of the offspring, even after their birth. Differences in maternal care in early infancy have also been shown to have long-lasting consequences for epigenetic processes which help regulate adult stress reactivity (Weaver et al. 2004). Adverse environmental or social conditions have also been shown to affect the second generation of offspring (Davey Smith 2011; Gluckman, Hanson, and Low 2011). The significance of these findings cannot be underestimated as they provide an unassailable
112 Rebecca Gowland and direct link between biology and society, revealing how an individual’s physical and social world in early life can shape their biological processes (including health) across their own life course, and those of their children and grandchildren (Thayer and Kuzawa 2011: 798). There are many significant medical and socially significant outcomes and implications to arise from this epigenetic research (see Landecker and Panofsky 2013 for a summary). Of particular relevance for life course research, however, is that it demonstrates the way in which life histories can become intertwined via epigenetic processes. Lives become linked on a social level, but also biologically, to the extent that research on the life course must extend beyond the day of birth, beyond even conception, to when the mother was a foetus, and her mother before her. When social factors affecting our grandmothers, have repercussions for our own ontogeny and embodied identity, at what point in time does our biography actually begin (Gowland and Newman, forthcoming)?
Implications for the archaeology of childhood The implications of this new paradigm for the study of foetal and infant remains within archaeological discourse are explored below, particularly in relation to bioarchaeology. There are a number of key factors that should impact upon our interpretations of the archaeological data. Over recent years there has been a move towards a ‘social bioarchaeology’ (e.g. Gowland and Knüsel 2006; Sofaer 2006; Knudson and Stojanowski 2008, 2009; Agarwal and Glencross 2011). This theoretical move has been informed by the burgeoning research on the interrelationship between the body and society from across the social sciences and philosophy. Epigenetics has provided a unique contribution to these debates, demonstrating a mechanism whereby the social and biological sciences can be more completely reconciled (Landecker and Panofsky 2013). The science/ theory boundaries which continue to dominate archaeological research are no longer sustainable when this construct is being so consistently challenged. Epigenetic research has also enabled epidemiologists to recognize that disease arises from the accumulation of risk throughout life, and this also includes the lives of our immediate ancestors (Davey Smith 2011). Interpretations of the evidence for past health from skeletal remains must also attempt to tease out the biological traces of pre-existing social onslaughts (Gowland and Newman, forthcoming). Furthermore, there is still a tendency to interpret palaeopathological evidence primarily in terms of environmental rather than social variables. Research on contemporary populations demonstrates that health disparities have social origins (Thayer and Kuzawa 2011: 798), and therefore greater consideration should be given to the heterogeneity of experience within any one period and place.
Infants and Mothers 113 With regard to the study of childhood in the past, over recent years there has been a changing appreciation of the biological processes of growth and development and the way in which these are influenced by the social as well as physical environment. Bioarchaeologists studying growth and development generally observe a degree of biological regularity in developmental trajectories during infancy and childhood. Differences in growth profiles between skeletal populations are often interpreted in terms of variables such as inadequate nutrition and infectious disease. However, when interpreting the health of children the concept of ‘linked lives’, as well as cumulative biographies comes into play (Gowland 2015; Gowland and Newman, forthcoming). The use of different skeletal parameters (e.g. vertebral canal size, long-bone growth) may reveal the age at which growth was affected (Watts 2013) and thus be used to infer particular cultural constructions of infancy and childhood (e.g. age at weaning or age at which children were exposed to work-related hazards) (Newman and Gowland 2015). Further, recent advances in the analysis of high resolution isotopic data from dentine has meant that information from adult remains can be obtained that reveals longitudinal dietary changes during infancy and childhood (e.g. Beaumont et al. 2013, 2015). Nitrogen and carbon isotope values can be plotted at intervals of less than one year, from just before birth to approximately 15 years of age, depending on the tooth being sampled (Montgomery et al. 2013). When integrated with the skeletal evidence, the impact of childhood nutrition and health on adult morbidity and mortality can be observed. Likewise, similar values can be obtained for those children who did not survive to adulthood, providing high resolution comparative data for survivors and non-survivors (Beaumont et al. 2013; Montgomery et al. 2013). Barker and Osmond (1986) helped establish a link between early life adversity and chronic disease risk when they noted a geographical patterning between the frequency of cardiovascular disease and areas with high infant mortality six decades previously. They then explored this link further in a series of papers and books from the 1980s onwards. Originally referred to as the ‘Barker hypothesis’, it is now more broadly known as the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) hypothesis. This research has been very significant for structuring recent social policy in Britain, with an increased emphasis on the importance of pre-and post-natal infant wellbeing for population health (The Marmot Review 2010). A number of studies within palaeopathology have provided support for this hypothesis from archaeological contexts, noting correlations between indicators of health stress such as enamel hypoplasia and growth stunting, and reduced adult longevity (e.g. Armelagos et al. 2009; Watts 2011, 2013). When considered in relation to epigenetic research, the DOHaD hypothesis should result in a more central role for the study of foetal and infant remains in archaeology. The study of past infancy, including infant care, breastfeeding, and weaning practices, have tended to be marginalized within archaeology, generally considered an offshoot of gender studies, and dominated by female scholars. However, if the experience of infancy has such profound consequences for biological and social wellbeing, archaeologists should concern themselves with studying this age group more proactively (Gowland
114 Rebecca Gowland 2015). If infant care practices carry a legacy of poor health, spanning many generations, then they can no longer be overlooked as inconsequential to society. Likewise, the Barker hypothesis emphasizes the importance of maternal health, which tends to be overlooked in relation to perinatal and infant mortality, despite being vital to the offspring (Gowland 2015). Maternal health may be affected by culturally prescribed practices relating to pregnancy, such as a special diet, or extended periods of confinement. When infants are observed with evidence of pathologies such as rickets and scurvy, as recorded at the Romano-British site of Poundbury (Dorset) (Lewis 2010; see also Lewis, Chapter 25 of this volume), then these infants may act as important proxies for the archaeological study of health in pregnancy. The developing foetus is prioritized by the pregnant body in times of nutritional stress, with resources diverted to support the needs of the infant. Nutritional deficiencies in the foetus must therefore reflect the very poor health status of their mothers. Perinatal infant remains are therefore significant for informing archaeologists about past perceptions of infancy, but also shine an important spotlight on the ‘invisible’ mother, even in the absence of a direct connection in the archaeological record (e.g. mother/infant burials) (Gowland 2015). Again, isotopic analysis of perinatal infant remains can also be particularly informative in this regard. For example, Beaumont et al. (2015) have noted a disparity between maternal δ15 Nitrogen values and perinatal offspring. This difference occurs because the perinatal values reflect the period of development in utero, whilst maternal values represent pooled data relating to the last five to ten years of the woman’s life (depending on the bone sampled). Elevated δ15 Nitrogen values in archaeological infants are usually interpreted as providing a breastfeeding signal (see Redfern, Chapter 24 of this volume). However, such perinatal infants are unlikely to have breastfed, or at least not for the length of time required to elevate their δ15 Nitrogen values. Instead, Beaumont and colleagues (2015) argue that these nitrogen values may be reflecting poor maternal health. This is because, in circumstances in which the mother is ill or malnourished, the body will recycle proteins and this similarly leads to higher nitrogen values, potentially mimicking a breastfeeding signal (Beaumont et al. 2015). The perinate, therefore, provides high resolution maternal isotope values, in the absence of the mother herself. The lives of the mother and infant are bound biologically, so that one may be used as a proxy for the other, but they are also socially connected in terms of their biographies and epigenetic inheritance (Gowland 2015). A final point about epigenetic research is the significance that it has for challenging the discrete nature of individual biographies in life course analysis. When social events affecting our ancestors have consequences for our own gene expression, we must consider lives to be linked and individuals to be ‘partible’ (Strathern 1988), that is, not representing discrete entities. The Western concept of the ‘bounded body’—i.e. one that is separate and distinct from other human bodies—has been discussed in relation to concepts of personhood and funerary treatment in anthropological and archaeological studies. For example, Fowler (2001) discusses the concept of ‘individuals’ and ‘dividuals’, in relation to Neolithic funerary practices in which
Infants and Mothers 115 the remains of skeletonized bodies were commingled and manipulated after death. Likewise, Chapman (2010) discusses the distribution of body parts in Neolithic Europe as a means of materializing kinship links. The Western construct of the body as a bounded entity is a peculiarly powerful one and reinforced through cultural practices which observe the maintenance of bodily space—a liminal border zone between one’s own body and other peoples. Challenges to the concept of the body’s boundedness, such as through the leakage of bodily fluids, are generally regarded with repugnance. In actuality, of course, our corporeal boundaries are not fixed or discrete; our nails and hair extend beyond our skin and we shed all of these, along with our DNA and epithelial cells wherever we go, whilst inhaling and consuming similar corporeal fragments of others (Gowland and Thompson 2013). The mother/ foetus dyad is the ultimate challenge to individual boundedness: the ‘body within a body’. However, I would argue that epigenetic research represents a more fundamental challenge to this paradigm of the bounded body. Strathern’s (1988: 185) discussion was specifically referring to Melanesian concepts of the body: ‘in being multiple [the Melanesian person] is also partible, an entity that can dispose of body parts’. Given the recent research in epigenetics one could argue that contained within our bodies are physically embedded traces of our ancestors’ psychosocial and biological experiences (e.g. past anxieties, dietary practices, relationships, and so forth). Their grinding poverty or social marginalization becomes our own physiological legacy (Gowland and Newman, forthcoming). Even during life we are commingled; we are all bodies within bodies (Gowland 2015). The life course approach emphasizes the importance of historical context and events which may influence individual biographies; in which case, those pertaining to our recent antecedents become highly relevant. Within such a paradigm, to suggest birth, or even conception, as the starting point of life seems inappropriately arbitrary and the concept of humans having discrete and separate life courses starts to become epistemologically shaky (Gowland and Newman, forthcoming). Indeed, one might argue that the ideology of reincarnation—whereby ancestors are reborn within the bodies of new infants, a belief system that is entirely alien to current Western beliefs—has greater synergies with the epigenetic model.
Conclusions This chapter has discussed the implications of new research within the social and medical sciences for the archaeological study of infancy and the life course. Epigenetics provides an important mechanism for understanding the relationship between society and health. It has also facilitated the collapse of the mind/body divide that has structured Western knowledge for the past few centuries. Archaeological knowledge, however, is still constructed largely within these traditional boundaries. It is argued here that in terms of life course research epigenetics has also undermined a number of other
116 Rebecca Gowland Western constructs. It reinforces the connectivity between individuals genetically, epigenetically, physiologically, and socially (Gowland 2015). It has ramifications for our beliefs and conceptualizations regarding the beginnings of life as well as the notion that individuals have discrete and separate biographies. As archaeologists, we need to be mindful of the fact that infants can no longer be regarded as at the periphery of the human experience. They are central to the construction of past societies as are the mothers who bear them. In order to interpret the archaeological and bioarchaeological evidence for infancy and childhood in meaningful ways we should be mindful of what these remains actually embody. The skeletal remains of an infant excavated from an archaeological site does not simply represent a scrap of past humanity that never reached fruition, but is the embodiment of an accumulation of life events and social circumstances that preceded their own fractured existence. As such, they provide a portal for accessing archaeological traces of often intangible identities including motherhood.
Acknowledgements I am grateful to Dawn Hadley and Sally Crawford for inviting me to contribute to this volume. Thanks to Tim Thompson and Dawn Hadley for commenting on an earlier draft of this chapter.
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SECTION III
C H I L DR E N , FA M I LY, A N D HOU SE HOL D S
Chapter 7
Prehistoric H ou se h ol d s and Childh o od Growing Up in a Daily Routine Brigitte Röder
‘Household’ and ‘childhood’ are two ideologically and emotionally highly charged cultural concepts that are intrinsically intertwined with other basic concepts of contemporary Western society, such as ‘house’, ‘home’, and ‘family’: ‘For many people the house is synonymous with home . . . The word “home” . . . may be filled with emotional meaning—reminders of childhood and the roots of our being, or concepts of privacy, freedom and security’ (Parker-Pearson and Richards 1994: 5). The terms ‘household’ and ‘childhood’ invoke a whole raft of ideas and notions, which are fundamentally influenced by societal ideals of intact childhood and family life, by personal everyday life experiences, and by memories of one’s own childhood that are potentially nostalgically biased. The fact that we all had a childhood and grew up and still live in a household of some description supports the assumption that these fundamental experiences are universal and that ‘household’ and ‘childhood’ are self-evident categories. These personal, everyday, and biographical experiences and certainties are in opposition to the findings of the humanities, which demonstrate that ‘household’ and ‘childhood’, rather than constituting universal categories, are cultural concepts that depend on various factors. Contemporary Western ideas of childhood and household hark back to eighteenth-and nineteenth-century bourgeois society that developed new concepts of family and of the relationships between the genders and generations. As part of this reorganization of the central societal institutions and constitutively linked with the bourgeois family model, very specific cultural concepts of ‘household’ and ‘childhood’ were defined. Despite all the historical and social changes that have taken place in the meantime, the concepts of bourgeois society still have a fundamental impact on our society—either as an ideal model or as a bugbear. Consequently, they also play a part in the cultural preconceptions of archaeologists and can enter their research unnoticed by way of implicit assumptions.
124 Brigitte Röder The fact that bourgeois society has declared that the social institutions and concepts it created—such as its family model (and thus the concept of household, which is intrinsically linked with it) and its notion of childhood—are ‘natural’ and ‘universal’, and above all ‘primordial’, makes it all the more important to reflect on these cultural preconceptions. The strategy of legitimizing new social constructs by naturalizing and archaizing them, thus declaring them to be ‘natural facts’, has proved highly efficient to this day, not only in social debates but also within academic discourse. This may explain why many archaeological publications and images present bourgeois society as an implied analogous model and why prehistory is depicted as a kind of theme park of bourgeois society (Röder 2013), despite the fact that gender, childhood, and household archaeologists in particular have fundamentally criticized these ‘nineteenth-century bourgeois premises’ (Leach 1999: 195) being projected onto the past and have identified them as an epistemological trap (Spencer-Wood 1999: 162–6; Panter-Brick 2000: 4–9; Robin 2002: 246–8; Kamp 2006: 119; Thomas 2006: 42; Brumfiel and Robin 2008: 2). A number of contemporary Western notions and ideals that hark back to nineteenth- century bourgeois concepts are of particular importance for the study of households and childhood: childhood is seen as a natural, biological, and universal period of life (Schwartzman 2006: 125). On one hand devalued as a ‘still immature status of preparation to adult life’ (Liebel 2004: 77), it is at the same time romanticized and idealized. It appears as some kind of ‘reservation’ where ‘nothing serious’ happens but where no ‘utilizable’ results can be achieved either (Liebel 2004: 178). In this concept, children live in a ‘walled garden’: ‘The walled garden represents an idealized world, free of oppression and exploitation—a world that numerous studies have shown does not exist for most children’ (Hobbs, McKechnie, and Lavalette 1999: 212). The notion that children must be kept in a protected space and shielded from all the hardships of life, however, has a paternalistic downside and illustrates just how few competences children are given credit for: ‘The metaphor also implies a barrier to the outside world where children, because they are children, are denied access to activities that adults take for granted. The fact of biological immaturity is utilized to determine a presumed social, political, and economic incompetence, as a result of which children find themselves excluded from decision-making at all levels of society’ (Hobbs, McKechnie, and Lavalette 1999: 212; also Liebel 2004: 178). This attitude results in children being excluded not only from decision-making but—provided the economic situation allows it—also from taking on responsibilities and carrying out economic activities, thus rendering them completely dependent on adults. The family is viewed as the ideal space for growing up because this is the only way— in people’s perception—that a protected and sheltered childhood is possible, which is viewed first and foremost as a period of play and learning. In spite of the current move towards more pluralized forms of relationships and families, the bourgeois family model still has the status of a guiding concept of society. ‘Family’ is thus primarily defined as a nuclear family, which consists of a monogamous heterosexual couple and their joint children, and where the man takes on the role of provider while the woman assumes the role of spouse, housewife, and mother. The members of such a family are
Prehistoric Households and Childhood 125 linked by close emotional bonds, so-called family love, and they share a permanent domicile which, in contrast to the ‘public outside’, is perceived as a ‘protected private area’. They run a joint household which to the outside world portrays an autonomous economic unit and within the family is based on altruistic principles—i.e. the resources generated by the father or the parents are fed into a joint pool and are eventually handed down to the children. The familial relationships—and thus the household—are characterized by an extraordinarily high stability. Any changes that might occur are largely of a demographic nature: the household is expanded by children being born, whilst family members dying or children marrying and moving out to start their own household cause it to contract. The intake of new family members happens only in exceptional cases and mainly concerns relations in need of care or elderly relatives living on their own. Because ‘family’ and ‘household’ coincide, this family model also determines the characteristics of the household, e.g. its members, their roles, the division of labour, and the household’s stability. So much for the contemporary cultural concepts which, while developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, still fundamentally shape Western society’s understanding of a ‘normal childhood’, a ‘normal family’, and a ‘normal household’. The fact that these nineteenth-century bourgeois concepts became hegemonic for society as a whole, although most people lived within completely different everyday realities, is a remarkable phenomenon indeed.1 Even more remarkable, however, is their persistence, which seems to defy all the social changes around childhood, family, and households. This persistence is also supported by prehistoric archaeologists who reproduce the cultural concepts of bourgeois society in their studies and continuously reactualize the strategy of legitimizing the notion that this represents the ‘primordial’ and ‘natural’ types of societal coexistence which can be presumed to have existed universally ‘since time immemorial’. The subject matter ‘prehistoric households and childhood’ challenges us very specifically to reflect upon these cultural concepts and ‘to open space for alternative voices and new means of discourse’ (Lawrence 1999: 122).
Childhood as an analytical category ‘Childhood’ on one hand is a period of biological growth, rapid psychosocial maturation, and intensive learning. On the other hand, it is also a social category that varies both cross-culturally and within cultures. Therefore, childhood is also a scientific analytical category. As Chris Jenks (1996: 121–2) put it: ‘Sociological and anthropological research has now sharpened a theoretical focus on the plurality of childhoods, a plurality evidenced not only cross-culturally but also within cultures . . . the experience of childhood is fragmented and stratified, by class, age, gender, and ethnicity, by urban or rural locations and by particularized identities cast for children through disability or ill health’. The factors that, according to Jenks, characterize present-day childhoods, much like the variability between and within cultures, can also be presumed to have existed in
126 Brigitte Röder prehistoric times, so that we must always assume that a variety of childhoods existed in the past. However, which years make up a person’s ‘childhood’, or in other words, what is a ‘child’? Kathryn Kamp (2006: 116) pointed out that we must differentiate between ‘childhood’ as a culturally defined stage in a person’s life cycle and the individual or collective experiences of ‘children’. ‘Children’ are not a universal category, no more than ‘women’ or ‘men’. Whilst all societies differentiate between adult and subadult persons, there is huge disparity between different cultural groups with regard to the actual ages at which such boundaries are defined and the personality traits, roles, tasks, rights, etc. that are attributed to each stage of life. By attempting not to limit one’s archaeological research to the biological dimension of age, i.e. to anthropological age categories in order to project the current categories of ‘children’, ‘adolescents’, and ‘adults’ onto prehistoric reality, it becomes quite a challenge to define these allegedly self-evident terms: once age is also perceived as a social criterion, the category ‘child’ disintegrates into a cultural variety of options. Due to the great impact of a baby or infant’s existential dependency and need for protection, early childhood (up to around three years of age) is the only stage that appears to be a constant which is culturally largely independent (Hug 2007, 2008: 85– 6).2 It is much less variable than the circumstances of older children, both with regard to its duration and its cultural characteristics (see Grove and Lancy, Chapter 5 of this volume). Clues for the emic formation of age structures or life cycle concepts with regard to prehistoric societies are provided at best by studies of grave goods in conjunction with anthropological age determinations (Sofaer Derevenski 2000a; Stoodley 2000). Such studies, however, are still quite rarely carried out. This means that in studying ‘prehistoric households and childhood’ it must remain largely open which age groups are actually being analysed in each individual case. As will be outlined later, social anthropological studies have shown that we may work on the basic assumption that prehistoric young people, in contrast to most children and adolescents in modern Western societies, were probably integrated into the everyday cycle of domestic activities from a very young age,3 possibly even between the ages of three and five years. However, here too, we must assume that there were various types of childhood: the children of an Iron Age elite family were probably less involved in everyday chores or participated in different activities than the children of their servants, although they may have been part of the same household (Figure 7.1).
Household archaeology: the discovery of everyday life Household archaeology stands for the discovery of everyday life, and for an interest in the daily routines that, while unspectacular, shape the mode of existence of both the
Prehistoric Households and Childhood 127
Figure 7.1 A young servant combing her mistress’s hair. This scene points out that there were various types of childhood. The children of an Iron Age elite family were probably less involved in everyday chores or participated in different activities from the children of their servants, although they may have been part of the same household. Reproduced by permission of the Kantonales Museum für Urgeschichte(n) Zug (Switzerland.)
individual and the cultural group or society. Starting in the 1970s and 1980s,4 this new research field began to contrast the ‘macrocosm archaeological culture’ with the ‘microcosm household’ as a unit of analysis, thereby developing theoretical and methodo logical lines of approach to research this ‘microcosm’. The household was defined as ‘the next bigger thing on the social map after an individual’ (Hammel 1984: 40–1) and seen as ‘the primary unit within the socioeconomic structure’ (Steadman 1996: 55). The notion that households were the ‘minimal social unit’ (Briz i Godino et al. 2013: 24) upon which village communities and finally archaeological cultures were based, harks back to the Western bourgeois concept, according to which the (nuclear) family, which was equated with the household, formed the fundamental unit, the nucleus of all societies. In this respect, the understanding of the analytical category ‘household’ was initially largely shaped by a researcher’s own socialization, his or her own experience of society and sociality—and not least by their personal experience of growing up and living in a household. In the early days of the new research field, ‘households’ were not the objects of the research questions but a self-evident category which was naturally assumed to have existed almost in the same manner in all (prehistoric) societies. According to the researchers’ own cultural preconceptions, a dwelling was believed to be the place where a household, and thus the domicile of a family, became empirically tangible in the
128 Brigitte Röder archaeological record. The common equation of ‘house’, ‘household’, and ‘family’ meant that ‘household archaeology practice entailed a tautology in the recognition of its analytical unit: a “house” was defined as a place where a family develops the daily activities and “family” grouped together people who inhabits in the same house’ (Briz i Godino et al. 2013: 25). Although repeatedly called into question from an early stage (Bender 1967; Yanagisako 1979), the ‘household’ as a concept was generally defined as a fixed package of intrinsically intertwined features that constituted everyday life—including aspects such as the dwelling, family, co-residence, private space, self-sufficiency, economic pooling, domestic activities such as production and consumption, biological reproduction, transmission, socialization, and enculturation. This entanglement of architecture, social grouping, kinship, subsistence, and biological and social reproduction was challenged by the ethnographical and historical data that demonstrated an enormous cultural variability with regard to how people organized and structured their daily lives and generated sociality; as seen from a cross-cultural perspective it becomes clear that various combinations of the features mentioned can occur. We must therefore expect to find variability, and an attempt was made by Sanjek to distinguish between five ‘major household types’ (Sanjek 2006: 286, with reference to Hammel and Laslett 1974). Ethnographical and historical data also demonstrate that households are not stable, ahistorical institutions, but rather pass through cycles, each stage of which may represent a particular household type, which therefore ultimately represents merely a snapshot of a particular moment in time within the household cycle (Yanagisako 1979: 168). Consequently, recent household archaeology has shown an increasing awareness of the dynamics and fluidity of households, stating that they are ‘fundamentally unstable and subject to continual fission’, and must therefore be conceptualized as ‘social processes’ (Souvatzi 2012). This is not the place to retrace in detail the development of household archaeology and its shifting concepts (for an overview see Steadman 1996; Robin 2003; King 2006: 297; Goldstein 2008: 39–41; Douglass and Gonlin 2012b: 8–18; Tringham 2012). It appears important to state that as our knowledge increases and as we make more cross-cultural comparisons, our own cultural perception of the concept ‘household’ is fundamentally challenged, which brings into focus the immense cultural variety of the phenomenon. This is reflected in the fact that household archaeology today constitutes a very heterogeneous field with a variety of definitions for its object of research and with a remarkable plurality of theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches. Over the course of its development, the concept ‘household’ evolved from a seemingly self-evident, universal, and ahistorical social institution into a contested analytical category: ‘household’ can no longer be assumed to be a known factor. We must examine, rather, each individual case in order to ascertain whether ‘household’ is indeed even a useful analytical category. Ivan Briz i Godino and colleagues (2013: 26–8) thus show that for the study of hunter-gatherers ‘the traditional criteria . . . remain problematic or ambiguous’. They go on to say that the previously developed understanding of ‘household space’ and the associated localization of certain activities with either ‘private’ or else ‘public’
Prehistoric Households and Childhood 129 or ‘communal’ spaces is ‘not operative’ for hunter-gatherer contexts. Instead, they conclude ‘that the most profitable approach for this kind of research is the recognition of the global social space with its implications for understanding the physical environment where a society develops its existence . . . on the basis of production and consumption processes. Once these activities are spatially articulated, we are able to obtain an appropriate image of the social space and then to begin the study of relationships’ (Briz i Godino et al. 2013: 39–40). If this assumption was correct with regard to all hunter-gatherers it would mean that the traditional concept of household cannot be used in the analysis of Palaeolithic or Mesolithic sites—in other words for the largest part of prehistory. However, even in the study of more recent sedentary communities we may raise the question as to whether ‘household’ is indeed a useful analytical category. Many sites have yielded evidence of structures that cannot readily be reconciled with the traditional concept of household. Bleda Düring and Arkadiusz Marciniak (2006: 182–3) in their study of Early Neolithic sites in Central Anatolia, for instance, found no evidence of ‘discrete household residences in which domestic activities were performed’, but instead identified structures that overarched several houses, which they described as ‘neighbourhood clusters’. This led them to conclude that the local communities had not been comprised of discrete households, but rather of neighbourhood communities (Düring and Marciniak 2006: 166). They also presumed that many of the domestic activities were not performed in the dwellings but in communal open areas (Düring and Marciniak 2006: 174). Stella Souvatzi (2012: 18) went a step further in disentangling ‘house’, ‘household space’, and ‘domestic activities’ and viewed ‘household as a shifting location of action rather than resort[ing] to ready-made social and spatial forms’. In her opinion, household is composed of ‘a social group cooperating in a sphere of social, economic, and ideological practices consisting minimally of production, distribution/consumption, transmission, and social reproduction’ (Souvatzi 2012: 18). She considers household to be ‘a dialectical framework for studying collective practice, as it is itself a collectivity, a coalition of individuals’ (Souvatzi 2008: 39). The nature of this ‘coalition of individuals’ and whether it was based on phenomena such as kinship or simply on the decision to cooperate in performing certain daily activities remains unknown. Another unanswered question is the duration of these coalitions; short-term, seasonal, or even ad hoc partnerships are as conceivable as more long-term alliances. Moreover, the age and gender of the individuals involved remain unknown to us. From an epistemological point of view, the disentanglement and dynamization of the original ‘household package’ based largely on Western concepts and the practical and spatial turn towards concepts, such as collective practices, social space, spatiality of everyday life, or the built environment (Robin 2002: 247–50) on the part of household archaeology, have certainly borne fruit, since they allow us to gain a much more unbiased view of ‘the social construction and experience of everyday life’ (Robin 2002: 245), as seen in the traces left behind in the archaeological record by ‘domestic activities’ (for a definition see Kovács 2013: 182) as well as ‘maintenance activities’ (Alarcón García and Sánchez Romero 2010) and ‘daily routines’. The analysis of spatial patterns, and
130 Brigitte Röder consequently the reconstruction of activity areas, are among the strengths of archaeologists, who, much like geoarchaeologists, have developed a multitude of approaches that have been successfully employed in numerous case studies (Boivin 2000; Smith, Marshall, and Parker-Pearson 2001; King 2008; Matthews 2012; Milek 2012; Kovács 2013). However, this does not actually answer the question as to which agents originally created the activity patterns captured by means of micromorphology and soil chemistry in the distribution patterns of finds, features, and archaeological layers.
Activity areas with children’s faces? The renunciation of the bourgeois concept of household, however, also presents new challenges. If one disengages from the notion that households in the archaeological record are always found in the remains of dwellings that were inhabited by (nuclear) families, one is automatically faced with the question as to the protagonists within households and their roles in the social construction of everyday life. If households and houses can no longer be automatically viewed, by analogy with the bourgeois concept of family, as the domain and natural environment of women and children, and as the primary arena of domestic activity, we are forced to struggle with ‘the age old problem of finding archaeological correlates for social units’ (Alexander 1999: 80). Ruth Tringham (1991: 101) did not agree with a ‘prehistory hanging in a cloudy nowhere-land of faceless, genderless categories’ and called for researchers to ‘add faces to the prehistoric households’. Although her programmatic article ‘Households with Faces: The Challenge of Gender in Prehistoric Architectural Remains’ (1991) deals with adding the faces of women and men, her findings also hold true for subadults. It is an enormous challenge for prehistoric archaeological research, which can be surmounted only in exceptional cases, to reconstruct the age and gender of the people who used the artefacts or moved around within a built environment without employing presuppositions (e.g. that domestic activities should generally be associated with women or that smaller children spent their time close to their mothers or near the house) and based solely on the material remains uncovered (similarly King 2006: 305). In dealing with such questions, prehistoric archaeology reaches its limits. Though we may assume that from a demographic point of view prehistory was a world of children and youths, where individuals under the age of 14 may have constituted 40–50 per cent of the population (Bocquet-Appel and Masset 1977; Bocquet-Appel 2008), it is extremely difficult to identify the traces left behind in the archaeological record by their presence and activities. However, we can be sure that ‘children contribute to the archaeological record whether or not we are competent to recognize them’ (Chamberlain 1997: 249). Household archaeology has, to date, paid little attention to the possibility that children and adolescents, as agents in the construction of everyday life, significantly contributed to the formation of archaeological features linked with households or with activity areas in the broader sense. Even in gender-informed approaches that endeavour
Prehistoric Households and Childhood 131 to make ‘studies of the household more “enpeopled” ’ (Hendon 2006: 172), subadults are not perceived as agents whose day-to-day roles should be the object of archaeological research as much as those of women and men. As a rule, children appear only in the context of either one of two topics: the demographic composition of a community or the functions of households, specifically in socialization and in the rearing of children. The fact that adolescents possibly carried out some of the many day-to-day domestic activities is not dealt with, although researchers state that the ‘division of labour by gender (and age) is a common organizational mechanism for households’ (Hendon 2006: 179). Kristin De Lucia (2010: 608) took it a step further by calling on archaeologists to ‘reconceptualize houses as places of children’ in order to ‘integrate children and their material culture . . . as fundamental parts to understanding how households functioned as a whole’. In childhood archaeology, however, the roles of subadults in households and in the construction of everyday life have not yet become one of the central research questions, although a series of theoretical and methodological approaches have been developed over the past twenty years, which have made a fundamental contribution to rendering children ‘visible’ in the archaeological record (Moore and Scott 1997; Sofaer Derevenski 2000b; Crawford 2009). In contrast to household archaeology, it is one of the central goals of childhood archaeology to examine children’s contribution to site formation and the archaeological record. Jane Eva Baxter (2006a, b: 3–5) in particular has challenged previous assumptions ‘that children have a randomizing and/or distorting effect on artefact distributions that makes it virtually impossible for archaeologists to study children in behavioural contexts’ and has argued the case for no longer viewing children as ‘distorting factors’ that ‘altered the material expressions of adult behaviours’, but rather as ‘active members of the social unit under observation’ (Baxter 2006a: 78). However, it remains a huge challenge to actually identify the activities of these members, for instance in the distribution of artefacts throughout a given settlement, nor is this likely to change to any great extent in the future. Whilst the expertise on reading the traces left behind in the archaeological record by subadults has considerably increased thanks to childhood archaeology, the insight gained is still rather limited, both quantitatively and qualitatively. It generally refers to only a number of particular aspects and often depends on very specific, extraordinarily favourable site formation processes and preservation conditions, as seen, for example, in the case of footprints. Nevertheless, a series of works have recently been published that highlight the presence of children and youths by means of imprints of various body parts, e.g. foot and handprints in archaeological features or fingerprints on ceramic vessels, animal figurines, and human statuettes (Kamp et al. 1999; Roveland 2000; Králik, Urbanová, and Hložek 2008; Ashton 2014 et al.). Fingerprints on ceramics draw our attention to an aspect that is generally forgotten outside of childhood archaeological research: prehistoric children actually produced material culture—and this concerns not just toys, but also ceramic vessels, flint tools etc. This in turn raises the question as to how children learned or how cultural techniques and traditions were handed down and how one would distinguish between adult and child learners, for instance based on
132 Brigitte Röder typical beginners’ mistakes (van Berg 1996; Smith 2006; Ferguson 2008). With regard to activity areas, flint-knapping sites are of particular importance because, in some cases, we may actually assume, based on the debitage found, that this was a site where in all likelihood a child once sat down to learn how to knap flint (Johansen 1999; Grimm 2000; Shea 2006; Stapert 2007; Högberg 2008). Aside from these finds and features—which directly point to the presence and activities of children—miniature artefacts, special shapes, and unusually small objects are also associated with children. Examples of this include a Late Bronze Age wooden sword (for which, however, an alternative interpretation as a weaving sword has also been suggested (Figure 7.2; Hafner and Harb 2008; Hafner, Harb, and Lötscher 2008)), rattles
Figure 7.2 Wooden sword of a child or weaving sword? Miniature artefacts like this sword, found in a Late Bronze Age settlement in Lake Inkwil (Canton of Berne, Switzerland), raise the question of whether it is a toy or rather a special tool. Reproduced by permission of Kantonsarchäologie Solothurn and Archäologischer Dienst Bern (Switzerland).
Prehistoric Households and Childhood 133
Figure 7.3 Special forms such as rattles and so-called ceramic feeding bottles are usually associated by archaeologists either with children or with ritual practices. On the left a rattle in the form of a bird, on the right a feeding bottle from the Late Bronze Age lakeside settlements of Mörigen (Canton of Berne, Switzerland) and Grandson- Corcelettes (Canton of Vaud, Switzerland). Reproduced by permission of Bernisches Historisches Museum (Switzerland). Photograph by S. Rebsamen.
and so-called ceramic feeding bottles (Figure 7.3), and a small handaxe, which would perfectly fit in a child’s hand (Figure 7.4). Due to the lack of reliable criteria, particularly in dealing with settlement finds, it cannot be determined whether the rattles and feeding bottles were toys or children’s vessels, or whether these artefacts were, rather, used in religious or ceremonial contexts. There is even a different possible explanation for the small tools: they are more often interpreted as special tools used by adults than as children’s tools. The interpretation that is chosen for such artefacts ultimately depends on the individual researchers’ assessments. If they are of the opinion that prehistoric children spent most of their time playing games rather than working, they are more likely to interpret small tools as special tools for adults. As a consequence, they will also assume that material culture was generated first and foremost by adults. In other words, whether children’s activities are identified in the archaeological record is largely determined by the individual researchers’ concepts of childhood. Those who associate childhood mainly with playing games will look out for objects that
134 Brigitte Röder
Figure 7.4 Small handaxe made for a child’s hand or rather a special tool for adults? The handaxe is about 500,000 years old and was found in the Palaeolithic site of Nadaouiyeh Ain Askar (Syria). Reproduced by permission of Daniela Hager, Basel (Switzerland).
correspond with our present-day idea of what toys are—and they will discover that these are extremely rare among the finds left behind by most archaeological cultures and ask: where have all the children gone? Those who bear in mind the demographic conditions that probably prevailed in prehistoric times and take into account present-day hunter-gatherer and agrarian societies, will recognize that ‘work’ and ‘play’ would have seamlessly blended into each other and prehistoric children would have begun to take part in carrying out everyday domestic and subsistence activities from a very early age. Consequently, they will automatically expect a large part of the material culture to have been generated and used by subadults (for contemporary examples see Weiss 1981: 316, 1993; Bugarin 2006). This expectation generates a different view of material culture and therefore a different search pattern, in that one would think about which steps in the chaîne opératoire of making a particular artefact might have been carried out, in principle, by a child of whatever age. In the case of pottery production, options would be the time-consuming task of burnishing the leather-hard surfaces, or perhaps the charging of the pottery kilns (Röder 2009: 105, 108–10); both are tasks that would not have left behind any visible fingerprints for us to identify today. Finally, it should also be borne in mind that children—as is often the case today as well—would also have used ‘adult’ material culture (Bugarin 2006: 14).
Prehistoric Households and Childhood 135 These examples highlight that, despite a meticulous search and sophisticated methodological approaches, it is only rarely possible to identify activities of children and adolescents in the archaeological record. The majority of material remains do not reveal the age and gender either of those who created them or of the succession of people who went on to use them over the course of the artefacts’ lifespans. The ‘peopling [of] the material record of past households’ (Robin 2003: 336) empirically and directly from the material remains and, based upon this, the reconstruction of the roles of subadults in households and the construction of daily life, is therefore virtually impossible. All that remains is to adapt the suggestion made by Ruth Tringham (1991: 118) with regard to an analogous problem, i.e. the question of identifying women and men: ‘The solution to “adding faces” to the prehistoric households, however, lies . . . in enriching the archaeologists’ models and general knowledge of gender relations within household and families’. According to Tringham, this enrichment can be achieved by studying ethnographic and historical literature, which will demonstrate the rich variability of the cultural phenomenon studied. She concludes: ‘We do not have to “identify” this rich variability in the archaeological record but we must be aware of it. Why simplify prehistory?’ (1991: 119).
Children’s contributions to domestic activities in contemporary agrarian and pastoral societies In order to counteract the simplification of prehistory and especially of prehistoric childhoods, I would like to use this chapter to highlight children’s contributions to domestic activities in contemporary agrarian and pastoral societies based on a number of social anthropological studies (for more detailed remarks see Röder 2015). The aim is to generate ideas of how to add children’s faces to prehistoric households or to activity areas—in other words, how to ‘reconceptualize houses as places of children’ (De Lucia 2010: 608). The focus therefore is on domestic activities because they, unlike other aspects that greatly impact on the growing up of children in their primary groups—for instance class or age and gender hierarchies—have left behind traces in the archaeological records of settlements. Studies on child labour show that it is common practice in agrarian and pastoralist societies for children to carry out certain age-appropriate tasks from an early age, i.e. from as young as three to five years old. Therefore, children often contribute to the community’s subsistence even before their fifth birthday (Nieuwenhuys 1994: 13, 15–16; Panter-Brick 2000: 6–8). A large proportion of tasks performed by children are associated with domestic activities. The contribution made by children can make up as much as half of all the work performed by the members of a household (Bugarin 2006: 14 with examples). A significant part of the work is associated with childcare. A study on
136 Brigitte Röder child labour in the context of subsistence farming in Zimbabwe conducted by Pamela Reynolds (1991: 66) revealed that, aside from the mothers, children between four and eight years of age are the group that spends the most time caring for children. Other domestic activities that children as young as two or three years, but definitely from the age of five, are coping with reliably in many societies are small jobs, such as carrying messages, fetching and delivering things (e.g. food for people working in the fields), running errands, lending a hand etc., cleaning, preparing food, fetching water, or gathering wood or fodder for the animals (for an overview see Liebel 2004: 81–7; Kramer 2005: 35, fig. 2.1). Moreover, children are also involved in numerous other activities including crafts, fieldwork, and animal husbandry. We may generally state that children from as young as five years old already make a significant contribution to the handling of domestic activities and the general subsistence, thereby freeing up the older children and adults to carry out more complex and physically taxing tasks. At what stage the subadults are considered to have mastered the entire range of day- to-day tasks and to have obtained the required knowledge varies from one cultural group to the next—but compared to contemporary Western societies it occurs quite early. The ages at which subadults are considered fully-fledged workers vary between seven and 15 years (Röder 2015). The age-appropriate (self-) integration of children into the day-to-day work of their primary group, on the other hand, appears to be a cross- cultural phenomenon. Any skills, competences, and knowledge are largely self-taught and children exhibit a high intrinsic motivation to observe and get involved in the tasks, rather than waiting to be instructed by adults (Polak 1998: 112 with reference to Rogoff 1990). Children want to be a part of what is going on and rarely need to be reminded of their tasks (Polak 1998: 108). Without the contribution made by children, the workload in agrarian and pastoralist societies could not be managed. Children lighten the burden on adults whilst contributing to their own subsistence and to the productivity of the whole household (among others Nieuwenhuys 1996: 241 with further references). A very interesting study in this context was carried out by Karen Kramer (2005) in a Maya village in Mexico where the households consisted of nuclear families. Kramer examined children’s consumption and production on one hand and the points in time at which they made their contributions to the economy over the course of the demographic and economic life cycle of the family on the other. The study revealed that the daily workload increases as a family grows and that the capacity of a couple is already exceeded once the household has grown to consist of four people (Kramer 2005: 145). The period between the ninth and fifteenth year of the marriage or household are the most difficult for the parents because at that stage they have several small children. From the fifteenth year of a household’s life cycle onwards, the older children contribute more and more to the production whilst the parents’ workload decreases. The economic contributions made by the Maya children counterbalance their consumption to a considerable degree, particularly during the phase of the family’s life cycle when the economic pressure on the household is at its most intense. From a demographic point of view, this means that children by their contributions to the family’s subsistence make it possible for parents to have more children
Prehistoric Households and Childhood 137 even in phases of the family cycle during which they do not have the time and resources to support the family economically (Kramer 2005: 148–51; similarly Kaplan 1994). It must be borne in mind that Kramer’s case study dealt with a specific type of family and household (largely self-sufficient nuclear families) and that the results cannot be generalized, since the type of household also has an impact on the workload of children (Munroe, Munroe, and Shimmin 1984: 372). By operating within larger social networks, polygamous families are able to increase their economic productivity and thus—partly thanks to the cooperation of the wives—decrease the workload of each individual family member (Merten and Haller 2005: 74, 78–80; similarly Lancy 1996: 149). Georg Klute (1996: 216) pointed out that seasonal workload peak periods or temporary shortages of labour within a family can be alleviated by several households working together. Aside from the type of family or household, a child’s workload also varies due to its age, the current phase in the household or family’s life cycle, the size, age, and gender composition of the household, the child’s position within the sequence of births, and its gender (among others Reynolds 1991: xxix; 123; Congdon Fors 2010: 19). Furthermore, the general subsistence conditions also have a great impact on children’s workloads; the more difficult the conditions, the harder children’s work. Temporary economic emergency situations, for instance due to crop failures, also generally lead to an increase in child labour (see e.g. Beegle, Dehejia, and Gatti 2006). A decisive factor in children’s workloads is the economic situation of the households they live in; whilst poverty promotes child labour and even necessitates it, the reverse tendency also exists, so that prosperity in a household reduces the workload of its children. Finally, adolescents’ workloads are also influenced by exploitative relationships within their families or primary groups, which are legitimized by intrafamilial age and gender hierarchies whilst also being associated with broader societal structures of exploitation (Folbre 1986; Nieuwenhuys 2000: 279–81, 286–90, each with further references). The fact that these aspects all have a bearing on how children grow up and on the formation of very different childhoods must also be borne in mind when studying prehistoric societies.
Growing up beyond the ‘walled garden’ of a parental household The prevailing opinion in present-day Western societies is that children should ideally grow up with their biological family of origin, i.e. in the care of their biological parents. However, many other societies practise other forms of growing up beyond the ‘walled garden’ of a parental household, which, in principle, must also be considered to have existed in prehistory. These include phenomena such as fostering, adoption, so-called autonomous children’s groups, and the option of children living in different households depending on their age, or in gender and age-segregated spaces (Lane 1994; Burton, Nero, and Egan 2002; Bugarin 2006). Fostering is a particularly widespread
138 Brigitte Röder phenomenon that, contrary to Western beliefs, must not be thought of as compromising the wellbeing of the child, but is seen as a desirable expansion of a child’s experiential background and its learning potential as well as a chance for the child and its biological family to advance their social status. Moreover, it can make sense for many families during certain phases of their household’s life cycle to take in other children (Klute 1996: 216). Conversely, other families may find it economically lucrative or, due to a shortage of resources, even necessary to send children to work in other households or to have them adopted by other families. From a Western perspective, quite strange or even exotic are the so-called autonomous children’s groups known from indigenous societies in the Andes (Liebel 2004: 95–6), from the Iatmul in Papua New Guinea (Weiss 1981, 1993), and from Tonga (Meiser 1997). These groups, which children join at a very young age—in Tonga at the age of two (Meiser 1997: 213), among the Iatmul at the age of four to five (Weiss 1993: 120)—are separate, socially recognized institutions that are quite independent of parents, within which communal processes of development and learning take place. Adults generally do not become involved in these processes and are only marginally interested in the children’s activities (Meiser 1997: 217). The autonomous children’s groups demonstrate that socialization is not necessarily limited to the nuclear family but can also largely take place within a peer group (Meiser 1997: 221). The groups give adolescents a high degree of self-determination and freedom to make decisions (Meiser 1997: 213). They also provide a certain degree of economic autonomy, which is based on free access to resources and means of production. This allows the children to acquire independently either the products or the raw materials to create the products and to have them at their disposal (Weiss 1993: 116). The children’s economic relationships allow them to create independently close bonds with different people based on the principle of mutuality (Weiss 1993: 119). This way the children fashion their own social networks that reach beyond their families of origin. The networks increase their social security and thus their economic, social, and emotional independence from their biological families. Ute Meiser (1997) made similar observations with regard to the economic autonomy of subadults in Tongan society. With regard to the integration of children’s groups into society, Meiser states that Tongan children can claim their own living environment or ‘children’s culture’ whilst still being part of the adult world. Recognized and accepted by the adults, they make important contributions to the familial economy. Whilst in some way independent of adults, they are never independent of the group that is the basis of their material and emotional sustenance (Meiser 1997: 223). The Western reaction to autonomous children’s groups is often one of incredulous amazement and they do inspire a—sometimes virtually enthusiastic—contemplation of alternative concepts of rearing children. Western ideals of the ‘right’ childhood are most seriously challenged by children growing up ‘on their own’, i.e. left to their own devices and not under the care, supervision, and responsibility of adults, and supporting themselves economically (Panter-Brick 2000: 4–10; Veale, Taylor, and Linehan 2000: 138–9). Self-reliant living outside of a (familial) ‘home’ and economic autonomy stand in stark
Prehistoric Households and Childhood 139 contrast to the normative ideas of an adequate childhood, which is ultimately always linked to an economic dependence on parents and life within a family (Panter-Brick 2000: 6). Such ‘alternative’ forms of growing up arouse ambivalent emotions; from a Western perspective these children appear to be either extremely pitiful or else deviant, and as a consequence the children are either viewed as victims or as delinquents (Veale, Taylor, and Linehan 2000: 138), a perception which radically differs from the subadults’ own self-perception. This ambivalence is particularly obvious in the case of street children who for various reasons do not live in familial households, either because they were separated from their families by specific circumstances, such as being orphaned, war, flight, or displacement, or because they left their families voluntarily and of their own volition because living ‘on the streets’ seemed to them to be the better option than living ‘in the bosom of the family’. Such ‘alternative’ childhoods also existed in the European past (Panter-Brick 2000: 7– 8) and must be considered to have potentially existed in prehistoric societies. Moreover, the example of the street children raises one’s awareness of the fact that children—when they are forced to—can develop great competence and are able to live self-reliant lives outside of familial structures and households and under precarious circumstances without adult care and supervision.
Conclusions From the perspective of contemporary societies, ‘childhood’ and ‘household’ are not universal, static categories but rather culturally, highly variable dimensions of social life that can be influenced by numerous factors and are thus in constant flux and ever- changing. ‘Childhood’ and ‘household’ appear to be complex social processes that are entwined with each other and are characterized by changing actors. By assuming that the same high variability, complexity, dynamic, and mutual entanglement existed in prehistoric times and by viewing ‘childhood’ and ‘household’ as social processes, we find ourselves confronted with great epistemological challenges. The material traces left behind by these processes in the archaeological record are rudimentary and offer no immediate access to ‘childhood’ or ‘household’. In this respect, the possibilities of reconstructing these intertwined processes remain quite limited, which raises the question as to whether ‘household’ and ‘childhood’, or the combination of both, are even useful and productive analytical categories. The material traces of recurring everyday practices, daily routines, and their spatial organization are easy to identify in the archaeological record. Domestic or maintenance activities, in particular, are relatively well documented at settlement sites and therefore offer the best vantage point from which to approach the question of social construction and organization, the structuring of everyday life, and the part played by subadults in these processes. Instead of examining the role of children in households, I would like to call for a study on the role played by children and adolescents in the formation of archaeologically tangible activity areas in the
140 Brigitte Röder hope of gaining insight into the participation of subadults in the construction of everyday life and daily routines. It helps to bear in mind that individuals under the age of 14 must have constituted roughly half of the prehistoric population. In other words, even if we cannot prove it based on the finds and features available, it is highly likely that subadults made a significant contribution to the formation of activity areas. The study of contemporary subsistence-based societies has shown that the early integration of subadults into daily activities is a structural necessity. This way, children take part in social life from a very young age. Their labour constitutes a central component in their daily routines and therefore their world of experience and the process of growing up. Consequently, domestic activities are an important medium of socialization, enculturation, and social and economic participation of subadults. This approach challenges previously held viewpoints that were based on our own cultural concepts of ‘childhood’ and ‘household’. On the other hand, it also opens up a space to develop a new thinking and ask new questions about the roles of children, adolescents, and adults in everyday life and the daily routines of prehistoric societies. Our own ideas of what ‘childhood’ means are broadened and ‘alternative childhoods’ come into view, i.e. types of growing up that are not commonplace in our own cultural environment and have therefore not yet found their way into the scope of archaeological interpretation. The perception of children as ‘actors who make important contributions to their communities’ (Baxter 2006b: 6) also calls into question the dichotomy between ‘children’ and ‘adults’ and between ‘childhood’ and ‘adulthood’. Manfred Liebel (2004: 77) states: ‘Children’s work provides evidence that the phase of life that we refer to as childhood is not only regarded as a still immature stage of preparation for adult life, but that it already involves important tasks for the reproduction and development of society’. A similar opinion is voiced by Michael Bourdillon (2006: 1207): ‘Children are not merely potential adults or citizens, to be moulded into the roles determined by adults: children are already participants in society. Their work is an element of this participation’. Contemporary surveys involving children have shown that they perceive their labour as carrying with it a series of positive aspects: they feel empowered and gain in confidence and self-assurance. They sense that work gives them social weight and that their labour is indispensable for both their families and society at large. They find joy and learn to hold their ground and to become more independent (Liebel 2004: 2). The question as to whether we may assume that prehistoric children experienced the same sense of self must remain unanswered. We can, however, definitely presume that prehistoric children experienced a higher level of agency and took on more responsibilities, and thus had a much greater impact on everyday life, the economy, and the historical development than is commonly believed. Children were not just bystanders in an adult world, as is the stereotype depicted in archaeological images (Röder 2008: 69–7 1), but principal actors in a world in which subadults under the age of 14 may have constituted almost half of the population. Their participation in the routines of everyday life constituted a considerable component in their world of experience and the process of
Prehistoric Households and Childhood 141 growing up, whilst at the same time impacting on the everyday lives of the other age groups to an extent that we can hardly imagine today.
Notes 1. Spencer-Wood (1999: 170) highlights the fact that bourgeois gender and family ideology ‘wasn’t even universally espoused or practised by nineteenth-century Americans or Europeans’ and was even partially rejected. 2. For an attempt at dividing subadult children (0–12 years of age) into four ‘serial categories’ based on physical, mental, and social development stages, see Fahlander 2011: 17–19. 3. An interesting study in this context was carried out between 2002 and 2004 in Los Angeles. It revealed that children’s participation in household chores can generally be classified as minimal (Klein, Graesch, and Izquierdo 2009: 106). 4. Basic works and more recent overviews include: Bender 1967; Hammel and Laslett 1974; Yanagisako 1979; Wilk and Rathje 1982; Netting, Wilk, and Arnould 1984; Tringham 1991, 2012; Blanton 1994; Hendon 1996, 2006; Allison 1999; Robin 2002, 2003; Robin and Brumfiel 2008; Souvatzi 2008, 2012; Nash 2009; Douglass and Gonlin 2012a, b; Parker and Foster 2012; Madella et al. 2013.
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Chapter 8
Archaeol o g i c a l a nd Epigraphic Ev i de nc e for Infancy i n t h e Roman Worl d Maureen Carroll
The Roman family has become a vibrant and challenging field of study, and the growing interest in children in Roman culture can be seen as a development within this trend (Rawson 2003a; Dasen 2004b; Uzzi 2005; Dasen and Späth 2010; Laes 2011; Mander 2013; Evans Grubbs and Parkin 2013). Nevertheless, studies of children tend to focus on the later phases of childhood, with few investigations of the role and significance of infants (Dasen 2009, 2011; Carroll 2011; Carroll and Graham 2014). While the Roman life course and the social construction of ageing are occasional themes in childhood discussions (Harlow and Laurence 2002: 37–43; Rawson 2003a: 134–45; Parkin 2011), the distinct life stages of development and socialization apparent already in the first year of life hardly feature in current discourses. In view of this imbalance in childhood studies, this chapter explores some key aspects of Roman infancy and earliest childhood, using archaeological, epigraphic, and historical evidence to gain insight into the attitudes towards the very young, and particularly those under the age of one year, in both life and death, and, sometimes, even before birth.
Infants, status, and identity We might presume that close bonds rarely were formed with the newest members of a family because, with high infant mortality, so many babies died before any emotional ties could develop. Roman textual sources certainly have been influential in
Evidence for Infancy in the Roman World 149 conveying the impression that grief for dead infants might have been inappropriate and irrelevant. Frequently cited in this context is Cicero (Tusculan Disputations 1.39.93): ‘If a young child dies, the survivors ought to bear this loss with equanimity; if an infant dies in the cradle, one doesn’t even complain’. This has been seen as ‘one of the few preserved observations of practice’, implying that the youngest members of Roman society were held in very low social esteem (Dixon 1988: 104, 113), and has led to modern assertions that Romans viewed children ‘in the first month or two of life’ as ‘not yet really human beings’ (Wileman 2005: 77). To contradict this claim, it is worth recalling the visit of the philosopher Favorinus to a friend’s newborn baby whom he found ‘alive and human, crying for its mother’s attentions’ (Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 12). It would be unsound methodologically to accept texts written by elite men in Rome as an accurate reflection of what the general Roman population felt about their infants and young children, since such Stoic philosophical views dictated self-control, composure, and public decorum. Nor can we deduce from them that adult Roman men of elite standing were entirely indifferent to their own offspring or even those of friends and family. All we can really say is that infants were of little significance in the context of the political and philosophical agendas that shaped both the texts of these writers and the opinions of their socially relevant audiences (Laes 2011: 8, 99). If elite Roman literary sources imply cultural notions of infants as ‘non-persons’ until they reached a particular age, the archaeological and epigraphic evidence pertinent to all classes of society gives us a very different impression. Although it is difficult to define what a ‘person’ is, various strands of evidence can be marshalled to demonstrate that infants were not automatically regarded as of little consequence or unworthy of attention. In fact, children of only a few months of age were already invested with various identities, as the two following examples illustrate. Little Lucius Helvius Lupus from Emerita Augusta (modern Merida) in Spain certainly was not a ‘non-person’ when he died at the age of eight months (Rothenberg and Blanco-Freijeiro 1981: 18, fig. 3). His epitaph records his three names (trianomina), indicating full Roman citizen status, as well as his membership as an Emeritensis in a corporate and civic body, the city of Emerita Augusta. Elsewhere, at Tavant in Gaul, a baby already had a fixed masculine identity when it died between three and six months of age. Interred with the infant was a miniature sword or gladius, a full-size version of which might have been carried as an adult in the public role of a Roman soldier, had he lived to maturity (Riquier and Salé 2006: 34–6, figs 34–6). Throughout the first year of life, babies were fed, clothed, comforted, and entertained, and an associated material culture for infants as an age group with specific needs and its own identity can be identified in the archaeological record, mainly in burial assemblages. Spouted feeding bottles of ceramics or glass are frequent finds in excavations, particularly in infant graves (Rouquet and Loridant 2000). These may have been filled with liquids, water, or watery wine, according to Soranus (Gynaecology 2.21.46), to supplement the regular feed of breast milk once weaning had begun, or to feed the infant
150 Maureen Carroll
Figure 8.1 Reconstruction of a baby wearing a necklace strung with apotropaic amulets, based on artefacts from infant burials. Drawing by I. Deluis.
substitutes, should the mother not be able to produce milk or be too ill to breastfeed. Textile remains of swaddling clothes or little tunics worn by very young infants rarely survive (Fluck and Finneiser 2009: 16–18, cat. no. 3; Gallazzi and Hadji-Minaglou 2012: 395–6, figs 8–9), but impressions of bonnets and swaddling bands are preserved in plaster and gypsum found in graves and sarcophagi (Dasen 2010: 130–3, figs 5.8a– b; Carroll 2012b: 138–40, pl. 21). Necklaces of amulets as protection against illness and negative forces are found in infant graves, including some particularly fine examples of carved bone, amber, glass, and metal (Dasen 2004a; Bel 2012: 204, fig. 14) (Figures 8.1 and 8.2). Infants also were provided with various toys to distract and occupy them (Lucretius, Nature of Things 5.228; Soranus, Gynaecology 2.21.48; Messineo 1991/1992). These include rattles, in ceramics and other materials (Haffner 1974: 17, pl. 225.5; Fittà 1998: 51, figs 68–9), and animal and human figurines of pipe-clay (Allain, Fauduet, and Tuffreau-Libre 1992: 52–3, 170, figs 62–4), the latter almost certainly also having some kind of religious or protective function. There are many surviving pieces of miniature furniture and household items (Barbera 1991), as well as dolls and ragdolls (Cortopassi 2000), but unless they are found in infant graves, we cannot be certain that children this young began to play with such items.
Evidence for Infancy in the Roman World 151
Figure 8.2 Terracotta votive of a swaddled infant wearing an apotropaic necklace, from Bomarzo (Italy). Photograph by E.-J. Graham, with permission of the Museo Civico di Viterbo (Italy).
Life-stages of infancy Ancient Greek and Roman medical treatises reveal an awareness of the gradual development of the foetus in the mother’s womb (Hanson 2008; Dasen 2013). The period in the womb appears to have been viewed as a sort of ‘life-course’. In the fifth and fourth centuries bc, the Hippocratic authors of The Eight Months’ Child (4, 7, 9) and The Nature of the Child (30.4) divided gestation into periods of 40 days, beginning with the first 40- day period, when the danger of miscarriage was greatest, and ending in the last 40 days, when the foetus gathered strength and tore through the membranes of the womb and was born.
152 Maureen Carroll Shortly after the baby was born, it was given its name in the dies lustricus ceremony, which took place on the eighth day for girls and the ninth day for boys (Hänninen 2005; Dasen 2009). We know about the ceremony from literary sources, but it also is mentioned specifically in the epitaph of Iulia Donata from Rome who died after seeing her son receive his name (CIL VI.20427/ILS 8480). Within 30 days of birth, the legitimate citizen child had to be registered in a declaration (professio) before a magistrate (Schulz 1942, 1943). The register of births, displayed temporarily in public, and the permanent copy in the official state archives, are further indications that an infant had a social and public persona. Painted birth notices and public expressions of joy of a more spontaneous type also existed. On a house wall at Pompeii, for example, one announces ‘our daughter Iuvenilla was born in the early evening of August 2nd’ (CIL IV.294). As during pregnancy, a period of 40 days is attested as critical and marked by various events and rites of passage. In the first 40 days of life, according to the Hippocratics, the newborn baby gradually adjusted to its new surroundings (The Eight Months’ Child 9, 12), and for the first 40 days after birth, the wet nurse (nutrix) (or the mother) tending to the baby was to drink water only, as any harmful food or drink would be passed on to the infant through her milk (Soranus, Gynaecology 2.14.26). The wet nurse, a woman either of slave or free status in the employ of families with the financial means, was carefully chosen as regards her age, physique, health, and moral standards, and surviving Egyptian wet-nursing contracts on papyrus outline a rather strict regimen of diet and behaviour as a condition of employment (Soranus, Gynaeology 2.12.19–29; Tacitus, Dialogus de Oratoribus 28–9; Masciadri and Montevecchi 1984; Bradley 1986; Tawfik 1997; Laes 2011: 69–77). From the age of 40 days, the baby was gradually released from the swaddling clothes in which it had been wrapped since birth. Part of the daily routine until the swaddling bands were removed was the cleansing, massaging, and moisturizing of all parts of the infant’s body, a labour intensive and close-contact activity for any mother or child carer (Soranus, Gynaecology 2.16.30–5). Swaddling clothes were thought necessary to ‘give firmness and an undistorted figure’ to the growing baby (Soranus, Gynaecology 2.19.42), although modern research on ancient bone assemblages, such as the skeletons of the men, women, and children in Herculaneum trapped and killed by the eruption of Vesuvius in ad 79, has suggested that swaddling might actually have contributed to the misalignment of bones and later joint problems (Capasso 2001: 635–6, 836, figs. 938–9, 1274). The dedication in Italian and Gallic sanctuaries of life-size terracotta and stone votive images of babies in swaddling clothes is a visible reminder of parental concern for the wellbeing of their vulnerable offspring (De Cazanove 2008) (Figure 8.2). Parents sought the support of the divine world for the successful negotiation of the life passage in the period of swaddling, subsequently expressing their gratitude with the gift of a suitable votive offering in the form of a swaddled baby (Graham 2014; Derks 2014). Another developmental stage commenced at about six to seven months when the baby began to teethe and supplementary foods were introduced to its diet (Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis 7.15; Soranus, Gynaecology 2.22.49). This weaning process was completed at about three years, as stable nitrogen and carbon isotope analysis of infant skeletal remains demonstrates (Katzenberg, Herring, and Saunders 1996; Dupras, Schwarcz,
Evidence for Infancy in the Roman World 153 and Fairgrieve 2001). The age of one year marked another milestone in the life course, at least in some social and judicial circumstances. Roman legal texts indicate that infants who had not yet reached their first birthday were not mourned if they died (Ulpian, FIRA 2.536); to this I will return. These sources also indicate that if a child of a person with Junian Latin status—i.e. limited citizen rights—completed its first year, it and its parents were eligible to receive full Roman citizenship (Gaius, Institutes 1.29; Ulpian, Digest 3.3). The life stages documented in literary sources, medical texts, and correspondence can also be seen to some extent in the visual arts, for example on so-called biographical marble sarcophagi from Rome and its environs which came into vogue with the middle and freedman (ex-slave) classes from the first half of the second century ad (Amedick 1991; Huskinson 1996; George 2000). They are decorated with vignettes of infancy and childhood life stages, employing the visual imagery that reflects the commissioners’ perceptions of the world of wealth and privilege. The parents of the child, as well as many other caregivers, such as wet nurses, servants, teachers, and so on are included in these reliefs (Schulze 1998). George (2000: 197) rightly notes that these scenes highlight or allude to family wealth and commemorate the social position of the child and its parents. On his sarcophagus of the mid-second century ad from Ostia near Rome, Marcus Cornelius Statius is depicted as a developing child, beginning with his infancy when he was a couple of months old, at least partially wrapped in swaddling bands and being breastfed by his mother (Huskinson 1996: cat. no. 1.23, pl. II.1; Rawson 2003b: 106–7, fig. 2.2) (Figure 8.3). Later, his father took the primary role in his son’s upbringing, culminating with the boy’s education and oratorical recitations. The invisibility of the mother in this panorama of childhood beyond infancy may correspond with the completion of the weaning phase. On biographical sarcophagi, the baby’s bath often is the first depicted step of socialization. According to Soranus (Gynaecology 2.8.13), the newborn, as soon as it was born, should be cleansed of blood and afterbirth with a mixture of salt and honey or olive oil, then bathed with lukewarm water to wash away this emulsion. In the sarcophagus reliefs, the newborn is washed in a basin by nurses and other servants and transformed from a bloodied product of its mother’s womb to an individual in its own right. Once cleansed, the baby is handed back by the nurse to the mother who sits nearby. This is
Figure 8.3 Scenes of infancy and childhood on the marble sarcophagus of M. Cornelius Statius, from Ostia (Italy). Drawing by J. Willmott.
154 Maureen Carroll surely what Plutarch (Letter of Consolation 6) was criticizing when he singled out neglectful mothers who ‘after others have cleansed and prettied up their children, receive them in their arms like pets’. The other activity peculiar to infancy that is depicted on biographical sarcophagi is breastfeeding. Maternal breastfeeding was considered best (Juvenal, Satire 6.592–4), but this, and other manifestations of maternal care, were often only constructed ideals, especially as portrayed in literature and the reliefs on these sarcophagi. The sarcophagus portrayals of breastfeeding clearly show that the nurturing of the newborn involved women who were not the baby’s mother (Carroll 2014). In fact, it is usually the nutrix who is entrusted with nursing the baby, and only very rarely is the mother depicted breastfeeding, as on a funerary portrait from the Danube (Boatwright 2005: 287–9, 317, fig. 10.1; Mander 2013: 98, cat. no. 733, fig. 82) (Figure 8.4). In reality, many, if not most,
Figure 8.4 Gravestone of a mother breastfeeding her infant in the company of her husband and other children, from Dunaújváros (Hungary). Photograph by Maureen Carroll, with permission of the Hungarian National Museum.
Evidence for Infancy in the Roman World 155 mothers outside elevated social circles probably will have breastfed and cared for their infants themselves.
Death and commemoration of infants Already before birth, there were many potential dangers for the infant and its mother. The length of Soranus’s discussion in Book 4 of Gynaecology on difficult deliveries implies that midwives could expect routinely to encounter complicated births. Archaeological evidence for miscarriages, stillbirths, and the death of mother and baby in childbirth survives in the burial evidence at many Roman sites. At the Kellis 2 cemetery in the Dakhleh Oasis in Roman Egypt, for example, the number of foetuses and neonates suggests that roughly 15 per cent of pregnancies did not reach full term (Marlow 2001; Tocheri et al. 2005; Cope and Dupras 2011). Latin epitaphs on Roman funerary monuments also record the death of mother and infant due to complications in labour or as a consequence of childbirth (Gourevitch 1987; Laes 2011: 50–6; Carroll 2014). One, in particular, seems to blame the foetus for the death of the mother: ‘The unstoppable Fury of the newborn infant took me, bitter, from my happy life with a fatal hemorrhage. I did not bring the child into the light by my labour pains, but it lies hidden in its mother’s womb among the dead’ (Kaibel 1878: 218). Modern estimates place the mortality rate of children in the first year of life between 20–40 per cent (Hopkins 1966, 1983: 225; Golden 1988: 155; Garnsey 1991: 51–2). In Rome and peninsular Italy, Shaw (2001) was able to demonstrate a correlation between birthing cycles and infant mortality, which indicates that many infants died already in the same month they were born. A lack of sunlight, contaminated water, and infections led to anaemia, rickets, and other illnesses, all of which contributed to high infant mortality (Fairgrieve and Molto 2000; Facchini, Rastelli, and Brasili 2004). Analysis of teeth from skeletons found in various cemeteries indicate that there were significant periods of stress affecting tooth growth in the first year of life which could be related to a change in diet and nutritional deficiencies during the weaning process (FitzGerald et al. 2006; Prowse et al. 2008; Redfern and Gowland 2012: 125–7). Plutarch (Letter of Consolation 11) claimed that the Romans ‘do not bring libations to those of their children who die in infancy, nor do they observe in their case any of the other rites that the living are expected to perform for the dead, as such children have no part in earth or earthly things’. Comments such as these have been taken as evidence that ‘deceased infants were often not even buried properly’ (Krause 2011: 624) or that children dying in perinatal age were ‘malign and taboo’ (Shaw 2001: 99). If infants in life really were non-persons socially, they would be non-persons in death, yet burial evidence in Roman Italy, Gaul, and elsewhere reveals that infants and very young children were buried as part of their communities, whether, for example, in the communal cemetery or within the grounds of rural settlements (Duday, Laubenheimer, and Tillier 1995; Hölschen 2002; Blaizot, Alix, and Ferber 2003; Laubenheimer 2004; Carroll 2011, 2012a).
156 Maureen Carroll Sometimes, the number of excavated newborns and infants under the age of one year corresponds quite closely to the estimated mortality rate of 20–40 per cent, including Argenton in France with 26 per cent (Allain, Fauduet, and Tuffreau-Libre 1992), Velia in south-west Italy with 31 per cent (Craig et al. 2009), Kellis in Egypt with 34.6 per cent (Wheeler et al. 2011: 114), and Sétif in Algeria with 39 per cent (Février and Guéry 1980). Usually, however, there are far fewer infants attested in cemeteries, for various possible reasons, including taphonomic processes, lack of awareness by earlier excavators, and so on (Carroll 2011: 108–11; Redfern and Gowland 2012: 113–14). Infanticide, the killing of unwanted or sick newborns, occasionally has been proposed as a factor in the underrepresentation of infants in the burial record or as a reason for the often low numbers of infant burials in relation to the true infant mortality rate (Smith and Kahila 1992; Mays 1993). However, it cannot be measured how widely infanticide might have been practised in the Roman world, and a nuanced approach to understanding and interpreting the archaeological evidence for perinatal and neonatal burials outside the normal cemetery or domestic contexts is of crucial importance (Gowland, Chamberlain, and Redfern 2014). Although Pliny the Elder (Historia Naturalis 7.15) claimed that ‘it is the universal custom of mankind not to cremate a person who dies before cutting his teeth’ at six to seven months of age, this can be doubted, as at many cemetery sites, including Pompeii (van Andringa et al. 2013: 322–9, 527–8, figs 225c–f, 293u–w), this age as the point of transition between inhumation and cremation was not strictly observed. Infants were buried in wooden coffins, tile cists, amphorae, and shrouds; they were given grave goods appropriate to their age; and in cemeteries they were buried often in close association with other family members (Carroll 2011: 105–8). With the wealth of archaeological evidence available to us, we can seriously question the veracity of Plutarch’s statement that parents of dead infants and young children did not make an effort ‘at the laying out of the dead’ (Letter of Consolation 11). A burial of a child ten to 11 months old at Arrington Bridge, for example, was wrapped in woollen textiles dyed with madder and indigo and buried in a costly lead sarcophagus (Taylor 1993: 203–4). At Kellis in Egypt, the family of an infant went to the expense of spreading crushed myrrh resin on its skull, placing larger resin droplets of this valuable commodity about the body and between the layers of the linen wrappings (Wheeler et al. 2011: 114). Such circumstances point to an investment in the burial of infants and an emotional engagement of the family with them. It is rather unfortunate that Roman written sources have influenced negatively our understanding of Roman society’s reaction to infant death. The jurist Ulpian (FIRA 2.536) wrote that ‘children younger than three are not formally mourned, but are mourned in marginal form; a child less than a year receives neither formal mourning nor marginal mourning’. Elsewhere we learn that ‘minors up to the age of three years should be mourned for one month for each year of their age at the time of their death’ (Paulus, Opinions 1.21.13). In other words, a one-year-old child would be mourned for a month, but for infants who had not yet lived a year there was no mourning period according to law. Here the relationship between literature and archaeology proves to be of vital
Evidence for Infancy in the Roman World 157 importance in understanding the discrepancies between public displays of mourning, which may be what Ulpian and Plutarch refer to, and private expressions of grief that are recognizable in funerary customs and burial assemblages (Rawson 2003b: 281; Baltussen 2009). Regulations on mourning, and criticism of displays of grief, relate to the public sphere, not necessarily to sentiments expressed or activities conducted in private. Despite his recommended restraint in the face the death of a child, Cicero, as a man of elite status, was publicly inconsolable, to the worry of his friends, when his 32-year- old daughter Tullia died in 45 bc from the complications of childbirth and left him with a ‘deep wound’ (Letters to Friends 4.6; Treggiari 2007: 136–42). In the end, therefore, the written sources must be seen to portray a world of privilege and conformity according to status and associated social expectations. They give us no real insight into the emotional engagement of the elite with their infants, nor do they help us to judge how the less advantaged engaged with their infants or coped with their premature death. Funerary monuments commemorating infants under the age of one year appear, in modest numbers, across the Roman world, and they offer us another avenue of enquiry. Most often, they simply record the basic data, such as the name of the child and age at death, as well as the name(s) of the commemorator(s) and the familial context, but others preserve a poem or a few lines expressing grief and a sense of loss (Baills 2003; Laes 2004, 2007). The commissioning of monuments in general was a financial investment that was beyond the possibilities of the poor, but not necessarily of working Romans with a regular income (Duncan-Jones 1974: 171–84, 207; Saller and Shaw 1984: 127–8). Making this effort for a baby only days, weeks, or months old demonstrates the family’s desire to preserve the memory of a loved child. The recorded age at death of an infant is often very specific, including months, days, and hours, preserving visibly and painfully the memory of a very short life. The young Lucius Valerius, for example, died in Rome at the age of 71 days, having been born in the night in the sixth hour and dying during the night in the sixth hour (CIL VI.28044/ILS 8191). As Laes (2007: 32) asserts, the ‘accurate indication of age served almost as a petrified utterance of grief and mourning’. There are even extremely young babies who died before their dies lustricus, but who, nevertheless, are named on their funerary monument (Laes 2014). In the poems and laments preserved in longer funerary inscriptions for infants, there often is a sense of injustice at life being cut so short; the blame sometimes is also attributed to fate or the gods. The sense of being cheated comes across in the Latin and Greek epitaphs of six-month-old Iulianus from Merida in Spain who ‘was not permitted to live beyond seven months’ (CIL II.562/IG XIV.2541). His parents set up his gravestone, ‘much lamenting for the loss of a small child’ (Edmondson, Nogales Basarrate, and Trillmich 2001: 139–41). Lamentations are the order of the day also for the parents of a six-month- old baby girl in Mainz: ‘Oh, had you never been born, when you were to become so loved, and yet it was determined at your birth that you would shortly be taken from us, much to your parents’ pain . . . The rose bloomed and soon wilted’ (CIL XIII.7133; Carroll 2006: 169–70, 198, fig. 57; Mander 2013: 29–30, cat. no. 453, fig. 13). Funerary monuments for infants sometimes are elaborate enough to possess an image of the infant, in addition to the inscribed text. Babies can be depicted in the
158 Maureen Carroll
Figure 8.5 Gravestone of the infant Aeliola wrapped in swaddling bands, from Metz (France). Drawing by I. Deluis.
swaddling clothes they wore during the first 40–60 days of their brief lives, and they also appear in various forms of clothing or even in divine guise (Deyts 2004; Carroll 2012b) (Figure 8.5). Two little boys, one a slave, one a free-born child, are shown on an altar of the second century ad in Rome; yet, while Nico was 11 months old, Eutyches almost a year and a half, both boys look older than this, indeed, the same age, possibly a couple of years old (Rawson 2003b: 286–8, fig. 2; Mander 2013: 107, cat. no. 73, fig. 92). They both wear the toga praetexta, the garment a young Roman citizen was entitled to wear, even though Eutyches had no right as a slave to do so. The mother, Publicia Glypte, may have had this altar specially commissioned, choosing images intentionally to ‘improve’ reality for him. But it may have been a memorial chosen off the shelf, although this implies that the stonemason from whom it was purchased would have anticipated the death of two little (older) boys somewhere in Rome and the existence of
Evidence for Infancy in the Roman World 159 a family who wanted to commemorate them. Despite high infant mortality, there is no indication that standard or ready-made memorials for babies and infants were available. Whatever stone was chosen to commemorate a beloved infant, the act of choosing and investing in a permanent memorial was significant, and it is this that makes these monuments so special.
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164 Maureen Carroll Uzzi, J. D. (2005). Children in the Visual Arts of Imperial Rome. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Van Andringa, W., Duday, H., Lepetz, S., Joly, D., and Lind, T. (2013). Mourir à Pompéi. Fouille d’un Quartier Funéraire de la Nécropole Romaine de Porta Nocera (2003–2007). Rome: École Française de Rome. Wheeler, S. M., Williams, L., Dupras, T. L., Tocheri, M., and Molto, J. E. (2011). ‘Childhood in Roman Egypt: Bioarchaeology of the Kellis 2 Cemetery, Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt’, in M. Lally and A. Moore (eds), (Re)Thinking the Little Ancestor: New Perspectives on the Archaeology of Infancy and Childhood. British Archaeological Research Reports International Series 2271. Oxford: Archaeopress, 110–21. Wileman, J. (2005). Hide and Seek: The Archaeology of Childhood. Stroud: Tempus.
Chapter 9
Rom an House h ol d Organiz at i on Penelope Allison
The Roman world was vast, in time and space. It spanned over half a millennium and stretched, at various stages, from Scotland to India. Household organization within that world was therefore vastly diverse, and the nature and quality of archaeological evidence for those households infinitely varied. That said, we can assume that most of these households involved children. However, our main knowledge of children in the Roman world is based on textual evidence, which focuses on the freeborn children of elite citizen families at the centre of that world (e.g. Wiedemann 1989; Dixon 2001; Rawson 2003). That said, there is a growing interest in extending our understandings of children and childhood using visual and epigraphic evidence, notably from funerary contexts, and in the peripheral regions and across different social levels (e.g. Dasen and Späth 2010; Laes 2011; Parkin 2011). Using these sources, or any other analysable archaeological evidence, for greater understandings of children in Roman household organization, though, is not straightforward. This chapter surveys current perspectives on children and stages of childhood within Roman households and examines how archaeological evidence for household organization can change these perspectives. It discusses what can be gleaned from analyses of household space—and its associated skeletal remains, material culture, and decoration—to deepen understandings of children and their sociospatial practices within household organization. It uses two case studies, from urban elite and from provincial non-elite households. Studies of Roman household organization have focused on how household space was used by the master of the house, the paterfamilias—for example, his meetings with clients and his formal dinners with invited guests (e.g. Clarke 1991; Wallace-Hadrill 1994; Hales 2003). Following the lead of ancient authors, such studies usually give only passing acknowledgement of the women and children who used these spaces. Studies of the artefactual evidence in Roman houses have been able to extend our understanding of household activities and their organization and have provided the data and the tools for
166 Penelope Allison investigating the roles and interactions of other members of Roman households (Berry 1997a, b; Allison 2005, 2006a). However, to date, there has been little focus on the activities and the lived experiences of children within these contexts.
The stages of Roman childhood Perceptions of childhood are not cross-cultural givens, and concepts of childhood also varied within Roman society. Not only is there a great range of types of households across the Roman world, there is also a range of different, cross-cutting age, sex, and social statuses of children within Roman households. Despite the fact that very few children were members of the upper classes, discussions on Roman childhood have usually commenced with freeborn elite boys, and the stages of their childhood (e.g. Harlow and Laurence 2002: 34–78; Rawson 2003). That said, Beryl Rawson and others have stressed the life stages of girls, and Christian Laes (2011: 50–147) has demonstrated that some of the characteristics of the life paths of elite children can also be found in the epigraphic evidence for children from more humble households, in the peripheries of the Roman world (e.g. schooling and education). He has also argued that such stages were more a matter of maturity than actual age (Laes 2011: 278–80; see also Rawson 2003: 159).
Early childhood (infantia) For all children, childhood begins with birth and subsequent infancy (see Rawson 2003: 95–133; Laes 2011: 58–66). The Greek physician, Soranus, (early second century ad), wrote extensively on pregnancy, childbirth, and associated rituals, and care for the infant (Gynaikeion). According to Soranus, childbirth usually took place in the marital home, in a delivery room located upstairs (Gyn. 2.5) which needed to be spacious enough to accommodate two couches—one hard for delivery and one soft for the mother to relax. One midwife (obstetrix) and two assistants were to be present, with up to ten witnesses outside the single entrance and the father close by (Ulpian, Digests of Justinian 25.4.1.10; see also Laes 2011: 59). Much of what we know about the early childhood stage, between birth and the age of about seven years (infantia), concerns a child’s relationships with ‘his’ nurse (nutrix), who cared for the physical and emotional maintenance of the infant, including feeding him and playing and sleeping with him (see Rawson 2003: 126–33). However, Cato the Elder prided himself that his wife breastfed their son, and also other slave children (Plutarch, Moralia 20.3). Both nurses and parents were concerned with the education, discipline, and social development of young children (see Dixon 1988: 104–40). A number of toys and rattles are mentioned in the written sources as items of play associated with infants and often with nurses (e.g. Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 5.228–30; Plutarch, Moralia 608.4). Some such toys may have been used by older children. These
Roman Household Organization 167 include spinning tops (Tibullus, Elegia 1.5.3–4); hoops and balls (Rawson 2003: 128); knucklebones and nuts; and pushcarts (for further references see: Harlow and Laurence 2002: 46; Rawson 2003: 128–9). However, Beryl Rawson has argued (2003: 128) that hoops, spinning tops, and pushcarts, as depicted in a sarcophagus in Rome (see Rawson 2003: fig. 3.1), would have been used to teach toddlers to walk (see also references in Laes 2011: 80). Rawson noted that boys are more often associated with these games than girls, but girls could take part (2003: 129). There is also much textual, and pictorial, evidence that Roman children kept pets— goats, cats, dogs, sheep, rabbits, ponies, geese, roosters, and other birds—and had replicas of animals as toys (Bradley 1998a; see also Rawson 2003: 129–30). Pliny (Epistulae 4.2) described how Regulus’ son had ponies, dogs, nightingales, blackbirds, and parrots. As argued by both Keith Bradley (1998a) and Rawson (2003: 128–9, fig. 3.1), children were not always affectionate towards such pets which often served an educational function. In addition, while children might keep animals as pets, adults could also keep slave children essentially as pets, or love slaves (see Laes 2011: 234–7). The arrangements within the household for early childhood activities, including pets (see Bradley 1998a: 524–5), is difficult to identify from the textual record, although Soranus’s recommendation that the delivery room, called a ‘conclave’ by Ulpian, be on the upper floor hints at the desirability that activities associated with birth and infancy, including the relevant rituals, may have been removed from the parts of the house more likely to be frequented by outsiders. Suetonius’s (Augustus 6) description of Augustus’s nursery in his grandfather’s country villa as a small room not unlike a cella penuariae (small pantry) where Augustus was reportedly born, does not provide a location for this small room within the house but points to the lack of household space dedicated to young children, even the most elite. Young freeborn children in large households probably spent much of their time in the company of slaves (Tacitus, Dialogus de Oratoribus 29). Such children often slept with their nurse (see Rawson 2003: 126) and Laes suggested (2011: 36–7) that they slept in ‘slave quarters’, sometimes with slave children of their own age. While childhood for freeborn children continued into the next life stage, this was not the case for their enslaved playmates whose childhood ended and working lives began at about the age of five (see Laes 2011: 165).
School-age children (puerita) For freeborn Roman children, the age of about seven was considered a threshold age, the end of infantia, and the age at which a child’s nutrix was replaced with a paedogogus and the children, boys and girls, left the household to go to school (Laes 2011: 107–47). Much of the textual information for this period in a child’s life concerns education outside the household, but private tuition within the household, often in small groups, also took place (Rawson 2003: 158–91). The paedogogus was a member of the household and took the child to school.
168 Penelope Allison Children in this age group may have taken part in formal meals with adults and therefore were likely to have frequented parts of the house where guests came to dine. Suetonius (Caligula, 24) implied that for a male Roman citizen to eat with his wife and children was not extraordinary, and commented that imperial children dined on low couches in the company of their parents and grandparents (Suetonius, Augustus 64 and Claudius 32; Tacitus, Annales 13.16), although it is not always clear from what age. Quintilian’s reference (Instituto Oratoria 1.2.6) to children learning bad habits at the dinner table before they are old enough to be discerning, and Pliny the Elder’s use of the word ‘puer’ for L. Lucullus when he apparently dined with his father (Naturalis Historia 14.17), imply that children in this age group (seven to 14 years old) were likely to take part in these meals as part of their training (see Bradley 1998b; see also Sigismund Neilson 1998). However, Hanne Sigismund Nielsen (1998) stressed that textual evidence for the meals of children, of all age groups, is limited and Bradley (1998b: 38, 45) suggested that only older or adult children would have dined with their parents, and not habitually. Boys spinning tops in the empty atrium (Virgil, Aeneid 7.378–383), and Lucretius’s allusion (De Rerum Natura, 4.400–404) to boys whirling among atrium columns, may apply to boys in this age group. These references again point to school-aged children being more acceptable in the main parts of the house, and moving more easily in the circles of their parents than younger children. During this life stage, freeborn children of non-elite families also went to school or began apprenticeships (see Laes 2011: 189–97), either remaining with their parents within the household or being sent away to a master craftsman’s household to be trained. As argued by Laes (2011: 12, 126–8, 191–5), this would also have been the case for children in peripheral areas of the Roman world. For children born into slavery, this life stage was very different from that of elite freeborn children, although not in all cases. Some undoubtedly accompanied a young master to school and received an education, while others could receive training so that they could perform household tasks, such as cooking, or weaving and spinning (see discussion in Laes 2011: 184–9). Young slaves were expected to serve at the table during banquets and drinking parties (see Dunbabin 2003: fig. 28), and also to perform sexual favours for guests (Seneca, Epistulae Morales 47.7 and 95.24). The childhoods of poor freeborn children in rural areas would also have been very different from those of elite urban children, and were probably closer to those of slave children, in both urban and rural households. On large agricultural estates, slave children were often used to perform household chores, especially in handling drinking vessels and food (Columella, De Re Rustica 12.4.3). Freeborn children in poor households no doubt also worked in kitchens, with chickens, gathered wood, and also cared for and educated younger children (for references Laes 2011: 209). Written evidence for children in military communities is practically non-existent and has therefore led to a view that they were not part of these communities (although see Phang 2001).
Roman Household Organization 169
Coming of age Childhood ostensibly ended for freeborn boys at about the age of 14. These boys would leave their bulla on the lararium, don the toga virilis, and learn philosophy and rhetoric (for references Rawson 2003: 145–53, Laes 2011: 132–7). For girls, childhood often ended at around 12 years of age, when they were considered marriageable. They reportedly dedicated their toys to Venus on the night before their wedding to symbolize the end of their childhood (Lactantius, Institutiones Divinae 2.4.13; although see Harlow and Laurence 2002: 61). In summary, most of our understanding of Roman children from written evidence concerns freeborn children, mainly boys, in elite urban households. Very young children appeared to have moved in the sphere of household slaves and servants, but this did not mean that they were totally removed from the sphere of their parents, who were concerned for their discipline and socialization. For example, Cato the Elder liked to see his baby son being bathed and clothed by his mother (Plutarch, Moralia 20.2). They may also have been present in the parts of the household frequented by outsiders. It appears that older children were more integrated into the lives of their parents, and certainly teenage boys into those of their fathers. Girls were reportedly already leading lives as adult women from the age of 12, although more probably a little later, and slave children could enter the world of work from the age of about five. In other types of Roman households, children, free and slave, undoubtedly played a more significant role in domestic chores.
The archaeological evidence The above outline provides a framework for investigating how contextualized archaeological evidence might contribute to our understanding of the place of children within Roman households. Two quite different case studies—elite urban households in Pompeii and soldiers’ households in the provinces—will be discussed. While potentially at opposite ends of the spectrum, both case studies force us to question some of our assumptions about children in Roman household organization.
Children in household space The most undeniable evidence for the presence of children in household space is their skeletal remains in catastrophically destroyed households. The skeletal remains of a number of children were reported in Pompeian houses. A young child, probably a toddler, wearing a bronze ring, was found with an adult in room 43 in the Casa del Menandro (Allison 2006a: cat. no. 808). The skeleton of another young child was found
170 Penelope Allison in the upper levels of the south-east area of the same house, with two adults wearing gold jewellery (Allison 2006a: cat. no. 946), and another juvenile, with a gold ring and a number of melon beads, was recorded in room 19 (Allison 2006a: cat. nos 340–3). These children may have been part of a group with ten adults found in the neighbouring corridor who had attempted to escape up the stairs (Allison 2006a: cat. no. 559; see also Lazer 1997, 2009: 12). The jewellery associated with these children suggests that they were unlikely to have been slave children. A group of at least seven individuals who died on the couches in Room HH in the Casa di Julius Polybius included a juvenile and a baby (Allison 2004: ‘List of Houses’, Casa di Julius Polybius). A skeleton found in room 9 in the Casa del Fabbro, with another adult, was reportedly a juvenile (Allison 2006a: cat. no.1247). In the entranceway of Casa dei Sacerdos Amandus, one child was found recorded with eight adults (Allison 2004: ‘List of Houses’, Casa dei Sacerdos Amandus). In the doorway of the Casa di Obellius Firmus, two young children with a group of at least four adults were reported (see e.g. Chase 1913: 134). These skeletal remains emphasize the presence of children in the households, but more interesting is that there are relatively few children among these groups of largely adults. Of 88 skeletons recorded in 16 houses, only 12 have been identified as those of children or juveniles (Allison 2004). This is less than 14 per cent of all identifiable skeletons from these houses, and less than one child per household, suggesting that children were very much in the minority among the inhabitants of these relatively elite households. Skeletal remains within household space in Roman military bases result from a quite different depositional process (i.e. deliberate burial). Nevertheless, they provide important information on the household organization within these communities. Up to 11 pre- natal skeletons were recorded within the second-century auxiliary fort at Ellingen, in Roman Raetia, seven of which were excavated from the barracks buildings of ordinary soldiers and were likely to have been buried under the floor of their parents’ abode (Allison 2006b 432–6, 2013: 261–5). These infant remains provide convincing biological evidence that, during the early empire, the families of ordinary soldiers could also occupy the spaces that have traditionally been considered to house only male soldiers. These findings considerably alter our understandings of Roman military households and the place of children within them (for further discussion see: Allison 2013: esp. 325–7, 252–3).
Children’s material culture and household space Material culture associated with the play, education, and feeding of young children, such as feeders, rattles, bells, dolls, figurines, and miniature weapons and pottery vessels, have been found in archaeological contexts, but invariably they are associated with burials or ritual sites rather than household contexts (e.g. Martin-Kilcher 2000; Allason- Jones 2011: 231–2; Cool 2011). There is a remarkable dearth of such material culture clearly associated with household contexts. Any examples merely illustrate the presence of children in these
Roman Household Organization 171 households rather than enhance our understandings of their place there. That said, it is tempting to speculate that a ceramic baby’s feeder decorated with a woman holding a child, recorded from room 34 in the Casa degli Capitelli Colorati in Pompeii (Descoeudres and Sear 1987: 14, 18, figs 10–11), identifies this small room off the large rear peristyle in this house as a nursery. This peristyle is surrounded with a number of small rooms, away from the atrium and the smaller peristyle that was overlooked by large reception rooms (Descoeudres and Sear 1987: 13, fig. 2). The rear peristyle may have been a more private part of the house where household servants and infants might be found. The study of over 6,000 artefacts from 30 Pompeian houses (Allison 2004, 2005: 155–6), and a more detailed investigation of some 2,000 artefacts from the Insula of the Menander (Allison 2006a), identified no artefacts that could be clearly associated with children and their activities. The artefact types recorded in these houses that are perhaps the most likely to have been associated with children include certain ceramic vessels and gaming items. Small ceramic cups (h. 40–60 mm), called abbeveratoi, could conceivably have been used to feed young children (Allison 1999: fig. 5.7). Of 18 such small cups recorded in the above studies, 11 were found in the Casa del Fabbro, seven of which were found in a cupboard in the atrium of this house (Allison 2006a: cat. no. 1080). However, the overall assemblage in this relatively small house suggests workshop and salvaging activities, which are not commensurate with these vessels being used for several children within this household (see Allison 2006a: 23, 348–9). That said, the skeleton in room 9, mentioned above, indicates that there may have been at least one child in this house. A more probable child’s vessel is a miniature cup decorated with facial features (Allison 2006a: cat. no. 589). Its discovery in the corridor of the Casa del Menandro leading to what was considered the service area of this house is not very illuminating, however, except that the young children were recorded in this vicinity, as discussed above. Over 150 gaming pieces (mainly counters and dice) were recorded among 16 Pompeian houses, suggesting widespread gaming in domestic contexts (Allison 2004: ‘artiftype’= ‘Gaming piece’). Many of these are likely to be chance finds, but some are found, in quantity, in identifiable contexts. In most cases, however, they were stored away in collections of general domestic items, and so do not provide information on where and by whom they might have been used, for example in House I,10,8, room 12 (see also Allison 2006a: 335); in the atrium of the Casa del Fabbro (Allison 2006a: cat. nos 1,090–1); in the atrium of the Casa dei Quadretti teatrali; in the atrium and in room 10 of the Casa della Venere in Bikini; in ambulatory CC, and in room M in the Casa di Julius Polybius; and in room L of House VI 16,26. In the Casa delle Nozze d’Argento a number of stone counters were found in a vase outside the main entranceway, and in the Casa del Menandro a set of coloured counters and dice were recorded in room 1, just inside the main entranceway (Allison 2006a: cat. nos 143–4). These last two finds in the front, more public, part of the house, as well as four knucklebones found together with 20 other glass counters in a cupboard in the atrium of the Casa delle Venere in Bikini, while tantalizing, provide insufficient evidence for the involvement of children
172 Penelope Allison in gaming activities in this part of the house. In addition, there is insufficient evidence for gaming counters to be associated with children. In the first-century burials at Rottweil (Germany), the site of a legionary fortress and civilian settlement, none of the 40 burials with identifiable remains of children under the age of 14 contained gaming items, although collections of gaming counters occurred in three graves (Graves 97, 466, and 592), two of which contained adult females and one an unidentified juvenile of 15–17 years (Fecher 2010: 49, 186, 205). The knucklebones found in the atrium of the Casa delle Venere in Bikini together with other gaming items are potentially children’s gaming items, but their context is not very informative without other examples. Remains of tortoises were found in a number of Pompeian houses, such as in the Casa dei Ceii (I vi, 15) and in Houses VIII ii, 29–30 and VIII ii, 34 (see Allison 2004: ‘List of Houses’). While the precise contexts for the latter two are unclear, the former was found in a small enclosed garden area within the house. Further examples were also reportedly found in the gardens of two other Pompeian houses (Bodson and Orr 2002: 333). While another from the earlier levels of the Casa di Amarantus may have been eaten (see Fulford and Wallace-Hadrill 1998: 93), and tortoises are represented on cultic objects (see Bodson and Orr 2002: figs 276–7), Wilhelmina Jashemski suggested that those found in the gardens may have been family pets (Jashemski 1979: 103). Tortoises are not included among Bradley’s (1998a) examples of children’s pets, but it is conceivable that this archaeological evidence might add to the current range of pets that we know Roman children kept. The examples above are the most likely artefacts, among those recorded in Pompeian houses, to be associated with children. However, it is apparent that this connection is tenuous and that even these artefacts cannot give much insight into the place of children in household organization. More examples and more contextualized and critical investigations that compare assemblages of child burials with those of lived domestic space could potentially throw more light, although this seems unlikely given that the above studies of thousands of artefacts have been unsuccessful in finding traces of children in Roman households. Conversely, artefacts associated with children and found in early imperial military forts stress their presence within these essentially domestic contexts. While I have argued that melon beads found in military sites could conceivably have been children’s amuletic artefacts, they are not exclusively associated with children (see Allison 2013: 83–5). Besides the skeletal remains discussed above, though, there are other artefacts found within such forts that are more convincingly associated with children. Most obvious are small-sized shoes found in barracks that Carol van Driel Murray argued (1995, 1997) were worn by women and children, and demonstrate the presence of soldier families inside military forts and their habitation within the small spaces of the contubernia. Her findings have demanded a fundamental change in our understanding of household organization within Roman military sites, and are supported by the skeletal remains from the auxiliary fort at Ellingen discussed above. Having established that children indeed inhabited ordinary soldier’s barracks, other finds from early imperial
Roman Household Organization 173 sites, rather than being considered out of place or inaccurately identified, can provide further information on the nature of military communities and families inside Roman military bases. Examples are a probable child’s feeder recorded from possible shops or workshops inside the first-century fortress of Vetera I (Hanel 1995: cat. no. C8242; see Allison 2012: Interactive Map , 2013: 120–1) and a toy cup (Garbsch in von Schönberger 1978: 261 cat. no. D63), which may have been that of a child associated with the accommodation of craftsmen soldiers (immunes) in the military supply fort at Oberstimm (see Allison 2012: Interactive Map , 2013: 191). Such finds, though limited, demonstrate the integration of children within Roman military communities and the need to consider their presence in our understandings of how the various households in these communities were organized.
Locating children within household space The above discussion demonstrates that while we can locate children in the limited, and no doubt often crowded, space within the contubernia of soldiers’ barracks, it is much more difficult to find any specific association of children with specific areas in the excavated remains of elite Pompeian households. Conversely, while written sources refer to domestic spaces associated with children, it is very difficult to identify such spaces within the archaeological remains. By considering the life paths of elite children and the activities they would have been involved in—being born, eating, sleeping, playing, and being educated—it is possible to make some tentative and also cautionary observations. For example, identifying an upper-floor delivery room in the archaeological remains of elite urban housing is practically impossible. To actually try to locate such a room would no doubt be disingenuous as it was unlikely to have been a dedicated space. The term ‘conclave’, used by Ulpian for this room, would seem to be fairly generic and widely used for any small rooms with a single entrance (see Leach 1997: 64–7). Nevertheless, a restriction of early childhood activities to remote upper-floor parts of the house might explain the relative lack of evidence for the presence of very young children in excavations of what are overwhelmingly structural remains of ground floors. Attempts to identify separate slave quarters within extant elite urban houses, where both freeborn and slave children may have spent much of their early childhood, are also unconvincing (see George 1997: esp. 22). That said, the baby feeder in the rear of the Casa dei Capitelli Colorati, and possibly the child’s cup and the ring-wearing infant in the rear of the Casa del Menandro, hint at a relative exclusion of infants in the early years of childhood from the main circulation areas of the house. Slave quarters identified in elite rural houses, such as in the villa at Settefinestre (Tuscany, Italy), may be more reliable and were perhaps sites for child occupancy and child labour (for discussion see: Roth 2007: 56–7, 97–8).
174 Penelope Allison This exclusion of infants from the centre of the large household seems less evident for school-aged children. Such children probably spent much of the day away at school. Nevertheless, Frances Bernstein identified practise alphabets that were ‘scrawled on the walls at a child’s level’ (2007: 527–8), such as that in a corridor in House VI 15,21 (CIL IV, 5482), and in the peristyle of House VI 14,33 (CIL IV, 5475). These were likely to be the evidence of such children in these houses at Pompeii. Also attributable to this age group might be children’s drawing scratched into the walls of many different types of rooms in Pompeian houses, the distribution of which, Katherine Huntley has argued (2010: 79– 80), indicates that few parts of the house would have been off limits to children, but that there may have been different expectations of behaviour in different parts of the house. References to children playing in the atrium, indeed, suggest that such older children may have moved more freely in the domestic world of adults, although Virgil referred to these courts as empty at the time, implying that this playtime took place when any business visitors had left for the day. Regrettably, there is no evidence for the spinning tops, and the evidence for gaming items in this part of the house, as discussed above, is too tentative to associate with children. As also discussed above, such children may have eaten with their parents and guests on occasion, but this was not the norm. Slave children were perhaps more likely to have been seen around the dining rooms. Evidence for where school-aged children might have slept is practically non-existent (see Wallace-Hadrill 1994: 113). John Clarke has argued (1991: 159) that the painted tondos of Narcissus and Pero on the walls of room i in the Casa di Lucretius Fronto in Pompeii constituted moral lessons for the children that would have slept in this room. However, this is a very anachronistic approach to the use of space in Pompeian houses, which was probably more flexible and did not, of necessity, provide for dedicated sleeping places for children (see Allison 2001: 193–4). The lack of clear definition of children’s space in these households recalls Andrew Wallace- Hadrill’s (1994: 117) reference to the ‘social promiscuity’ of the elite Roman house, where age, gender, and status were not spatially segregated.
Conclusions Literary, epigraphic, and iconographic evidence of Roman childhood provide a useful framework for considering how and where archaeological remains can give new insights into children in Roman households. This evidence demonstrates that children were an essential, and often very precious, part of different types of Roman households, although frequently valued for economic profit and pleasure rather than for sentimental or emotional reasons (Sigismund Nielsen 2007; see also Parkin 2011: 288–9). However, evidence in Pompeian houses shows a noteworthy lack of the types of artefacts found in children’s burials, or any other potentially children’s material culture, and also of children themselves among the victims of the final eruption.
Roman Household Organization 175 Laes (2007: 28–9) argued that the low representation of children among funerary inscriptions in Rome (c.10.6 per cent) does not present an accurate record of a society that would have had a high infant mortality rate. The percentage of children recorded in Pompeian houses is slightly higher, at around 14 per cent, but still low. Given the nature of the demise of these latter children, however, these percentages are likely to reflect their quantitative representation within lived elite households and lend weight to the veracity of the representativeness of the low percentage of funerary inscriptions for children. Whether freeborn or enslaved, children seem very much in the minority in these households, which were likely to have been ‘teeming with adult slaves, clients, tenants, and relatives’ (Laes 2011: 36). Children were of major concern for maintaining the population, and for maintaining their parents in old age, but they were very probably of minor concern in, and had little impact on, the actual organization of elite Roman households and their daily activities. They were perhaps more invisible there than modern scholarship on Roman childhood has wanted to portray. While there is a lack of archaeological evidence for, or investigation of, children in poorer households, the evidence from military sites demonstrates, conversely, that children were more prevalent in military households than previously believed. This chapter highlights available information on children and their place in Roman household organization, and gives some examples where the archaeology of household space might change our views on children in Roman households. It also demonstrates our lack of archaeological, and particularly material-cultural, evidence for the lived experiences of children within Roman households, and the difficulties faced in using the extant archaeological evidence to identify children’s place and the activities surrounding these children within such households. Furthermore, and arguably more significantly, it demonstrates the difficulty of current modes of interrogation of this archaeological evidence to either illustrate or add to literary evidence. For a society rich in textual, epigraphic, and archaeological evidence for household organization, there is a marked contrast between what we can learn from the written and the material evidence about children. This chapter demonstrates a need for more systematic approaches to children in Roman household archaeology, and the need to combine, and critically interrogate, different lines of inquiry into childhood and into household organization. Moreover, we need to be critically self-conscious about how much of our understanding of children in archaeologically identified households is based on modern analogy, but also on inappropriately applying textual analogy from one context to another.
Acknowledgements I am grateful to Mary Harlow for reading a draft of this chapter and for her useful comments on it. I would also like to acknowledge the important role that the late Professor Emerita Beryl Rawson has played in my closer engagement with the textual record of families and households in the Roman world.
176 Penelope Allison
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178 Penelope Allison Van Driel Murray, C. (1995). ‘Gender in Question’, in P. Rush (ed.), Theoretical Roman Archaeology: Second Conference Proceedings. Worldwide Archaeology Series 14. Brookfield, VT: Avebury Press, 3–21. Van Driel Murray, C. (1997) ‘Women in Forts?’. Jahresbericht der Gesellschaft Pro Vindonissa, 55–61. Von Schönberger, H. (1978) Kastell Oberstimm, die Grabungen von 1968 bis 1971. Römisch- Germanisch Kommission. Limesforschungen Band 18. Berlin: Gebr. Mann. Wallace-Hadrill, A. F. (1994). Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Wiedemann, T. (1989). Adults and Children in the Roman Empire. London: Routledge.
Chapter 10
Material Cu lt u re a nd Childho od in Ha ra ppa n Sou th Asia Supriya Varma
The Harappan Civilization came up in the mid-third millennium bce over an area that extended over much of the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent. Archaeologists have suggested different chronological phases, Early (2800–2600 bce), Mature (2600– 1900 bce), and Late (1900–1700 bce) for developments in the Greater Indus region, leading up to the emergence of urban centres in the Mature phase as well as the end of cities in the Late phase (Ratnagar 2006; Wright 2010). In this chapter, I will specifically focus on two major cities, Mohenjodaro and Harappa for my discussion on material culture and childhood in Harappan South Asia. The limited number of archaeological studies on childhood in South Asia is remarkable, be it the Harappan or even later periods (but see Kenoyer 1998: 132–3; Rogersdotter 2006a, b, 2007, 2008; Menon and Varma 2010a, b). It is not the lack of material evidence on childhood that explains this lacuna, considering almost every excavation report on Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze Age, and Iron Age sites in the subcontinent includes categories of artefacts that are often interpreted as children’s toys. Children have been underresearched in South Asia because it is a theme that is often not regarded as a serious subject for consideration. I am, however, aware that a considerable body of archaeological research on children has emerged in the last decade outside South Asia (see Lillehammer, Chapter 2 of this volume). As mentioned above, while a number of reports on sites of different periods do refer to some objects as toys, this information is generally very fragmentary except for the reports on the Harappan sites. As far as the reports on Harappan sites are concerned, those on Mohenjodaro (Marshall 1931; Mackay 1938) and Harappa (Vats 1940) stand out for the detail and richness of their documentation. It is particularly noteworthy that these reports were some of the earliest written in the subcontinent and in many ways remain unparalleled for the contextual information provided for the artefacts. Both these sites have also been subsequently reinvestigated. Small-scale but deep excavations
180 Supriya Varma were carried out at Mohenjodaro by Mortimer Wheeler in 1950 (Wheeler 1968; Dales and Kenoyer 1986) and again by George Dales in 1965 (Dales 1979). Wheeler’s intention was to train students in archaeological methods, second, to see whether the Citadel mound was fortified as was the case at Harappa, and third, to investigate the earliest levels of Mohenjodaro. Leslie Alcock who was part of this exercise was interested in obtaining a complete stratigraphic sequence of different pottery types (Alcock 1986). This was also the intention behind Dales’ excavations at the site (Dales and Kenoyer 1986: 15, 17). Between 1979 and 1986, a project was initiated by Michael Jansen involving remapping the architecture and re-analysing the spatial location of artefacts (Jansen and Urban 1984, 1985). From 1982, Maurizio Tosi from IsMEO joined this project for carrying out a surface survey for indicators of craft production (Tosi, Bondioli, and Vidale 1984). At Harappa, the defences and Cemetery R 37 were excavated by Wheeler (1947a), and R 37 was again investigated by Rafique Mughal in 1966 (Mughal 1968). Much more sustained work has, however, been undertaken at Harappa from 1986 onwards, first by Dales and then by Jonathan Mark Kenoyer and Richard Meadow (Dales and Kenoyer 1986, 1991; Meadow 1991; Meadow and Kenoyer 2005). At Mohenjodaro, the German-Italian team could only undertake non-intrusive mapping and re-documentation due to the ban on excavations at the site imposed by the Pakistan government and UNESCO. While Harappa has been extensively excavated using sophisticated recording methods, and many of the findings published, no complete database on artefacts has so far been produced. It is for this reason that a chapter on material culture and childhood had to be based on the original excavation reports of John Marshall (1931), Ernest Mackay (1938), and Madho Sarup Vats (1940), even though there are problems with the way in which both vertical and horizontal recordings of archaeological data were done at both these sites. These have been pointed out particularly in the case of Mohenjodaro by later archaeologists (Wheeler 1947b; Fentress 1984; Jansen 1984, 1985; Ardeleanu-Jansen 1985; Franke-Vogt 1993; Rogersdotter 2011), as they could not carry out fresh excavations, and had to rely on old data. Initially, Wheeler (1947b) criticized the vertical recording methods used by both Marshall and Mackay. While excavators before Mackay had used the below-surface method, which would have varied at different parts of the site, Mackay had shifted to an absolute bench-level method for the entire site. As far as horizontal recordings were concerned, four different numbering methods (point coordinates, area coordinates, compartment numbering system, and according to blocks, houses, and rooms) were used over time in the different areas excavated at Mohenjodaro. Thus, the main challenge for Jansen’s team was to correlate the artefacts and the architectural units so as to enable as close a contextual study as possible for future researchers. The other problem with these early reports is that largely whole artefacts were published which may have been about 30 per cent of the entire collection. While the field registers would have the entire lists of artefacts, these are not widely accessible, and more important are difficult to use due to the recording problems discussed above. However, the data collection records created by Jansen and his team have now enabled a quantitative and spatial analysis of the artefacts from Mohenjodaro (see Ardeleanu-Jansen 1992; Rogersdotter 2011).
Material Culture and Childhood in Harappan South Asia 181 The range of issues that I will discuss here includes the sheer diversity of toys and gaming artefacts, the spatial contexts within which they were found, production of these artefacts, the problems of classification in relation to certain artefacts, and the ages of the users of some of these objects. Finally, I will discuss the implications of finding an amazingly diverse range of toys and gaming artefacts in an urban milieu.
Toys and gaming artefacts The range of toys includes terracotta rattles, whistles, carts, wheels, miniature vessels, toy-cages, and figurines of men and women, animals, and birds. In this category would also come balls and marbles of terracotta, faience, stone, and shell. The gaming artefacts include dice, casting sticks, board games, and ‘gamesmen’ or gaming counters, made of a range of materials. We also need to keep in mind that a large number of toys and gaming artefacts were probably made of wood or other perishable materials and have clearly not survived.
Rattles Round terracotta rattles are hollow balls with two or three rough pellets of terracotta within them. The unslipped hollow balls vary in size from 3.8 cm to 6.6 cm in diameter. These are sometimes undecorated, but some may have been painted with linear motifs in red paint. Some rattles from Harappa have pit marks all over the surface (Vats 1940: pl CXX, 30–4).
Whistles Many of the terracotta whistles found are hollow and shaped like birds, with a hole in the back near the tail. These have a height of 5–7.6 cm. These birds are pedestalled, which enabled them to stand on a flat surface, or they could be held in the hand and blown. The species of birds being depicted is not always clear. Some are identified as hens and others as doves. Some of these are slipped, while others were unslipped, but these were not painted.
Carts A variety of terracotta toy carts have been recovered at Harappa, with the most common type found at both sites being the ones with two long side bars joined to three cross-bars (Marshall 1931: pls. CXXXI, 38, XLIV, 7, 10; Mackay 1938: pls. CVI, 38, CXLII, 83; Vats
182 Supriya Varma 1940: pl. CXX, 2). These have lengths ranging from 7.6–17.8 cm and widths ranging from 5–9 cm and a height of about 6.4 cm. The thickness of the frame ranged from 1.3–5 cm. A horizontal hole ran along the middle of the terracotta frame through the three cross- bars, which allowed a stick to function as a pole supporting the cart. There were also six vertical holes each on both side-bars of the frame, with the four central ones larger than the others. The sticks projecting underneath the cart from these larger holes would have supported the axle of the vehicle. The upper ends of the vertical sticks may have supported a roof of either hide or rope net. The open floor of the cart may have been covered with matting or nets. The diversity of toy carts found at Harappa includes a type called the truck-shaped cart, which looks like a modern tipping truck (Vats 1940: 451). It has a red wash and measures 6.5 cm in length, 7.6 cm in width, and 8.4 cm in height. Yet another variety has a concave base and has four vertical holes for a covering. There is a horizontal hole going along the length for the axle. This type of cart measures 9.4 x 6.4 x 2.5 cm. Another fairly popular type of toy cart has been described as a cart resembling an inverted pack-saddle, and has splayed out struts at the corners (Vats 1940: 451). While there are several types of toy carts, not all of them are found across the Harappan sites. The cart with an open frame and rectangular plan is commonly found at several Harappan sites, but another, the cart with an open frame and concave- shaped short sides has been found at only Mohenjodaro, Harappa, and perhaps Lothal (Rogersdotter 2006a: 82–3). This alerts us to the possibility that styles in toys, as with many other artefacts, differed across Harappan sites and requires further investigation. Terracotta toy wheels appear to have been very popular and probably were used along with the carts and wheeled animals, as well as just used by themselves attached to a stick. These wheels range in size from 6.4 to 11.4 cm in diameter and have a hole in the centre. Many have hubs on one side and the other side is concave, or sometimes flat. Many of these wheels show considerable wear, suggesting usage.
Vessels A certain category of toy vessels seem to have been made and used by children. These include two pans with saddle querns in the middle, with a length of about 7 cm, from Mohenjodaro (Mackay 1931b: 550–1). It is possible that these were broken off from a larger figurine of a woman grinding grain. Several miniature bowls and basins have been reported from Harappa, which Vats (1940: 275, pl. LXXI, 57, 58, 68, 69) suggested were made by children. Many of these objects appear to be handmade, with uneven walls and shapes and are largely open forms. It is these types of vessels that were probably made by children. On the other hand, we also find a finely made variety of miniature vessels, often slipped and painted, that are replicas of larger vessel types at both Mohenjodaro (Dales and Kenoyer 1986: 120) and Harappa (Vats 1940: pl. LXXI, 56). These are more likely to have been made by skilled crafters rather than by children. In fact, two of the vessels suggested by Vats as made by children (Vats 1940: pl. LXXI, 57, 58) seem to have been the work of adults. Perhaps in the same category of objects made
Material Culture and Childhood in Harappan South Asia 183 by children can be mentioned a toy sieve from Harappa and a toy basket. The sieve is in the shape of a small bowl with four perforations in the bottom and four in the side of the vessel. The handle of the sieve is in the form of a bull’s head. The terracotta basket is made by coiling tubes of clay. Both objects are 6 cm in diameter and 2.8–3 cm in height (Vats 1940: 454).
Cages Terracotta toy cages are oval and pear-shaped and have been found only from Harappa. The dimensions on average are 7.6 cm in length, 5 cm in width and 6.4–10 cm in height. Some of them have small terracotta birds perched on top or coming out of an opening (Vats 1940: pl. CXX, 22–6) and do not seem to have been used to house real birds.
Figurines Among the terracotta human figurines that may have been toys is a supine woman on a cot, nursing or holding a small child to her breast (Mackay 1931b: 549). The cot appears to be too small for her in length (10.4 cm) as her legs protrude from the end. Three human figurines from later excavations at Mohenjodaro were reported as toys. One is a figure with a raised left leg, the second a male figure holding a round object to the chest, and the third, a male figure holding a bowl or a drum (Mackay 1938: 557). Mackay (1931b) has suggested that the woman on a cot was not made by a child but made for one; however, he felt that the remaining three human figurines recovered in the later excavations were made and used by children. Clearly, there is an element of subjectivity involved in labelling only four terracotta human figurines as toys out of the very large number of figurines found at Mohenjodaro. This is related to problems of classification and labelling by excavators, and I will discuss this in greater detail in a later section. Among the terracotta animal figurines, the ones with movable heads or limbs and those attached to wheels are considered distinctly to be toys. The animal figurines with movable heads have the body of a quadruped, to which a bull’s head is often attached (see Marshall 1931: pl. CLIII, 39; Vats 1940: pl. CXX, 16, 17). The heads were detachable and hence are often found separately. These are about 8.9 cm high and 11.4 cm long. Mackay (1931b: 550) has mentioned a figurine almost 8.9 cm high, with movable forelimbs and a hole at the back, which suggests it was fixed upon a stick. He thought that it was a monkey on the basis of its tail. This last artefact is an example of another category of figurines with movable arms that comprises mixed human and animal forms. Often, the body is human with a swollen abdomen, the head is of an animal, and the entire figurine is fixed on a stick (Mackay 1938: 294). There are several animal and bird figurines with wheels attached to them, which were classified as bird and animal chariots by Vats (1940: 452). These are largely hollow,
184 Supriya Varma with a hole along the width for inserting a stick or rod, to which wheels would have been attached. Very often, they are provided with a hole in the head or neck for tying a cord that would have been pulled by children. Sometimes there are four wheels, but the majority is two-wheeled. At Harappa, wheeled bulls and roosters have been found. Mackay (1931b: 550) also identified a composite figurine found at Mohenjodaro as a bird chariot, which had the head and horns of a ram and the body and tail of a bird. This was also hollow and washed red. Two holes on either side were used to insert a stick to ‘swing the animal’, or attach it to a pair of wheels. A small hole through the neck was for pulling it. Also from Mohenjodaro are two bird figurines, roughly made, one larger than the other, flat in shape, with expanded tails, and eyes made by appliqueing pellets onto the head. They both had holes horizontally pierced for attaching an axle for wheels. There was also a perforation in the base of the head or the neck for pulling with a cord. These measured 10.2 cm and 12.7 cm in length respectively. One was slipped in cream colour, the other was unslipped (Mackay 1938: 315).
Balls and marbles Apart from terracotta, several other materials have been used to make another category of toys, balls and marbles. These have also been made of faience, stone, and shell. The difference between balls and marbles appears to be largely based on size; anything about 1.9 to 4.4 cm is categorized as a ball, while marbles are considered as roughly 1.3 cm in diameter (Mackay 1931b: 552–3). The distinction may have rested on balls and marbles being associated with different kinds of games. Marbles are always plain, as are also those balls made of stone. Some of the shell and terracotta balls are decorated. For instance, at Mohenjodaro, Mackay (1931b: 552) reported a hand-made solid terracotta ball ‘irregularly covered with small round pellets of clay, each having a small hole pricked in its centre.’ He suggested the decoration was to improve the holding grip of the ball. Mackay (1938: 565–7) reported terracotta balls with pitted surfaces, with impressed fingernail designs, and some decorated with circles at regular intervals. He mentioned that some of the smaller (averaging around 2 cm) terracotta balls could have been used as pellets for slingshots. Shell balls are invariably decorated with incised concentric rings, and are polished through use. Balls and marbles were made of a range of stones, including agate, slate, veined onyx, limestone, chert, alabaster, and red and white brecchia. The stone varieties are also well-made and polished. Among the faience marbles is a painted variety with a black band around the circumference (Mackay 1931b: 553). Faience balls from the later excavations at Mohenjodaro are light green in colour, and another ball is made of a cream paste with a purplish-black manganese glaze. This last specimen has three holes at right angles to each other with groups of concentric circles arranged around the holes (Mackay 1938: 566). At Harappa, stone balls were made of flint, chert, carnelian, sandstone, yellow Jaisalmer stone, alabaster, limestone of various colours, and hornblende; also found were terracotta, shell, and faience balls (Vats 1940: 455).
Material Culture and Childhood in Harappan South Asia 185
Gaming artefacts Apart from toys, different varieties of gaming artefacts have also been recovered from the sites of Mohenjodaro and Harappa. Among these are cubical and tabular dice. While the cubical dice are made of terracotta, stone, faience, and ivory, the tabular dice are of ivory, with some of bone. The cubical ones in red terracotta mirror present-day forms but the numbering, in the form of pit marks, is different. Unlike in the present, where the numbers on opposite sides total seven, in the Harappan period, one was opposite two, three opposite four, and five opposite six. The terracotta specimens sometimes have a red wash and are either 3 x 3 x 3 cm or 3.8 x 3.8 x 3.8 cm in size. One rectangular die measures 4 x 3.5 x 2.8 cm (Mackay 1931b: 551–2). However, in the later excavations at Mohenjodaro, Mackay (1938: 559) found that there was no uniformity in the numbering pattern, with some specimens having one opposite three, and two opposite four, and five opposite six. He also found the terracotta dice to be largely roughly made. One unusual die was of grey pottery, measuring 2.8 x 3 x 2.8 cm, with the numbers inlaid with small beads (Mackay 1938: 560). Ivory dice at Mohenjodaro are marked differently from the other dice. One example has two blank opposite sides, three sides marked with a circular device, and the sixth side has three pictographic signs (Mackay 1938: 559). Among the stone examples of dice from Mohenjodaro is one of yellow agate (1.9 x 1.9 x 1.9 cm), which is differently numbered with incisions, of one opposite two, four opposite five, and three opposite six, although the number six has disappeared (Mackay 1938: 560). A sandstone die from Harappa measures 4.7 x 4.7 x 4.7 cm, while a lone yellow faience die with white glaze measures 1.6 x 1.6 x 1.6 cm (Vats 1940: 457). Far more tabular dice are found as compared to the cubical ones. These are largely of ivory with a few of bone. These have varied markings, which are incised and filled in with a black pigment. The square-cut ends have designs of concentric circles, with a single case of a criss-cross design. Some of these have pictographic characters on one side, with sometimes the same pictograph repeated three or four times, and sometimes a group of various pictographs. Mackay (1938: 560–2) has divided these tabular dice into five types according to shape and decoration. The first type is square in section but all four sides are different in terms of decoration. On average, these measure 7.6 cm in length. On three sides, these have one, two, and three circular marks incised on them, or sometimes only two sides are incised. On the fourth side, there is often a series of parallel lines and occasionally curved lines. The second type is also square-sectioned, but three sides are differently marked, and the fourth side duplicates one of the other three. The length varies from 3.3 to 10.2 cm. The third type is also square-sectioned, where the two opposite sides are similarly marked. The fourth type is triangular in section, and all three have different designs. The fifth type is also triangular with two similar sides, and one different to the other two. These range from 3.3 to 10.2 cm in length. Mackay (1931b: 556–7) has tentatively labelled a category of bone and ivory pieces as ‘casting bones’. He thought that they were used as dice either in a board game or some
186 Supriya Varma game where two or more of these were thrown or cast down. He pointed out the diversity in the section of the ivory objects, as being rectangular or square and more rarely round, and the ones of bone as being predominantly triangular-sectioned. There are also some unusual shapes, such as of a leg. They range in size from 4.1 to 8.1 cm in length. These objects are highly worn, as seen through their polish, brownish tint, and rounded edges. In the excavation report of the later excavations at Mohenjodaro, Mackay (1938: 562) systematized the typology of these casting sticks, and also differentiated them from dice. He has divided the casting sticks into four types. The first type is square-sectioned, and all four sides are similar. The length varies from 4.3 to 10.2 cm. The second type is rectangular in section, and here the wider sides are either similar or different, and the narrower sides are similar or left blank. Sometimes the ends are decorated, and the length varies from 2.5 to 5 cm. The third type is triangular in section, and all three sides are similar. These are shorter than the previous ones, and are decorated in bands along their length, with each having a different motif. The fourth type is half-round in section, and is about 5 cm long. The rounded side is decorated with curved incised lines, which are filled with red and black, and the flat side has three sets of incised concentric circles, one at the middle and two at the ends. Objects similar to these casting sticks have also been found from Harappa where Vats (1940: 460–1) called them ‘balusters’. Mackay (1938: 562–4) differentiated yet another category: the round rods made of ivory and occasionally of bone. There are two types, one having the same diameter throughout, while the other is a shorter variety with an ornamental head. The first variety has lengths varying from 6.4 to 7.6 cm and the diameter varies from 0.8 to 1 cm. The shorter variety is largely 3.8 cm in length, and 1 cm in diameter at the base, which has concentric circles incised on it. Perhaps also used in some kind of game were ivory fish models. These were flat in shape and ranged in size from 6.4 to 10.1 cm in length. They have the same incised fish- scale markings on both sides filled with red and black pigments (Mackay 1931b: 557, 1938: 564). Archaeologists have used the term ‘gamesmen’ for artefacts that may have been used as counters on gaming boards. These were made of paste, faience, terracotta, shell, marble, agate, slate, and steatite. I prefer to use the term ‘gaming counters’ for these kinds of artefacts. There is a huge diversity in types of gaming counters, which have been classified by Mackay (1938: 570–8) into ten groups. The first group comprises round-topped cones of various materials, such as terracotta, faience, shell, and stone that includes jade, lapis lazuli, and variegated stones. He also pointed out that no two of this type were found together. There is, however, a size variation; in height these range from 1.8 to 6.1 cm with an average of 3.3 cm. It appears that shell examples were decorated with incised grooves filled in with red and black paste. The second type comprised pointed cones made of terracotta and white-glazed paste inlaid with a band of yellow paste. The third group comprised straight-sided cones with a definite head. The head, demarcated by a grooved neck, differentiates these from the first group. This type has been found in terracotta, limestone, and faience. All of the terracotta pieces have engraved designs either on the body or on the body and head. These also have a vertical hole in
Material Culture and Childhood in Harappan South Asia 187 the base for fitting the gaming counter onto another object. A faience example has the head decorated with several rough pit-marks that may have been, in turn, inlaid. The fourth group comprised cones with incurved sides; these are the most common type at Mohenjodaro. These are made of terracotta, stone, faience, shell, and bone. In size, they are largely 2.5 cm high. Interestingly, in one case, four of this variety of cones, all of identical size and of cream-slipped terracotta, were found together. These all have a vertical hole in the middle of a slightly concave base. In the fifth group are regular tetrahedral pieces, all made of glazed paste, except for one of bronze. The sixth group is categorized as ‘four-sided pyramidal gamesmen’, objects made of dark grey stone. In the seventh are flat, triangular terracotta gaming counters with red slip. The eighth group comprises bobbin-shaped gaming counters of terracotta and faience with slightly convex ends. The ninth group consisted of cylindrical gaming counters with flat top and base, made of alabaster, steatite, and fish bone. The last group includes cubical gaming counters made of ivory with a height of 1.3 cm. At Harappa, unlike at Mohenjodaro, Vats has considered only tetrahedral pieces as gaming counters, while all cone-shaped specimens have been termed by him as lingas. This difference in the identification and labelling of these conical objects by Mackay and Vats is a point that I will take up for discussion in a later section. The tetrahedral gaming counters at Harappa were made of faience and limestone, and their size ranged from 1.3 to 2 cm (Vats 1940: 457–8). If the artefacts described above were gaming counters, this raises the issue as to the possible games or game boards with which they were associated. It is quite possible that many would have been made of wood and hence have not survived. However, two board games found at Mohenjodaro are made of brick, but both are broken. One measured 28 x 15.2 x 7.6 cm, with one end missing but it may not have been much longer. On one side are four rows of scooped-out shallow depressions, with the best-preserved row having fifteen depressions; and on one side are four or possibly five holes. The depressions are worn, suggesting heavy usage (Mackay 1938: 574). The second measured 29.2 x 14.5 x 6.4 cm and is also of brick. One face is divided into compartments by scored lines drawn lengthways and widthways. The lengthways lines are carefully engraved, but not the widthways ones. This particular piece shows three rows of four compartments each, with every alternate compartment having crossed diagonal lines. Mackay (1938: 574–5) suggested that as it was found in a court (of the ‘Palace’ in DK-G Area), this may have been embedded in the pavement and may have continued onto bricks on either side, making a larger game board.
Spatial contexts Two studies stand out for the analyses of spatial contexts of specific Harappan artefact types: one, terracotta figurines (Ardeleanu-Jansen 1992, 2002) and the other, play things (Rogersdotter 2008, 2011, 2013, n.d.). One of the main aims of Alexandra Ardeleanu- Jansen’s (1992) work was to assess the number as well as the spatial contexts within which
188 Supriya Varma the terracotta figurines were found at Mohenjodaro. From the entire range of animal and human figurines, she then focused on female figurines. Her quantitative analysis revealed that finds of such figurines were not uniform across the site of Mohenjodaro. Her detailed contextual analysis, which was done only for HR Area, showed that all female figurines came from houses and not from any public area. In total, 58 per cent of female statuettes were found in rooms with only one entrance (terminal rooms), 25 per cent came from rooms open to the public (entrance rooms), and 17 per cent from rooms with more than one entrance (transit rooms). A classification and contextual study of children’s playthings, more specifically, miniature toy cart frames and pottery discs, was undertaken by Elke Rogersdotter (2008) at the Harappan site of Bagasra. Both types of objects are found within, as well as outside, the walled settlement. Among the various kinds of miniature cart frames, one type with painted red squares is found clustered in the southern area outside the settlement, where a pottery production area has been identified. There is a suggestion that the miniature toy carts were produced by potters for children who may have been exposed to these miniature toy carts while they were being manufactured, and subsequently used them as playthings (Rogersdotter 2008: 116–8, 133). On the other hand, pottery discs were made by children themselves and a preponderance of incomplete specimens in the same pottery production area suggests these too were produced here. Rogersdotter has also analysed the spatial distribution of nearly three hundred game- related finds in the DK-C Area in the Lower Town of Mohenjodaro. She has pointed out that casting sticks are located often in clusters and are not found with other game- related objects, such as cones. On the other hand, cones are usually found with other game-related artefacts. Her study raises several questions about the kinds of games that may have existed, whether there were specific places set aside for games, and if their spatial contexts indicate the movement of people in and out of spaces for purposes of play (Rogersdotter 2011, 2013, n.d.). The detailed contextual documentation of gaming artefacts that has been carried out at Mohenjodaro (Rogersdotter 2011) and of toys at Bagasra (Rogersdotter 2008) needs to be followed up at those Harappan sites under excavation today, such as Rakhigarhi. This would help us gain further insights into toys, games, play, learning, and socialization in Harappan South Asia. At Mohenjodaro, toys and gaming artefacts have been recovered from houses, more specifically, rooms (including a bathing room), courtyards of houses, corridors inside houses, also inside large storage jars within rooms, and as part of funerary deposits in large earthen vessels in courtyards. They are also found in spaces between houses, as well as on pavements, alleys, lanes and streets, and in enclosures, possibly dustbins on streets. These artefacts are also reported from open spaces within particular blocks as in 10 and 11 in L Area in the Citadel, as well as between blocks. The contextual information from Harappa, though not as rich as Mohenjodaro given the damage to the site, suggests such artefacts were found inside rooms, courtyards, inside storage jars from houses, rubbish heaps from streets, and in post-cremation urns found within houses, underneath floors, as well as in streets and under drains. 178 post-cremation urns were
Material Culture and Childhood in Harappan South Asia 189 found singly. Apart from these, 54 jars, buried beneath a lane, were found in a long row. Often, the urns contained bones, sometimes charred, of animals, birds, fish, and in one case, an unburnt human tibia. The animal bones included teeth, joints, long bones, and ribs, while those of birds and other smaller species included jaws, vertebrae, and limbs. Apart from bones, the urns contained goblets with pointed bases, cylindrical vases, human-and animal-shaped toys, balls, beads, bangles, miniature lids, toy carts, wheels, triangular cakes, river shells, decayed grain, ashes, and charcoal. Among the ceramics, the goblets outnumber the other types (Vats 1940: 252–3). On a rough count, it seems that toys were recovered from nearly one-third of the urns, or 59 out of the 178 urns that were found singly. Out of the row of urns, toys were found in 15 out of a total of 54. Since these are post-cremation internments and contain no human bones, except in the one case mentioned above, and some of these contain toy-like objects, could these represent child burials? Clearly, this information on contexts indicates flexibility in the use of spaces for playing. Other than what we know, there is also the possibility of children having played on rooftops, which would leave little archaeological evidence. Many of these toys were portable and would have been carried around, which explains why we find them in so many different contexts. Some, however, may have been fixed—as represented possibly by the brick game board that may have been permanently embedded in a paved court. However, other game boards made of wood or cloth could again have been carried around.
Who made these toys? Mackay (1931a, b, 1938) has implied that some of the toys may have been made by children themselves, while others may have been made by adults. Usually, artefacts, and more specifically those of terracotta, are considered to be made by children when they are more roughly made with less control over the material, as seen through their irregular forms. On the other hand, artefacts perceived by Mackay to have been made by adults are better finished, including the handmade and moulded terracotta human and animal figurines, as well as artefacts of other materials such as faience or stone that would have required specific skills in creating them (see Dales and Kenoyer 1986: 62–70; Dales 1991; Wright 1991). As many of the terracotta toys could have been made by children, as suggested by Mackay, there is every likelihood then that these children may have belonged to potters’ households. While there is no direct evidence for this from Mohenjodaro, there is one case from the subcontinent, albeit from a later period. It has been argued that children may have learnt the craft of potting through play at the site of Indor Khera in the Upper Ganga Plains, in the period 200 bce to 500 ce (see Menon and Varma 2010a, b; Varma and Menon 2015). Several miniature terracotta vessels have been found from Indor Khera with irregular walls, roughly shaped, and made of clay that is often full of chaff. They are also clearly made using the pinching technique, the simplest
190 Supriya Varma manufacturing technique for ceramics. Using these as a parallel, it is possible to identify similar forms from Harappa (Vats 1940: 275) as noted above.
Problems of classification and attribution One of the problems that archaeologists invariably face when dealing with artefacts (including pottery) recovered in excavations is the issue of classification. Largely, in South Asia, there has been an absence of any rigorous attempt to classify both pottery and artefacts. The ‘tendency has been for generalized or inconsistent descriptions . . . relying on ill-defined intuitive typologies that are assumed to be universally understood, and of types so narrowly described that natural variation is not tolerated’ (Dales and Kenoyer 1986: 18). One of the earliest attempts in South Asia to devise a systematic classificatory method has been Dales and Kenoyer’s study (1986) of the Harappan pottery based on their excavations at Mohenjodaro and Balakot. To date, this remains a model for pottery classification in South Asia. Generally, a set of attributes is used, including material, size, shape, style, and so forth, for classifying, and then attributions of function are attempted. While in the case of many artefacts, the function of artefacts is relatively easy to determine, given present-day parallels, however, in some cases it is much more ambiguous. For example, there are three categories of artefacts, terracotta human figurines, some terracotta animal figurines, and conical stone objects, where there is no consensus regarding their function. Regarding terracotta human figurines, Vats (1940: 292) classifies them into three categories, namely, those that he regards as funerary, which presumably were those found in post-cremation urn burials, those that were votive, and the third were seen as toys for children. He also admits that the distinctions between these three groups are not quite clear. Mackay (1931b: 549) also suggests that it is difficult to determine whether the terracotta human figurines were used as cult objects or as toys. The spatial contexts within which terracotta human figurines are found are pertinent to the discussion. Many are found in mutilated condition in the streets and houses, and Mackay (1938: 258–9) suggests these may not have been votive in nature, except for some of the coarser ones. However, he felt that the better made female figurines and some of the male figurines were made for use as household deities and when broken were discarded. Numerous terracotta female figurines have been represented at Mohenjodaro and Harappa in varying forms. While some are standing figures with jewellery and elaborate headdresses, and apparently dressed only in skirts, others are depicted as performing routine household chores (Vats 1940: pl. LXXVI, 23), often in sitting postures.
Material Culture and Childhood in Harappan South Asia 191 Excavators have often interpreted the former as ‘mother goddesses’, due to their ornate representation (Mackay 1931a: 339), or, when depicted with infants, as votive figures (Mackay 1938: 269). On the other hand, the figurines shown performing household chores are understood as children’s toys (Mackay 1931a: 342). Similarly, some terracotta male figurines are also understood to be children’s toys. Some figurines depicted as seated with arms clasped around their knees are considered to be children’s toys as well (Mackay 1938: 265–6). As far as the terracotta animal figurines are concerned, there is a similar ambiguity regarding their use. Other than the categories of animal figurines discussed above, with movable head/limbs and mounted on wheels, a large number of animal and bird figurines have been interpreted as toys. These animals and birds included antelope, dog with and without collars, turtle, humped and humpless bulls, tiger, elephant, pig, rhinoceros, hare, sheep, goat, buffalo, monkey, mongoose, squirrel, snake, armadillo, crocodile, grasshopper, dove, domestic fowl, peacock, kite, pigeon, sparrow, duck, and goose (Mackay 1931a: 348–51, 1938: 285–98; Vats 1940: 300–9). However, those of the bull in particular have been seen by Mackay (1938: 288) as votive offerings. Yet, he also goes on to suggest that these were periodically thrown away to accommodate more recent offerings, and the older ones, in turn, may have been reused as toys. Mackay (1931a: 355) also did point out earlier that those animal figurines that were also depicted on the seals, such as the bull, buffalo, rhinoceros, tiger, elephant, and so forth, may have been cult objects. More recently, Ardeleanu-Jansen (2002) has made an intervention in the ongoing debate concerning whether many of these human and animal figurines were toys or cult objects. Based on her study of the human terracotta figurines, she has concluded that these are not ubiquitous across all Harappan sites. While there is a great variety in the styles of female statuettes, a small number share a similar iconography. At the same time, she rejects the interpretation of the female figurines as representations of some kind of ‘mother goddesses’. She also refutes Mackay’s view of the ‘crudely modelled’ figurines being either made by children or used by them. Her argument rests on the hypothesis that since a basic manufacturing technique, in other words a tradition, was used to make these figurines, these could not be the work of children who were unlikely to be ‘so confirmative in their modelling technique’ (Ardeleanu-Jansen 2002: 213). Regarding the hybrid animals on wheels, which combined attributes of different animals and birds in one figure, the quadrupeds with human faces, bull figurines, and the female statuettes, she argues that these could not have been toys but would have been part of a sophisticated ideology of the Harappan world. The third category of ambiguous artefacts comprises the conical stone objects. It is not clear whether these were phallic symbols (lingas), and hence ritual in nature, or gaming counters. Marshall (1931: 63) makes a distinction on the basis of size and form to distinguish between the two categories. He felt that the larger ones may have been objects of worship while those that were small (less than 7.6 cm) may have either been amulets or gaming counters. Mackay (1938: 570) points out that while some of the plainer ones may
192 Supriya Varma have been phallic symbols, the majority would have been gaming counters. However, Vats (1940: 368–70) considered all the gaming counters of varying materials, such as chalcedony, carnelian, lapis lazuli, cherty limestone, grey sandstone with or without bands, yellow Jaisalmer stone, alabaster, imitation carnelian, faience, paste, shell, ivory, and terracotta, and those ranging in height from 1.3 cm to over 12.7 cm as lingas. It is interesting to note that while Marshall only attributed a ritual value to those exclusively of stone, Vats regarded nearly all of the gaming counters of different materials as lingas. Archaeologists have generally looked at the contexts of the finds to help them ascertain possible functions of artefacts, particularly of those that appear to be ambiguous in their forms. In the case of these conical objects/lingas/gaming counters, Mackay (1938: 576–8) has provided us with a very detailed list, which informs us about the contexts of their recovery. Some of them were found from the main streets of the city, such as First Street, Central Street, and Western Street. Others are found between blocks and they have also been found within rooms of houses. Considering those that were found on the streets or between blocks, one may be able to suggest either that they were discarded or lost, or that they were used as gaming counters.
Who used these toys and gaming artefacts? There is perhaps less ambiguity about the age of the users of many of these artefacts. While rattles were most likely used for infants, whistles, balls, marbles, wheels and wheeled vehicles, miniature vessels, toy cages, and human, animal, and bird figurines may have been used by older children. The reason why these would not have been used by small children is because of the fear that they would choke if they put these into their mouths. Pingle (1985: 137–8) draws our attention to a verse in the second century ce text on medicine, Caraka Samhita, ‘toys of a child should be variegated (i.e. of different colours), sound-producing, beautiful, not heavy, without sharp points, incapable of being put into the mouth, not frought [sic] with danger to life, and non-frightening’. This text also mentions that neither should a toy be too large or heavy for a child to handle, nor too small such that it could be swallowed. As far as gaming artefacts are concerned, like dice, casting sticks, counters, and board games, it is likely that young and older adults would have used them (see also Rogersdotter 2011). It is interesting to note a discussion about appropriate toys for children in a second century ce text in contrast to a view that is held by Ardeleanu-Jansen (1992: 11) that children in ancient South Asia were very quickly ‘integrated into the adult world’ and that left no scope for a phase of childhood with toys and other playthings. It is quite possible that children may have had to assume adult roles at a very young age, yet that would not have necessarily precluded them from playing with toys.
Material Culture and Childhood in Harappan South Asia 193
Toys and gaming artefacts from Mohenjodaro and Harappa The range of toys found at Mohenjodaro and Harappa seem to provide a lens through which we can get a glimpse of quotidian activities within these two cities. Many of the artefacts that have been categorized as toys represent household chores that took place around children as well as objects (such as wheeled vehicles), animals, and birds that they routinely encountered. That some of these artefacts could have been made by children themselves suggests that they may have represented their own perceptions of what they saw, while those that were made by adults for them may suggest an intention to familiarize or teach children tasks, activities, or categories, such as animals or birds, that would have been part of their larger world. As is the case with much of the material culture associated with Harappan cities, the richness and diversity of toys and gaming artefacts from Mohenjodaro and Harappa is striking. This is in sharp contrast to the periods preceding and following the Mature phase of the Harappan Civilization. As far as the Indian subcontinent is concerned, we next encounter a similar wealth in material culture, including in toys, in the Early Historic cities. It is this typological diversity, as well as an access to distant regions, which can be seen in the range of materials used, that marks urban centres apart.
Acknowledgements I would like to thank Jaya Menon whose familiarity with the Harappan artefacts helped me steer through the enormous range of data provided in the excavation reports of Mohenjodaro and Harappa. I have also benefitted hugely from the insightful comments of Sally Crawford. Elke Rogersdotter’s promptness, in sending me her articles and electronic versions of her theses, was truly remarkable. Mudit Trivedi and Akshyeta Suryanarayan, too responded with alacrity, and mailed me a couple of citations that I needed urgently.
References Alcock, L. (1986). ‘A Pottery Sequence from Mohenjodaro: R. E. M. Wheeler’s 1950 “Citadel Mound” Excavations’, in G. F. Dales and J. M. Kenoyer (eds), Excavations at Mohenjodaro, Pakistan: The Pottery. Philadelphia, PA: University Museum, 493–551. Ardeleanu-Jansen, A. (1985). ‘Brief History of Excavations in HR Area’, in M. Jansen and G. Urban, Mohenjodaro— Data Collection: The HR Area Field Register 19251927, Leiden: E. J. Brill, X–XV. Ardeleanu-Jansen, A. (1992). ‘New Evidence on the Distribution of Artifacts: An Approach towards a Qualitative-Quantitative Assessment of the Terracotta Figures of Mohenjodaro’, in C. Jarrige (ed.), South Asian Archaeology 1989. Madison, WI: Prehistory Press, 5–14.
194 Supriya Varma Ardeleanu-Jansen, A. (2002). ‘The Terracotta Figurines from Mohenjodaro: Considerations on Tradition, Craft and Ideology in the Harappan Civilization (c.2400–1800 bc)’, in S. Settar and R. Korisettar (eds), Indian Archaeology in Retrospect: Protohistory. Archaeology of the Harappan Civilization, Volume II. New Delhi: Indian Council of Historical Research and Manohar, 205–22. Dales, G. F. (1979). ‘New Investigations at Mohenjodaro’, in G. L. Possehl (ed.), Ancient Cities of the Indus. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 192–5. Dales, G. F. (1991). ‘Some Specialized Ceramic Studies at Harappa’, in R. H. Meadow (ed.), Harappa Excavations 1986-1990. Madison, WI: Prehistory Press, 61–9. Dales, G. F. and Kenoyer, J. M. (eds) (1986). Excavations at Mohenjodaro, Pakistan: The Pottery. Philadelphia, PA: University Museum. Dales, G. F. and Kenoyer, J. M. (1991). ‘Summaries of Five Seasons of Research at Harappa (District Sahiwal, Punjab, Pakistan), 1986– 1990’, in R. H. Meadow (ed.), Harappa Excavations 1986–1990. Madison, WI: Prehistory Press, 185–262. Fentress, M. (1984). ‘Time and Process at Harappa and Mohenjodaro’, in B. B. Lal and S. P. Gupta (eds), Frontiers of the Indus Civilization. New Delhi: Books & Books, 99–104. Franke-Vogt, U. (1993). ‘Stratigraphy and Culture Process at Mohenjodaro’, in A. J. Gail and G. J. R. Mevissen (eds), South Asian Archaeology 1991. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 87–100. Jansen, M. (1984). ‘Theoretical Aspects of Structural Analyses for Mohenjodaro’, in M. Jansen and G. Urban (eds), Reports on Field Work Carried out at Mohenjodaro, Interim Reports Volume I. Aachen and Roma: RWTH and Istituto Italiano per il Medio Estremo Oriente, 39–62. Jansen, M. (1985). ‘The Significance and Value of the Excavated Registers for the Interpretation of Documented Artefacts’, in M. Jansen and G. Urban (eds), Mohenjodaro—Data Collection: The HR Area Field Register 1925–1927. Leiden: E. J. Brill, xvi–xviii. Jansen, M. and Urban, G. (eds) (1984). Reports on Field Work Carried out at Mohenjodaro, Interim Reports Volume I. Aachen and Roma: RWTH and Istituto Italiano per il Medio Estremo Oriente. Jansen, M. and Urban, G. (eds) (1985). Mohenjodaro—Data Collection: The HR Area Field Register 1925–1927. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Kenoyer, J. M. (1998). Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Mackay, E. J. H. (1931a). ‘Figurines and Model Animals’, in J. Marshall (ed.), Mohenjodaro and the Indus Civilization, Volume I. London: Arthur Probsthain, 338–55. Mackay, E. J. H. (1931b). ‘Games and Toys’, in J. Marshall (ed.), Mohenjodaro and the Indus Civilization, Volume II. London: Arthur Probsthain, 549–61. Mackay, E. J. H. (1938). Further Excavations at Mohenjodaro, Volumes I and II. New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India. Marshall, J. (1931). Mohenjodaro and the Indus Civilization, Volumes I, II and III. London: Arthur Probsthain. Meadow, R. H. (ed.) (1991). Harappa Excavations 1986–1990. Madison, WI: Prehistory Press. Meadow, R. H. and Kenoyer, J. M. (2005). ‘Excavations at Harappa 2000–2001: New Insights on Chronology and City Organization’, in C. Jarrige and V. Lefevre (eds), South Asian Archaeology 2001. Paris: CNRS, 207–25. Menon, J. and Varma, S. (2010a) ‘Children Playing and Learning: Crafting Ceramics in Ancient Indor Khera’. Asian Perspectives, 49/1: 85–109.
Material Culture and Childhood in Harappan South Asia 195 Menon, J. and Varma, S. (2010b). ‘Reading Archaeological Evidence: Ceramic and Terracotta Production at Indor Khera (200 bce–500 ce)’. Indian Historical Review, 37/2: 187–216. Mughal, M. R. (1968). ‘Excavations: Harappa, 1966 (Cemetery R-37)’. Pakistan Archaeology, 5: 63–8. Pingle, P. (1985). ‘Toys, Ayurvedic Texts and Ritual’. Bulletin of the Deccan College Research Institute, 44: 137–40. Ratnagar, S. (2006). Understanding Harappa: Civilization in the Greater Indus Valley, New Delhi: Tulika. Rogersdotter, E. (2006a). ‘Negligible Details? On a Study of Terracotta Miniature Carts from a Harappan Site in Gujarat’. Ancient Asia, 1: 81–102. Rogersdotter, E. (2006b). The Forgotten: An Approach on Harappan Toy Artefacts. Licentiate Thesis, Archaeology and Environment 20. Umeå: Department of Archaeology and Sami Studies, University of Umeå. Rogersdotter, E. (2007). ‘The Precious Pottery Disc: Harappan Toy Artefacts as Traces of Momentary Encounters’, in P. Cornell and F. Fahlander (eds), Encounters-Materialities- Confrontations: Archaeologies of Social Space and Interaction. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 220–46. Rogersdotter, E. (2008). Socializing Children’s Toys: An Archaeological Enquiry into Third Millennium bc Harappan Terracotta Remains from Gujarat, India. Saarbrucken: VDM Verlag. Rogersdotter, E. (2011). Gaming in Mohenjo-daro—An Archaeology of Unities. Doctoral Thesis. Gotarc Series B. Gothenburg Archaeological Theses 55. Göteborg: Department of Historical Studies, University of Gothenburg. Rogersdotter, E. (2013). ‘The Playful Archaeologist: An Approach to Gaming Remains from Bronze Age Mohenjo-daro’, in S. Bergerbrant and S. Sabatini (eds), Counterpoint: Essays in Archaeology and Heritage Studies in Honour of Professor Kristian Kristiansen. British Archaeological Reports International Series 2508. Oxford: Archaeopress, 429–34. Rogersdotter, E. (n.d.). ‘Expiry Date Exceeded? A Durability Test of “Old” Artefacts, Illustrated with Game Utensils from the DK- C Area, Mohenjo- daro’. Proceedings of the 20th Conference of the European Association of South Asian Archaeology and Art in Vienna, Austria, July 2010, In Review. Tosi, M., Bondioli, L., and Vidale, M. (1984). ‘Craft Activity Areas and Surface Survey at Mohenjodaro: Complementary Procedures for the Evaluation of a Restricted Site’, in M. Jansen and G. Urban (eds), Reports on Field Work Carried out at Mohenjodaro, Interim Reports Volume I. Aachen and Roma: RWTH and Istituto Italiano per il Medio Estremo Oriente, 9–37. Varma, S. and Menon, J. (2015) ‘Mapping Histories and Practices of Potters’ Households in Ancient Indor Khera (200 bce–500 ce)’, in K. Roy (ed.), Looking Within, Looking Without: Exploring Households in the Subcontinent Through Time. New Delhi: Primus, 19–45. Vats, M. S. (1940). Excavations at Harappa, Volumes I and II. New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India. Wheeler, R. E. M. (1947a). ‘Harappa 1946: The Defences and Cemetery R 37’. Ancient India, 3: 58–130. Wheeler, R. E. M. (1947b). ‘The Recording of Archaeological Strata’, Ancient India, 3: 143–50.
196 Supriya Varma Wheeler, R. E. M. (1968). The Indus Civilization (3rd edn). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wright, R. P. (1991). ‘Patterns of Technology and the Organization of Production at Harappa’, in R. H. Meadow (ed.), Harappa Excavations 1986- 1990. Madison, WI: Prehistory Press, 71–88. Wright, R. P. (2010). The Ancient Indus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chapter 11
Working-c l as s Childho od i n Nineteenth-c e nt u ry New York C i t y Rebecca Yamin
The children in New York City’s nineteenth-century working-class immigrant families were explorers. It was they, more than their parents, who had the time and the nerve to go beyond their immediate neighbourhoods. Neither constrained by regular work nor school (at least until 1874 when school became mandatory), they were free to wander the streets—to work at odd jobs, to challenge the law with minor (and probably some major) illegal acts. Working-class children made their own world outside the tenements where there was no room to play inside. Their lives were relatively unsupervised and they thrived on the freedom. In his book, The World of Our Fathers, Irving Howe begins the chapter about growing up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan with a quote from his unpublished memoir: The streets were ours. Everyplace else—home, school, shop—belonged to the grown-ups. But the streets belonged to us. We would roam through the city tasting the delights of freedom, discovering possibilities far beyond the reach of our parents. The streets taught us the deceits of commerce, introduced us to the excitement of sex, schooled us in strategies of survival, and gave us our first clear idea of what life in America was really going to be like. Howe (1976: 256)
Although Howe was remembering his early twentieth-century boyhood, the images fit what others have written about the nineteenth century. Even the reformers appreciated the energy and ingenuity of children from the overpopulated working-class districts of the burgeoning city. Famous for his book, The Dangerous Classes of New York, Charles
198 Rebecca Yamin Loring Brace, for instance, praised street boys for their toughness, high energy, generosity, and humour (Brace 1872: 98–9). He wanted to harness that resourcefulness into acceptable channels, and besides sending many to work and live on farms in the West (90,000 boys had been sent away by 1890: Boyer 1978: 98), he established dormitories, reading rooms, and industrial schools where they might learn values and skills that would lift them out of poverty. Brace and other social reformers apparently feared the potential of these clever children to grow into dangerous adults who might exercise their power at the ballot box or, worse yet, in the streets (Boyer 1978: 97). Even the middle-class Methodist ladies, who established a mission in the heart of Five Points in 1850, saw something positive in the district’s children. While characterizing the neighbourhood as ‘the utterly abandoned, profligate refuse of humanity’ (Ladies of the Mission 1854: viii), they recognized children as ‘not only depraved little human beings, but as children, their young hearts beating with childish hopes and fears’ (Ladies of the Mission 1854: 153). More to the point is the Methodist ladies’ description of children who ‘dutifully sweep the street for pennies’ and one little girl, in particular, who refused to take money from a minister she had heard preach in the morning. They saw in these acts a sign of children’s potential to grow into moral human beings (Ladies of the Mission 1854: 168). Children were a challenge for the reformers because the reformers’ own middle- class values and expectations were so different from those of the children’s working- class parents. Working-class parents needed their children to contribute to the family income (Stansell 1987: 53). Both boys and girls worked at a variety of low paying trades like crossing sweeping for girls, boot blacking, horse holding, and newspaper selling for boys. They were helpers to hucksters or hucksters themselves and even very young children scavenged. Scavenging meant finding fuel, food, or anything else—loose cotton from bales on the wharves, shreds of canvas and rags, broken bits of hardware, bottles and bits of broken glass that might be peddled to junk dealers who sold them to manufacturers for new uses (Stansell 1987: 50). Girls were also expected to take care of the youngest children in the family and both boys and girls ran errands. They toted water up tenement stairs and hauled slops back down. They fetched wood for the fire, thread for the sewing, and potatoes for dinner. These were anything but the idle (though clever) urchins portrayed by reformers and they even managed to find time to play, a universal part of growing up (Chudacoff 2007; Wardle and Wardle 2007). The challenge for urban archaeologists is to find material evidence of working-class children’s activities. While middle-class archaeological sites in New York City dating to the second half of the nineteenth century have produced numbers of toys and other artefacts relating to children (e.g. Wall 1991; Fitts and Yamin 1996; Cantwell and Wall 2001), the one working-class site that has been thoroughly studied in the city produced very few. Of the hundreds of thousands of artefacts recovered on the Federal (now Moynihan) Courthouse Site at Foley Square, a negligible percentage related directly to children (Yamin 2000). The site (Figure 11.1), once part of the notorious Five Points neighbourhood, mentioned above as the focus of the Methodist Ladies of the Mission’s efforts, swarmed with children, but they left very little physical evidence behind.
Working-class Childhood in 19th-century New York City 199
Figure 11.1 Aerial view of excavation done on the Courthouse (Five Points, New York, USA) site in 1991, by Historic Conservation and Interpretation, Inc.
The Five Points data The Federal Courthouse site at Foley Square in lower Manhattan is the only substantial working-class site that has been excavated and analysed in New York City. The preliminary documentary research and excavation were done by Historical Conservation and Interpretation, Inc. (HCI), a now defunct New Jersey-based firm, in the early 1990s and analysed by John Milner Associates, Inc. (Ingle, Howson, and Rutsch 1990; Rutsch and staff 1992; Yamin 2000, 2001). The site included 14 historic lots. Fifty backyard features were identified and 22, most of them truncated privy shafts, were completely excavated and analysed (Figure 11.2). The artefact inventory for all 22 features was reviewed for the presence of toys and other things possibly relating to children for this study (Yamin 2000, vol. IV). Deposits, including the largest number of relevant artefacts and representing different decades, were chosen for inclusion here and are discussed individually below. The deposits came from two lots on Orange Street where many of the residents were identified as Eastern European Jews, and two lots on Pearl Street where most of the inhabitants were newly arrived Irish immigrants. Table 11.1 shows the features, terminus post quem (TPQ) dates, and toys recovered from each.
200 Rebecca Yamin
Figure 11.2 Plan view showing archaeological features identified on the Five Points (New York, USA) site.
Table 11.1 Toys recovered from selected features on the Courthouse (Five Points, New York, USA) site. Feature
TPQ
Marbles
J
1850
14
J
1870
16
O
1860
AG AL
Dice
Dolls
Tea sets
1
—
1
Domino
1
—
5
—
—
1
1840
23
—
1
5
1860
4
—
—
7
The Irish on Pearl Street A cesspool (Feature J) behind a three-story tenement at 472 Pearl Street included two dateable analytical units, one to about 1850 and the other to 1870. In 1850, the tenement held 18 households, all but one of them headed by adults who had been born in Ireland (US Federal Census 1850). There were 99 residents in the tenement, 29 of them children
Working-class Childhood in 19th-century New York City 201 between the ages of less than one and 18, the largest number (17) age five or under. The adult population represented the generation that had just arrived in New York and begun to have babies in their new homes. Toys found in the associated deposit included 13 marbles, most of them made of limestone (Figure 11.3), one piece from a child’s tea- set, and a die, which could have related to an adult game as well as a child’s. There were also 18 families in the tenement in 1870, again all but one headed by an adult born in Ireland (US Federal Census 1870). The total number of residents was 96, slightly fewer than in 1850, but more than half of them (54) were children between the ages of less than one and 15. In this case, the children were more evenly spread among age groups: 15 between zero and five; 26 between six and ten; 13 between 11 and 15. They were evenly divided between girls and boys. Toys found included 16 marbles, a doll, and a domino (again probably associated with an adult game rather than a child’s). Ten of the marbles were limestone, but there were also four made of porcelain and two made of glass. Needless to say, that is very few toys for so many children and while I have argued elsewhere that any toys at all indicate a sacrifice on the part of parents who struggled to put food on the table (Yamin 2002), it is more than likely that these children’s play did not depend on store bought toys. Another assemblage (Feature O) was found associated with the tenants upstairs from a saloon at 474 Pearl Street. Two households were listed in the 1860 Census (US Federal Census 1860), one headed by a man born in England (identified as a cook, possibly for the saloon downstairs) and the other by an undertaker born in Ireland. There were 13
Figure 11.3 Marbles, dominos, and a die recovered from Feature J on the Five Points (New York, USA) site. Photograph by Rebecca Yamin.
202 Rebecca Yamin residents, six of them children between the ages of less than one and 15, equally divided between girls and boys. Toys found in the privy behind the saloon included three marbles (one porcelain, one glass, and one limestone), and a piece from one children’s tea- set made of hand-painted moulded porcelain and another of whiteware. There were also three child-sized mugs in this collection and a number of coins, maybe lost in the saloon or possibly a child’s collection. Two of the coins dated to 1794, one to 1793, and the others to the mid-1850s. It is the eighteenth-century ones that suggest a possible collection. The child-sized mugs also dated earlier than the TPQ of 1860 and they, too, may have belonged to someone’s collection. It has been suggested that many of the child-sized artefacts found by archaeologists were, at least in the eighteenth century, the possessions of adults and this may also be true for the nineteenth century (Chudacoff 2007: 26).
The Eastern Europeans on Orange Street The largest assemblage of toys came from a privy behind the multi-family dwelling at 10/12 Orange Street. Five families are listed in the 1840 census, one headed by clothier, Jacob Eckardt, another by slater, Thomas Cogan, one by coppersmith, Henry Lichtreker, and two more by Frederick Peck and Joseph Belmer, occupations unknown (US Federal Census 1840). Seven children are enumerated in the 1840 census, which unfortunately does not include the names of household members other than the head. Robert Goodman was taxed on a tavern at No. 10 Orange Street from 1809 to 1845 (New York City Department Records) and an indictment against a ‘disorderly house’—‘a rest for prostitutes and others of ill fame and name’—was issued in 1843 against the basement saloon at No. 12. The source of the toys is therefore unclear although the privy deposit yielded many things that most likely derived from the brothel when it was closed down (Yamin 2005). Toys included 23 marbles (14 limestone, one marble, two porcelain, and six stoneware) and parts from three children’s tea-sets. As mentioned above, the tea-sets may well have belonged to an adult collector. One was made of sepia coloured transfer- printed whiteware, one was red transfer-printed whiteware, and one was glass. There were also three piggy banks in this assemblage and three child-sized cups, one with the following sentimental poem: Who turned aside her aged head And even tears of gladness shed Because I gave her beggar bread My grandmother. Who came to see me far and near With cakes and toys throughout the year And call’d me her sweet little dear My grandmother.
Working-class Childhood in 19th-century New York City 203 Another of the cups was inscribed ‘For dutiful behavior’, and a third bore the name ‘Ellen’. The cups, in particular, distinguish this assemblage from the others discussed. Like similarly inscribed cups and various dishes found on middle-class sites, they suggest a concern with inculcating correct values in children. While a child’s cup inscribed with the name ‘John’ was found in the 1850 deposit on the Irish tenement site (472 Pearl Street), the relative rarity of these didactic artefacts on the Courthouse site reflects the difference between working-class and middle-class child-rearing practices in nineteenth-century New York. As illustrated in Wall’s chapter on daily life in the nineteenth-century city (Wall 2001a: 206), children’s cups with didactic messages were pretty omnipresent on middle-class sites where children were being raised. It is interesting that the most didactic cups found at Five Points probably belonged to the children of prostitutes. Elsewhere I have discussed how the prostitutes at No. 12 Orange Street seemed to be emulating middle-class styles to please their clients and they may well have applied these newly acquired values to the raising of their children (Yamin 2005). A later assemblage from Orange Street came from one of several privies behind a multi-family dwelling at No. 4. There were six households in the building in 1860, one headed by William Haas, a shoemaker born in Germany, four headed by men born in Poland, two of them tailors, and one headed by a shoemaker born in New York. One of the Polish household heads identified himself as a merchant and his household included a boarder, Hannah Stanley, born in Maine, who was a servant. She was probably a servant in someone else’s household, but the record is unclear. The total number of residents at 4 Orange Street was 26, eight of them children, most under the age of five. There were only four marbles in this assemblage, three of them made of porcelain and a fourth of limestone. Unusual was the variety of child’s tea-sets, one made of hard paste porcelain with overglaze polychrome decoration (very elegant), one of moulded porcelain, two of transfer-printed whiteware, and one of clear glazed redware. This surely suggests an adult collection rather than toys. There were also two ceramic artefacts identified as possible miniature mantle pieces (for a dollhouse?), one made of porcelain and the other of glass. These, too, may have been part of an adult collection. Another privy feature on the same lot produced a couple of marbles and part of a porcelain doll.
Play without toys In his book, Children at Play (2007), Howard P. Chudacoff argues for the importance of play in all periods of American history. He does not believe that store-bought toys were ever necessary or even preferable to improvised toys and found objects made by children themselves. An 1896 survey of 2,000 children in Worcester, Massachusetts, cited by Chudacoff, found that only 87 boys and 34 girls named commercialized games as their favourite kind of play; 621 girls owned dolls but only 233 considered doll play their favourite pastime, and only 27 boys mentioned toy trains as favourites while two
204 Rebecca Yamin mentioned toy soldiers. Improvised toys—clothes pins as soldiers and dolls made out of rags, for instance—are more versatile than store-bought figures dressed in specific ways. Even the frozen charlottes—small, plain, porcelain dolls with mostly immovable limbs—that are the commonest kind of doll found on nineteenth-century sites, leave more to the imagination than already clothed dolls. The paucity of data relating to children from the Five Points features does not mean that their parents did not care for them or that they were deprived of their childhoods by hard lives in poverty. If Chudacoff is right about the universality and necessity of play (and he is not the only scholar to make the argument), we have to look elsewhere for evidence. Photographs by late nineteenth-/early twentieth-century photographers Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine show boys playing baseball, stoop ball, stick ball, and leap frog (Figure 11.4). When they are not minding younger siblings, girls jump rope, play potsie (hopscotch), and jacks. Children of both sexes are pictured climbing in and out of barrels and playing in empty lots full of discarded junk. Many photographs show boys playing marbles and some show them shooting dice. Marbles, for which there is ample archaeological evidence, was an omnipresent pastime for boys and adaptable to many situations. Besides the common game of shooting into a circle, there was a game called ‘Long Taw’ or ‘Follow’ that consisted of flicking marbles along the gutter, one behind the other. If the opponent was able to hit the marble ahead,
Figure 11.4 Lewis Hine photograph of children using the street as a playground. Courtesy of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, New York (USA).
Working-class Childhood in 19th-century New York City 205 he got to take it and an extra challenge was to keep the marbles from going down into gutter drains (Roud 2010: 214–24). This game was good for playing on the way to somewhere else—to school, after it became obligatory, and while running errands for family or employers earlier in the century. The lives of nineteenth-century New York working-class children were complicated, and probably exciting. They creatively combined work with play in the streets which, as already mentioned, frightened well-meaning reformers who saw the streets as ‘anarchic’ and the influence of peer groups as untrustworthy (Chudacoff 2007: 73). The combination may well have been at least as good (and probably better) preparation for the complexity of adult life than the formal institutions including orphanages, settlement houses, playgrounds, and the YMCAs and YWCAs that were founded in New York in the late nineteenth century to presumably ‘provide safe alternatives to the unsupervised . . . activities that they [reformers] believed were endangering youth’ (Chudacoff 2007: 71). The photographs of children in such formal settings look considerably less happy than photographs of them playing, and even working, on their own.
Education The lessons of the street may have been hard for outsiders to appreciate, but as Irving Howe has so effectively pointed out, they were great preparation for the realities of adult life. How children learned to read and write before school was required is a little less clear. Evidence for writing—slates and slate pencils—was found in many of the Five Points features, but whether they were used to teach children or keep track of family expenditures cannot be determined. Table 11.2 shows the incidence of writing related objects for selected features on the Courthouse site. Table 11.2 Writing slates and slate pencils found in the Courthouse (Five Points, New York, USA) features. Feature
TPQ
Slates
Slate pencils
Ink bottles
AG
1840
2
11
—
J
1850
11
1
AL
1860
3
1
O
1860
9
10*
J
1870
7
1
1
—
* Four of these bottles were master inks (full sized bottles with pouring spouts) and were probably present in this assemblage because there was a saloon on the ground floor where a lot of writing may have been done requiring frequent refilling of ink bottles.
206 Rebecca Yamin Previous research relating to working-class attitudes toward education in the nineteenth century indicates that parents wanted to control the education of their children. They were interested in transferring their own values to their progeny rather than having them exposed to middle-class (and basically Protestant) ideas (Gish 1992; Yamin 2002). The census research conducted for the Five Points project indicated that practically all of the immigrant Irish parents were literate as were the Eastern European ones. The adults could have helped their children learn to read and write although religious institutions, and later more secular ones, established nearby may have provided instruction. The literature is peculiarly silent on the subject of teaching basic skills, instead emphasizing social and moral improvement. The purpose of Robert Hartley’s Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor (AICP) was to ‘inculcate temperance, frugality, and industry’ (Boyer 1978: 92). The Five Points Mission, established by Methodist ladies in 1850, included Sunday school rooms and Brace’s Children’s Aid Society established reading rooms, but no consulted source mentions the teaching of reading and arithmetic. Lewis Morris Pease’s House of Industry at Five Points taught trades, but maybe it taught reading too. When public school was required after 1874, Five Points parents dutifully sent both male and female children, at least up to the age of 15 and some to 18. Out of the 245 households included in the Courthouse block sample and listed in the 1880 US census, 115 girls and 86 boys were ‘at school’ (US Federal Census 1880). Some older children (the youngest 14 and the oldest 18) worked ‘at a carpentry shop’, ‘at a feather store’, at ‘flowers’, ‘tobacco’, and ‘paper boxes’, but the majority, by far, went to school. No children were listed ‘at school’ in the earlier census records nor were jobs specified next to their names. It is, of course, possible that some of the children on the block attended parochial schools before public schools were universally required. As early as the 1840s, Irish Catholics resisted public school curricula, which were ‘indisputably Protestant’ (McNickle 1996: 348). In 1840, John Hughes, eventually the city’s Irish Catholic archbishop, allied himself with New York State’s governor, William H. Seward, to argue for ‘the establishment of schools in which they [children] may be instructed by teachers speaking the same language as themselves and professing the same faith’ (Hershkowitz 1996: 30). Except for Jews, however, the general public preferred the ideal of non-sectarian public education. The Protestant dominated Public School Society agreed to eliminate anti-Catholic material and ‘prohibited the use of the common school fund by religious societies’ (Hershkowitz 1996: 31). Archbishop Hughes went on to establish a system of Catholic schools funded by the city’s many Catholic parishioners (McNickle 1996: 348).
From a child’s point of view While it is clear that working-class children in nineteenth-century New York had hard lives, they also enjoyed a good deal of independence. If we are to believe Irving Howe and other first person accounts, they relished their freedom and learned at least as much in the street as they would have in school. From a child’s point of view—the point of view
Working-class Childhood in 19th-century New York City 207 we are asked to take more and more into account (e.g. Bluebond-Langner and Corbin 2007)—the lives of these children were complicated, interesting, and exciting. They were also the concern of the adult world. Children needed to be educated to become respectable members of society and although working-class parents required the wages of their children to make ends meet, middle-class reformers wanted them to go to school. They also, of course, wanted them to learn values that suited the needs of the industrial capitalist culture. As anthropologist Jules Henry pointed out long ago, American education is about learning to compete in a competitive world, a fact he ‘deplored’ but understood as necessary (Henry 1963: 3). While we could look at the paucity of toys from the Courthouse site features as a sad reflection of children’s impoverished lives in the tenements, the toys—with the exception of marbles—may more accurately be seen as parents’ attempts to provide their children with the things that society thought were appropriate—gender specific items that would prepare them for grown-up gender specific roles (Calvert 1992: 103–10). In fact, many studies have shown that children prefer toys and games they invent themselves to ones that are bought in stores, as true in the twentieth century as it was in the nineteenth. Nineteenth-century New York City’s throngs of children played mainly in the streets and in empty lots. They made up myriad games with the simplest of equipment—balls, bats, sticks, stoops. They leapt over fire hydrants and crawled in and out of barrels. A good deal of what they did was probably dangerous, far more dangerous than the increasingly confined play that was expected of middle-class children. Working-class kids grew up in a different world from their middle-class counterparts, but their parents also lived in different worlds, divided by work and class. Wage earning work also distinguished working-class children’s experience. Much has been written about the exploitation of child labour and its evils, but less attention has been paid to how children felt about their work. The children who Katherine Boo (2012) writes about in her recent book about Annawadi, a contemporary slum outside the airport in Mumbai (India) are proud of their work. They abhor the living conditions as much as anyone else, but while some go to school others spend long days scavenging for saleable goods just as children in nineteenth-century New York did. The book focuses on a young boy who is the major support of his family and, in fact, has done so well that they are able to make improvements on their house and hope for a better future. In New York, children did all sorts of things and they surely got a sense of satisfaction at being able to handle them all. Howe (1976: 260) describes the many jobs of a young boy named Henry Klein on the Lower East Side, who peddled matches at the age of six and a bit later, with his ten-year-old brother, Isadore, shined shoes at the Houston Street ferry. When he became experienced he peddled with a professional named Sammy Cohen, working after school and earning twenty five cents an hour extra when he taught English to his boss. He sold vegetables, fruit, and fish, he hauled coal and wood from the Rheinfrank coalyard at the foot of East Third Street and ice from the Fifth Street dock.
208 Rebecca Yamin Surely, this boy felt a sense of pride in his work and he clearly paid for his keep. These New York children epitomize the transition between the days when everyone in the family worked as a cooperative unit and the separation of home and workplace that was essential to the rise of industrial capitalism (e.g. Wall 2001b; Matthews 2010: 85–115). Working-class children in nineteenth-century New York were not yet captives of the domestic sphere. Unlike middle-class children, they had not become what Christopher Matthews (2010: 113) has called ‘symbolic representatives of respectable domesticity and parenting’. Instead, they were occasional workers for the benefit of the family and part-time players on their own. To an extent, they were raising themselves and at the same time learning how to fit into a capitalist economy. Their experience was different from the increasingly sheltered experience of middle-class children, a difference that public education would ultimately diminish. School, however, did not (and does not) completely erase different class attitudes towards discipline, work, play, and any number of other things. They may have acted as ‘agents in their own history’ (Chudacoff 2007: xiv), but they had to negotiate between many worlds—the world they created for themselves, worlds that others created for them, and worlds in concert with families, workplaces, and neighbourhoods (Baxter 2005: 24; Bluebond-Langner and Corbin 2007: 245). Immigrant, working-class children in nineteenth-century New York City did all of these things and forged the future in the process. They learned the ropes and led the way.
References Unpublished sources New York City Department Records. Assessed Valuation of Real Estate, 1798–1979. . US Federal Census 1840. US Federal Census 1850. US Federal Census 1860. US Federal Census 1870. US Federal Census 1880.
Published sources Baxter, J. E. (2005). The Archaeology of Childhood, Children, Gender, and Material Culture. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press. Bluebond-Langner, M. and Corbin, J. E. (2007). ‘Challenges and Opportunities in the Analysis of Childhoods: An Introduction to Children, Childhood, and Childhood Studies’. American Anthropologist, 109/2: 241–6. Boo, K. (2012). Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity. New York, NY: Random House. Boyer, P. (1978). Urban Masses and Moral Order in America, 1820–1920. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Working-class Childhood in 19th-century New York City 209 Brace, C. L. (1872). The Dangerous Classes of New York, and Twenty Years’ Work Among Them. Silver Spring (facsimile edn 1973). National Association of Social Workers. New York, NY: Wynkoop. Calvert, K. (1992). Children in the House: The Material Culture of Early Childhood, 1600–1900. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press. Cantwell, A. M. and Wall, D. D. (2001). Unearthing Gotham: The Archaeology of New York City. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Chudacoff, H. P. (2007). Children at Play: An American History. New York, NY: New York University Press. Fitts, R. K. and Yamin, R. (1996). The Archaeology of Domesticity in Victorian Brooklyn. Report prepared by John Milner Associates, Inc. for the Atlantic Housing Corporation, Brooklyn, NY. On file, New York City Landmarks Commission. Gish, C. (1992). ‘The Children’s Strikes: Socialization and Class Formation in Paterson, 1824– 36’. New Jersey History, 110/3/4: 21–38. Henry, J. (1963). Culture Against Man. New York, NY: Random House. Hershkowitz, L. (1996). ‘The Irish and the Emerging City: Settlement to 1844’, in R. H. Bayor and T. M. Meagher (eds), The New York Irish. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 11–47. Howe, I. (1976). World of Our Fathers: The Journey of the East European Jews to America and the Life They Found and Made. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Ingle, M., Howson, J., and Rutsch, E. S. (1990). A Stage IA Cultural Resources Survey of the Proposed Foley Square Project, Manhattan, New York. Prepared by Historic Conservation and Interpretation, Inc. for Edwards and Kelsey Engineers, Inc. Manuscript on file, Landmarks Preservation Commission, New York, NY. Ladies of the Mission (1854). The Old Brewery and the New Mission House at Five Points. New York, NY: Stringer and Townsend. Matthews, C. N. (2010). The Archaeology of American Capitalism. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. McNickle, C. (1996). ‘When New York Was Irish, and After’, in R. H. Bayor and T. J. Meagher (eds), The New York Irish. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 337–56. Roud, S. (2010). The Lore of the Playground: One Hundred Years of Children’s Games, Rhymes, and Traditions. New York, NY: Random House. Rutsch, E. S. and staff (1992). A Research Design for the Broadway Block including an In-Progress Fieldwork Summary Report. Prepared by Historic Conservation and Interpretation, Inc. for Edwards and Kelsey Engineers, Inc. Stansell, C. (1987). City of Women: Sex and Class in New York, 1789–1860. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Wall, D. D. (1991). ‘Sacred Dinners and Secular Teas: Constructing Domesticity in Mid-19th- Century New York’. Historical Archaeology, 25/4: 69–81. Wall, D. D. (2001a). ‘Daily Life in the Nineteenth-Century City’, in A. M. Cantwell (ed.), Unearthing Gotham: The Archaeology of New York City. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 206–23. Wall, D. D. (2001b). ‘Afterword: Becoming New York: The Five Points Neighborhood’. Historical Archaeology, 35/3: 133–5. Wardle, D. and Wardle, K. A. (2007). ‘The Child’s Cache at Assiros Toumba, Macedonia’, in S. Crawford and G. Shepherd (eds), Children, Childhood and Society. IAA Interdisciplinary
210 Rebecca Yamin Series Vol. I: Studies in Archaeology, History, Literature and Art. British Archaeology Reports International Series 1696. Oxford: Archaeopress, 29–44. Yamin, R. (ed.) (2000). Tales of Five Points: Working-Class Life in Nineteenth-Century New York. Six volumes. Prepared by John Milner Associates, Inc. for Edwards and KelceyEngineers, Inc. and General Services Administration, Region 2. Yamin, R. (2001). Introduction: Becoming New York: The Five Points Neighborhood. Historical Archaeology, 35/3: 1–5. Yamin, R. (2002). ‘Children’s Strikes, Parent’s Rights: Paterson and Five Points’. International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 6/2: 113–26. Yamin, R. (2005). ‘Wealthy, Free, and Female: Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century New York’. Historical Archaeology, 39/1: 4–18.
SECTION IV
LEARNING, S O C IA L I Z AT ION , AND TRAINING
Chapter 12
L earning th e To ol s of Survival in t h e T hu l e an d D orset C u lt u re s of Arctic C a na da Robert W. Park
The Arctic part of the North American continent has seen some of the most fascinating and demanding human adaptations anywhere, culminating in those of the Inuit who live there today. This region is characterized by persistence of cold (long winters and short cool summers), permafrost (year-round frozen ground), large seasonal differences in the amount of sunlight, few or no trees, and a minimum of plant foods directly consumable by humans. To survive in this environment the Inuit peoples and their predecessors, of necessity, relied on technology and on animal resources to a greater extent than recent hunter-gatherer populations anywhere else in the world. As outlined in this chapter, the ethnographic and archaeological records of these peoples and this region present fascinating opportunities for studying the nature of childhood in prehistoric hunter-gatherer populations.
Culture history In Arctic Canada and Greenland, the predecessors of the Inuit were the people of the Dorset and Thule cultures. Their origins go back approximately 4,300 years to cultures that belong to the ‘Arctic Small Tool tradition’. The tradition’s very earliest sites are found in Alaska, and its later widespread distribution appears to have been the result of one of the most geographically dramatic population expansions in recent human history: the colonization from Alaska of the Canadian Arctic and Greenland. There the descendants of the Arctic Small Tool tradition had by 2,700 BP (years before present) developed a way of life and a technology that was sufficiently transformed that archaeologists give them a new name: Dorset. Sites of the Dorset culture are found all the way from Victoria
214 Robert W. Park
Figure 12.1 Map showing locations mentioned in the text. The cross-hatched area shows the regions of land and sea ice occupied by prehistoric Arctic populations. Drawing by Robert W. Park.
Island in the west to Greenland in the northeast and to Newfoundland in the southeast (Figure 12.1). Dorset culture persisted until at least 1,200 BP, but during the centuries when it flourished in Arctic Canada and Greenland, cultural developments amongst the Arctic Small Tool tradition descendants living on the Siberian and Alaskan sides of the Bering Strait eventually led to the emergence of what is known as Thule culture approximately 2,100 BP. Economically, the Thule differed from Dorset most significantly by adding the open-water hunting of large sea mammals from skin boats. Sometime between 1,100 and 800 BP, small groups of Thule pioneers appear to have moved eastward from Alaska into the Canadian Arctic and Greenland and colonized that entire region. Practically all of the Dorset had already died out prior to the arrival of the Thule, so there was no significant interaction between the peoples of these two cultures. Consequently, from Alaska to Greenland, the diverse Inuit groups who greeted Europeans when the latter eventually entered those regions were the direct biological and cultural descendants of the Thule people, and not of the Dorset (Dumond 1987; Park 1993, 2008, 2014; McGhee 1996).
Ethnography Prior to the middle of the twentieth century, the ways of life of the Inuit, and of their Thule and Dorset predecessors, involved very complex technological and social adaptations to the region and its resources. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to describe in all their variety the diversity of Inuit adaptations, but a summary is useful in order to
Learning the Tools of Survival 215 understand the skills that Dorset and Thule children needed to acquire as they grew. The following capsule ethnographic sketch most closely reflects the traditional ways of life of the Inuit who inhabited the central part of the Canadian Arctic. By early or mid-summer, the sea ice had largely melted and the sun remained above the horizon continuously. Many groups would be camping in tents along the coast, hunting or fishing from the remaining ice edge or from the shore, or using skin boats to hunt sea mammals on the open water. Those animals, which could vary in size from 100 kg ringed seals to 60,000 kg bowhead whales, were hunted using throwing harpoons and drag floats. Ducks and geese would be caught using darts and nets at this time of year, especially during the moult when they cannot fly. Later, some people would move inland to hunt caribou with bow and arrow while the animals’ skins were in the best condition for winter clothing, whose manufacture was a vital task in the late summer and autumn. At that season, people would also use weirs to entrap fish, such as Arctic char, to be speared as they returned from the ocean to overwinter in lakes. By early winter, everyone would return to the coast to await the sea ice becoming strong enough for travel. At this time of year, they either lived in semi-subterranean houses constructed of wood, boulders, turf, and whale bones, or in snow houses (igloos). By then the sun would rise above the horizon for no more than a few hours per day, and in the northerly parts of the Inuit region there would be a midwinter period of up to three months when the sun remained below the horizon. Winter travel, both for camp movement and for hunting, was by dog sled. In regions where the ocean froze completely, people had to rely on ringed seals hunted at their breathing holes for the entirety of their winter diet and for fuel for heat and light. That mode of hunting necessitated moving out onto the sea ice and living in snow houses, moving camp at least every two weeks throughout the winter as the seals in the immediate vicinity of each campsite were killed. Because breathing-hole sealing was a low- return form of hunting, very complex rules governed the distribution of the meat and blubber from seals caught at this time of year to ensure that the food and fuel from each seal was shared as widely and evenly as possible among the people. Furthermore, the largest population aggregations took place at this time of year, maximizing the number of hunters participating and ensuring the widest sharing network. By the early summer, the snow on the ice was melting and the ringed seals emerged from their breathing holes to bask on the ice as the days grew longer. They are very wary at this time, however, so approaching one close enough to hit it with a throwing harpoon required more skill than most other modes of hunting. As the time of sea ice breakup approached, groups would move off the sea ice to locations on the coast, to begin the cycle again. It was into this challenging kind of hunting and gathering way life that Inuit children needed to be enculturated. Undoubtedly, the most important resource for coping successfully was knowledge: knowledge of the environment, knowledge of animals and their behaviours, and the social knowledge necessary to participate in the complex exchange networks that facilitated survival. Thus, knowledge was the most vital tool of survival for Inuit and their predecessors. However, in traditional Inuit society, the material culture that was needed to carry out all these activities was characterized
216 Robert W. Park by a very large number of functionally specific implement types. The functional specificity of Inuit material culture appears to have characterized that of their prehistoric Thule ancestors as well, to such an extent that archaeologist Moreau Maxwell (1985: 262) once described them as ‘perhaps the most gadget-oriented people of prehistory, nearly as much so as we are today.’ Thus, from a strictly practical perspective, young Inuit needed to learn how to use a very wide range of implements, as well as how to manufacture them.
Childhood and learning Our ability to understand how Inuit children learned their tools of survival is facilitated by the detailed ethnographic information on Inuit societies that was collected and published in the twentieth century. Insights based on these sources can inform archaeological interpretations, although, as noted elsewhere (Park 2005), they are most useful for the Thule culture, the immediate ancestors of the Inuit. Ethnography provides archaeologically useful insights into three aspects of childhood in traditional Inuit societies: their conception of the nature of childhood itself, their conception of how children learn, and the kinds of activities in which Inuit children took part. Starting with their conception of childhood, in Inuit society an infant was not seen as a new individual. He or she was given the name of someone who had died recently and it was believed that the child would gain, along with the name itself, a ‘name spirit’ that would imbue him/her with some of the attributes of the previous owner or owners of that name (Guemple 1979: 48–9, 1988: 134–5). After a child was named, ‘the business of socialization becomes one of assisting the new member (who is really an old member) to realise the potential of his or her pre-established identity’ (Guemple 1988: 135). The manner in which Inuit children were expected to learn was completely consistent with that conception of personhood. Children are presumed to be socially whole and complete from shortly after birth and so are believed to require not so much to be taught as to be guided and directed by adults. What Europeans would undertake to invoke in children by ‘teaching’ Inuit attempt to accomplish by drawing out that which the child is believed already to know. Guemple (1988: 134)
In fact, both ‘teaching’ in the didactic instruction sense that Western societies are familiar with, and the asking of questions by children seeking knowledge, were frowned upon in traditional Inuit society. Children were expected to acquire knowledge and skills almost entirely through observation and experimentation (see also Cooney Williams, Chapter 17 of this volume). Honigmann and Honigmann (1953: 39–40) describe the learning process as follows: ‘Education constitutes an informal, leisurely process in which the child adopts the example set by elders. Abundant opportunity allows observation of such examples. The acts the child sees are those which, depending on sex, he will duplicate upon maturity. All through childhood and adolescence learning gradually accrues through doing.’
Learning the Tools of Survival 217 The kinds of activities in which children participated included familiar pastimes, such as various ball games, running races, hide and seek, and tag (Boas 1888: 570; Birket-Smith 1929: 291–2; Jenness 1922: 218–19). However, outside observers consistently commented on how many childhood activities mirrored normal adult activities. Diamond Jenness (1922: 170) expressed this most succinctly when he wrote ‘one of their favourite pastimes is to carry out, in miniature, some of the duties they will have to perform when they grow up.’ Thus, much learning took place in the course of this kind of play. Jean Briggs (1974: 269) notes that children begin playing with objects in this fashion from a very early age: Even before she can walk, a girl plays at backpacking dolls, puppies, or any other object that can be conveniently stuffed into the back of her shirt or parka, the way her mother carries her, or, later, her younger sibling. These toys are nursed, toileted, bounced to sleep, and in every way treated exactly as a real baby is treated.
Playing house was a common activity for all children. Jenness (1922: 219) states that ‘Both boys and girls play at building snow houses. In summer, with only pebbles to work with, they simply lay out the ground plans, but in winter they borrow their parents’ snow knives and make complete houses on a miniature scale.’ Playing house also took place within the ‘real’ house. Jenness (1922: 170) observed that ‘little girls often have tiny lamps in the corners of their huts over which they will cook some meat to share with their playmates.’ The most commonly mentioned kind of play apparently restricted to girls was playing with small dolls (Boas 1888: 571; Jenness 1922: 219; Birket-Smith 1945: 213), but Briggs (1974: 270) specifically notes that ‘girls as well as boys may play at driving dogsleds’ and children of both sexes are reported as playing at hunting. Caribou were the most important land mammal to most Inuit societies, and the most common way to hunt them was with bow and arrow. Jenness (1922: 219) observed children ‘setting up rows of stones and turf, injukhuit, as for a caribou drive, and digging shallow pits, tallut, from which they launched their shafts at imaginary deer’. Sea mammal hunting with harpoons was also a topic of play. Birket-Smith (1924: 420) notes that ‘Boys sometimes have a miniature harpoon head, ikiortínguaq, according to what I have been told used in the manner that the boy thrusts it into the seal killed and helps to pull it ashore.’ Boas (1901: 111) provides a detailed description of a game based on harpooning ringed seals through their winter breathing holes: Boys play hunting seals. Each of them has a small harpoon and a number of pieces of seal-skin with many holes. Each piece of skin represents a seal. Each of the boys also has a hip-bone of the seal. Then one boy moves the piece of skin which represents a seal under the hole in the hip-bone, which latter represents the blowing-hole in the ice. While moving the piece of skin about under the bone, the boys blow like seals. Whoever catches with the little harpoon the piece of skin in one of the holes retains it, and the boy who catches the last of the pieces of skin goes on in turn with his seals.
218 Robert W. Park
The material culture used by children As should be evident from these few examples, many of these childhood activities required the use of material culture. Children were allowed to play with their parents’ implements in play from a very early age. For example: Infants and young children are allowed to explore their environments to the limits of their physical capabilities and with minimal interference from adults. Thus if the child picks up a hazardous object, parents generally leave it to explore the dangers on its own. The child is presumed to know what it is doing even if it is incapable of executing its designs because of physical limitations. Guemple (1988: 137)
At a slightly older age, experimentation with adults’ implements to perform real tasks on the child’s own volition appears to have been an expected part of a child’s education: ‘Another way of acquiring skills is through experimenting with the camp tools that constantly lie at the child’s disposal. An eight-year-old boy amuses himself splitting wood with a long handled axe. A girl of the same age uses her mother’s semilunar knife and sewing equipment to repair some item of clothing’ (Honigmann and Honigmann 1953: 40). The use by children of these ‘real’ implements is likely to be very difficult to identify in the archaeological record, although it is conceivable that such use could result in characteristic ‘novice’ patterns of breakage due to inexpert use of the implements, or the loss of such implements in unusual locations, away from where they would normally be used, stored, or discarded. In addition to the ‘real’ implements that children experimented with, there was also the impressive range of miniature material culture specifically intended for use by Inuit children in their activities. Miniature versions of the following items are specifically mentioned in early ethnographic accounts as having been used by children: sledges, kayaks, umiaks (large skin boats), cooking pots, snow knives, sleeping mattresses, and hunting implements of all kinds (Boas 1888: 571; Birket-Smith 1945: 214). The miniature implements would have varied conceptually and functionally, and the process of their manufacture would undoubtedly have varied as well. The very smallest of them were likely playthings that ‘functioned’ only in a child’s imagination. Many of these were presumably manufactured by adults and included lamps and other paraphernalia associated with playing house, including dolls. Larger miniatures were functional for various purposes, even if not precisely the same purposes as their full-sized counterparts. For example, the small harpoons used in the harpooning game described by Boas (1901: 111) were functional for harpooning the sealskin seals, but were not functional for harpooning real seals. The small harpoons described by Birket-Smith (1945: 214) apparently functioned adequately for harpooning real, but already-killed seals. Jenness (1922: 170, 219) explicitly describes the children’s fathers making ‘bows and arrows for them suited to their strength’ and observed children playing with them. The size of
Learning the Tools of Survival 219 these bows and arrows apparently varied with the age of the children, but they clearly functioned sufficiently for the arrows to be launched. What made the bows and arrows toys in this context was only the imaginary nature of the caribou at which they were being fired. Such detailed ethnographic descriptions of adults manufacturing implements specifically for the use of children are rare; no similar descriptions of children manufacturing implements for their own use could be found. However, as Crawford and Lewis (2008: 12) have noted, ‘there is an important conceptual and social difference between artefacts utilized and adapted by children for play, and artefacts made by adults specifically for children to play with.’ The manufacture by children of items for their own play, rather than just using or adapting existing implements, may be an additional and useful distinction in the Inuit context since it seems clear that, at some point, as they grew up they started doing so. Possibly their first attempts at manufacturing were ‘purely toy’ items, but soon afterwards, and still from a fairly young age, they must have begun to manufacture implements that were intended to actually function in the context of the kinds of play activities described above. This inference seems entirely consistent with the Inuit conception of learning in which youngsters would be expected to learn through experimentation based on their observation of their elders.
The identification of archaeological material culture used by children In light of the information presented above, the initial challenge in exploring the archaeological record of childhood in Arctic cultures is to identify material culture that was used by or manufactured by children. Seemingly, the most straightforward approach is to focus on the implements for which full-sized and miniature versions can be found in archaeological assemblages, employing the assumption that the miniature versions would be children’s toys. In the 1927 monograph that defined the Thule culture, Therkel Mathiassen pioneered the use of miniaturization as a criterion for identifying toys among archaeological finds from Arctic sites. In that report he described full-sized and miniature implements of the same type together, but he also included a separate heading for toys, beneath which he wrote: ‘In the forgoing, when describing the various types of implements, various miniature objects have already been mentioned as having presumably been used as toys: harpoon heads, arrow shafts, baleen bow, snow knife and lamps’ (Mathiassen 1927: 75). Most subsequent archaeological site reports from Arctic sites have similarly identified miniature implements, along with human figurines (usually referred to as dolls), as items that were used by children (see further Park 1998, with references). Many years ago, I attempted to apply that same concept by extracting artefact descriptions from published site reports in order to learn more about childhood in the Thule culture (Park 1998). In that research, I argued that the relative abundances of these miniature implements and doll figurines might be used to learn about the kinds of activities in which Thule children participated. Further, if Jenness’s (1922: 170) inference were
220 Robert W. Park literally true that children performed ‘in miniature, some of the duties they will have to perform when they grow up’, then it might be reasonable to expect some correspondence between the material culture associated with the activities carried out by adults and the miniature material culture associated with the activities engaged in by children. To explore the potential of that simple hypothesis I assembled data on the abundance of various full-sized and miniature artefacts from 31 Thule sites. Of the 9,753 artefacts for which I had at least a name indicating its inferred function, 369 were explicitly described as miniatures. The analysis was based on functional classes that reflect ethnographically documented activity sets, including harpooning, archery, fishing, and transportation (including boating and sledding). For each functional class (e.g. harpooning, which included harpoon heads, foreshafts, socket pieces, shafts, finger rests, harpoon ice picks, etc.), I was able to compare the frequency of miniature and ‘full-sized’ examples. That analysis appeared to confirm both the wide range of miniature material culture and a patterned relationship between the miniature and ‘full-sized’ material culture of Thule adults. For example, implements associated with harpooning were found to appear in approximately the same proportions among the full-sized assemblage and in the miniature assemblage. Implements associated with archery were found in significantly greater quantities in the miniature assemblage than in the full-sized assemblage, but I seemed to be able to account for this discrepancy by recourse to ethnographic accounts, which mention in passing that both boys and girls learned how to use bows and arrows but, once they grew up, only men performed this activity. Conversely, no ethnographic descriptions of harpooning games mention girls participating—this activity appears to have been practised solely by boys and by men. These results thus appeared to suggest that the activities of Thule children were indeed accurately preserved in the archaeological record. That research was based, however, primarily on published site reports and thus, of necessity, had to be based on the use of a somewhat naive dichotomy: artefacts were categorized as either full-sized or miniature based solely on each archaeologist’s published categorizations. The research thus could not take into account the fact that ‘miniature’ artefacts’ sizes would be expected to vary with the size (i.e. age) of the child. Because these size differences could be expected to reveal interesting information about changes in childhood activities as children grew, and also because the largest of these children’s implements might be expected to approach the size of adult’s implements creating a problem of identification, this appeared to be a potentially interesting avenue of research to explore. Pauline Mousseau and I did so with material I excavated from Dorset culture sites (Park and Mousseau 2003). Like their Thule successors, the Dorset also produced both full-sized and miniature versions of implements, but Dorset site assemblages contain proportionately many fewer miniaturized implements with the seeming exception of one artefact type: harpoon heads (Figure 12.2). Dorset assemblages also include a much wider range of small carvings of animals and humans than is seen in Thule. The Dorset miniature implements and carvings have for many years been interpreted predominantly as the paraphernalia of shamans (for example Taylor and Swinton 1967; McGhee 1976, 1987; Taçon 1983; Sutherland 1993; Gulløv and Appelt
Learning the Tools of Survival 221 (a)
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Figure 12.2 Full-sized and miniature Dorset culture harpoon heads from a single site in Arctic Canada. Photograph by Robert W. Park.
2001; Zságer 2010; McGhee and Sutherland 2011). If that widely accepted inference is true, it raises a fascinating question: where in the Dorset assemblages are the children’s miniatures that are so evident in the ethnographic descriptions of Inuit life and material culture, and in the archaeological record of the Thule culture? Did Dorset children learn by playing with a similar and equally extensive miniature material culture that is simply invisible within assemblages containing many miniatures used by shamans, or did Dorset children have different kinds of toys, or no toys at all? If they had different kinds of toys or no toys at all, then the conception of childhood and the process of learning for Dorset children must have been very different from that of their Thule and Inuit successors. To explore those questions, Mousseau and I assembled measurements on as many full-sized and miniature Dorset harpoon heads as we could from published site reports and from some of my own unpublished data: 357 harpoon heads in all. Minimally, we hoped that doing so would allow us to determine if the harpoons heads classified in the literature as ‘miniature’ and the ones classified (implicitly) as ‘full-sized’ really could be separated in a non-arbitrary fashion into those two categories. We attempted this based on the assumption that if full-sized harpoon heads had to be at least some minimum size in order to function successfully, this might manifest itself on a histogram of harpoon head length as a bimodal distribution. Figure 12.3 presents the lengths of all 357 harpoon heads used in our study, but displays no significant bimodal distribution and, if our sample were not somewhat biased towards harpoon heads classified by their excavators as
222 Robert W. Park
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n Harpoon Heads
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Figure 12.3 Histogram of harpoon head length of 357 Dorset harpoon heads from sites throughout the Canadian Arctic.
‘miniature’ due to their being more fully described in the literature (Park and Mousseau 2003: 262), the histogram might conform even more closely to a normal curve. Last, we explored a factor that we termed ‘potential functionality’—a harpoon head’s ability to function as part of a complete harpoon (1) by being mounted on a foreshaft, (2) by having the ability to pierce the skin of an animal, and (3) by being able to secure the harpooned creature by means of the harpoon line. A potentially functional harpoon head must therefore exhibit three basic attributes: (1) it must have a line-hole or some other means of affixing the harpoon line, (2) it must be self-bladed (i.e. have a sharp tip) or have an end-blade slot into which a sharp end-blade can be inserted, and (3) it must have a means of being affixed onto the harpoon foreshaft. By criterion number 3, several of the ‘miniature’ harpoon heads in our sample were not potentially functional, because they possessed an inadequate socket or lacked one entirely and thus could not have been affixed onto a harpoon foreshaft. These are the only harpoon heads for which it seems possible to assert with confidence that they are either toys or shamans’ paraphernalia. If they are toys then we can conclude that they were used in imaginary activities, because without a functioning socket they could not have been attached to a harpoon shaft to be used in games such as the one described by Boas (1901: 111). However, the rest of the very small harpoon heads could have been used as parts of small but complete harpoons. The fact that there is no clear size distinction between these small but potentially functional harpoon heads and the ‘full-sized’, and therefore presumptively functional, harpoon heads means that it is presently impossible to use size alone to isolate with any confidence a subset of the Dorset harpoon heads that would contain only children’s implements or shamans’ paraphernalia, let alone identify a subset comprised solely of items associated with children. I suspect that a similarly rigorous analysis of the Thule assemblages that I previously studied might similarly blur the full-sized/miniature and functional/non-functional distinctions.
Learning the Tools of Survival 223
Identification of archaeological material culture manufactured by children The ambiguous results of that attempt to identify which of the miniature Dorset harpoon heads were used by children leaves open the question of whether any of them were intended for or actually used by children. However, some insight into that issue, and into issues of more general interest with respect to the archaeology of childhood, may come from examining the sources of some of these artefacts—namely, by whom they were manufactured. From the ethnographic accounts summarized above, it is evident that some considerable proportion of the material culture used by Inuit children was manufactured by their parents or other adults, but plausible that some of the material culture used by older children was manufactured by themselves. The ability to identify objects manufactured by children would allow us to both identify children’s material culture that is not readily identifiable on the basis of size differential, perhaps including some of the Dorset harpoon heads just described, and to compare the nature of the children’s items created by adults with those created by the children themselves. The approach that seems to have the most immediate potential is the identification of items displaying attributes suggestive of having been manufactured by someone with relatively little experience or practice in the manufacturing technique. This approach already shows promise in the study of flaked stone artefacts (for example Grimm 2000; Milne 2005, 2012; Stapert 2007; Bamforth and Finlay 2008; Högberg 2008). Certain distinctive kinds of mistakes tend to be made consistently by novice flint knappers, and the consistent co-occurrence of these mistakes may permit us to identify stone implements that were manufactured by inexperienced knappers, presumably children. Unfortunately, in this context, the Thule people did not manufacture flaked stone tools, and the organic materials that formed the basis of so much of the material culture of Arctic cultures, and from which items such as harpoon heads were manufactured, provide less potential for such consistent and diagnostic signatures of having been made by novice manufacturers. An assessment of the quality of symmetry and finish may be made, however, and lower rankings in these criteria may be hypothesized to be characteristic of children’s attempts to manufacture implements. Figure 12.4 shows eight Thule culture harpoon heads from a single site. The four smallest (Figure 12.4e–h) are made of wood and baleen and only two of them have a line hole and thus possess potential functionality (Figure 12.4e, f). These four harpoon heads are considerably less well finished and less symmetrical than the larger four, which are made of bone and antler. Such differences might be consistent with a novice toolmaker’s first attempts to create the various styles of harpoon heads, working in the softer and easier media of wood and baleen. However, they also might represent casually manufactured toys created hurriedly by adults for children for an immediate use. Any serious attempt to reliably differentiate organic items manufactured by children from ones manufactured by adults will presumably require a detailed comparative study of the entire range of such artefacts
224 Robert W. Park
(c)
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Figure 12.4 Thule culture harpoon heads. Photograph by Robert W. Park.
Learning the Tools of Survival 225 from archaeological sites, and that would be a challenging task since the actual artefact assemblages are dispersed in several museums across Canada, the United States, and Europe. However, this would seem to be the next logical step in advancing this research into childhood amongst prehistoric Arctic populations.
Conclusion The data from the Arctic discussed here exhibit a number of obvious points of interest for archaeological research into childhood. The combination of excellent preservation along with a technologically complex material culture and a rich and detailed body of ethnographic information allows for kinds of analysis that are not often going to be possible when studying archaeological data from some other prehistoric hunter- gatherer contexts. It is possible to make robust inferences concerning childhood in the Thule culture precisely because the archaeological findings are consistent with predictions based on the ethnographically documented activities and the material culture of their Inuit descendants. Conversely, our present understanding of childhood and its material culture in the preceding Dorset is poor at least in part, because we do not have comparable ethnographic data. It may be that childhood in the Dorset culture was very similar to that in Thule, at least with respect to its material culture, and the similarity is simply obscured due to miniature items of shamans’ paraphernalia being more prevalent in Dorset culture. Conversely, it may be that childhood was different in Dorset culture in the sense that Dorset children did not spend as much time playing or practising with miniature implements. Perhaps they played with the much wider range of small carvings known from Dorset, including animals and many fabulous creatures. Alternatively, perhaps Dorset children did not have a material culture of their own at all. The research presented here is obviously a work in progress—it has only begun to explore the potential of these data for learning about the experience of childhood in these cultures, but it does suggest a number of avenues of future research. The fact that in Inuit culture, and presumably in the preceding Thule culture as well, children were expected to learn by observation and by doing themselves, rather than by being taught, suggests that there should be a rich body of material culture produced by novices— in other words, by children learning to manufacture items by trial and error. Flaked stone implements produced by novices are already identifiable and, as outlined above, it seems likely that we will be able to identify novice-manufactured implements made from organic materials as well. Systematic research designed to develop criteria that can reliably identify implements manufactured by children, both flaked stone and organic materials such as bone, antler, and wood, will add an important new dimension to our understanding of childhood in Arctic cultures generally, and about the nature of childhood in hunting and gathering societies generally.
226 Robert W. Park
References Bamforth, D. B. and Finlay, N. (2008). ‘Introduction: Archaeological Approaches to Lithic Production Skill and Craft Learning’. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 15/1: 1–27. Birket-Smith, K. (1924). ‘Ethnography of the Egedesminde District with Aspects of the General Culture of West Greenland’. Meddelelser om Grønland, 66. Birket-Smith, K. (1929). The Caribou Eskimos: Material and Social Life and Their Cultural Position: Descriptive Part. Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition 1921– 4, vol. 5/ 1. Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel, Nordisk Forlag. Birket-Smith, K. (1945). Ethnographical Collections from the Northwest Passage. Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition 1921–4, vol. 6/2. Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel, Nordisk Forlag. Boas, F. (1888). ‘The Central Eskimo’. Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 6: 399–669. Boas, F. (1901). ‘The Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson Bay’. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 15/1: 1–370. Briggs, J. L. (1974). ‘Eskimo Women: Makers of Men’, in C. J. Matthiasson (ed.), Many Sisters: Women in Cross-Cultural Perspective. New York, NY: Free Press, 261–304. Crawford, S. and Lewis, C. (2008). ‘Childhood Studies and the Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past’. Childhood in the Past, 1: 5–16. Dumond, D. E. (1987). The Eskimos and Aleuts (2nd edn). London: Thames and Hudson. Grimm, L. (2000). ‘Apprentice flintknapping’, in J. Sofaer Derevenski (ed.), Children and Material Culture. London: Routledge, 53–7 1. Guemple, L. (1979). ‘Inuit Socialization: A Study of Children as Social Actors in an Eskimo Community’, in K. Ishwaran (ed.), Childhood and Adolescence in Canada. Toronto, ON: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 39–53. Guemple, L. (1988). ‘Teaching Social Relations to Inuit Children’, in T. Ingold, D. Riches, and J. Woodburn (eds), Hunters and Gatherers 2: Property, Power and Ideology. Oxford: Berg, 131–49. Gulløv, H. C. and Appelt, M. (2001). ‘Social Bonding and Shamanism among Late Dorset Groups in High Arctic Greenland’, in N. S. Price (ed.), The Archaeology of Shamanism. London: Routledge, 146–62. Honigmann, I. and Honigmann, J. (1953). ‘Child Rearing Patterns among the Great Whale River Eskimo’. Anthropological Papers of the University of Alaska, 2/1: 31–50. Högberg, A. (2008). ‘Playing with Flint: Tracing a Child’s Imitation of Adult Work in a Lithic Assemblage’. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 15/1: 112–31. Jenness, D. (1922). The Life of the Copper Eskimos. Ottawa, ON: F. A. Acland. Mathiassen, T. (1927). Archaeology of the Central Eskimos: The Thule Culture and its Position within the Eskimo Culture. Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition 1921–4, Vol. 4/2. Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel, Nordisk Forlag. Maxwell, M. S. (1985). Prehistory of the Eastern Arctic. Orlando, FL: Academic Press. McGhee, R. (1976). ‘Differential Artistic Productivity in the Eskimo Cultural Tradition’. Current Anthropology, 17/2: 203–20. McGhee, R. (1987). ‘Prehistoric Arctic Peoples and their Art’. American Review of Canadian Studies, 17/1: 5–14. McGhee, R. (1996). Ancient People of the Arctic. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press.
Learning the Tools of Survival 227 McGhee, R. and Sutherland, P. D. (2011). ‘The Art of the Dorset People’, in L. Spiess and S. Mooney (eds), Upside Down: Arctic Realities. Houston, TX: Menil Foundation, 46–79. Milne, S. B. (2005). ‘Palaeo-Eskimo Novice Flintknapping in the Eastern Canadian Arctic’. Journal of Field Archaeology, 30/3: 329–45. Milne, S. B. (2012). ‘Lithic Raw Material Availability and Palaeo-Eskimo Novice Flintknapping’, in W. Wendrich (ed.), Archaeology and Apprenticeship Body Knowledge, Identity, and Communities of Practice. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 119–44. Park, R. W. (1993). ‘The Dorset-Thule Succession in Arctic North America: Assessing Claims for Culture Contact’. American Antiquity, 58/2, 203–34. Park, R. W. (1998). ‘Size Counts: The Miniature Archaeology of Childhood in Inuit Societies’. Antiquity, 72/276: 269–81. Park, R. W. (2005). ‘Growing Up North: Exploring the Archaeology of Childhood in the Thule and Dorset Cultures of Arctic Canada’. Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, 15/1: 53–64. Park, R. W. (2008). ‘Contact between the Norse Vikings and the Dorset Culture in Arctic Canada’. Antiquity, 82: 189–98. Park, R. W. (2014). ‘Stories of Arctic Colonization: Genetic Data Elucidate the Population History of the North American Arctic’. Science, 345/6200: 1004–5. Park, R. W. and Mousseau, P. M. (2003). ‘How Small is Too Small? Dorset Culture “Miniature” Harpoon Heads’. Canadian Journal of Archaeology, 27/2: 258–72. Stapert, D. (2007). ‘Neanderthal Children and their Flints’. Palarch’s Journal of Archaeology of Northwest Europe, 1/2: 16–39. Sutherland, P. D. (1993). ‘The History of Inuit Culture’, in Canadian Museum of Civilization (ed.), In the Shadow of the Sun: Perspectives on Contemporary Native Art. Hull, QC: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 313–32. Taçon, P. S. (1983). ‘An Analysis of Dorset Art in Relation to Prehistoric Culture Stress’. Études/ Inuit/Studies, 7/1: 41–65. Taylor, W. E. and Swinton, G. (1967). ‘Prehistoric Dorset Art’. The Beaver, 298: 32–47. Zságer, L. Z. (2010). ‘Miniature Carvings in the Canadian Dorset Culture: the Paleo-Eskimo Belief System’. Perspectivas Colombo-Canadienses, 3: 108–21.
Chapter 13
E du cating V i c toria n Childre n A Material Culture Perspective from Cambridge, England Craig Cessford
Childhood has not often been a major focus in the field of Historical Archaeology, defined broadly as the period post c.ad 1500 (Wilkie 2000, 2002). It is often largely ignored in major surveys of the period (Hicks and Beaudry 2006), or effectively treated as an adjunct to gender issues (Vermeer 2009). This is despite the fact that the Industrial Revolution of the mid-eighteenth century, however this is defined, led to major changes in both the quantities of material culture that households had access to and possessed, and also the nature of those households, in particular how gender relations and childhood were socially constructed. During the nineteenth century, definitions of childhood and education—here defined relatively broadly as the process of bringing up a child, and including forming character and shaping manners and behaviour—varied massively spatially, socially, and temporally (Scott and Fletcher 1990; Hopkins 1994; Gargano 2008; Foyster and Marten 2010; Humphries 2010). In particular, education became increasingly institutionalized, with a shift from the domestic to the public or semi-public sphere. During the same period, a wide range of material culture came to be associated with childhood, much of it structured on age and gender appropriate lines. Much of the work on childhood that has taken place within Historical Archaeology has principally been concerned with recognizing the presence and absence of children at sites, principally through the identification of specific items of age and gender appropriate material culture. The classic types of nineteenth-century artefacts associated with childhood that have attracted archaeological attention include ceramics (especially those of a ‘moralizing’ nature), toys, and slate pencils. When readily identifiable artefacts are absent, childhood has usually simply been ignored. There are numerous issues with this; the absence of material need not indicate the absence of children, especially
Educating Victorian Children 229 as they could adapt and utilize artefacts that were not originally produced for them, so that they went through a transient ‘toy’ stage (Crawford 2009), and items made of organic materials that rarely survive in archaeological contexts undoubtedly played a significant role. Additionally, archaeological deposition is frequently closely linked to the household cycle, and children may well only be represented if deposition occurs at an appropriate point in the cycle (Prosser et al. 2012). The link between specific items and childhood has also often been rather simplistically assumed, ignoring the fact that adults could use items originally produced for children, or retain items into adulthood. One major issue with focusing attention upon a restricted range of readily identifiable child-specific material is that its relative rarity in the archaeological record—combined with contextual and dating issues—leads to material from sites typically being discussed as a single group. This means that items deriving from a number of separate households and spanning prolonged periods of decades are conflated into a single narrative. This treats the inhabitants of a broad spatiotemporal community, such as a neighbourhood, as a single homogeneous group, assuming commonalities of outlook that need not exist. Additionally, even within this group of child-specific material, certain forms of material culture are privileged; this is most pronounced in terms of the special emphasis on particular moralizing ceramics with images or texts that can be easily ‘read’—often derived from literary works (Lucas 2003). Other forms of ceramics associated with childhood that lack such obvious and easily discernible messages are ignored. Material not specif ically associated with children is almost entirely ignored, despite the likelihood that they interacted with it and it exerted an influence upon them that may have exceeded that of child-specific material. It is now widely recognized in Historical Archaeology that items such as toys and moralizing ceramics could be utilized to inculcate and instil a range of desired attitudes and behaviours. There has often been an assumption that dominant adult middle class ideological messages were passively and uncritically accepted, both by children and by other social groups, such as working class parents. More nuanced studies are a relatively recent phenomenon (Wilkie 2000; Yamin 2002); the most common theme is to look at material from middle-class households in terms of how these reflect some of the dom inant ideologies of the period, and this work has also been extended to consider the presence of similar material in working-class households (Brighton 2001: 27–8; Yamin 2002; Murray 2006; Porter and Ferrier 2006: 388–9; Lampard 2009; Prangnell and Quirk 2009; Camp 2011). Such work has considered how material reflects tensions between ideals and reality, and whether its adoption necessarily denotes a passive acceptance of dominant ideologies. Perhaps the most theoretically developed studies are those that view material culture as acting in dialogues of control and resistance; for example, interpreting a group of dolls’ heads as being broken deliberately as an act of rebellion linked to stress caused by the birth of a younger sibling (Wilkie 2000: 103–4). Whilst undoubtedly appealing, any such attempt to ascribe specific motivations necessarily involves an element of specu lation that can be challenged (Lima 2012: 75). Such arguments inherently run the risk of constructing nothing more than ‘pourquoi stories’, or fictional tales to explain origins.
230 Craig Cessford One notable recent trend has been to consider items associated with children that would now be viewed as deeply problematic, such as toy whips that inculcated the values of slavery (Lima 2012). The recognition of this ‘dark side’ to some child-specific nineteenth-century material culture is a useful counterbalance to much of the discussion of moralizing ceramics and toys, which generally focus on aspects of childhood that are more acceptable to current sensibilities. The existence of overtly racialized toys (Barton and Somerville 2012) and moralizing ceramics with messages that would no longer be deemed acceptable (Siddall 2012) emphasizes the otherness of nineteenth- century childhood. Such material is particularly important as it challenges the apparently widespread implicit assumption amongst archaeologists that childhood in the nineteenth century was similar to the present and can be treated uncritically as a ‘familiar’ past (Tarlow and West 1999). In a British context, the archaeological treatment of nineteenth-to twentieth-century childhood has lagged considerably behind that of both North America and Australia. Although the presence of artefacts linked to children has been discussed (e.g. Jeffries et al. 2009: 336–40), it is only very recently that they have become a major focus of attention (Crewe 2012; Crewe and Hadley 2013; Jenner 2013; Morrison and Crawford 2013). Such treatments, however, remain problematic and more nuanced readings of the role of material culture in educating Victorian children must resist the tendency to agglomerate selected items of material culture, and should instead be contextually sensitive. They also need to consider the material culture that children interacted with in its totality, not just child-specific items. As a case study, various features associated with a mid- nineteenth century school in Cambridge (England), and the material associated with them will be considered.
The archaeology of schools In addition to domestic sites, archaeological evidence for children has been identified at a wide range of nineteenth-to twentieth-century sites linked to institutions and commercial premises. These include orphanages (Feister 2009), alms-houses (Baugher 2001: 190–1), brothels (Seifert 1991: 100; Ketz, Abel, and Schmidt: 2005: 82), prisons (Olesky 2008: 293–4), and sites associated with striking miners (Moore 2009). Although all these types of sites can potentially be linked to the education of children in the widest sense, the most closely associated are schools. Attention in North America has largely focused upon small, predominantly rural, common schools (Gibb and Beisaw 2000; Beisaw 2003, 2009; Baugher 2009: 11–12). Traditionally, such sites have been viewed as having low archaeological potential; producing relatively meagre artefactual assemblages dominated by building materials, with little evidence for the educational or recreational activities of the children ‘beyond a few slate pencils and writing slate fragments, and the odd marble or two’ (Gibb and Beisaw 2000: 115). Beisaw (2009) has convincingly demonstrated that this is incorrect, especially when the specific site formation processes
Educating Victorian Children 231 that affect school sites are taken into account. Recent work has demonstrated the potential of school sites and has emphasized the multiplicity of approaches that are possible. For example, schools were often used for other social events, and much of the material recovered may relate to these (Rotman 2009). Work on a school for Native Americans has emphasized a distinction between corporate items, linked to official school identity such as buttons from uniforms, ceramics for dining, and toys and items that might be linked to resistance, such as amulets, effigies, and fetishes, and woodworking tools manufactured from window and bottle glass (Lindauer 2009). Other types of schools have also been investigated, although relatively little substantive work has been undertaken on larger urban schools. There has also been work on remote sites, where children’s education took place outside formal educational establishments. For example, at the Old Kinchega Homestead (New South Wales), a remote pastoral station in Australia, it has been suggested that one of the buildings performed the role of a school amongst other functions (Allison 2003: 182–3). One potential strength of British, and indeed European, archaeological studies is that the evidence can be placed in a longer comparative time-frame. Although relatively few archaeological investigations of earlier British schools have taken place, a number have been investigated on the Continent (Willemsen 2008). One of the few sites investigated in Britain is the Free Grammar School in Coventry (Warwickshire), where items associated with a school of c.1545–58 had fallen between the stalls of the choir (Woodfield 1981). Some obviously educational items were present, including inkwells, whilst items such as arrows probably relate to mandated archery practice and can also be considered educational. There were also marbles and slate discs, plus some proscribed items such as dice and tile discs, which were probably used as quoits.
The garden of Sarah Dobson By the early nineteenth century, No. 22 St. Andrew’s Street, Cambridge, consisted of a frontage building with a relatively extensive L-shaped garden behind. These premises were excavated in 2005 by the Cambridge Archaeological Unit in advance of the Grand Arcade development (Figures 13.1 and 13.2). No elements of the nineteenth-century frontage building survived, but most of the garden was accessible for archaeological investigation. Although first documented in 1841, it is likely that the premises had been a school run by Sarah Dobson since c.1820. Sarah Dobson was born in 1796 at the nearby village of Stow cum Quy (Cambridgeshire), into a local farming family. She probably received her education at a ‘dame school’ in the village; this was definitely established by 1818 when 12 children were being taught and the lord of the manor paid for three poor girls to learn to read (Wright 2002: 246). The population of Stow cum Quy expanded rapidly during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, nearly doubling in size. There were few job opportunities outside farm labouring, leading to a high degree
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Figure 13.1 Location map, containing Ordnance Survey data. © Crown copyright and database right 2012.
of movement away from the village, including emigration to Australia. Sarah’s father George Dobson died in 1818, when she was aged 22, and the farm was taken over by her brother Joseph. It appears to be around this time that she moved to Cambridge, establishing her school.
Educating Victorian Children 233
Planting Hole 1
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Figure 13.2 Plan of Sarah Dobson’s property based upon Ordnance Survey map of 1885, showing locations of archaeological features, and view of Planting Bed 3 showing deliberately added material in the base of the feature. Drawing by Vicki Herring; photograph by Craig Cessford.
Census data reveals that as well as Sarah the household typically consisted of three to four other teachers, mainly close female relatives of Sarah, plus two female servants, and a number of pupils. As censuses exclude pupils who did not live at the school, the information they provide must be treated with caution. In 1841, there were seven pupils listed, all female and aged 8–14. In 1851, no children are listed as resident, but in 1861, there were six pupils, four male and two female aged 7–13. The pupils were mainly from Cambridge or local villages, with the exception of one born in Sydney (Australia), and several came from moderately wealthy landowning and farming families. Sarah remained at the premises until 1865/6, when she moved a short distance to No.7 St. Andrew’s Hill, located outside the archaeologically investigated area, and eventually Sarah died in 1886 aged 91. The Ordnance Survey map of Cambridge surveyed in 1885 depicts an L-shaped formal garden with trees, paths, regularly arranged beds, and a pump; this appears to be largely unchanged from when the school was present. By the early nineteenth century when the school was established, the garden of No. 22 St. Andrew’s Street was entirely enclosed by substantial brick walls and possessed a brick-lined well, a substantial brick-lined cistern with tile-lined drains leading into it, and several planting beds. During the period when the school was present, a number of changes took place. At the beginning of the period, the garden was extended through the acquisition of part of the garden of No. 23 St. Andrew’s Street. An earlier building occupying this space was demolished and a new structure consisting of two WC stalls was constructed. New tile-lined drains were also constructed, as were some square brick-lined structures with iron bars over the top, also probably drainage related. Within the garden two rectangular planting beds plus six circular or irregular planting holes were dug, and there are also several postholes, which appear to have been to support trees or shrubs. These planting beds and holes do not appear to represent a single phase of activity, but are instead a sequence of sporadic events over several decades.
234 Craig Cessford Several of these planting holes and beds produced significant assemblages of material, and additional items were recovered from test pits excavated through the general garden soil. The largest assemblage came from Planting Hole 3, created in c.1828–34. Other smaller groups of material were recovered from Planting Bed 17 created c.1832–45, plus Planting Hole 1 and posthole F.6378, which can only be broadly dated as mid-nineteenth century.
Planting Hole 3 The material in Planting Hole 3 derived from a discrete deposit in the base of the feature, which appears to have been added deliberately to improve drainage (Figures 13.2–13.4). In total, at least 129 items were deposited in this fill; this is based on a Minimum Number of Items (MNI) count as are all subsequent figures unless otherwise stated (on MNI counts see Cessford 2009: 312). The material in Planting Hole 3 represents relatively large scale, and in a sense formal, disposal of material related to the Dobson household. There are several age specific childhood items, the most striking being two identical cups with pink transfer printed designs and the text ‘For I have food while others starve or beg from door to door’ (Figure 13.3) from Isaac Watts’s (1674–1748) song ‘Whene’er I take my walks abroad’, part of his collection of Divine and Moral Songs for Children (1715). Watts was a leading early eighteenth-century non-conformist hymn- writer, theologian, and logician (Argent 1999). Although a non-conformist, Watts’s views were relatively non-denominational or ecumenical, and he was more interested
Figure 13.3 Child-specific material from Planting Bed 3: near complete whiteware cup with transfer printed decoration and the Isaac Watts text ‘For I have food while others starve or beg from door to door’, plus sherd from identical vessel and cup with industrially slipped coloured decoration. Photographs by Dave Webb and Craig Cessford.
Educating Victorian Children 235 in promoting education and scholarship than in preaching for any particular ministry. Watts’s straightforward and relatively gentle Christian ideas made him an uncontroversial figure, and after his copyright expired in 1772 there were numerous editions of his works. His texts, and images associated with his works, were frequently reproduced on children’s ceramics and had a ‘central place in the nineteenth-century child’s upbringing’ (Riley 1991: 228–32), and have been recovered from other archaeological excavations (Jenner 2013: 10–12). The other child-specific items in the assemblage are three cups with multicoloured industrially slipped decoration, each of which has a different decorative scheme (Figure 13.3). This form of distinctive and colourful decoration appears to have been particularly commonly associated with children’s cups in the early nineteenth century. Turning to other ceramics, there were parts of a dining service with four plates, two serving plates, and a cup in the blue transfer-printed ‘Sicilian’ pattern, produced by a number of makers, c.1820–49 (Coysh and Henrywood 1984: 338, 1986: 183) (Figure 13.4). Other ceramics include two bowls decorated with Spode’s Union Wreath Third pattern, introduced c.1822 and with a mark dated no later than 1833, and a single Chinese export porcelain plate. There were also some relatively expensive tea drinking ceramics, including two pairs of cups and saucers (Figure 13.4). One of these was a blue transfer-printed feldspar porcelain, whilst the other was a refined white earthenware with a blue transfer- printed Oriental Willow Pattern-style scene. The three chamber pots present were all adult sized, two are plain but the third had blue and white transfer-printed decoration in the ‘Verona’ pattern, with a romantic scene of Gothic ruins (Coysh and Henrywood 1984: 377, 1986: 204). There were three complete bottles for liquid blacking used for cleaning shoes, stoves etc. One is marked ‘Blacking bottle’, indicating that it was manufactured between 1817– 34 when stoneware bottles were taxed, but blacking bottles were exempt if they were ‘permanently stamped in the making thereof, in fair and legible characters with the words “Blacking Bottle” ’ (Anon. 1817: 453). The glass vessels are dominated by 14 utility bottles; most of these probably held wine and two appear to be imports of French or Belgian design and almost certainly contained wine. Drinking glasses include two identical wine glasses, presumably from a set, and a tumbler. Three clay pipes are too fragmentary to date precisely, but are all nineteenth-century, and one has oak leaf decoration on the rear of the bowl. The substantial animal and bird bone assemblage indicates a preference for the moderately expensive topside or silverside cuts of beef, shoulders of mutton, and legs of pork. Pork was one of the most expensive meats at the time and is much commoner in this group than in others of this date (17.5 per cent of the meat from the main domesticates, versus 0.0–9.7 per cent in other assemblages). Peri-and neonatal piglet bones indicate that pigs were being raised in the garden, so at least some of the pork was not obtained commercially. There were also parts of at least 22 birds, the largest number from any nineteenth-century assemblage at the site; with elements of 12 chicken carcasses, as well as other domestic poultry, waterfowl, pigeon, and game birds, including red grouse, grey partridge, and pheasant. The majority of the chickens (c.80 per cent) are adult birds, and
236 Craig Cessford
Figure 13.4 Adult material from Planting Bed 3: transfer printed Sicilian pattern serving dish and plate, matching sets of bone china cup and saucer with transfer printed decoration marked FELSPAR PORCELAIN/1803/Blue/M, and whiteware cup and saucer with transfer printed Two Temples pattern. Photograph by Dave Webb.
only females appear to be represented, suggesting that chickens were also being kept in the garden. If this is the case then they were probably kept primarily to supply eggs. All of the pigeon bones are from juvenile birds; these would have been available from March/ April until late September/October. The grouse was probably killed between August and December, whilst partridge and pheasant suggest a date of October until February. Assuming that the animal bone did not accumulate over a prolonged period, and there
Educating Victorian Children 237 is no taphonomic evidence for this, then it appears that the material was deposited in the autumn. Although there are significant difficulties in trying to estimate the quantity of meat represented by the bones, it is likely that the assemblage represents several weeks’ household consumption.
Other garden features The other garden features contained smaller groups of material; although all of these items appear to have been deliberately added to the features, none represent attempts to improve drainage. Instead, they appear to represent small-scale ad hoc deposition of material. Additionally, whilst many of the items from Planting Hole 3 were semi/ near complete or intact, the ceramics in particular from the other features were much more fragmentary. As there was an absence of visible material from the general garden soil, confirmed by the excavation of two one-square-metre test pits that produced no nineteenth-century material apart from two slate pencils, it is unlikely that the material from these smaller groups derive from redeposited material. The composition of this group is markedly different from the larger group in Planting Hole 3. Planting Bed 17, created c.1832–45, contained at least 17 items. Notable ceramics included parts of two bone china plates from the same service with pink and green hand-painted floral decoration, and a refined white earthenware ‘Indian Temple’ pattern bowl (Coysh and Henrywood 1984: 188) (Figure 13.5). There were also fragments of two chamber pots, one plain and one decorated with the ‘Serenade’ pattern with the makers mark R&C (Reed and Clementson of Hanley, 1832–9) (Figure 13.5). Glassware included part of a wine glass, and there were also two bone brush handles and a slate pencil. Planting Hole 1 contained at least 13 items, the most notable item being a fragment of a child’s cup with part of the text of another work by Isaac Watts entitled ‘Innocent Play’ (Figure 13.6). There was also part of a wine glass, five slate pencils (Figure 13.6), a clay pipe bowl of c.1810–40, a bone brush handle, and a complete pharmaceutical bottle. The material from Planting Bed 17 and Planting Hole 1 was probably added as small discrete groups after the main features were created, perhaps taking advantage of the fact that the disturbed soil here was easier to dig. The fill of a nearby posthole (F.6378) contained at least 12 items; these appear to have been added when the post was removed, and included a furniture handle and ten slate pencils (Figure 13.7). The ceramics from these groups are broadly similar to those from the larger assemblage, but it is notable that none of the patterns are the same as those in Planting Hole 3. Other broad commonalities appear to be wine drinking, and to a lesser extent smoking. There are some materials in the smaller assemblages that are not present in the largest group, notably toothbrushes and pencils. The material culture from the Dobson household differs markedly between the large assemblage from Planting Hole 3 and the smaller groups. There can be little doubt that the composition of the larger group can be ascribed almost entirely to the agency of Sarah Dobson, both in terms of the items purchased and the decision of what
238 Craig Cessford
Figure 13.5 View of Planting Bed 17, plus material from it including whiteware bowl with transfer printed decoration scene with the pattern name Indian Temple and the makers mark EKB, of Elkin, Knight and Bridgwood of Lane End (1827–40) and base from a whiteware chamber pot with transfer printed decoration with the pattern name The/Serenade and the makers mark R&C of Reed and Clementson of Hanley (1832–9). Photograph by Craig Cessford.
material was to be disposed. Whilst the acquisition of the items in the smaller assemblages should also be ascribed principally to Sarah Dobson, it is possible that the depos itional processes were more closely linked to the children at the school. Excavations of a garden in Bath (Somerset) suggested that its south-western corner, located furthest
Educating Victorian Children 239
Figure 13.6 Material from Planting Hole 1: whiteware child’s cup with part of the text of Isaac Watts Innocent Play and slate pencils. Photograph by Dave Webb.
Figure 13.7 Material from posthole F.6378: slate pencils and eighteenth-century copper-alloy Georgian style furniture drop handle. Drawing by Vicki Herring; photograph by Craig Cessford.
240 Craig Cessford from the house, may have been an area particularly linked to children (Bell 1990). Deposits in this area included a puppy—presumably a family pet—and a ‘disintegrated wooden box’ containing a ‘hoard of domestic items’, consisting of a child’s tooth, two seashells, a clock key, and dress weights (Bell 1990: 16). Planting Bed 17, Planting Hole 1, and Posthole F.6378 were all located close together in a corner of the garden furthest from the house, which may have been relatively secluded and invisible. It is therefore possible to view these smaller groups as deliberately selected and buried caches of material created by children. Whilst we cannot understand the significance that underlies individual items, this does not mean that they were meaningless to their depositors or randomly selected.
Interpreting child-specific material Excavated child-specific material includes child-sized cups, both with and without moralizing texts/images, and slate pencils. Moralizing china was produced in large quantities in the nineteenth century (Riley 1991; Batkin 1996) and has proved immensely attractive to archaeologists when they recover it (Karskens 2001: 74–6; Crook, Ellmoos, and Murray 2005: 148; Cessford 2009: 313–17; Crewe 2012; Crewe and Hadley 2013; Jeffries et al. 2009: 336–40; Jenner 2013). In large part, this is because the texts/images present an impression—possibly illusory—that they can be ‘read’ by modern archaeologists in a relatively straightforward manner. The cups with the Isaac Watts text and image of a young girl presenting an old woman with some food can be interpreted, at one level, as an invocation to charity, and there is no doubt that this particular text and image were particularly apposite for an object associated with consumption. Yet there are other aspects that warrant attention. The presence of the cups suggests the existence of an identical ‘service’, used by some or all of the children at the school. Such services were associated with middle-class, particularly female, ideas of domesticity and gentility (Fitts 1999). This contrasts markedly with the three other multicoloured child-sized cups, which all have different decorative schemes. Whilst some ceramics with a child’s name on them may have deliberately reinforced ideas of personal property (Brighton 2001: 27–8), the existence of a ‘service’ with identical child-sized cups has the opposite effect. Whilst the multicoloured cups may potentially display a degree of individuality, it is unclear if they were associated with specific children or were items for communal use. One issue concerning most archaeologically recovered moralizing ceramics is that whilst children may have in certain senses ‘owned’ them, it is unclear if they regularly used them for drinking and eating, or if they were principally display items functioning largely in an adult realm, but this seems improbable in the case of the Dobson household. The use of pink on the two child-sized cups contrasts with the bulk of the ceramics, which had blue transfer printed designs. Pink was a colour associated with boys in the nineteenth century, whereas blue had feminine associations. It was also a relatively novel colour for ceramics, as the ability to produce underglaze transfer prints in variants of red had only been achieved in 1828 (Shaw 1829: 214). This suggests that the cups may
Educating Victorian Children 241 specifically have been used by boys. The image on the cups is atypical, as the vast majority of nineteenth-century illustrations of this scene in publications of Watts’s works and on ceramics show images of adult men providing charity to children and/or women. Such images fit well with the dominant patriarchal ideology of the time, whereas an image of charity between two females—with a child as the donor—challenges this. Most images also depict the charitable donor as relatively well-to-do, whereas the apparently run-down state of the building associated with the girl presents a different image. It must also be borne in mind that Sarah Dobson—who was responsible for selecting and purchasing the cups—also supplied the food and drink consumed at the school, whereas the children who used the cups consumed the food and drink. In terms of these moralizing ceramics, this effectively equates Sarah Dobson with the girl who is presenting the charity, and the children with the old woman who is receiving it, emphasizing power relations within the household. It is therefore possible to deconstruct the cups, so that we need not assume that they were ‘read’ passively and that all members of household extracted the same meaning from them. The multicoloured, industrially-slipped child-sized cups are significant, as they demonstrate that the children of the household did not exclusively use moralizing china, and indeed such items may have been a minority. The other cups also suggest an association between children and colourfulness. One key issue with regard to the selection of mater ial culture is what was available to be purchased locally at the time. Unfortunately, contemporary archaeological evidence from Cambridge is lacking, but a rather later deposit linked to the backfilling of a cellar in c.1882–5 associated with the ceramic retailer Barrett & Sons provides some clues. Of the 178 ceramic items, material for children included seven cups and one plate (Figure 13.8). The cups are an eclectic group; they include
Figure 13.8 Child-sized cup and plate fragments from an assemblage deposited c.1882–5 associated with the ceramic retailer Barrett & Sons. Photograph by Dave Webb.
242 Craig Cessford three with Biblical images or text, and one with the first three letters of the alphabet and associated animals. It is notable that, given the relatively small sample, these cups had a range of transfer-printed colours, including mulberry or purple (three vessels), green (one vessel), black (one vessel), and pink (one vessel). Colour choice appears to have been significant on moralizing china, and these colours include those commonly used on child-specific items (Jeffries et al. 2009: 337) and differ significantly in terms of preponderance from those used on adult vessels, where blue was overwhelmingly dom inant. The single plate has an alphabet border and an unidentified black transfer-printed design. Overall, children’s cups are much more common archaeologically than plates. In part, this may be because cups were more susceptible to breakage, but perhaps child- specific cups were used with smaller plates from adult services. One critical question is whether there is any evidence for how children, as opposed to adults, related to age-specific ceramics. In most depositional contexts, this is difficult to answer, but there are a few instances that suggest that at least some were treasured possessions. A cellar assemblage associated with the staff who lived at the Robert Sayle Department Store hostel in Cambridge deposited c.1913–21 contained a deaf child’s sign language plate. No children lived at the hostel and the plate was produced some years before it was deposited, so this item appears to be a treasured childhood memento retained into adult life (Cessford 2012: 798) (Figure 13.9). There is also some intriguing evidence of ceramics deliberately included with burials (Cherryson, Crossland,
Figure 13.9 Deaf child’s sign language plate from an assemblage deposited c.1913–21 associated with the Robert Sayle Department Store hostel. Photograph by Dave Webb.
Educating Victorian Children 243 and Tarlow 2012: 77, table 3.12). At St. Peter’s Collegiate Church, Wolverhampton (Staffordshire), an individual who was probably female and aged over 46 was accompan ied by a small children’s pot with a scene of children stealing chestnuts from a brazier and the title ‘The Tempting Moment’ (Adams and Colls 2007: 26, table 4). At Priory Yard, Norwich (Norfolk), another probably female individual aged 17–18 was accompanied by a ‘small’ cup with peacock decoration (Caffel and Clarke 2011: 254, fig. 14.2). These mortuary ceramics could represent childhood mementoes retained into adult life, or alternatively might be ‘gifts’ from children to deceased mothers. Whatever the specific interpretation, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that they represented valued and special items to children (Wood 2009). Some of the archaeologically most common nineteenth-century child-specific items are absent from all the assemblages associated with the school; these include dolls, tea sets, metal toys, and marble stoppers. Whilst the lack of such treasured items is in one sense unremarkable, as they would not generally have been discarded, their total absence is intriguing, especially as some were made from relatively fragile materials. Whilst several interpretations are possible, it may indicate that the school was a relatively austere environment where such items were not permitted.
Interpreting adult material from Planting Hole 3 The name, and possibly the design, of the ‘Sicilian’ ceramic service was probably inspired by the Gothic novel A Sicilian Romance by Ann Radcliffe (1764–1823) first published in 1790 (Coysh and Henrywood 1984: 338, 1986: 183). The novel is narrated through a tourist, who is told stories about the turbulent history of the fallen aristocrats of the house of Mazzini, on the northern shore of Sicily, by a monk he encounters in their ruined castle. The image on the Sicilian vessels could have functioned relatively independent of its literary reference (Lucas 2003: 140); however, Radcliffe’s books assert traditional moral values, such as honour and integrity, while making strong political statements on the oppression of women in patriarchal society. These aspects of the ceramics may well have appealed to Sarah Dobson; certainly, the Sicilian pattern is not particularly common in assemblages of the period from Cambridge, the only other known example being a single water jug deposited c.1840–60. To counter this, however, in some respects the image on the ‘Verona’ pattern chamber pot is similar in subject matter to the ‘Sicilian’ pattern. There exists the possibility that none of the associations that might be read into the ‘Sicilian’ pattern occurred to any members of the household. Whilst it is possible that the disposal of the Sicilian pattern vessels represents the abandonment of the remnants of this dining service and its replacement by another, it seems more likely that this was in fact the disposal of a few slightly damaged items that were presumably replaced by like-for-like purchases. There is no evidence for any child-specific plates in the assemblage. Some of the smaller Sicilian pattern plates could have functioned either as side plates for adults or as main plates for children. It is therefore unclear if the Sicilian pattern service was used
244 Craig Cessford by all members of the household, or if it was restricted to adults. One of the children living at the school in 1861 was Albert Gardener Bene, the son of Jean and Elizabeth Bene, who was born in Sydney in 1853, and went on to became a clergyman in Staffordshire and Kew (London), dying in 1892. The Sicilian service may still have been in use when Albert was a pupil. This pattern has also been recovered from archaeological sites in Australia (Brooks and Connah 2007: 140), raising a number of issues given the global nature of such material culture in the nineteenth century, including child-specific items, at least in the Anglophone world. Would the familiarity of ceramics, or other items, be reassuring to a child who had travelled 17,000 km to a school in Cambridge, and would they convey the same meaning(s) in Cambridge and Australia, being the ‘same under a different sky’ (Connah 2007)? The presence of other relatively expensive high-quality ceramics linked to dining and tea drinking emphasizes the importance placed upon these activities by Sarah Dobson. In two instances, it appears that both a cup and saucer were discarded because just one element was damaged. This contrasts to most late eighteenth-to mid-nineteenth- century deposits from Cambridge, where it appears that unmatched cups and saucers were retained. This suggests that the ideas of matching services applied in this sphere and that Sarah Dobson attached importance to them. The group of three complete blacking bottles is not paralleled in any other assemblages at the site, although such groups in even larger numbers are known from elsewhere (Jeffries et al. 2009: 335–6). The discarding of three complete bottles suggests a household with a greater than normal interest in cleanliness and appearance. The presence of material linked to alcohol and tobacco consumption is intriguing. At this time, male working class drinking culture centred on public houses, which respectable women did not frequent. Smoking was also a gendered activity associated with men, supposedly only undertaken by women of loose morals or low status. The smoking and alcohol drinking in the Dobson household suggest that either socially unusual private female consumption was taking place within the home, or it is possible that the use of correct or polite accoutrements, such as wine glasses, in a domestic context could transform drinking into a respectable activity, or perhaps the drinking and smoking objects represent the activities of male visitors to the house (Lampard and Stanforth 2011). Although it is impossible to determine which members of the household consumed the meat represented by the animal bone, it can be compared to other broadly contemporary groups from Cambridge. It is notable that this group tends to rather more expensive joints than some others, and that the evidence suggesting pig-rearing and hen-keeping is not present in any of the other groups.
Interpreting adult material from other garden features The toothbrush handles made from mammal long bones can be linked to developing ideas of personal hygiene, cleanliness, and even an ideology of personal discipline (Schackel 1993). As such, their presence in the smaller depositional groups, their
Educating Victorian Children 245 potential appropriation by children once they could no longer fulfil their original role, and their reuse and burial in the garden can be viewed as a transgressive act. Slate pencils were in use c.1770–1900, and in 1811 a hand operated machine was invented that allowed an individual to produce around 1,200 pencils a day. The pencils, which were typically 140 mm (5½ in) long and were sold in boxes of a dozen or hundred, are common archaeologically on both domestic and educational sites, although they are usually present in greater quantities at school sites (Davies 2005: 63–4; Beisaw 2009). Like most nineteenth-century material culture, slate pencils are mass-produced items, but through wear and sharpening using knives, they are transformed, effectively becoming individuated and in a sense personalized. Whilst such processes occasionally affect numerous artefact types, pencils are unusual in that they are all subject to this. The pencils from the school garden were mostly moderately used, worn, and broken, and were 32–75 mm (1¼–3 in) long. This is longer than the 17–62 mm reported for the Henry’s Mill (Victoria) site in Australia (Davies 2005: 65), or the maximum length of 25 mm from the Blaess School (Michigan) in North America, which was believed to represent the shortest usable length (Beisaw 2009: 61), suggesting that Dobson school pencils were often discarded whilst they were still usable. No identifiable fragments of writing slates were recovered, although these are frequently found on school sites (Beisaw 2009). These were larger objects that were stored more carefully and would in any case only be disposed of when broken (Davies 2005: 65). As with the toothbrush handles, it is possible that the presence of slate pencils in the smaller depositional groups represents a transgressive act. Some of the ceramic sherds from the smaller depositional groups may have been deliberately selected, in particular the base sherd from the Serenade pattern chamber pot, which has an appealing picture. Several other sherds could also conceivably be viewed as aesthetically pleasing or interesting, particularly from a child’s perspective. If these sherds, plus the slate pencils and toothbrush handles, did pass through a transient ‘toy’ stage (Crawford 2009) prior to deposition, this could strengthen a view of the Dobson household as a relatively austere, toy-free environment. The identification of such ‘toys’ is, however, necessarily limited in terms of interpretation, as games rather than toys are the primary locus of agency, and effectively with archaeology we are forced to deal with toys as proxies (Lima 2012).
Conclusion It would be tempting to interpret the school garden as a pleasant, almost bucolic, location for the staff and students. This is, however, counterpointed by the pig-and hen- rearing, and the presence of the WC block, apparently located so as to be concealed from the main frontage but visible from most of the garden. This tension is paralleled in the material culture. Ideas of gentility meant that cups and saucers were discarded when the corresponding element in the service was damaged, but there was also a strong element
246 Craig Cessford 100% Toothbrushes
80%
Animal bone 60%
Pencils Tobacco pipes
40%
Glass vessels Pottery
20% 0%
Planting hole 3
Other garden features
Test pits
Other c. 1800-50 assemblages
Figure 13.10 Percentages of material deposited in different contexts.
of frugality—exemplified by the raising of pigs and keeping of chickens—and perhaps the female consumption of alcohol and tobacco contrary to prevailing social mores. A conventional approach to the nineteenth-century archaeology of childhood of Sarah Dobson’s garden would have focused entirely on child-specific items, particularly the cups with the moralizing texts/images and the slate pencils. This would have ignored the adult-related material the children also came into contact with, and in some instances adopted for their own use. It would also have probably amalgamated all the material into a single overall narrative, despite the fact that the specific depositional contexts of material have a marked impact upon what items were deposited (Figure 13.10) and how this material is interpreted. To date, the existence of easily recognizable, and in some instances ‘readable’, nineteenth-century child-specific material culture has not been translated into a rich and nuanced approach to the childhood and education of the period. Indeed, it may have inhibited it in certain respects. The potential for such approaches clearly exists, but for it to be realized, more contextually aware, spatiotemporally specific analyses are necessary. Only when a sufficient number of these have been undertaken will it be possible to construct more general narratives that can allow for the highly varied and rapidly changing nature of nineteenth-century childhood.
Acknowledgements The work at Grand Arcade was jointly funded by Grosvenor Developments Ltd and the Universities Superannuation Scheme, as the Grand Arcade Partnership. I would like to thank my project manager Alison Dickens for her support, and Richard Newman for his insights and help. The chapter has benefited greatly from the graphical skills of Vicki Herring, and the photography of Dave Webb.
Educating Victorian Children 247
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Educating Victorian Children 249 Ketz, K. A., Abel, E. J., and Schmidt, A. J. (2005). ‘Public Image and Private Reality: An Analysis of Differentiation in a Nineteenth-Century St. Paul Bordello’. Historical Archaeology, 39/ 2: 74–88. Lampard, S. (2009). ‘The Ideology of Domesticity and the Working-Class Women and Children of Port Adelaide, 1840–1890’. Historical Archaeology, 43/3: 50–64. Lampard, S. and Stanforth, M. (2011). ‘The Demon Drink: Working-Class Attitudes to Alcohol in Nineteenth-Century Port Adelaide’. Australasian Historical Archaeology, 29: 5–12. Lima, T. A. (2012). ‘The Dark Side of Toys in Nineteenth Century Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’. Historical Archaeology, 46/3: 63–78. Lindauer, O. (2009). ‘Individual Struggles and Institutional Goals. Small Voices from the Phoenix Indian School Track Site’, in A. M. Beisaw and J. G. Gibb (eds), The Archaeology of Institutional Life. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 86–102. Lucas, G. (2003). ‘Reading Pottery: Literature and Transfer-Printed Pottery in the Early Nineteenth Century’. International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 7/2: 127–43. Moore, S. (2009). ‘Working Parents and the Material Culture of Victorianism: Children’s Toys at the Ludlow Tent Colony’, in K. Larkin and R. H. McGuire (eds), The Archaeology of Class War: The Colorado Coalfield Strike of 1913–1914. Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado, 285–310. Morrison, W. and Crawford, S. (2013). ‘Re-assessing Toys in the Archaeological Assemblage: A Case Study from Dorchester-on-Thames’. Childhood in the Past, 6: 52–65. Murray, T. (2006). ‘Integrating Archaeology and History at the “Commonwealth Block”: “Little Lon” and Casselden Place’. International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 10/4: 385–403. Olesky, V. (2008). ‘Conformity and Resistance in the Victorian Penal System: Archaeological Investigations at Parliament House, Edinburgh’. Post-Medieval Archaeology, 42/2: 276–303. Porter, J. and Ferrier, A. (2006). ‘Miscellaneous Artifacts From Casselden Place, Melbourne’. International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 10/4: 375–93. Prangnell, J. and Quirk, K. (2009). ‘Children in Paradise: Growing up on the Australian Goldfields’. Historical Archaeology, 43/3: 38–49. Prosser, L., Lawrence, S., Brooks. A., and Lennon, J. (2012). ‘Household Archaeology, Lifecycles and Status in a Nineteenth-Century Australian Coastal Community’. International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 16/4: 809–27. Riley, N. (1991). Gifts for Good Children: Part 1 1790–1890. Ilminster: Richard Dennis. Rotman, D. L. (2009). ‘Rural Education and Community Social Relations. Historical Archaeology of the Wea View Schoolhouse No.8, Wabash Township, Tippecanoe County, Indiana’, in A. M. Beisaw and J. G. Gibb (eds), The Archaeology of Institutional Life. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 69–85. Schackel, P. A. (1993). Personal Discipline and Material Culture: An Archaeology of Annapolis, Maryland 1695–1870. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press. Scott, P. and Fletcher, P. (eds) (1990). Culture and Education in Victorian England. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press. Seifert, D. J. (1991). ‘Within Site of the White House: The Archaeology of Working Women’. Historical Archaeology, 25/4: 82–108. Shaw, S. (1829). History of the Staffordshire Potteries; and the Rise and Progress of the Manufacture of Pottery and Porcelain; with References to Genuine Specimens, and Notices of Eminent Potters. Hanley. Siddall, J. (2012). ‘Inappropriate Patterns for Children’. Transferware Collectors Club Bulletin, 3: 4–6.
250 Craig Cessford Tarlow, S. and West, S. (eds) (1999). The Familiar Past?: Archaeologies of Later Historical Britain. London: Routledge. Vermeer, A. C. (2009). ‘Men–Women and Children: Gender and the Structuring of Historical Archaeology’, in T. Majewski and D. Gaimster (eds), International Handbook of Historical Archaeology. New York, NY: Springer, 319–31. Watts, I. (1715). Divine and Moral Songs for Children. Dublin: E. Scott. Wilkie, L. (2000). ‘Not Merely Child’s Play: Creating a Historical Archaeology of Children and Childhood’, in J. Sofaer Derevenski (ed.), Children and Material Culture. London: Routledge, 100–14. Wilkie, L. (2002). ‘Children’, in C. E. Orser, (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Historical Archaeology. London: Routledge, 98–99. Willemsen, A. (2008). Back to the Schoolyard. The Daily Practice of Medieval and Renaissance Education. Studies in European Urban History 15. Brepols: Turnhout. Wood, E. (2009). ‘Saving Childhood in Everyday Objects’. Childhood in the Past, 2: 151–62. Woodfield, C. (1981). ‘Finds from the Free Grammar School at the Whitefriars, Coventry, c.1545–c.1557/8’. Post-Medieval Archaeology, 15: 81–159. Wright, A. P. M. (2002). ‘Stow cum Quy’, in A. F Wareham and A. P. M. Wright (eds), A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 10, Cheveley, Flendish, Staine and Staploe Hundreds (North-Eastern Cambridgeshire). London: Victoria County History, 230–3. Yamin, R. (2002). ‘Children’s Strikes, Parents’ Rights: Paterson and Five Points’. International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 6/2: 113–26.
Chapter 14
A b ove and Be l ow the Su rfac e Environment, Work, Death, and Upbringing in Sixteenth- to Seventeenth-century Sweden Anne Ingvarsson, Jan Mispelaere, and Ylva Bäckström
Children and childhoods are now established themes in Swedish archaeology, in general, and osteology, in particular (e.g. Johnsen and Welinder 1995; Iregren, Hult, and Homman 1996; Mejsholm 2009; Fahlander 2011; Howcroft 2013). However, analyses focusing on early modern children are still sparse, possibly because the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are underrepresented in the excavated material from historical cemeteries (Jonsson 2006). Historical studies about children and childhoods are more numerous though, and many focus on the upbringing and education of children in early modern Sweden, but information about the working situation of young people is still limited, especially for the period before 1650 (Hedenborg 1997; Österberg 1998; Sjöberg 2004; Mispelaere 2013). Societal changes, such as industrialization, and the nature of the living environment (e.g. whether rural or urban) are known to be important factors for children’s health, development, and exposure to disease. Bioarchaeological research on the impact of industrialization on British children’s health has shown that it affected their health negatively (Lewis 2002, 2013). Sweden was one of the so called Great Powers in seventeenth-century Europe, and the economy was strongly dependent on the fast growing mining industry and flourishing metal work that emerged in many communities, nevertheless, we still know very little about three of the most significant aspects of young individuals’ lives in early modern mining areas: work, societal age, and health status. This chapter employs both bioarchaeological and historical data to examine children’s and teenagers’ lives in a Swedish early modern mining community, drawing on evidence excavated at the cemetery of the miners’ village, close to the Sala silver mine in Västmanland’s county north of the large lake system of Mälaren. Children’s health and their social and physical environment are interpreted from skeletal evidence of mortality,
252 Anne Ingvarsson, Jan Mispelaere, and Ylva Bäckström growth, morbidity, and diet as well as from the examination of mortuary practices at the cemetery. Historical records (e.g. court records, church books, tax lists, and letters) are employed to approach children’s cultural roles and their participation in work.
The Sala mining community— historical and archaeological evidence Sala provides a very early example of the co-existence of intensive mining and metalworking with a broad range of other activities that involved all members of the local population, including children. The combination of high productive proto-industrial activities and foresting, husbandry and farming later became characteristic of several Swedish regions (Montelius 1959: 121–2; Jansson 1963: 53–66). The Crown had its administrative centre in Sala, located on the Väsby estate near the silver mines, and it was the focus for local commerce, jurisdiction, and tax collection, which is extensively documented. Large-scale agriculture was practised, and the estate was not only responsible for its crofters, servants, fisherman, mounted soldiers, prisoners, and officials, but also for the whole work force of the mine and the foundries (Riksarkivet Stockholm (RA), Landskapshandlingar Västmanlands län, 1540–1630; RA, Kammararkivet (KA), Salberget’s account books, volume 20–87, 1537–1620). Assar Jansson (1963: 50–1) has shown that the number of households in Sala mining village fluctuated between 150 and 200 at the beginning of the seventeenth century. There may have been 1,500 to 2,000 inhabitants in the mining village and the surrounding rural parish during that period, and the village had some of the characteristics of a small town, but most of the mine workers lived on farms, kept horses, and raised cattle and other domestic animals, and many had land on which they cultivated crops (RA, KA, Salberget’s account books, volume 87:1, Population records 1609; RA, KA, Boskaps-m.fl.längder (for examples of tax lists with livestock and arable land) Västmanland 2: 4, 3, 4, 1620–4). Several archaeological investigations of the mining village have taken place, and the remains of miners’ houses and associated material culture have been recovered, which suggested that the village was occupied between the mid-or late fifteenth and early seventeenth century (Nordahl 1958; Bergold and Öhnegård 1985: 75, 1987). According to written sources and coins found in the cemetery, the cemetery and a chapel closely connected to the mining village were in use during the same period (Frankius 2008; Bäckström and Ingvarsson-Sundström 2010: 24; Meurman 2010: 78–83). In 2004, a preliminary excavation was made with the aim of determining the size of the cemetery, the frequency and density of graves, and the levels of skeletal preservation, and to explore the location of the chapel (Onsten-Molander and Jonsson 2005). A bioarchaeological research project was subsequently established by Bäckström and Ingvarsson-Sundström to analyse the health and living conditions of the people buried in the cemetery at Sala silver mine (Bäckström, Ingvarsson-Sundström, and Onsten-Molander 2009; Bäckström and
Above and Below the Surface 253 Ingvarsson-Sundström 2010, 2014). A total area of 820 m2 south of the presumed chapel was excavated, but it is possible that the cemetery originally covered c.4,600 m2 (Norberg 1978: 285; Onsten-Molander and Jonsson 2005; Jonsson 2009: 190). Burials, both with and without wooden coffins, were excavated and 102 skeletons were osteologically analysed. The coffin burials contained individuals of all ages as well as both sexes, whereas the bur ials without coffins, primarily located in the southern part of the excavated area, contained males, a majority of them very young (< 25 years of age). All children (here understood as individuals less than 15 years of age) were buried in coffins (Figure 14.1). No clear chronological division between the two burial types has been found, so it is possible that the spatial division of the cemetery and burial customs was related to social differences in the mining community. While the northern part of the excavated area seems to have served households, it is possible that people of a low social status (e.g. prisoners who worked in the mine) and victims of diseases were buried in the southern part, further from the presumed chapel. In that part of the cemetery one individual—presumably a prisoner—was buried with an iron collar, and one grave contained eight individuals who may represent victims of plague or an accident (Bäckström and Ingvarsson-Sundström 2010).
Figure 14.1 Distribution of age groups in the grave types excavated at the Sala (Sweden) mining cemetery. Modified from Bäckström and Ingvarsson-Sundström (2014).
254 Anne Ingvarsson, Jan Mispelaere, and Ylva Bäckström
Children and teenagers What we define as a child changes over time and fluctuates with the social and historical context. Furthermore, it depends on what aspect of young people’s lives the researcher is examining as well as on the type of sources we are using in our studies. The osteoarchaeological categorization of individuals into age groups is based on biological maturation stages visible in the skeleton. Skeletal maturation processes are affected by a range of environmental and genetic factors which make the biological age differ from chronological age but dental development has been shown to have the best correlation with chronological age and is therefore generally preferred for age estimations (Scheuer and Black 2000: 4– 13). Skeletal maturation is also related to the development of bodily skills (e.g. crawling, walking, chewing solid foods, etc.) but not always correlated with them. Skeletal growth and maturation is, nevertheless, the best proxy available for dividing skeletal remains into analytically useful age groups. In this study, six different age categories have been used for the processing of osteological data: infant (0–1 years); Infans I (>1–7 years); Infans II (>7– 14 years); juvenile (>14–20 years); subadult (0–20 years); and adult >20 years. An individual’s mental and physical development also has an impact on both the socioculturally mediated behaviour of the surrounding community and on the construction of social age. That is why a seven-year-old, according to a late seventeenth- century Swedish court verdict, was not expected to be able to handle a horse, and a three-year-old was not expected to be sent to a well with a bucket to pick up some water (Uppsala landsarkiv (ULA), Court records, Dalarnas county, KLHA V AI: 14, Laga ting i Folkare 20/10 1743 § 8; ULA, Letters from Svea hovrätt to the governor of Södermanland county, 23/6/1693, Oppunda härad). But a 12-year-old girl was expected to be able to carry a barrel together with an adult maid and to be capable of taking care of a neighbour’s four-year-old child for several days (ULA, Letters from Svea hovrätt to the governor of Uppland county, 1727, Film’s parish; ULA, Letters from Svea hovrätt to the governor of Gävleborg’s county, 26/2/1692). Limitations due to physiological change clearly affected anticipated levels of responsibility and work. According to Swedish laws, the age limit for full responsibility for their own actions was set for both males and females at 15 years. Although the medieval laws that were applied by the Swedish courts during the early modern period included age levels for accountability, these age levels were not always followed in legal praxis (Egmond 1993: 2; Kirby 2003; Mispelaere 2009). Children below the age of 12 years were very often treated differently from older juveniles (King 2006; Mispelaere 2009: 328–43). The main reason for this distinction was that legal praxis was based upon two important principles: understanding and intent. In most cases, children below the age of 12 years were considered lacking the means of fully understanding the consequences of their actions and if what they had done was seriously wrong. Judges tended to reason in the same way when young individuals caused work accidents (Mispelaere 2009). Regarding work conditions, during the late seventeenth century young people’s employers and co- workers linked specific wage levels to what a child or teenager was capable of doing in
Above and Below the Surface 255 the mines, the stamp works, and at the foundries. When the 18-year-old son of the smith at Ljusnedal’s copper mill was starting to work for the mine company, it was decided that he should receive a wage corresponding to that of all other halvvuxna drängar, literally ‘semi-adult servants’, which was two-thirds of an adult miner’s wage. When, three years later, some of the servants were capable of doing the same amount of work as the adult employees they received full wages. The smith’s assistant Olof received a higher wage than the others because, according the other workers, ‘his body, strength and working capacity had now increased’ (Bruksprotokoll 17/7 1687; Protokollsbok vol. 2, fol. 38 and Protokoll koncept 10/8 1690; Protokollbok vol. 10, § 8–2; Ljusnedals bruks arkiv, Östersunds county archive).
Death of children and its sociocultural setting We know that infant mortality was generally high during the early modern period, albeit that regional variations existed. The pre-Jennerian data on infant mortality (that is figures from the period before the invention of vaccine in 1796 by Edward Jenner) show that c.25 per cent died before they reached the end of their first year (Guy, Masset, and Baud 1997; Larsson 2006: 53–6.). Poor hygiene standards and overcrowded housing conditions facilitated the spread of infectious diseases, but cultural factors—such as breastfeeding practices—are considered influential in making the first year the most dangerous period in life for early modern children (Bengtsson Levin 2005: 87–88; Bohman 2010). Yet, this high infant mortality is seldom visible in osteoarchaeological assemblages from medieval and early modern cemeteries. At the Sala mining cemetery, as well as at two late medieval cemeteries—Sigtuna (phase 3) and Lund (Trinitatis 5)—a fairly substantial proportion of the buried are subadults (40–58 per cent), but the infant category makes up a minority of the skeletal sample: 6.9 per cent (or 12.7 per cent if the six empty infant coffins are included), 2.6 per cent and 4.2 per cent respectively (Arcini 1999: 48, table 3:2, 160; appendix 2, table 3:1; Kjellström 2005: 36, table 4.5, 42, table 4.8.). There is, of course, no general explanation for the infant enumeration, and each case needs to be examined in its own context, but poor preservation of the immature skeleton, differential burial customs and incomplete excavation of burial grounds are often considered as being the three most influential factors (Saunders 1999). Kjellström (2005: 71) notes that all three factors likely affected the low proportion of infants at Sigtuna, while Arcini (1999: 65) proposes that preservation and incomplete excavation of burial grounds are the most important causes of the low numbers of infants excavated at Lund. As already mentioned, the Sala mining cemetery has not been completely excavated. If areas of the cemetery that were not excavated contained a higher concentration of infant graves, this would have had an impact on the apparent demographic profile of the cemetery. It is also likely that poor preservation of the fragile and poorly mineralized infant skeleton has influenced the low frequency of this age group: indeed, in six coffin
256 Anne Ingvarsson, Jan Mispelaere, and Ylva Bäckström graves a skeleton was not preserved but the size of the coffin was that of an infant. The possibility that unbaptized, stillborn, and illegitimate children were buried outside the cemetery cannot be excluded, but, on the other hand, at least one of the infants buried in the cemetery may have been stillborn (age seven foetal months to full-term, coffin size 30 cm). This infant’s grave, placed between two other child graves (aged 8–10 years and 2–3 years, respectively) at the south west of the presumed chapel indicates that foetuses or stillborn babies could, at least sometimes, be afforded a burial within the cemetery (see Gowland, Chapter 6 of this volume, for a discussion about personhood at the beginning of life). In fact, stillborn babies were sometimes mentioned in the church records from the eighteenth century. Church records from the same county as Sala indicate that it was practice for infants and children to be buried in special places at the cemetery. In Säby, for example, it was recorded that a burial place close to the bell tower was designated for some lower-class infants, whereas the infants of some of the richer households were buried within the area of the graveyard intended for the members of their villages. In the same cemetery, the 16-year-old daughter of a wealthy farmer was buried ‘near the church door, on the ground of her ancestors, just beside her grandfather’s burial stone’ (ULA, Kyrkoarkiv Säby, death records C: 2 1688–91, folio, 37, 40, 42, 117, 120). When the proportion of infants excavated at the Sala mining cemetery is compared with the death records (1680–1700) of the roughly contemporaneous community of Gunnilbo (c.40 km from the Sala mining community), and the later data on mortality from Sala town (1747–56) estimated by Bäckström (pers. comm.), it is evident that the number of infants at the Sala mining cemetery is too low (Figure 14.2). The data from
70 60 50 40 % 30 20 10 0
Infant (0–1 y)
Infans I (>1–7 y)
Infans II (>7–14 y) Juvenilis (>14–20 y)
Adults (>20 y–)
Sala mining cemetery (n = 102)
Västerhus (n = 364)
Gunnilbo parish records 1680–1700 (n = 675)
Sala town records 1747–56 (n = 558)
Figure 14.2 Age distribution of the individuals from the Sala (Sweden) mining cemetery in comparison to the age distribution of individuals from the medieval cemetery of Västerhus and the documentary evidence of deaths at Gunnilbo and Sala town.
Above and Below the Surface 257 one of few completely excavated medieval cemeteries in Sweden—Västerhus—further support this view (Gejvall 1960). Both the death records and the cemetery data from Västerhus reveal an expected frequency of infant deaths for pre-Jennerian populations (c.20–30 per cent) (Guy, Masset, and Baud 1997). It is also notable that the mortality trends evident in the Gunnilbo and in the records from Sala town parallel the mortality trend seen in the osteological assemblage found at Västerhus in all age groups. It should be kept in mind, however, that mortality statistics for an era of epidemics often show strong local and temporal variations. The proportion of children in the Infans I group are almost equally represented in both the written and osteological record (17–22 per cent), only the parish records at Gunnilbo indicate a lower proportion of this age group (14 per cent). At the miners’ cemetery, more than half of the children in the Infans I group were determined to be >1–4 years of age. Another peak was seen between 6–7 years of age. In a compilation of age distribution patterns in archaeological materials, Lewis (2007: 86, 88–9, table 5.1) found a generally higher frequency of children in the age group 1–4 years of age. Mortality in this age group has most often been related to stress during the weaning process (Lewis 2007: 103). The frequency of older children (Infans II) and juveniles is higher among the osteological assemblage from the Sala mining cemetery than in any of the three comparative data sets. The high proportion of these age groups (13 and 17 per cent respectively) at the cemetery could, of course, be linked to burial customs and the location of graves, but it is also possible that growing up in a mining community exposed older children and teenagers to additional hazards. Mining is a risky industry and the workers were exposed to accidents, smoke and dust, as well as to lead and arsenic fumes, which are released during smelting processes of the ore. Indeed, textual evidence, including reports of local doctors, mentions that lead poisoning occurred among workers in the Sala silver mine during the nineteenth century (Engelbertsson 1987: 257), although the extent and effects is difficult to assess from these sources (Bäckström, Ingvarsson-Sundström, and Onsten-Molander 2009: 8). Death records available for 101 miners from Sala in the period 1785–1835 show that ten per cent of the deaths derived from accidents in the mine and approximately 30 per cent died of consumption/phthisis (for example, pulmonary tuberculosis; Nordlund 1996). The most common cause of death among miners during the nineteenth century was pulmonary diseases (Engelbertsson 1987: 257–64). In the late medieval period in England rural children were often sent to urban areas to work as apprentices as early as seven years of age (Lewis 2002). Although the English medieval/early industrial conditions cannot be directly compared with Swedish early modern mining communities, it is interesting to note that a majority of the children in the Infans II group (69 per cent) were older than eight years of age. There is, admittedly, no indication in the written sources of children working below ground, but it should be remembered that these sources are later in date than the miners’ cemetery; the youngest individuals who are listed as having worked in the pits in 1774 were 16, 17, and 19 years old, while in 1737 the youngest miner was 19 (Nordlund 1996: 18; RA, Ämnessamlingar 757.05, Handlingar Sala Bergslag, volume 1, List with workers 1737). On the other hand, as we will see, the written records show that a lot of older children and young teenagers worked at the smelting-house and the winches, during the early eighteenth century and earlier.
258 Anne Ingvarsson, Jan Mispelaere, and Ylva Bäckström If the presence of an unexpectedly high number of older children and juveniles at the cemetery can be linked with the environmental hazards connected with the mining industry, the discrepancy between this skeletal material and the later town records from Sala is puzzling. These records represent an urban population that undeniably comprised many people working at the mines, but the population working at the mines constitutes only a fraction of the total number of the town dwellers during the late eighteenth century. The explanation may lie in the fact that, as Larsson (2006: 126) has pointed out, generally speaking, the maintenance of the population with food during the periods with bad harvests after 1750 was significantly better than during the sixteenth and early seventeenth century, which may have had an important effect on the health of the population in general. Thus, the low proportion of individuals in the Infans II and juvenile category in the death records from the 1750s may be a consequence of their better health condition. Further support for this explanation is the poor conditions in the mining village documented in the correspondence and regulations issued by the Crown (Engelbertsson 1987: 15–16). The differences in number of deaths between older children and juveniles in the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries could also signal that, in the sixteenth century, older children and juveniles actually worked below ground or performed considerably heavier and more dangerous chores to a greater extent than the written sources give evidence of. Any attempt to discuss age specific mortality and its causes from written sources is difficult prior to 1749, when Tabellverket (the earliest systematized population census in Sweden) started a national registration of all causes of death, given that there is only sparse and sporadic information to be found in some parish records of earlier date (Larsson 2006: 93). We know that in the eighteenth century dysentery was one of the great child killers, while smallpox, whooping cough, measles, typhoid, and pneumonia/bronchitis were also responsible for many children’s deaths in this period (Högberg 1983; Burström et al. 1998; Larsson 2006: 93; Sundin and Willner 2007: 59–60). Periodic plague outbreaks were also fatal, but affected adults more than children (Larsson 2006: 120). Considering the densely populated and unsanitary mining village, it is likely that many of these diseases were influential causes for the mortality of children also during the early modern period. Aside from epidemic infectious diseases, other major mortality risks for children during the early modern period were malnutrition, poor hygienic circumstances, and crowded housing conditions (Bengtsson Levin 2005: 88, 103). Dysentery with high mortality among children in rural areas is known to have occurred during the seventeenth century, and these epidemics were often correlated with crop failure (Högberg 1983: 74; Edvinsson, Leijonhufvud, and Söderberg 2009). A study of Swedish mortality records has shown that, as a national average, smallpox accounted for 40–70 per cent of the mortality in the age group less than five years around 1750, and that 95 per cent of those who died from smallpox were less than ten years of age. Sköld (1996: 531, 533) has argued that this can also be regarded as a representative figure for the previous hundred years. In sum, the cause of death can seldom be determined from the skeletal material but it seems likely that infectious diseases, respiratory infections in combination with a hazardous living, and working environment caused many children’s deaths in the early modern mining village.
Above and Below the Surface 259
A girl with a coronet As mentioned above, different social groups were buried at the Sala cemetery, although it is often difficult to deduce the social background of the children in the excavated sample directly from their burials, as there was little differentiation between them. All children were buried in wooden coffins and they were mostly single burials. During the sixteenth century, clothed burial became the custom and remnants of textile and also details (both metal and organic) from clothing were found in some of the graves. Burial gifts are not common in the early modern period, but metal artefacts, such as needles (in bronze and iron), wrapped wires (silver gilded bronze), a coronet (discussed below), and a pendant (in silver) were found in seven of the coffin graves.
Figure 14.3 The girl with the coronet. Photograph by Ylva Bäckström and Isabel Mendoza.
260 Anne Ingvarsson, Jan Mispelaere, and Ylva Bäckström The finds are distributed among the burials of two perinates, three 8 to 10-year-old children, and two older adult women. Yet, one burial stands out in terms of inner burial practices: a child, seven to eight years old, had been dressed in a diadem or coronet before being interred. The coronet/diadem found on the child’s forehead was probably made of wool cloth, twill weave with 20 small gilded brass plates fastened on it (Figure 14.3) (Mendoza and Berggrén 2014; Larsson pers. comm.). During the Middle Ages and the early modern period it was common for children and young people who died before they got married to be buried in a coronet—as a ‘bride of Christ’—with the coronet symbolizing chastity and innocence (Hagberg 1937: 194–9; Jonsson 2009). The practice is documented from early modern graves dating to between the late sixteenth to the nineteenth century, although in a majority of the reported cases the coronets are made of botanical/floral material, sometimes adorned with copper thread or pearls and in a few cases gilded, or in one case made of pillow-lace (Arcini and Tagesson 2005; Konsmar 2007; Nyberg 2010). In an eighteenth-century sepulchral chamber in the church of Sura, c.45 km south-west of Sala, an infant’s cist was decorated with a coronet in the form of a wedding crown made of silver threads woven into textile (Jonsson 2006). The fine workings and the valuable material of this particular diadem/ coronet suggest that the child, most probably a girl, came from a privileged family. It is also one of few examples when social age of the individual is indicated in the burial.
Young people and their responsibilities In general, the responsibilities imposed on children and teenagers differed from those imposed on adults, and it is possible to trace something of the differing requirements of adults and children in and around the mine. If we try to reconstruct some of the specific tasks carried out by children living in early modern Sweden, it becomes obvious that taking care of the livestock of their parents, neighbours, and masters was very common. The majority of the work activities performed by 135 children aged between eight and 11 years old recorded in the Swedish court records from the seventeenth and eighteenth century concerned herding—mostly sheep, goats, and cows. Most of these children were living in the countryside. From the age of 12, the work pattern became more varied. Only 10 per cent of the work carried out by teenagers above the age of 15 consisted of herding. This suggests that herding was a task specifically assigned to younger individuals. The same pattern appears even in the lists recording boys and girls who were herding in the parish of Sala 1687–92 and in another mining village, Norrbärke 1687 (Mispelaere 2013). There is also evidence for children and younger teens taking on specific roles at the mine, especially with respect to operation of winches and the cleaning process of ore. The Frenchman’s Hoist was the name of one of the largest winches at the silver mines in Sala, and a lot of experience was required to steer and control this big drum-hoist. With the help of a large group of farmers and their horses, tens of thousands of barrels
Above and Below the Surface 261 with ore were winched up to the surface every year at the Frenchman’s Hoist. A report from the mine from 1612 noted that the ‘Frenchman’s boy’, who usually assisted his father at the ‘Frenchman’s Hoist’ was sometimes not at work because he went to school (RA, Ämnessamlingar 757.05, Handlingar rörande bergverken Sala bergslag, volume 1, rapport 1612). Unfortunately, the age of the boy was not recorded, but apparently those who were young and working with larger hoists were supposed to assist and not to run the hoist system by themselves. We also know from court records from Södermanland’s county that even younger assistants worked at the winches, although the ten-year-old winch boys worked apparently with a hand winch, ran errands, and provided the miners in the pit with torches and charcoal (ULA, High court’s letters to Södermanland’s county council, Sentences 8/7 1696, Sotholms häradsrätt 15–17/6 1696). It is clear that people working at the hoists and winches as assistants could be quite young. In the payrolls from the eighteenth century, the boy who is recorded as ‘Winchboy’ was 14 years old. The 34 assisting placers were all between 12 and 17 years old, except two, who were 18 and 20 years old, respectively. Becoming older, they advanced and became miners and over-placers. In the lists every boy called körpojke or körgosse— literally ‘driver boy’—who drove winches and hoists, and maybe even transported supplies, was between 18 and 20 years old. The youngest recorded person who worked as a miner in the pits was 19 years old, the youngest over-placer was 18 (RA, Ämnessamlingar 757.05, Handlingar rörande bergverken Sala bergslag, volume 2, paylist 1737– 8). According to the same source, the majority of the employees at the mines and the foundries who started to work when they were young, started between 11 and 14 years. 12 of the 109 individuals who worked at the foundries owned by the Crown had started when they were younger than 11; one of them was only eight years old. This means that children started to work in industrial contexts at the same early age as some of the herders did in the countryside. Although 20 per cent of the regular work force at Sala silver mine in 1687 were young people under the age of 15, all of them were employed as assisting placers (59 boys) and drivers (four boys) (Ängelsbergs arkiv, Salbergets arkiv, Arbetarförteckningar och mönsterrullor 1687–1884, DIIIa, Förteckning på arbetsfolket vid Salas hyttor och bokverk 1687). Unfortunately, the payrolls and list recording workforce from the sixteenth century contain no ages, but the payrolls from 1608 give us good reason to assume that the washers were young boys in their early teens as was the case in the late seventeenth and eighteenth century. The under-placers had wages which were much lower than the wages of the over-placers, which were almost double (RA, Räkenskaper kammararkivet 511, Account books Salberget, volume 79: 1–2, Payrolls 1608–10). Furthermore, in 1613 none of the under-placers was registered in the tax records that listed the tax paying part of the workforce. Since none of the workers younger than 15 had to pay those taxes, consequently, even in the early seventeenth century the assisting placers should be assumed to be individuals in their younger teens, or even younger (RA, Älvsborgs lösen, IV:42, Sala foundries, 1613). Therefore, it seems likely that a lot of the young male population at Sala throughout the whole mining era was extensively exposed to the leaded soil and ore. We have yet to find any sources that describe girls who were working as winch helps. In none of the hundreds of court records concerning work performed by girls in their
262 Anne Ingvarsson, Jan Mispelaere, and Ylva Bäckström teens is it mentioned that they worked in the mine pits. In Sala silver mine there were no women registered in the payrolls among those who worked below ground level. Yet, there seems to be no doubt that some teenage girls worked at foundries in Sala. Although we have no ages in the payrolls for female workers, we know that they included both married and unmarried women. For example, in 1580, 17 female workers were registered sorting at the foundry (RA, KA, Salberget’s account books, volume 73:2, 1580). All the women working at Sala silver mine before 1650 were working at the foundries as placers and workers who were crushing, stamping, washing, and sorting the ore, gangue, and minerals. During the eighteenth century, a local decree was established at the mine in Norberg in Västmanland’s county which forbade parents who were working at the foundries from taking with them their small children, four or five years old, or babies in cradles, because their presence disturbed the work (ULA, Örebros län, Nora Bergslags rätt, AIaa: 3, 8/5 1740, fol. 17). If that was the case some generations earlier we do not know, but if it was then many more young people were directly exposed to the unhealthy deposits.
Health and disease At the Sala mine, the main part of the silver was combined with other metals, particularly galena, which had a very high silver content; it was also rich in lead (Engelbertsson 1987: 68). As shown above, children were often involved in washing and dressing the ore, so these children probably came into close contact with lead and other poisonous metals, such as mercury. Since historical mining waste may have been harmful for the environment and people living close to it, especially children, it is possible that other children at the Sala mining village, who were not directly involved in tasks at the mine, were also exposed to an unhealthy and risky environment since the soil, water, and air may have contained toxic metals. Indeed, even today, there are extremely high levels of mainly lead found in the soil in central Sala (Länsstyrelsen Västmanlands län, Miljöenheten 2004). Children are more vulnerable than adults to poisonous substances such as lead, and lead poisoning in children is a big problem in many countries today. Exposure to environmental lead has been found to have negative effects on children’s health and development (Tong, Von Schirnding, and Prapamontol 2000). Lead is a cumulative toxicant that may affect every organ system in the body, and even low levels of exposure may cause irreversible neurological complications as well as a number of other problems (e.g. decreased growth, learning difficulties, hearing loss, and impaired D-vitamin metabolism; World Health Organization 2010). Another source of exposure to lead would have been through the use of lead-glazed ceramics, which were commonly found during the excavation of the mining village (Bergold and Öhnegård 1987). Indeed, a trace- element analysis made on compact bone from ten skeletons from Sala mining cemetery showed extremely high levels of lead, especially in children (Wojnar-Johansson 2008). However, although the values derived from skeletons (subadults n = 5, Pb 132–2804 ppm and adults n = 5, Pb 83–2038 ppm) were higher than in the soil samples from the same
Above and Below the Surface 263 graves (Pb 35–600 ppm), it is unlikely that they reflect the true levels in the living individuals, with the high values most likely resulting from diagenesis, that is a postmortem uptake from the soil (cf. Wittmers et al. 2008). However, even if the specific lead levels in the living population are difficult to determine, this study demonstrates severe contamination of the soil in the area close to the mining village which makes it likely that the water, as well as plants grown in the vicinity could have been affected by poisonous heavy metals (cf. Pettersson 1994; Mileusnić et al. 2014). Dental enamel from permanent teeth are considered to give a more reliable picture of in vivo ingested lead in childhood, as it is more resistant to diagenesis compared to bone (Hillson 1996). The storage of lead in enamel occurs during crown mineralization, from birth to around 14 years of age depending on type of tooth (Budd et al. 2004). Overall, the lead isotope analysis of dental enamel (n=38) showed extremely variable and elevated Pb concentrations (0.8–89 μg/g). It was concluded that the lead likely originated from ‘inhaled/ingested Pb derived from different Pb-rich ores, and/or from the use of lead containing items in for example kitchenware’ (Price et al. 2017). A polluted environment in combination with the household’s use of lead glazed ceramics must have constituted a high exposure to lead and thus significant risk factors for diseases and developmental problems in children (Millard et al. 2014).
Indicators of stress The common, and sometimes lethal, childhood infections and a detrimental mining environment would have been challenging for children’s health and wellbeing, as were probably the unsanitary and crowded living conditions in the mining village (Engelbertsson 1987: 15). New pathogens were probably brought into the area by merchants, war prisoners, and craftsmen who were a common component in the large-scale mining community. The close contact with animals held nearby, or in the houses, makes it possible that zoonoses (e.g. brucellosis) flourished as well. Furthermore, children may also have been exposed to periods of undernourishment. Generally, labour wages at the mine and forges were not high, and after crop failures food prices often increased quickly and real wages fell significantly (Campbell 2009: 45; Edvinsson, Leijonhufvud, and Söderberg 2009). Harvests were disastrous and famine occurred in Sweden especially in the years 1571–2, 1595–7, and 1601–3 (Larsson 2006: 231). Most vulnerable were families who did not own any farm or land. Growth of the long bones of children, especially the lower limbs, is regarded as a sensitive indicator of childhood health, which is particularly correlated with malnutrition (Stinson 2012; see also Mays, Chapter 4 of this volume). To examine if the children from the Sala mining village showed any evidence of compromised growth, femur diaphyseal lengths were plotted in one-year age categories against age determined from dental development (Moorrees, Fanning, and Hunt 1963a, b). The growth curves for the Sala children were then compared with modern standards (Maresh 1955), as well as with the
264 Anne Ingvarsson, Jan Mispelaere, and Ylva Bäckström femur lengths published in the study by Lewis (2013) of urban post-medieval children from St Oswald’s Priory in Gloucester (England). It should be noted that the Sala sample is small (n = 17), which has the consequence that individual maturation affects the results to a high degree. The Sala children show a similar, or faster, growth in comparison to the modern sample during the first three years and at five years of age, and the post-medieval sample also follow the modern growth pattern between three and five years (Figure 14.4). Unfortunately, values for Sala mining cemetery are lacking for individuals older than three to 5.5 years of age. In the older age groups, the bone lengths of the Sala children are in most cases fairly equal to—and in one individual 7.6 years of age lower than—those from the modern sample, whereas in a majority of the older age groups the post-medieval children generally show a poorer growth (Lewis 2013). Thus, it can be hypothesized that periods of malnutrition and related diseases were not particularly common among the Sala children, or that earlier periods of slowed bone growth had been overcome and were followed by catch-up growth before the time of their death (see also the discussion in Mays, Chapter 4 of this volume). If children were more likely to die from infections that became lethal before bones and teeth could show a response, it would hypothetically show as low frequencies of so-called stress markers (Sundick 1978). Certain types of conditions caused by physiological stress, and which the individual survived for some time, can be visible in bones and teeth, although most of these lesions are of unspecific origin (Goodman and Armelagos 1989; Larsen 1997). The timing, frequencies, and severity of these stress markers are commonly used as indicators of stress 450 400
Femur length (mm)
350 300 250 Sala
200
Postmedieval Gloucester
150
Modern
100 50 0
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
Age (years)
Figure 14.4 Growth profile for the children at Sala (Sweden) mining cemetery in comparison with post-medieval British children (Lewis 2013) and modern American children (Maresh 1955).
Above and Below the Surface 265 in archaeological populations. Here, two such indicators of childhood stress—cribra orbitalia and linear enamel hypoplasia—will be briefly discussed. As always, it should be remembered that stress in a sample of dead individuals may not reveal the frequencies among the living population (Wood et al. 1992). Cribra orbitalia is characterized by pitted or porous lesions on the orbital roofs and its exact causes are still the focus of much discussion. Cribra orbitalia was once considered to result from iron deficiency anaemia, but Walker et al. (2009) have convincingly argued against this possibility. They believe that nutritional related megaloblastic anaemia (deficiency of vitamin B12 and folic acid) acquired during childhood is a likely aetiology in many cases, but that other causes such as inflammations of the eye, trauma, and the pathological processes of scurvy and rickets may also give rise to the same pathological reaction. Orbital lesions caused by anaemia tend to develop in children between six months and four years (Watts 2013). The lesion may persist into adulthood but often healed, so it is possible that cribra orbitalia in adults can be underestimated if healed lesions leave no, or very slight, traces. Given the diverse aetiologies and the synergistic relationship that exists between malnutrition and infection, cribra orbitalia is now often regarded as an unspecific stress marker. Cribra orbitalia is regarded as present when defined as grade 2, 3, or 4 indicating the different degree of porosity in accordance with the scoring system recommended Buikstra and Ubelaker (1994). Grade 1 (barely discernible) was not considered as indicative of cribra orbitalia in the present study. More than half of the observable individuals (n = 87) showed evidence of cribra orbitalia (60 per cent). In the subadult sample 69 per cent had cribra orbitalia, and the figure for adults is 49 per cent; adult males show higher prevalence than adult females (56 and 33 per cent respectively) (Figure 14.5). Cribra 80
17
12 13
70
48
16
60
87
25 39
50 12 % 40
55
12
17
30
27
43
males
adults
98
22 20 10 0
3
3
Infant
Infans I
Infans II
Juvenilis Subadults Cribra orbitalia
females
total
LEH
Figure 14.5 Age and sex distribution of the skeletal stress markers cribra orbitalia and LEH in the Sala (Sweden) mining cemetery (figures above bars indicate sample size).
266 Anne Ingvarsson, Jan Mispelaere, and Ylva Bäckström orbitalia is most prevalent in the age-group Infans I (>1–7 years of age), and 76 per cent of the individuals in this group show evidence of the lesion. All but two of these children were less than four years of age, and a majority had active lesions only; the others show a combination of both active and healed lesions. An overall prevalence of 69 per cent in the subadult sample is a high figure when compared to other Swedish urban Viking Age/medieval and post-medieval samples such as Skara (ad 1100–1530) and Sigtuna (ad 980–1527), which were 15–20 per cent and 22 per cent respectively (Kjellström, Tesch, and Wikström 2005: 105, table 17; Vretemark 2010: 32). The Sala prevalence is also higher than the post-medieval English children from an urban manufacturing environment studied by Lewis (2013), where 25 per cent of the subadults displayed cribra orbitalia. Another stress indicator often discussed in bioarchaeological studies is linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH). LEH is seen on tooth crowns as horizontal lines or furrows of decreased enamel thickness. Although LEH can be found on all teeth, it is most often found on the permanent tooth crowns in the anterior dentition, which develops between approximately one and six years of age (Goodman and Armelagos 1989; Watts 2013). Stress encountered during tooth development causes the enamel metabolism to slow down, and when the individual recovers from the stress episode normal enamel development resumes; the event can be seen as a permanent record of childhood stress episodes (Goodman and Rose 1991). There are many causes of enamel hypoplasia (for instance localized trauma, toxic causes, and hereditary and developmental disturbances) but most LEH in archaeological populations are associated with some kind of systemic metabolic stress like infectious disease or malnutrition (Larsen 1997: 45; Schultz et al. 1998). LEH was not as prevalent as cribra orbitalia in this sample (Figure 14.5). LEH was regarded as present if found on at least two teeth in a dentition. LEH was only found on permanent teeth. Thirty-three per cent of the observable individuals (n = 98) show at least one line. Of the total sample, the prevalence is 35 per cent for subadults and 30 per cent for adults; slightly more females than males have LEH. Among subadults, the highest prevalence (69 per cent) was found in the Infans II group (>7–14 years of age), which differs from the results for analysis of cribra orbitalia, which was, in contrast, most prevalent among the Infans I group. The higher LEH prevalence among Infans II may partly be a reflection of the period of anterior tooth crown development. The subadult prevalence (35 per cent), is lower than the figure noted at, for example, Skara (Dellborg, Lingström, and Borrman 2010), where 50 per cent of the subadults show LEH, and also lower than in the English post-medieval sample studied by Lewis (2013), where 47 per cent of the subadults displayed LEH. Dietary reconstructions of past populations through stable isotopes are important tools in bioarchaeological studies and the concepts and methods have been extensively discussed and described (see e.g. Katzenberg 2000; Sealy 2001; Schwarcz and Schoeninger 2011; Hemer and Evans, Chapter 27 of this volume). The measured isotopic composition of human bone collagen generally reflects the individual’s diet for about a decade (Müldner and Richards 2005: 40), and can indicate whether the protein consumed included mainly terrestrial, marine, or freshwater resources, or a combination of different sources. In short, high nitrogen values indicate a diet with substantial amounts of animal protein (either in the form of meat, fish, or dairy products), whereas
Above and Below the Surface 267 vegetarians usually have low nitrogen values (Schoeninger and Moore 1992). The carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) values from the cemetery at the Sala mining village indicate a diet partly based on freshwater fish and lactating animals (Linderholm 2009; Fjellström 2013; Bäckström et al. 2017). Stable nitrogen and carbon isotopes were analysed in approximately half of the buried children (comprising the categories infant, Infans I, and Infans II) in the Sala mining cemetery (n = 22 of 43 in total). The result of the stable isotopes analysis makes it possible to distribute the values in two groups consisting of children in different ages: one group of children buried close to the chapel with high δ15N (‰) >15.0), that is a high protein diet, and another group of children with δ15N (‰) values 15.0 n = 8
Linear enamel hypoplasia
LEH abscent
LEH NA
LOW δ15N(‰) 80 years
Individuals who were inactive due to old age and sickness. If possible, they took care of small animals, such as guinea pigs and ducks.
4
Handicapped, birth defect, Males, young or old, who were handicapped or sick and thus and very sick not able to work.
5
18–20 years
Males who worked as messengers, took care of animals, and assisted warriors and lords.
6
12–18 years
Young males who took care of animal herds, caught birds, and selected feathers for royal garments.
7
9–12 years
Male children who were taught to hunt small birds, herd animals, dry meat, and cure animal skins.
8
5–9 years
Children who helped their parents with household chores and the care of younger siblings.
9
1–5 years
Unweaned children who could crawl.
10
Just born
Breastfed infants under the care of mothers.
Child Sacrifice in the Ancient Andes 575 Table 31.1 (continued) Calle #
Age or status
Definition of female group
1
33 years
Married and widowed women, responsible for the production of fine textiles for nobles and the production of ordinary textiles for the community.
2
50 years
Old women responsible for the production of ordinary textiles for the community. They also assisted in the household.
3
> 80 years
Old women who mostly slept and ate. If possible, they produced textiles for the community and assisted in the household.
4
Handicapped, birth defect and extremely sick
Women with birth defects or disabilities. They were expected to reproduce and if possible produce textiles.
5
30 years
Virgin women who married warriors. They were asked to participate in rituals for the sun and temples.
6
12–18 years
Young girls who helped their parents and learned to produce textiles while assisting noble women. They took care of animals and helped with the production of chicha.
7
9–12 years
Girls who collected flowers and terrestrial and aquatic plants. They prepared dye from the flowers to dye threads for textile production.
8
5–9 years
Girls who helped their parents with household activities and assisted with the care of younger siblings, the production of chicha, and spinning.
9
1–2 years
Girls who crawled.
10
Just born
Breastfed infants taken care of by their mothers.
communities also discuss social age categories used in more modern times (e.g. Harris 1980; Graham 1997: 1703; Canessa 2000; Allen 2002; Bolin 2006). While these sources must be contextualized, they can aid in developing a more culturally-relevant definition of ‘child’. Ultimately, defining what constitutes a ‘child’ is not a straightforward task for the ancient Andean populations discussed here, even if we assume that they had a similar world view to the Incas. Similar to what we see in more traditional Aymara and Quechua groups today, the Incas focused on physical development, roles, and productivity in assigning calles rather than chronological age. In a relatively atypical manner, Inca age grades, as well as not following chronological age, do not always follow an ordinal system either. Rituals are also important in age transitions (see Blom and Knudson 2014 for a review of the literature on these rituals for earlier childhood), but their timing is still primarily focused on development factors, such as speech, weaning, and growing a full head of hair. While Incan children had puberty rites of a sort, they are not commonly
576 Deborah E. Blom recognized today. However, both ethnohistorical sources on the Inca (Rowe 1946: 143, 286) and ethnographic sources on Aymara and Quechua communities indicate that one is only considered fully adult when married (Tschopik 1951: 168; Isbell 1978: 117; Harris 1980: 88). Additional status is conferred upon having children and grandchildren, which allows recognition as an ancestor (Orta 2000). When reviewing the literature on child sacrifice, it should be kept in mind that physical and cognitive maturity, social roles, and the bearing of offspring were probably crucial in determining the age transition from child through various stages of adulthood. This chapter de-emphasizes individuals who would have probably gone through puberty before death, especially when context indicates adult roles, such as late adolescent males found mixed with older males, all who were seemingly war prisoners (Verano 1995). Finally, in the following discussion, we generally use the term ‘juvenile’ to refer to skeletal remains and ‘child’ as a cultural category.
Child sacrifice: historical overview While child sacrifice in the Andes is most commonly associated with the Inca (ad 1400– 1532), in fact, there is evidence to suggest that it occurred much earlier, in the form, for example, of some infant burials of the Late Preceramic (5000–2800 bc) sites of Aspero and La Paloma (see Benson and Cook 2001 for a more thorough review of the earlier evidence). While there is no clear evidence to indicate the cause of death in these instances, burial location and associated grave goods provide evidence to support an interpretation that they were associated with building dedication. During the Early Intermediate Period on the Peruvian coast (Figure 31.1), evidence of human sacrifice can be found in both iconography (mirroring evidence that is seen much earlier) and in human remains. For example, on the north coast c.ad 100–750, Moche art graphically depicts scenes of captive victims, trophy heads, severed heads, throat slitting, and blood collection (Donnan and McClelland 1979), and archaeological evidence suggests that the images represented actual events (Verano 2000, 2013b), although the evidence for child sacrifice is not common. Excavations at Huaca de la Luna revealed three juveniles aged one to three years old, two of which were headless (Bourget 2001). The juveniles were found beneath a series of burials of males who were apparently war captives sacrificed during periods of torrential rains. There was no clear indication for the manner of the juveniles’ deaths; however, on the basis of the location and manner of burial, archaeologists interpret them as likely dedicatory offerings related to the plaza construction. Bourget (2001) notes that children specifically played an important part in Moche ritual and sacrifice related to architectural completions, variable environmental conditions, and to the ancestors (for a complete review see Bourget 2001). Occupying areas further to the south (Figure 31.1), the Nasca (c.ad 1–700) are well known for iconographic representations of severed heads hanging from ropes through their foreheads and widespread archaeological findings of actual trophy heads. Trophy
Child Sacrifice in the Ancient Andes 577
Figure 31.1 Map of Early Intermediate Period and Middle Horizon cultural areas on the Peruvian coast. Drawing by Richard Witting.
heads of juveniles have been found at several sites (Kroeber 1956; Browne, Silverman, and García 1993: 275; Silverman 1993; Williams, Forgey, and Klarich 2001), but those under 12 years of age represent less than 3 per cent overall (Verano 1995: 214). Scholars have debated the relative importance of Nasca trophy heads in indicating agriculture fertility rituals, ancestor worship, and/or decapitation associated with warfare. Diverse data from iconography (Proulx 2001), demography (Verano 1995: 214), and chemical analyses of geographical origin (e.g. Knudson et al. 2009) can lend support to all of these hypotheses. In the end, it is unclear whether these remains represent sacrificial victims or postmortem body modification. Two pre-Incan, Middle Horizon (c.ad 600–1000) Andean complex polities, Wari to the North and Tiwanaku to the South (Figure 31.1), may provide more direct evidence of child sacrifice. In the capital city of Tiwanaku in the Lake Titicaca Basin, potential evidence of child sacrifice consists of an occasional isolated cranium, such as that from the Mollo Kontu mound (Couture 2003), an infant in a compound wall foundation likely representing a dedicatory offering in the Akapana East sector (Blom and Janusek 2004), and the remains of children mixed with adults and camelids on the terraces of the Akapana temple (Manzanilla and Woodard 1990) and an open area south-east of the Kalasasaya (Verano 2013a). Of these findings, the clearest evidence of child sacrifice is one, likely disembodied, head of an eight-year-old that had five entry wounds from a sharp pointed object on the cranial vault and palate (Verano 2013b). While ample iconographic representation of ‘trophy heads’ and ‘sacrificers’ exist for Tiwanaku (Blom and
578 Deborah E. Blom Couture forthcoming), actual archaeological evidence for sacrifice is rare, especially on juvenile remains (Blom, Janusek, and Buikstra 2003). At the Wari heartland site of Conchopata in the south-central Andean highlands, two D-shaped ceremonial structures contained burnt, smashed, and commingled remains of camelids, pottery, and 31 disembodied skulls, seven of which were juveniles between three and 12 years of age (Tung 2008). Tung (2008: 298) reports that one juvenile mandible had chop marks consistent with decapitation from behind and that an associated cervical fracture indicates that this was perimortem. However, other than this, the juvenile remains exhibited no indication of the ante-mortem trauma found in 42 per cent of the adult remains. However, postmortem modification found on four of the seven juvenile skulls followed the highly systematized pattern seen in adult ‘trophy heads’: drilled holes at the bregma and on the occipital and ascending ramus of the mandible, and cut marks that would have separated the head from the body and the mandible from the skull. The contexts also contained isolated juvenile (and adult) hand phalanges. Contextualizing these data with Wari archaeology and iconography and using strontium analyses (Tung and Knudson 2010), Tung (2008) argues that these children were captured by Wari warriors through village raids (rather than taken from a battlefield) and transformed into trophies, likely to provide a powerful symbol of Wari domination. During the subsequent Late Intermediate Period (LIP), on the coast the evidence of child sacrifice is dramatic. After the decline of the Moche on the North coast, the Sicán/ Lambayeque culture flourished c.ad 900–1100 (Figure 31.2). Archaeological evidence
Figure 31.2 Map of Late Intermediate Period and Inca cultural areas. Drawing by Richard Witting.
Child Sacrifice in the Ancient Andes 579 reveals substantial numbers of ‘retainer burials’ in the Sicán capital but with no clear evidence of skeletal trauma (Shimada et al. 2004). This can be contrasted with the surrounding areas where ethnically distinct Moche descendants practised Moche-like sacrifice that left ample skeletal evidence in adults. According to Klaus and colleagues (Klaus, Centurion, and Curo 2010; Klaus and Shimada 2011), the earliest substantiated incidence of child sacrifice in the Andes can be traced to the LIP site of Cerro Cerrillos (ad 900–1100) where skeletal analysis revealed ‘sharp force trauma’ on the cervical vertebrae, anterior medial clavicles, sternal rib ends, and sterna, evidence that indicates throat slitting, semi-decapitation, and heart ablation, the latter of which has not, however, been observed for the Moche. In another deviation from Moche practices, the majority of the individuals for whom age could be determined were juveniles (N = 21/ 29 were two to 15 years old). Contextual clues and palaeopathological analyses indicate that the ‘Muchik’ were sacrificing members of their own ethnic group, and post-sacrifice practices differed from the Moche in a more ‘venerable’ treatment of the sacrificed. Similar means of ritual killing followed the emergence of the Lambayeque culture in the area. Excavations at the Sacred Temple of the Stone at Tucume (ad 1350–1470) show evidence of annual ritual sacrifice spanning approximately 100 years from the Chimu through early Inca occupations (Toyne 2011) (Figure 31.2). Of the 43 juveniles analysed (~43 per cent of the sample), 40 showed cut marks consistent with perimortem trauma like that seen at Cerro Cerrillos. The presence of several other coastal sites with such evidence during this time period points towards an increase in child sacrifice, often characterized by throat slashing, decapitation, and likely heart removal (Benson and Cook 2001; Eeckhout and Owens 2008; Gaither et al. 2008; Verano 2008; Lobell 2012; Holloway 2014). At Chotuna-Chornancap the method of child sacrifice seems to have changed from semi-decapitation to chest opening over time (Klaus et al. 2012; Turner et al. 2013). The most well-known Andean child sacrifices are those carried out at the hands of the Incas (ad 1400–1532) who expanded to control nearly the entire Andean region. In a powerful statement, Benson (2001: 17–18) writes that ‘the Incas used child sacrifice to ensure the stability of the empire’. Many scholars have mined the vast ethnohistorical literature for rich descriptions of children sacrificed within a larger, Incan redistribution of valuable goods that was called ‘capacocha’ (Rowe 1946; Duviols 1976; Zuidema 1978; Silverblatt 1987; MacCormack 1991; McEwan and Van de Guchte 1992; Verano 1995; Benson 2001; Besom 2009). These sources variously depict the capacocha as chosen children between five and 15 years of age who were brought to the Inca capital of Cuzco along the royal Inca roads and then sacrificed in the capital, their natal communities, or in sacred places elsewhere in the empire. The children are described as elite, well-fed, well- clothed, and bestowed with fine gifts prior to sacrifice. Researchers have suggested many possible reasons for and meanings of the capacocha, and they note variation in practice. Capacocha were generally non-Incas and likely served at least the purpose of creating alliances linking the royal Inca and the capital at Cuzco with his subjects and the Inca hinterland. Some sources claim pairs of boys and girls were symbolically married representing kin relations and alliances (e.g. McEwan
580 Deborah E. Blom
Figure 31.3 Offering of a child sacrifice to Pachacamac. Credit: The Royal Library, Copenhagen, GKS 2232 cuarto: Guaman Poma, Nueva corónica y buen gobierno (1615): 266[268] Drawing 104. Idols and waqas of the Chinchaysuyus in Paria Caca; Pacha Kamaq, creator of the universe.
Child Sacrifice in the Ancient Andes 581
Figure 31.4 Detailed line drawing of an offering of a child sacrifice to Pachacamac. Drawing by Corrie Roe from Guaman Poma de Ayala (1615: 266 [268]).
582 Deborah E. Blom and Van de Guchte 1992). Child sacrifices were often carried out to mark important events, such as the inauguration or death of Inca, and to ensure agricultural fertility and the health of the Inca. The capacocha were also a form of tribute to the Inca upon conquest and as collected during periodic taxation. Exhibiting the ability to take cherished children in the name of the Inca was a dramatic means of demonstrating Cuzco’s dominance. Widely publicized remains of several sacrificed juveniles have been found in the high Andean peaks along with rich offerings of ceramics, metals, textiles, and other material (Vitry 1997; Ceruti 2004; Reinhard and Ceruti 2005; see Faux 2012 for a review of these finds). Others have been found interred in the Inca ‘heartland’ centred around Cuzco, where remains were found in jars in the floor with elaborate offerings, such as shell llama figurines and tupu pins (Andrushko et al. 2011). Artefactual and clothing analyses support the elite status of Inca individuals, as well as differential treatment based on sex and age (Besom 2010; Ceruti 2004; Andrushko et al. 2011). Strontium isotope analysis also reveals that at least some of the individuals were non-local (Andrushko et al. 2011). Analysis of the remains have also supported the ethnohistorical data that children were killed without trauma (Andrushko et al. 2011).
Key approaches and theoretical questions Approaches to the study of ancient Andean child sacrifices are varied and the diverse data sets used complement one another. For example, depictions of sacrifice in art and architecture represent biased images controlled for public consumption. The predominate sacrificial victims represented are warriors, with women and children largely absent (see Bourget 2001 for a discussion of Moche representation of children), and the presence of images of sacrifice is not always paralleled by evidence in the archaeological record. Conversely, although the Incas were widely practising sacrifice, it is rarely depicted, although one reason for this may be that Inca art was generally not figurative. Taken together, it is clear that even when it was performed in a society, child sacrifice was rarely considered appropriate material for artwork throughout Andean prehistory. In contrast, descriptions of child and adult sacrifice abound in the ethnohistorical accounts of the Incas and some other later Andean groups (see Figures 31.3 and 31.4 for an example of a drawing from Guaman Poma). These accounts come with their own biases as they tried to accomplish such varied goals as outlining the abuses of the Spaniards and defending the Incas to the Spanish king (e.g. Guaman Poma de Ayala 1936 [1615]) or serving as a guide to priests who were trying to eradicate Andean religious practice (e.g. Arriaga 1968 [~1617]). Much has been written on the critical analysis of these sources (e.g. Adorno 1986 on Guaman Poma), but they have the potential to provide us with insights that we could never have with archaeological remains alone.
Child Sacrifice in the Ancient Andes 583 Ethnographic analogies have also been helpful in considering the role of child sacrifice, and the reasons for sacrifice have been explored by several authors (e.g. Verano 1995; Benson 2001; Bourget 2001). Children often hold unique roles, knowledge, and power, with specific ritual tasks that only they can perform (Rowe 1946; Bolin 1998: 34, 2006; Allen 2002). Sillar (1994) writes that children were seen as powerful intermediaries or conduits for communicating with the gods, and that young children’s prayers were considered particularly powerful (see also Bandelier 1910; La Barre 1948). The association of children with supernatural communication, liminality, and fertility may have been a key factor driving child sacrifice in some Andean societies. While we have a focus on sacrifice as a means of ensuring wellbeing by communicating with the supernatural to control the natural world, it is also frequently discussed with analogies focused on warfare and a means to consolidate power through intimidation of conquered or competing groups, in addition, it is interpreted as a way to maintain internal order, both from supernatural and statecraft perspectives. As we know from the ethnographic record, these various explanations may not be mutually exclusive. Archaeological studies hold considerable value in their ability to critically evaluate ethnohistorical and iconographical/artistic information and to test hypotheses drawn from ethnographic analogy. Of course, archaeological interpretation is not without issues. Just as Bentley and Klaus (2016) point out that females interred with males may be undervalued as ‘retainers’ when they may be family members, so children, even older children, found in similar situations may not even be considered potential retainers but instead are interpreted as general ‘offerings’ or ‘sacrifices’; this ignores the considerable labour contributions of children in traditional societies. Overall, detailed excavation provides important information to contextual finds and artefactual analyses can provide insight into subjects such as the origins and ethnicity of child sacrifices (e.g. Bray et al. 2005; see also Besom 2009). Osteological evidence and taphonomical studies have been key in providing valuable information about child sacrifice. Such studies address whether the method of sacrifice was one that would leave skeletal trauma (e.g. blows to the head and neck, decapitation, throat slitting, or heart ablation) or one that would not (e.g. suffocation, strangulation, exposure, and drowning). Osteological observations are crucial in differentiating perimortem trauma from postmortem modification, as some societies retained portions of victims (e.g. skulls/facial bones) for trophies. Trauma analysis has also been helpful in indicating the treatment of sacrificial victims before death. In the case of mummified remains, radiological studies have been used to determine perimortem state (Wilson et al. 2013). Although seen in earlier studies, such as those by Verano (2000), more recent bioarchaeological studies have integrated archaeological and osteological data as seen in the multiple publications of Tung, Klaus, and Toyne (examples are cited above). In addition to interest in the means of death, several studies have focused on determining whether children who were sacrificed were local or non-local. Most prominent among these analyses has been the use of isotopic data to discern palaeomobility and dietary patterns associated with particular locales (Wilson et al. 2007; Tung and
584 Deborah E. Blom Knudson 2010; Andrushko et al. 2011; Turner et al. 2013). DNA studies have also begun to shed light on these questions (Wilson et al. 2007; Gómez-Carballa et al. 2015; see also Shimada et al. 2004 for an indication of the promise of future studies). Although biodistance analyses to determine origins of adult sacrificial victims have been published (Sutter and Verano 2007), those on children are still in progress (as mentioned in Klaus et al. 2011). Finally, scholars have been interested in ritual transformation and treatment surrounding child sacrifices. A variety of studies, including those cited above, have served to identify changes in diet or the consumption of coca or alcohol that may have occurred leading up to the time of death. They also address whether consumption habits changed as a result of migration and pilgrimage (Wilson et al. 2013). Bodily fluids found with sacrificed remains have been used to question whether there is evidence of excessive drinking, fear, or bodily response to death (Reinhard 2005). Likewise, ‘shotgun proteomics’ has been used to identify infections in mummified remains (Corthals et al. 2012). These in-depth studies of individual, remarkable finds have been quite fruitful.
Conclusions: trends and directions Studies of human sacrifice in general have moved from description of individual finds to discussions linking diverse findings. Larger sample sizes and the discoveries of mass child sacrifices have been fortuitous in recent advances in population-based studies in addition to individual case studies. Multidisciplinary and bioarchaeological approaches have begun to tap the richness of the available data as never before and biodistance studies will soon be used on child samples. Finally, advances in archaeological sciences, such as those in chemistry, proteomics, and genetics, continue to be applied to reveal new information from existing remains.
Acknowledgements I would like to thank my research assistants for their help in preparing this chapter, most importantly Richard Witting for developing the maps, Corrie Roe for the Guaman Poma drawing, and Debbie Fletcher for her work with the text and sources.
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586 Deborah E. Blom Ceruti, M. C. (2004). ‘Human Bodies as Objects of Dedication at Inca Mountain Shrines (North-Western Argentina)’. World Archaeology, 36/1: 103–22. Corthals, A., Koller, A., Martin, D. W., Rieger, R., Chen, E. I., Bernaski, M., Recagno, G., and Dávalos, L. M. (2012). ‘Detecting the Immune System Response of a 500-Year-Old Inca Mummy’. PLoS One, 7/7: e41244. Couture, N. C. (2003). ‘Ritual, Monumentalism, and Residence at Mollo Kontu, Tiwanaku’, in A. L. Kolata (ed.), Tiwanaku and its Hinterland: Archaeology and Paleoecology of an Andean Civilization, Volume 2, Urban and Rural Archaeology. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 202–25. Dean, C. (1995). ‘Who’s Naughty and Nice: Depictions of Childish Behaviour in the Paintings of Cuzco’s Corpus Christi Procession’. Journal of Art History, 7: 107–26. Donnan, C. B. and McClelland, D. (1979). The Burial Theme in Moche Iconography. Washington DC: Dumbarton Oaks. Duviols, P. (1976). ‘La Capacocha: Mecanismo y Función del Sacrificio Humano, su Proyección, su Papel en la Política Integracionista, y en la Economía Redistrubutiva del Tawantinsuyu’. Allpanchis Phuturinqa, 9: 11–57. Eeckhout, P. and Owens, L. S. (2008). ‘Human Sacrifice at Pachacamac’. Latin American Antiquity, 19/4: 375–98. Faux, J. L. (2012). ‘Hail the Conquering Gods: Ritual Sacrifice of Children in Inca Society’. Journal of Contemporary Anthropology, 3/1: 1–15. Gaither, C., Kent, J., Sánchez, V. V., and Tham, T. R. (2008). ‘Mortuary Practices and Human Sacrifice in the Middle Chao Valley of Peru: Their Interpretation in the Context of Andean Mortuary Patterning’. Latin American Antiquity, 19/2: 107–21. Gómez-Carballa, A., Catelli, L., Pardo-Seco, J., Martinón-Torres, F., Roewer, L., Vullo, C., and Salas, A. (2015). ‘The Complete Mitogenome of a 500-Year-Old Inca Child Mummy’. Scientific Reports, 5: 16462. Graham, M. A. (1997). ‘Food Allocation in Rural Peruvian Households: Concepts and Behaviour Regarding Children’. Social Science and Medicine, 44/11: 1697–709. Guaman Poma De Ayala, F. (1615). GKS 2232 4° Nueva Corónica y Buen Gobierno, http:// www.kb.dk/permalink/2006/poma/titlepage/en/. Copenhagen, Denmark: Det Kongelige Bibliotek. Guaman Poma De Ayala, F. (1936) (1615). Nueva Coronica y Buen Gobierno (Codex Peruvien Ilustre). Travaux et Memoires de L’Institut D’Ethnologie 23. Paris: Universite de Paris. Harris, O. (1980). ‘The Power of Signs: Gender, Culture and the Wild in the Bolivian Andes’, in C. P. MacCormack and M. Strathern (eds), Nature, Culture, and Gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 70–94. Holloway, A. (2014). Ancient Ritual Sacrifice of Children and Llamas Unearthed In Peru. http:// www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/ancient-ritual-sacrifice-children-and- llamas-unearthed-peru-002276#Sthash.6mdauuzz.Dpuf (accessed 1 November 2014). Isbell, B. J. (1978). To Defend Ourselves: Ecology and Ritual in an Andean Village. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. Klaus, H. D., Centurion, J., and Curo, M. (2010). ‘Bioarchaeology of Human Sacrifice: Violence, Identity and the Evolution of Ritual Killing at Cerro Cerrillos, Peru’. Antiquity, 84/ 326: 1102–22. Klaus, H. D. and Shimada, I. (2011). Bodies and Blood: Ritual Killing in Middle Sicán Society. Paper Presented at the 76th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Sacramento, CA.
Child Sacrifice in the Ancient Andes 587 Klaus, H. D., Luce, J., Perez, J., Demarco, A., Saldaña, F., and Wester, C. (2011). Sacrifice as an Act of Creation: Generative Violence and Ritual Killings of Females and Juveniles at Chotuna, Lambayeque Valley (ad 1375–1532). Paper Presented at the 76th Annual Meeting for the Society of American Archaeology, Sacramento, CA. Klaus, H. D., Appelgate, S., Byrnes, E., Nelson-Hadley, J., Talpas, B. A., Saldaño, F., and Wester, C. (2012). Víctimas de Sacrificio Humano en el Complejo Arqueológico Chotuna- Chornancap: Una Reconstrucción Multidimensional de la Violencia Ritual en la Epoca Prehispánico Tarde, Valle de Lambayeque. Paper Presented at the Fourth Biannual Meeting of the Paleopathology Association in South America, 1–2 November, Lima. Knudson, K. J., Williams, S. R., Osborne, R., Forgey, K., and Williams, P. R. (2009). ‘The Geographic Origins of Nasca Trophy Heads in the Kroeber Collection Using Strontium, Oxygen, and Carbon Isotope Data’. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 28/2: 244–57. Kroeber, A. L. (1956). ‘Toward Definition of the Nazca Style’. University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology, 43: 327–432. La Barre, W. (1948). The Aymara Indians of the Lake Titicaca Plateau, Bolivia. American Anthropologist Memoirs Number 68 (American Anthropologist Vol. 50, No. 1, Part 2). Menasha, WI: American Anthropological Association. Lobell, J. A. (2012). ‘A Society’s Sacrifice: Why the Chimu People of Ancient Peru Offered what was most Valuable to them’. Archaeology, 65/1: 43–7. Lozada Cerna, M. C. and Rakita, G. F. M. (2013). ‘Andean Life Transitions and Gender Perceptions in the Past: A Bioarchaeological Approach among the Pre-Inca Chiribaya of Southern Peru’, in M. C. Lozada and B. O’Donnabhain (eds), The Dead Tell Tales: Essays in Honour of Jane E. Buikstra. Los Angeles, CA: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press Monograph 76, 114–22. MacCormack, S. (1991). Religion in the Andes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Manzanilla, L. and Woodard, E. (1990). ‘Restos Humanos Asociados A La Pirámide De Akapana (Tiwanaku, Bolivia)’. Latin American Antiquity, 1/2: 133–49. Mayblin, M. and Course, M. (2014). ‘The Other Side of Sacrifice: Introduction’. Ethnos, 79: 307–19. McEwan, C. and Van de Guchte, M. (1992). ‘Ancestral Time and Sacred Space in Inca State Ritual’, in R. F. Townsend (ed.), The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes. Chicago, IL: Art Institute of Chicago, 359–7 1. Orta, A. (2000). ‘Syncretic Subjects and Body Politics: Doubleness, Personhood, and Aymara Catechists’. American Ethnologist, 26: 864–89. Proulx, D. A. (2001). ‘Ritual Uses of Trophy Heads in Ancient Nasca Society’, in E. P. Benson and A. G. Cook (eds), Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru: New Discoveries and Interpretations. Austin: University of Texas Press, 119–36. Reinhard, J. (2005). The Ice Maiden: Inca Mummies, Mountain Gods, and Sacred Sites in the Andes. Washington DC: National Geographic Society. Reinhard, J. and Ceruti, C. (2005). ‘Sacred Mountains, Ceremonial Sites, and Human Sacrifice among the Incas’. Archaeoastronomy, 19: 1–43. Rowe, J. H. (1946). ‘Inca Culture at the Time of the Spanish Conquest’, in J. H. Steward (ed.), Handbook of South American Indians, Volume 2: The Andean Civilizations. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution, 183–330. Shimada, I., Shinoda, K.-I., Farnum, J., Corruccini, R., and Watanabe, H. (2004). ‘An Integrated Analysis of Pre- Hispanic Mortuary Practices: A Middle Sican Case Study’. Current Anthropology, 45/3: 369–402.
588 Deborah E. Blom Sillar, B. (1994). ‘Playing with God: Cultural Perceptions of Children, Play and Miniatures in the Andes’. Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 13: 47–63. Silverblatt, I. (1987). Moon, Sun, and Witches: Gender Ideologies and Class in Inca and Colonial Peru. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Silverman, H. (1993). Cahuachi in the Ancient Nasca World. Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press. Sutter, R. C. and Verano, J. W. (2007). ‘Biodistance Analysis of the Moche Sacrificial Victims from Huaca de la Luna Plaza 3c: Matrix Method Test of their Origins’. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 132/2: 193–206. Swenson, E. R. (2003). ‘Cities of Violence: Sacrifice, Power and Urbanization in the Andes’. Journal of Social Archaeology, 3: 256–96. Toyne, J. M. (2011). ‘Interpretations of Pre-Hispanic Ritual Violence at Tucume, Peru, from Cut Mark Analysis’. Latin American Antiquity, 22/4: 505–23. Tschopik, J. H. (1951). The Aymara of Chucuito, Peru: I. Magic. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, Volume 44, Part 2. New York, NY: American Museum of Natural History. Tung, T. A. (2008). ‘Dismembering Bodies for Display: A Bioarchaeological Study of Trophy Heads from the Wari Site of Conchopata, Peru’. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 136/3: 294–308. Tung, T. A. and Knudson, K. J. (2010). ‘Childhood Lost: Abductions, Sacrifice, and Trophy Heads of Children in the Wari Empire of the Ancient Andes’. Latin American Antiquity, 21/ 1: 44–66. Turner, B. L., Klaus, H. D., Livengood, S. V., Brown, L. E., Saldaña, F., and Wester, C. (2013). ‘The Variable Roads to Sacrifice: Isotopic Investigations of Human Remains from Chotuna‐ Huaca de los Sacrificios, Lambayeque, Peru’. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 151/ 1: 22–37. Verano, J. W. (1995). ‘Where Do They Rest? The Treatment of Human Offerings and Trophies in Ancient Peru’, in T. D. Dillehay (ed.), Tombs for the Living: Andean Mortuary Practices. Washington DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 189–227. Verano, J. W. (2000). ‘Paleonthological Analysis of Sacrificial Victims at the Pyramid of the Moon, Moche River Valley, Northern Peru’. Chungará (Arica), 32/1: 61–70. Verano, J. W. (2007). ‘Conflict and Conquest in Pre- Hispanic Andean South America: Archaeological Evidence from Northern Coastal Peru’, in R. M. Chacon and G. Ruben (eds), Latin American Indigenous Warfare and Ritual Violence. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 105–15 Verano, J. W. (2008). ‘Trophy Head-Taking and Human Sacrifice in Andean South America’, in H. Silverman and W. H. Isbell (eds), Handbook of South American Archaeology. New York, NY: Springer, 1047–60. Verano, J. W. (2013a). ‘Excavation and Analysis of Human Skeletal Remains from a New Dedicatory Offering at Tiwanaku’, in V. Alexei and A. R. Levine (eds), Advances in Titicaca Basin Archaeology-2. Los Angeles, CA: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Monograph 77, 167–80. Verano, J. W. (2013b). ‘Many Faces of Death: Warfare, Human Sacrifice, and Mortuary Practices of the Elite in Late Pre-Hispanic Northern Peru’, in C. Knüsel and M. J. Smith (eds), The Routledge Handbook of the Bioarchaeology of Human Conflict. London: Routledge, 355–70. Vitry, C. (1997). ‘Arqueología de Alta Montaña’. Yachayruna: Revista de Divulgación Científica. Grupo de Estudios de Ciencias Sociales. Facultad de Humanidades (Argentina, Universidad Nacional De Salta), 1/1: 15–23.
Child Sacrifice in the Ancient Andes 589 Williams, S. R., Forgey, K., and Klarich, E. (2001). An Osteological Study of Nasca Trophy Heads Collected by A. L. Kroeber during the Marshall Field Expeditions to Peru. Chicago, IL: Field Museum of Natural History. Wilson, A. S., Taylor, T., Ceruti, M. C., Chavez, J. A., Reinhard, J., Grimes, V., Meier-Augenstein, W., Cartmell, L., Stern, B., and Richards, M. P. (2007). ‘Stable Isotope and DNA Evidence for Ritual Sequences in Inca Child Sacrifice’. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104/2: 16456–61. Wilson, A. S., Brown, E. L., Villa, C., Lynnerup, N., Healey, A., Ceruti, M. C., Reinhard, J., Previgliano, C. H., Araoz, F. A., Gonzalez Diez, J., and Taylor, T. (2013). ‘Archaeological, Radiological, and Biological Evidence Offer Insight into Inca Child Sacrifice’. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110/33: 13322–7. Zuidema, R. T. (1978). ‘Shafttombs and the Inca Empire’. Journal of the Steward Anthropological Society, 9: 133–78.
Chapter 32
Adult Appea ra nc e s ? The Representation of Children and Childhood in Medieval Art Sophie Oosterwijk
It is a popular and persistent misconception that children do not exist in medieval art. This idea does not originate with the French historian Philippe Ariès, but it was he who famously claimed as much in a 1960 study translated into English as Centuries of Childhood in 1962 (Ariès 1986). Ariès was a pioneer in childhood studies, but neither a medievalist nor an art historian, although he greatly relied on visual evidence to support his claims. His attitude can be summed up as ‘present-mindedness’; expecting depictions of children to meet his own standards of what a child should look like, he then leapt to the conclusion that a failure to represent children naturalistically in art equalled a failure to recognize a concept of childhood in real life. Ultimately, Ariès believed that children were at best presented as ‘miniature adults’ in medieval art and that there probably was ‘no place for childhood in the medieval world’ (Ariès 1986: 31). Furthermore, he claimed that high child mortality rates induced people not to invest too much emotion in such transitory beings; as evidence for this he cited the absence of medieval tomb monuments to children. Notwithstanding half a century of attacks on Ariès’s (1986) views, especially from medievalists, the hypothetical concept of the ‘miniature adult’ has refused to die down. One problem is that a proper reading of medieval art requires an understanding of medieval artistic conventions as well as of theological thinking at the time. This chapter aims to show that although Ariès was wrong on many counts, in some ways children were indeed envisaged as adults—albeit not in this life. Moreover, it discusses the conventions of medieval art, for not every miniature figure actually represents a child. The visual evidence cited in this chapter is based on illuminated manuscripts and especially funerary art from across medieval Europe, but England in particular, as will become evident.
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Artistic conventions It might seem obvious to study the development of a concept of childhood through changes in the depiction of the Madonna and Child in medieval art because of the ubiquity of this image throughout the Middle Ages. Yet these changes are largely due to an evolution in religious attitudes and an increasing tendency towards naturalism in art. One thus cannot compare a stiff and formal Romanesque Madonna with the tender maternal image we find in Gothic art; in fact, both are formulaic in their own way. Yet whereas the infant Jesus represents Divine Wisdom in the earlier Sedes Sapientiae type of Madonna, in which Mary poses rigidly as a throne for her small but majestic son, later Gothic artists underline his humanity and her maternal tenderness instead (Forsyth 1972). Everyday scenes offer better insights into childhood as medieval artists increasingly turned to secular subjects from the late thirteenth century onwards—a period that also witnessed a significant increase in tomb monuments commissioned by lay patrons. Well-known are the playful scenes by the Flemish illuminator Jehan de Grise and his workshop in the borders of a manuscript of the Romance of Alexander of 1338– 44 (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 264), which include different games and two puppet shows, although at least one of these is watched by young men instead of children (Randall 1966: compare figs 585 and 586. The ambiguity of such images is evident in Randall’s scant entries for ‘Child’). As Ariès observed, many games that are considered childish today were adult amusements then, and the puppet show did serve as adult entertainment as well (Ariès 1986: 60–97, esp. 69–70; see also Orme 2001: 163–97, esp. 167, 171–2). Earlier still, and less ambiguous, is a playful little scene in the illuminated Lampeter Bible (Lampeter, Roderic Bowen Library and Archives, MS 1), which was completed in Normandy in 1279 (Figure 32.1); placed alongside a Crucifixion in the bottom margin of fol. 2r, it depicts a child being given a ride on the back of a trained bear (Stones 2016). The motif also occurs in the contemporary Huth Bible (London, British Library, Add. MS 38114, fol. 5). Such juxtapositions of religious and secular imagery are common in medieval art and this drôlerie was evidently intended to appeal to contemporary viewers. What is also striking is the eagerness of the two women to indulge the children with this special treat. By the fifteenth century, children at play had become a popular theme in tapestries, manuscript illumination, and sculpture. The motif of child play was based on everyday observations, however. Archaeology confirms the existence of toys, just as many medieval texts underline the playful nature of children (e.g. Willemsen 1997; Forsyth and Egan 2004). In medieval art, size is not always a reliable indication of age, as Figure 32.1 illustrates. Playful figures such as those in the margins of MS Bodley 264 can be ambiguous for modern viewers to interpret, not just because young adults likewise played games but also because children are often shown disproportionately large for reasons of clarity.
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Figure 32.1 A child riding on the back of a trained bear, drôlerie alongside a Crucifixion in the lower margin of fol. 2 of the Lampeter Bible, completed in Normandy in 1279, Lampeter, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Roderic Bowen Library and Archives, MS 1. By kind permission of the Special Collections Advisor.
Although it is impossible to gauge the age of the two children in the Lampeter Bible drôlerie from their sizes, the way they are held and watched by their mothers suggests that they are meant to be quite young; the clues are there for the observant viewer to grasp. Size may also indicate relative status or importance. For example, children are often included as diminutive subsidiary figures on medieval tomb monuments to their parents from at least the thirteenth century on, yet this does not indicate that they were still quite young, i.e. proper children. These stereotypical smaller figures represent the number and gender of a couple’s offspring, but not their ages or appearance; instead such monuments commemorate the parents as well as the idea of lineage. In fact, true- to-life portrayal through physiognomic likeness and anatomically accurate proportions was evidently not regarded as a prerequisite in medieval funerary art. The distinction between ‘offspring’ and ‘children’ is crucial, therefore, in order to understand such tomb monuments correctly. A typical example is the brass of Roger Felthorpe (d.1454) and his wife Cecilie in Blickling (Norfolk), on which their 11 sons and five daughters are shown as two groups of identical half-size figures without names, ages, or even an indication of whether they were all still alive (Page-Phillips 1970: fig. 12). One may also compare the row of identical, named but deceased siblings on the brass of Philippa Carew (d.1414) in Beddington (Surrey) (Oosterwijk 2010: fig. 2). Similar groups of offspring are also found on tomb monuments elsewere in western Europe (e.g. Utrecht University 2013, ID 1495 and 1527), but not as often as in England.
Adult Appearances? 593 Visual balance may be another artistic reason for disproportionate sizes contrary to the actual age of the person commemorated on a monument. The brass of Robert Heyward (d.1509) in Teynham (Kent) includes two diminutive children: a swaddled child or ‘chrysom’ and a female figure with long loose hair (Figure 32.2) (Page-Phillips 1970: fig. 30). In this case both children were presumably already dead and therefore commemorated along with their father on his memorial. The ‘chrysom’ on the left probably died shortly after birth and may be a boy because of his position; males are traditionally placed on the left and females on the right (Oosterwijk 2000, 2002). The girl on the right is just as tall, which creates a visually balanced but curious composition; although her long hair and her dress suggest she lived longer, her age is unknown. Nonetheless, for commemorative purposes this memorial must have been intelligible to medieval viewers, and especially to the family who commissioned it. The Heyward brass may also be compared to the slightly earlier, but much more sophisticated Flemish brass of Kateline Daut or d’Ault (d.1461) in Bruges (Figure 32.3) (Van Belle 2006: 159–61 (Bru. 32)). Kateline was a daughter of Bruges citizen Colaert Daut (d.1472) and his first wife Kateline de Groote (d.1453); the couple had at least two other children, a boy named Hannekin (or Jan) and a girl named Grietkine. On her brass Kateline is presented as a bride with a bridal crown on her long loose hair; she is flanked by her guardian angel on the left and a boy on the right, both of them wearing mourning bands on their arms. Above them six angels hold aloft a richly patterned cloth of honour. On text scrolls with Flemish verse inscriptions, the boy laments Kateline’s death before she could be a bride on earth whereas Kateline herself resignedly advises acceptance of God’s will; the angel informs us that she has instead become a bride in heaven. Curious is the fact that her slightly shorter, and presumably younger brother is not mentioned by name; a label across his torso simply describes him just as haer broedere (her brother). Hannekin appears to have been still alive at the time of Kateline’s demise. It is curious that he alone should be represented on his sister’s brass, but not named, and that both are presented amid angels. This raises the possibility that the unnamed broedere was an unbaptized sibling who predeceased Kateline and who is here discreetly commemorated alongside his sister. The Bruges example of an explicitly unnamed child on a medieval monument is not unique. The magnificent incised slab of Lady Alice Tyrell (1382–1422) in East Horndon (Essex), which was commissioned around 1450, shows the deceased mother flanked by two rows of diminutive figures who represent her children; all figures carry a scroll incised with their names, except for the lowest figure on the right who has no scroll (Greenhill 1976: vol. 1, p. 254, and vol. 2, pl. 142). It is unlikely that this daughter’s name had simply been forgotten. Commemoration requires the name of the deceased for prayers for their souls, so names are essential for their salvation, irrespective of whether these children were alive or already dead when the slab was commissioned. The location of this female figure on the slab suggests she was Alice’s last child, for offspring on medieval family monuments were usually arranged according to age (Morganstern 2000). The striking omission of her name suggests that this youngest child died unbaptized and thus nameless; her birth may even have caused the mother’s death. St Augustine
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Figure 32.2 Brass of Robert Heyward (d.1509) with a ‘chrysom’ and a daughter as subsidiary figures, Teynham (Kent, England). Rubbing reproduced by kind permission of Martin Stuchfield.
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Figure 32.3 Brass of Kateline Daut or d’Ault (d.1461), showing the deceased girl flanked by her guardian angel on the left and her unnamed brother on the right, Sint-Jacobskerk, Bruges (Belgium). Rubbing by Ronald Van Belle, © KIKIRPA.
596 Sophie Oosterwijk (354–430) had declared baptism to be a prerequisite for salvation, which inevitably meant eternal damnation for unbaptized adults and children alike, and even the unborn (Stortz 2001; Bakke 2005: 88–104). Unbaptized children were thus also officially denied burial in hallowed ground. Thomas Aquinas (1224?–74) attempted to soften the harsh fate of unbaptized children by formulating the concept of a limbus infantium or limbus puerorum, a limbo for unbaptized children who would thus not be condemned to eternal hell but also never attain heaven (Trania 2001). Therefore, prayers could not benefit them. The size and appearance of the brother on Kateline Daut’s brass would seem to belie death at such an early age. Nonetheless, the most plausible explanation for the Tyrell slab is that the unnamed girl—the youngest of Alice’s ten children, yet also represented as a young maiden and not as an infant—died unbaptized during or shortly after birth, and that the same applied to Kateline Daut’s nameless brother.
The Ages of Man It would be simplistic to claim that age was considered unimportant in the Middle Ages. As Ariès (1986) pointed out, the ages of life or Ages of Man was a popular concept in both texts and imagery, albeit that the number of Ages varied widely and the characterization of each Age tended towards stereotyping. In seven-Age schemes, Infantia (infancy) often lasts from birth until the age of seven, followed by Pueritia (childhood) until 14, and Adolescentia (adolescence) until 21 (Sears 1986; Burrow 1988; Youngs 2006). The Ages are represented as male by default, albeit that Adolescentia is occasionally shown as a young lover with a female companion. Texts rarely, if ever, distinguish between male and female development, however, and instead emphasize strength and male prowess in battle as typical traits of adulthood. Some medieval authors and artists devoted special attention to early infancy when children are not yet weaned and cannot walk or talk. A Wheel of Fortune of c.1240 by William de Brailes (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 330.iv) shows the first Age as a swaddled infant between two women and the second as a child pushing a baby walker (Sears 1986: pl. 86; Burrow 1988: pl. 10). In a Wheel of Life of c.1310 in the Psalter of Robert de Lisle (London, British Library, MS Arundel 83, fol. 126v) the first Age is represented by a baby in the arms of a mother or nurse with the text Mitis sum et humilis, lacte vivo puro (Meek am I and humble, I live on pure milk) (Sears 1986: pl. 87; Burrow 1988: pl. 7). A Wheel of Life woodcut of c.1480 produced in the Rhineland area depicts Infantia as a naked toddler bending over a swaddled infant in a cradle; the naked representative of Pueritia with his whirligig seems hardly older at all (Figure 32.4). The cradle and the whirligig balance the grave and the old man’s staff opposite. The young child also features as one of the representatives of the Ages among the social stereotypes in the late medieval danse macabre or Dance of Death, a literary and visual theme in which representatives from all ranks of life are summoned by Death. In
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Figure 32.4 Wheel of Life or Rota vitae alias fortunae, with seven Ages of Man, woodcut, Middle-Rhine area, c.1480 (London, British Library, IC.35). © The British Library (London, England).
598 Sophie Oosterwijk French examples we often find a baby in a cradle who explains as he is led away by Death that he cannot yet talk, whereas in the German Totentanz (Dance of Death) tradition a naked male infant complains that he must dance when he cannot yet walk (Oosterwijk 2007). In the all-female Danse Macabre des Femmes, a Dance of Death poem usually attributed to the French poet Martial d’Auvergne (c.1420–1508), a young girl laments her doll, her toys, and her pretty dress that she must leave behind, the typical—if stereotypically feminine—preoccupations of a small child who appeals to her mother in vain. In this same poem the wet nurse also dies along with the baby in her charge. The presence of children in the Dance highlights the frequent occurrence of child death.
Tomb monuments In Ariès’s (1986) view, attitudes towards children improved only by the sixteenth century. It is therefore not surprising that he claimed to have found no monuments to children prior to this time in the Gaignières collection—the antiquarian collection of drawings of French monuments compiled by the genealogist François Roger de Gaignières (1642–1715)—or elsewhere as he may not have recognized what he did not expect to find (Ariès 1986: 36, 38, 40; Adhémar 1974, 1976, 1977). Gaignières did record various medieval tombs which included offspring as well as monuments solely to children. Several of these are extant; for example, the abbey church of Saint-Denis now houses the Limoges effigies of two infant children of Louis IX, viz. Blanche (1240–3) and Jean (1247–8), the elaborate tomb of Louis IX’s brother Philippe (1222–35), and the marble effigies of the infant king John I (Jean le Posthume, d.1316) and of a young unidentified fourteenth- century princess (Sauvageot and Santos 1999: nos 21–2, 19, 33, and 50). More examples of such monuments, also increasingly to non-royal children, can be found elsewhere in France and across Europe. The idea that child monuments only appeared in the early modern period is evidently incorrect, although this is the impression still given by at least one recent author (Łabno 2011; see also Wilson 2011). In monuments, size can be deceptive too. Small-sized stones were often chosen for reasons of economy and need not denote a child burial. A desire to discover child memorials has also often led to a misinterpretation of miniature effigies (Figure 32.5). These appear to fit Ariès’s (1986) concept of miniature adults, for apart from their diminutive size there is nothing childlike about such monuments. In fact, such miniature effigies usually depict heart or—more rarely—viscera burials. The custom of bodily division originated in necessity when the deceased died too far from their preferred place of burial; the internal organs, which had to be removed for the embalming of the body, were then buried separately. Over time this became a mark of status among royalty and the nobility with the added advantage that separate heart or viscera memorials would be the focus of additional prayers for the soul of the deceased (Bradford 1933; Warntjes 2012). The small female effigy now resting alongside the joint tomb of Thomas Berkeley (d. 1365) and his first wife in Coberley (Gloucestershire) is often erroneously described
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Figure 32.5 Female miniature effigy probably commemorating a heart burial, early fourteenth century, alongside the joint life-size monument of c.1345 to Sir Thomas Berkeley (d.1365) and his first wife, Coberley (Gloucestershire, England). Photograph by Cameron Newham.
as the couple’s daughter (Figure 32.5). A closer look reveals that the figure is inserting her right hand into her bodice, probably to indicate her heart that was removed from her body and buried separately on this spot (Oosterwijk 2010: 52, fig. 7). Another half- length miniature effigy in the same church shows Thomas’s father Sir Giles (d.1294) actually holding his heart. The family evidently favoured heart burial, for Berkeley church (Gloucestershire) contains three more fourteenth-century miniature effigies of which two probably once held hearts (Oosterwijk 2003: 189, pl. 45). Bodily division was not just reserved for adults. There are several recorded cases of separate heart burials for English royal children, such as Edward I’s sons Henry (1268–74) and Alphonso (1273–84) (Bradford 1933: 84–7; Tanner 1953: 30–1). However, the famous ‘Stanley boy’ effigy with a ‘tennis ball’ in his left hand in Elford (Staffordshire) is probably a post-medieval ‘restoration’ of a thirteenth-century adult heart memorial. It is likely that the supposedly fatal tennis ball originally represented a heart that was misunderstood by the ‘restorers’ (Oosterwijk 2010: 51–2, fig. 6.). Black Friars church in London, which housed several royal heart burials including Alphonso’s, was demolished after the Dissolution. Yet several other English medieval child monuments survive, royal and otherwise, including that of William of Hatfield in York Minster (Figure 32.6). Born just before Christmas 1336, William was the second
600 Sophie Oosterwijk
Figure 32.6 Alabaster tomb effigy of Prince William of Hatfield (d.1337), York Minster (England), engraving from Charles A. Stothard, The Monumental Effigies of Great Britain (1876). Reproduced by kind permission of Sally Badham.
Adult Appearances? 601 child of Edward III and his wife Philippa; he died in early 1337, yet his alabaster effigy shows him as a young adolescent. It was long thought that his tomb did not receive an effigy until c.1376, just as his infant siblings Blanche of the Tower (d.1342) and William of Windsor (d.1348) had to wait until 1376 for miniature alabaster effigies by John Orchard atop their shared tomb at Westminster Abbey. However, stylistically William’s effigy appears to date from c.1340, so it was probably commissioned soon after his death (Badham 2009). Westminster Abbey also houses the shared Purbeck marble tomb of the Bohun infants Humphrey (d.1304) and Mary (d.1305), and the tombs of Edward IV’s daughter Margaret (d.1472) and Henry VII’s daughter Elizabeth (d.1495), both with lost inlaid brasses, but many other royal children’s monuments and graves there have been lost over time (Peers and Tanner 1949: 151–5; Badham 2007). A curious French case is the monument to Jean, a shortlived son of Mahaut of Artois and Othon IV of Burgundy who probably died before 1302. His recumbent marble tomb effigy in Poligny (Jura) by Jean Pépin de Huy, for which payment was recorded in July 1315, was subsequently transformed into a statue of St Philibert; it is now preserved in the museum at Besançon (Musée des Beaux-Arts et d’Archéologie de Besançon 1997). Ironically, the effigy and the payment record are now the only extant pieces of historical evidence for the boy’s brief existence. Naturally, aristocratic and royal child memorials tend to be better documented as they were costly and intended to convey prestige. This was true of the abovementioned Limoges effigies that Louis IX originally erected in canopied wall tombs at Royaumont Abbey for his children Jean and Blanche. It may have been in response to these prestigious French memorials that Louis’s English brother-in-law Henry III commissioned for his infant daughter Katherine (1253–7) not a gilt copper-alloy effigy as he originally planned, but a silver-gilt one decorated with pearls and amethysts (Badham and Oosterwijk 2012). Almost inevitably Katherine’s precious tomb failed to survive. However, the sumptuousness of some royal child memorials can still be gauged from the silver and gilt copper-alloy tomb in Braga Cathedral commemorating the Portuguese crown prince Afonso (1390–1400), son of João (John) I and his English wife Philippa of Lancaster (Figure 32.7 (Badham and Oosterwijk 2015: 79–88)). The tomb, which is clearly modelled on English royal tombs up to that date, especially those in Westminster Abbey, is not just an expression of parental grief but also of the king’s desire to demonstrate the power and splendour of his new dynasty. Notwithstanding the existence of medieval memorials to royal and aristocratic children, it must be admitted that, overall, relatively few medieval children were honoured with monuments. Yet Ariès was evidently oblivious of the medieval memoria culture when he claimed that a child ‘which had disappeared so soon in life was not worthy of remembrance’ (Ariès 1986: 36). In the Middle Ages, remembrance was not about affection but about salvation. Every soul was considered immortal and in need of prayers. Therefore, medieval epitaphs often include requests for prayers to shorten the dead person’s period in purgatory. As mentioned earlier, adults and children alike were specifically named in inscriptions for this purpose. Those who could afford it founded chantries or even built and endowed religious institutions in memory of their loved ones. There were also less tangible or long-lasting ways to remember and commemorate
602 Sophie Oosterwijk
Figure 32.7 Silver and gilt copper-alloy monument of Afonso, crown prince of Portugal (d. 1400), Braga Cathedral (Portugal). Photograph by Sophie Oosterwijk.
the dead, such as masses, prayers, and candles. Records of gifts and payments in church or city archives sometimes mention the age of the deceased, enabling us to identify these records as relating to children, and such documentary evidence strongly suggests that medieval children were valued and not forgotten. Even so, extant tomb effigies indicate that the age appearance of the deceased— whether child or adult—was not always accurately conveyed; for example, William of Hatfield is shown not as a baby but as a young adolescent, which we may compare to the appearance of Kateline Daut’s unnamed brother on her brass in Bruges (Figures 32.3 and 32.6). As mentioned earlier, physiognomic likeness was not yet a prerequisite in earlier medieval representations; although portraiture became more individual and naturalistic in the later fourteenth century, stylization and idealization remained important factors. Royal prestige may be one reason for William’s representation as an adolescent; after all, an infant does not present an imposing princely image. Tomb effigies of swaddled children, such as the figure on Robert Heyward’s brass (Figure 32.2), show that children were sometimes depicted in accordance with their actual age at death, but such ‘chrysom’ effigies did not become popular until the later fifteenth century when European portraiture in general was becoming increasingly naturalistic.
Adult Appearances? 603 There are other medieval memorials which depict young children not in accordance with their actual age, but as young adults. For example, drawings in the Gaignières collection show that the lost murals in the tomb niches of Blanche and Jean in Royaumont likewise presented the two infants as young adults (Badham and Oosterwijk 2012: figs 9 and 10). There are many more known examples of such discrepancies between the actual age of a person and their appearance in funerary art, which cannot be dismissed as mere idealization or standardized representation. The real reasons for such divergent appearances may lie in contemporary theological notions about the condition of the deceased in the hereafter, viz. the perfect age in heaven.
The perfect age in heaven Childhood was a known concept in medieval life, but not in the hereafter, according to theological thinking of the time. Whereas it was recognized that innocence belongs to the age of Infantia, physical perfection was not reached until Adolescentia or Iuventus, while intellectual and spiritual growth continued into old age. The Christian belief that all souls will eventually be reunited with their resurrected bodies, and that these bodies will share the same perfect age, is based on a theological interpretation of the words of St Paul in Ephesians 4:13: ‘Until we all meet into the unity of faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age and of the fullness of Christ’. The Latin phrase in virum perfectum was regarded as a reference to Christ, who was traditionally thought to have died at the age of 33 (Dove 1986; Oosterwijk 2003: 181–2). This idea is reflected until at least the fifteenth century in depictions of the Last Judgement, in which we see only adults; children are conspicuously absent. Although medieval Apocalypse illustrations may feature smaller figures alongside adults (Morgan 2007: 97), these are not actually children according to the words of Revelation 20:12, et vidi mortuos magnos et pusillos (I saw the dead, great and small). In contrast to the Latin adjective parvulus, which is used in the Vulgate to denote children (as in Matthew 19:14), the word pusillus refers to status, not age. The illuminators’ solution of depicting these ‘lesser folk’ as miniature adults has sometimes led to their being misinterpreted as children (see Bynum 1995: pl. 28). Tomb effigies do not necessarily depict the deceased as they were in life. Even if they died in old age—or in childhood—they are often shown in the prime of life. This is more than idealization, for such representations actually look forward to the future state of the deceased at the resurrection, even if they are presented in their earthly trappings as an indication of their former status. This may be the explanation as to why many child monuments, such as William of Hatfield’s, do not present the deceased according to their actual age, but rather as a perfect young adult, even if not quite 33 years of age.
604 Sophie Oosterwijk If the age of Christ was considered the summit of male perfection, the medieval cult of the Virgin and of virgin saints, such as St Katherine and St Margaret, suggests that perfection in women was at less than half that age, i.e. somewhere between 12 and 16 (Phillips 2003: 43–51). Maidenhood was the medieval ideal and this is reflected in the Middle English poem Pearl where the Dreamer encounters his little daughter—not yet two years old when she died in a state of perfect innocence—as one of the brides of Christ, a beautiful maiden with heavenly wisdom to match. Their roles as parent and child are reversed as she teaches her father about Christian doctrine on sin, virtue, and the hereafter. The miniature in the sole manuscript copy of the poem of c.1400 (London, British Library, Cotton MS Nero A. x., fol. 42) shows the Pearl Maiden as a young woman, dressed in white with her hair tied up in fashionable cauls. Traditionally, however, maidens were depicted with their hair unbound, or covered with a bridal crown at their wedding. We often find such figures on medieval monuments, as on Kateline Daut’s brass in Bruges (Figure 32.3), but their ‘maidenly’ appearance is not necessarily a reliable indication of their age. Thus the long-haired daughter on Robert Heyward’s brass in Teynham (Figure 32.2) could be an infant or a teenager, and the same is true of the half-length female figure of Margaret Brocas alongside her brother Raulin on their joint brass of c.1360 at Sherborne St John (Hampshire) (Page-Phillips 1970: fig. 1; see also Oosterwijk 2003: 185–7). The garland worn by Margaret is not proof of her having reached marriageable age as we see a similar garland being placed on the head of the diminutive female figure alongside the carved oak effigy of Count Heinrich of Sayn (d.1246/7) now in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg (Kahsnitz 1992: figs 26–7 and 29). This long-haired, nameless daughter was born only after the Count’s death, yet she lived but briefly. In both cases, the garlands may refer to their status in heaven as brides of Christ. Just like the Dreamer’s dead little daughter in the poem Pearl reveals herself to him as a bride of Christ, the idea of deceased girls becoming brides in heaven is explicitly confirmed by the inscriptions and the image of a crowned, long-haired maiden on the brass of Kateline Daut (Van Belle 2006: 159–61 (Bru. 32)). There are even more potentially confusing permutations, for older women—both married and unmarried—may also be shown on their tomb monuments with their hair hanging loose. Examples include Joan, Lady Cromwell (d.1479), who is depicted with maidenly long locks on her brass of c.1490 in Tattershall (Lincolnshire), despite having been married twice (Oosterwijk 2003: 185, n. 58; 2010: 55–7). Likewise, the inscription below the long-haired figure of Cecilie Boleyn (d.1458) on her brass in Blickling (Norfolk) states that she died as a 50-year-old spinster. It is thus impossible without biographical information to determine age or marital status on the basis of a tomb effigy’s appearance. To the families who commissioned these monuments in memory of their loved ones, the imagery must have made sense, especially in combination with the name and date of death of the deceased, but their main concern would have been for the soul in the hereafter.
Adult Appearances? 605
Conclusion A lack of familiarity with artistic conventions may have persuaded Ariès and other historians that children are either absent in medieval art or were regarded as miniature adults in life as well as in art. It will be clear from this chapter that children do occur in medieval art, but that it is not always easy to recognize them as such; they may be disproportionately large or small, or appear as miniature adults, but then not every miniature adult actually represents a true child, as the miniature effigy at Coberley demonstrates. Yet the truth is far more complex. A concept of childhood did exist in medieval culture, but it was recognized only as an imperfect, earthly state; the ages of Infantia and Pueritia were just early stages of physical and mental development, while the age of Adolescentia also still lacked maturity. Children who failed to survive into adulthood were certainly not forgotten. In Christian belief, every human being possesses an immortal soul and salvation is the ultimate goal for all. It is thus inconceivable that medieval parents failed to remember children they had lost even in early infancy. The commemoration of young children such as Blanche and Jean of France, William of Hatfield, and even the unnamed daughter on Alice Tyrell’s slab in East Horndon, prove that every child counted, even if without baptism their salvation was in doubt. Yet according to medieval theology, there are no children as such in heaven, but only perfect adults. Innocence might help dead children attain heaven, as the Pearl poem teaches us, but their reward in heaven would be full physical bloom and spiritual maturity. This theological view may not have been easy for ordinary Christians to comprehend, but not until the mid-fifteenth century do we find depictions of recognizable children in heaven. Thus they notably appear in Enguerrand de Quarton’s Coronation of the Virgin altarpiece that Canon Jean de Montagnac commissioned him to paint in 1453 for the Carthusian church of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon (Gard): two groups of naked young children appear kneeling in heaven, while the lower left corner of the painting shows a third group of children kneeling inside the limbus puerorum, all of them blind but instinctively turning into the direction of heaven from which their unbaptized state bars them (Sterling 1983: pls 35–7). Around the same time, cherubs and children at play became popular decorative motifs in art, and ‘chrysoms’ started to appear more commonly on tomb monuments. It would thus seem that, by the end of the medieval period, a more positive concept of childhood was finally emerging.
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606 Sophie Oosterwijk Adhémar, J. (1977). ‘Les Tombeaux de la Collection Gaignières: Dessins d’Archéologie du XVIIe Siècle, Part 3’. Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 90: 1–76. Ariès, P. (1986). Centuries of Childhood. Harmondsworth: Pelican. Badham, S. (2007). ‘Whose Body? Monuments Displaced from St Edward the Confessor’s Chapel, Westminster Abbey’. Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 160: 129–46. Badham, S. (2009). ‘Yorkshire’s Royal Monument Re-visited’. Church Monuments Society Newsletter, 25/1: 12–15. Badham, S. and Oosterwijk, S. (2012). ‘The Tomb Monument of Katherine, Daughter of Henry III and Eleanor of Provence (1253–7)’. Antiquaries Journal, 92: 169–96. Badham, S. and Oosterwijk, S. (2015). ‘ “Monumentum Aere Perennius”? Precious-Metal Effigial Tomb Monuments in Europe 1080–1430’. Church Monuments, 30: 7–105. Bakke, O. M. (2005). When Children Became People: The Birth of Childhood in Early Christianity. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress. Bradford, C. A. (1933). Heart Burial. London: George Allen and Unwin. Burrow, J. A. (1988). The Ages of Man: A Study in Medieval Writing and Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bynum, C. W. (1995). The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Dove, M. (1986). The Perfect Age of Man’s Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Forsyth, I. H. (1972). The Throne of Wisdom: Wood Sculptures of the Madonna in Romanesque France. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Forsyth, H. and Egan, G. (2004). Toys, Trifles & Trinkets: Base-Metal Miniatures from London 1200 to 1800. London: Unicorn Press/Museum of London. Greenhill, F. A. (1976). Incised Effigial Slabs: A Study of Engraved Stone Memorials in Latin Christendom c.1100 to c.1700. 2 volumes. London: Faber & Faber. Kahsnitz, R. (1992). Die Gründer of Laach und Sayn: Fürstenbildnisse des 13. Jahrhunderts, Exhibition Catalogue. Nuremberg: Verlag des Germanischen Nationalmuseums. Łabno, J. (2011). Commemorating the Polish Renaissance Child: Funeral Monuments and their European Context. Farnham and Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Morgan, N. (2007). The Douce Apocalypse: Picturing the End of the World in the Middle Ages. Oxford: Bodleian Library. Morganstern, A. M. (2000). Gothic Tombs of Kinship in France, the Low Countries, and England. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. Musée des Beaux-Arts et d’Archéologie de Besançon (1997). L’Enfant Oublié: Le Gisant de Jean de Bourgogne et le Mécénat de Mahaut d’Artois en Franche-Comté au XIVe Siècle. Besançon: Musée des Beaux-Arts et d’Archéologie de Besançon. Oosterwijk, S. (2000). ‘Chrysoms, Shrouds and Infants on English Tomb Monuments: A Question of Terminology?’. Church Monuments, 15: 44–64. Oosterwijk, S. (2002). ‘A Chrysom Brass at Sheriff Hutton, Yorkshire’. Monumental Brass Society Transactions, 16: 471–4. Oosterwijk, S. (2003). ‘ “A Swithe Feire Graue”: The Appearance of Children on Medieval Tomb Monuments’, in R. Eales and S. Tyas (eds), Family and Dynasty in the Middle Ages. Proceedings of the 1997 Harlaxton Symposium. Harlaxton Medieval Studies, 9. Donington: Shaun Tyas, 172–92.
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Chapter 33
Children’ s Bu ria l Grounds (cillín í) in Irel a nd New Insights into an Early Modern Religious Tradition Colm J. Donnelly and Eileen M. Murphy
Children’s burial grounds are a recognized class of Irish archaeological monument that were used as the designated burial places for unbaptized infants among the Roman Catholic population. Locations for this class of burial ground were diverse and included abandoned medieval churches and graveyards, ancient monuments (including megalithic tombs, secular earthworks, and castles), natural landmarks and boundary ditches, sea or lake shores, and crossroads (Ó Súilleabháin 1939). Depending on the location within Ireland, they have a variety of different Irish language names including cillín, caldragh, calluragh, cealltrach, ceallúnach, ceallúrach, and lisín. They are also known by a range of English and anglicized versions of their name, including cill burial grounds, killeens, kyle burial grounds, and children’s burial grounds. The Irish names cillín (singular) and cillíní (plural) are most commonly used in Ulster, and these are the terms that will be used throughout this chapter. Although primarily used for the burial of unbaptized infants, it should be noted that other members of society who were considered unsuitable for burial in consecrated ground by the Catholic Church could be buried there as well, including the mentally disabled, strangers, the shipwrecked, criminals, famine victims, and people who had suffered suicide (Hamlin and Foley 1983: 43). There are known to be significant numbers of cillíní and they are to be found in both political jurisdictions on the island of Ireland; a recent review based on data derived from the National Monuments Service of the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht recorded some 1,396 children’s burial grounds in the Republic of Ireland (O’Sullivan and Downey 2013: 25). To this figure, we can now add a further 48 sites that are recorded
Children’s Burial Grounds (cillíní) in Ireland 609 in the Northern Ireland Sites and Monuments Record, creating a total figure of 1,444 across both jurisdictions (Figure 33.1). It should be noted, however, that the distribution of the monuments across the island is not an even one, and that 66 per cent (954/1,444) of the total known figure are located in only three counties—Kerry, Galway, and Mayo.
Figure 33.1 Map showing the numbers of cillíní identified in Ireland based on entries contained within the National Monuments Record of the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht for the Republic of Ireland (O’Sullivan and Downey 2013: 25) and the Northern Ireland Sites and Monuments Record. Drawing by Libby Mulqueeny.
610 Colm J. Donnelly and Eileen M. Murphy The origin point for these monuments is related to the importance placed on baptism within the early Christian Church. Baptism was considered essential to cleanse a person of Original Sin, the sin committed by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and subsequently inherited by humankind (Walsh 2005: 108). If baptism did not occur, however, then the sin remained in place and, as such, the unbaptized were condemned to Hell for this reason. A strong advocate for this position in the early Church was St Augustine of Hippo (ad 354–430), who believed that all infants should be baptized as soon as possible after their birth in order to avoid potential eternal damnation should they die unbaptized. This harsh doctrine was later modified by moderate theologians within the medieval Church who advocated the existence of Limbo, ‘a kind of in-between state, [with] neither the happiness of Heaven nor the torments of Hell’ (Walsh 2005: 109). A following developed for the beliefs of St Thomas Aquinas, the thirteenth-century theologian, who taught that unbaptized infants would definitely not have any personal suffering after death. Limbo did not appear, however, within the official catechism of the Catholic Church, but it did provide a gentle means to reconcile the problem of what happened to the souls of those who—through no fault of their own—were barred from entry into Heaven. The Counter Reformation, however, led to a return among certain Catholic theologians to the teachings of the early Church fathers, and in particular those of St Augustine, including his hardline views on what happened to the unbaptized after death. As we shall see, this led to a period of great and heated debate within the Church during the seventeenth century and, when the dating evidence from excavated cillíní is taken into consideration, it is in this period that we can identify the major development and proliferation in the use of cillíní in Ireland.
Previous research on cillíní Children’s burial grounds in Ireland first attracted the attention of nineteenth-century antiquarians, and it is they who can be credited with making the first attempts to identify the origins of the monuments. William Wood-Martin (1895: 299) viewed them as having been pagan cemeteries that had become abandoned after the arrival of Christianity in Ireland, while a more detailed consideration of their origins was presented by George MacNamara (1900: 32–3). He advanced a theory that cillíní originated prior to the division of the island into dioceses and parishes by the Irish medieval Church in the twelfth century, a process that led to the establishment of new centres for Christian worship. The old religious centres remained ‘objects of veneration to succeeding generations . . . and they eventually became the killeens in which unbaptized children alone were buried’. MacNamara also noted that the Romans had special customs for the interment of children and hypothesized that the Irish custom of burying unbaptized children in cillíní may have also originated in pagan times, but became ‘modified and transformed by the early Irish Church, as not to clash in any way with the tenets of the Christian faith’ (MacNamara 1900: 32–3).
Children’s Burial Grounds (cillíní) in Ireland 611 This was a view that was later reinforced by Seán Ó Súilleabháin in his 1939 Irish language article on the subject. The text commenced with a review of the evidence from the Classical World and he noted that children who died young were treated as a separate group in pagan times, with a separate place marked out for them in the Afterlife. Ó Súilleabháin (1939) also drew attention to the Roman practice where children who had died before their 40th day would be buried in a suggrundarium, a grave located under a wing of the family house. He suggested that a similar situation may have existed in Ireland, but one that was later Christianized and included separate burial for children who were not baptized. As such, he considered that cillíní had their origins in pagan burial grounds dating to before the arrival of Christianity into Ireland. The period from the late 1960s witnessed renewed interest in the study of the monument type, commencing with Major R. B. Aldridge (1969) who published a short article elaborating on the location and appearance of the burial grounds in County Mayo. Other regional and site-specific studies have followed since that time (Fanning and Sheehan 1983; Crombie 1990; Dennehy 1997; O’Hare 1997; Donnelly, Donnelly, and Murphy 1999), as well as three recent general reader overviews on the subject (Donnelly and Murphy 2008a; Egan 2013; O’Sullivan and Downey 2013). Cillíní have also featured in theoretical debates, and Nyree Finlay (2000) advanced a theory that the topographical location of cillíní was a physical manifestation of their liminal qualities and a reflection of the fact that those interred within were bound for Limbo. Finlay’s (2000) theory has recently been challenged by Eileen Murphy (2011a, b), who suggests that it is too simplistic in its construction—the cumulative evidence actually indicates that these sites are highly charged with emotion and the families of the dead regarded them as important places on the landscape. As the location of the burials of their departed children, and despite Church teachings, they were not considered to be marginal but rather were regarded in a manner highly similar to that displayed towards contemporary mainstream consecrated burial grounds.
Dating cillíní In his work on the early Church in south-west Ireland, Vincent Hurley (1982: 304) briefly made mention of cillíní, which he stated ‘could date to anywhere from the sixth century to the nineteenth century’, and this was symbolic of the general lack of definition on this matter in the years up to 2008 when we attempted to resolve the issue through a review of the evidence from 16 sites excavated between 1966 and 2004. The dating evidence suggested that over half of the corpus of excavated cillíní—nine out of 16—had their origins in, and were in use during, the early modern period (Donnelly and Murphy 2008b: table 1). It could also be reasonably argued that a further three sites—Reask, Aughinish, and Kilrush—were very probably used as cillíní during the early modern period while a further two sites—Doonbought and Inishcealtra—were possibly in use in the late medieval or early modern periods. A lack of dating evidence from Killelton
612 Colm J. Donnelly and Eileen M. Murphy meant it was not possible to identify when this site first came into use as a cillín, but we do know that it was being used for this purpose by the nineteenth century. The only excavated site where the dating evidence was at significant variance from the norm was the first example of the monument type to have been investigated—Madden’s Hill (County Meath)—which was considered by the excavator to have been of pre-Christian date (Rynne 1974). The dating evidence in support of this conclusion was poor, however, and the excavator seems to have been heavily influenced by the contents of Ó Súilleabháin’s paper from 1939—hence his willingness to accept a pre-Christian date for the infant burials. Archaeological excavations in the years following 2004 have largely substantiated our conclusion that cillíní are indeed monuments that can be associated with the early modern period. The use of wooden coffins and an association of shroud pins with the 94 burials belonging to Phase 3 of the ecclesiastical enclosure at Ballykilmore (County Westmeath), suggested an early modern date for these burials (Channing and Randolph-Quinney 2006: 118; Egan 2013: 20), while the early medieval ringfort at Mackney (County Galway), was reused as a cillín in early modern times, with the burials of three adults and 116 infants identified. The burials overlay late medieval features and were associated with early modern cultivation furrows and quarrying activities. In addition, shroud pins and coffin nails, suggestive of an early modern date, were associated with a number of the burials (Delaney 2009: 32, 39). At Johnstown (County Meath), ‘a total of 61 infants and two adults were buried here between the post-medieval and early modern periods’ (Egan 2013: 19). This is an example of a large cemetery-settlement enclosure of late Iron Age/early medieval date, with 398 burials belonging to the cemetery in the site, but the cillín phase of its use clearly belonged to the period after the seventeenth century. Most recently, excavations at Struell Wells (County Down) in 2014 revealed the flagged stone floor of an abandoned medieval church, sealed by occupation deposits into which had been interred the burials of at least 15 juveniles, indicating that the ruined church had been reused as the site of a cillín during the early modern period (Murray 2014). To this we might add a further site that was omitted from consideration during the 2008 survey of cillíní (Donnelly and Murphy 2008b)—Derry (County Down). This pair of early medieval churches and their associated burial ground was excavated by Dudley Waterman in 1959. He identified that the final phase of activity within the interior of both churches involved ‘child burial up to quite recent times’ (Waterman 1967: 53). The excavation at Carrowkeel, near Athenry (County Galway) during 2005, however, produced convincing evidence that the separate burial of juveniles was occurring in early medieval times at this enclosure cemetery. Phase 2 of the site comprised an enclosed area, within the eastern portion of which was a cemetery (Wilkins and Lalonde 2008). The burials were divided into four sub-phases (Sub-phases 2a to 2d) with 2a and 2b of particular interest since they contained a very high proportion of juveniles. Phase 2a was radiocarbon dated to cal. ad 650–850, and 73 per cent (27/37) of the individuals were juveniles, while in Phase 2b, which dated to cal. ad 850–1050, some 96 per cent (72/75) of the individuals were juveniles, of which 65 per cent (47/72) were aged at less
Children’s Burial Grounds (cillíní) in Ireland 613 than one year of age. Only small numbers of individuals were recovered from the later phases of the cemetery (cal. ad 1050–1450) but, again, juveniles were found to predominate (Wilkins and Lalonde 2008: 66). Similarly, at Owenbristy (County Galway), the burial of 15 juveniles and two adults, dating from the early thirteenth to mid-fifteenth centuries, were considered to represent ‘cillín burials’ (Lehane and Delaney 2010: 39). The results from these two investigations suggest that spatial segregation of juveniles was occurring during early and late medieval times in Ireland, but this should not come as too great a surprise. Our (2008b: 212) assessment of the dating evidence from the excavated sites did not produce explicit evidence for cillíní dating to the early or late medieval periods, but we noted that ‘this situation may change in the future, and a cillín dating from these periods of Ireland’s Christian past may be discovered’. We went on to note that even if this were to happen, however, the majority of the excavated sites that we had considered had produced ‘dating evidence for their use during the past 400 years and the excavated evidence points to cillíní being a monument that proliferates in the Post medieval period’. Carrowkeel and Owenbristy notwithstanding, the majority of sites excavated in the period between 2005 and 2014 still conform to this model. The importance of baptism was evidently a concern in early medieval Ireland, as indeed it was across the entire early Church. In the Penitential of Finnian, for example, Rule Number 47 stated that: If the child of anyone departs without baptism and was lost through negligence great is the crime of the occasioning the loss of a soul, but its expiation through penance is possible, since there is no crime which cannot be expiated through penance so long as we are in this body; the parents shall do penance for an entire year with bread and water and not sleep in the same bed. Bieler (1963: 93)
Whether rules such as this led to the development of segregated burial traditions for the unbaptized—as may have been the case at Carrowkeel and Owenbristy—must remain unresolved, but there is suggestive evidence that segregated burial practices may have been in use during the medieval period in Ireland. Ann Hamlin and Claire Foley (1983) described three burial grounds near Carrickmore (County Tyrone)—Reilig na mban (the women’s graveyard), Reilig na páistí (the children’s graveyard), and Reilig na fir gonta (the graveyard of the wounded men)—and they discussed parallels with the separate burial of males and females at early monastic sites, such as Inishmurray (County Sligo) and Iona (Scotland). While the authors shied away from ascribing a date to the burial grounds in Tyrone, they suggested that ‘there can be little doubt that the practice of separate worship, and probably separate burial, for women does at some Irish ecclesiastical sites go back to the pre-Norman era’ (Hamlin and Foley 1983: 44). It may well be the case, therefore, that Carrowkeel and Owenbristy represent some form of similar segregated burial tradition, but whether this was tied to the presence or otherwise of baptism for the juveniles buried within these two excavated cemeteries must remain unknown.
614 Colm J. Donnelly and Eileen M. Murphy As noted, baptism evidently was viewed as a serious issue in early medieval Ireland, but we do not have information from the historical record for early or late medieval Ireland concerning the burial of those individuals that we might typically expect to be found buried within a cillín (see Fry 1999: 180–7; Tait 2002: 69). We do, however, have evidence from England—Nicholas Orme (2001: 124) has noted that by ad 1400 the Church in England had forbidden the burial of stillborn and unbaptized infants within consecrated ground since they were not considered to be Christians. A royal licence of 1389 permitted Hereford Cathedral to surround its precinct and graveyard with walls and gates, which were to be locked at night. One of the reasons for the construction work was stated as being to prevent the secret burials of unbaptized infants (Orme 2001: 126). Likewise, a church court case in London in 1493 relates how a woman from the parish of St Nicolas-in-the- Shambles had been beaten when pregnant and had then given birth to a stillborn baby. The court was told that the midwife who delivered the baby had requested another woman to illegally bury the child within the confines of Pardon Graveyard (Orme 2001: 126). Similar restrictions may have been in operation in contemporary medieval Ireland but, if so, no supporting evidence from the Irish historical sources is forthcoming. As discussed above, the burials of 15 juveniles and two adults at Owenbristy (County Galway) were considered to represent a medieval cillín. Recent excavations of a number of substantial medieval Irish cemeteries have demonstrated that these sites included individuals of all ages—some of whom undoubtedly died prior to baptism. The excavation of a medieval Gaelic burial ground at Ballyhanna, near Ballyshannon (County Donegal), retrieved the remains of some 1,296 individuals comprising 869 adults and 427 juvenile burials. The latter corpus consisted of seven pre-term babies, 40 full-term or neonatal babies, 22 infants between one month and one year of age, 198 individuals of one to six years, 91 older children of 6–12 years, and 69 adolescents (12–18 years) (Murphy 2015). A similar situation prevailed in Ardreigh (County Kildare), in what was a medieval Anglo-Irish region of the island. Again, the osteological analysis indicated a juvenile population of 434 individuals comprising three pre-term babies, 40 full-term or neonatal babies, 58 infants between one month and one year old, 160 children of one to six years, 111 older children of 6–12 years, and 62 adolescents of 12–18 years of age (Troy 2010: 15; Murphy 2015: 106). That said, there is a reduced proportion of juveniles present at both sites; at Ballyhanna they comprised 33 per cent of the cemetery’s population (Murphy 2015: 105), while at Ardreigh they comprised 34.9 per cent (Troy 2010: 15). Chamberlain’s (2006: 90–1) demographic research, however, would suggest that we should expect the proportion to be between 50 and 67 per cent. As such, it may have been the case that a proportion of the juveniles that one might expect to find within the burial grounds at Ballyhanna and Ardreigh may have been interred elsewhere; however, it is still the case that significant numbers of infants—including some who very probably died prior to baptism—were evidently being buried in both of these medieval burial grounds. It would appear to be the case, therefore, that while a degree of spatial segregation of juvenile burials may have been occurring during medieval times, this was by no means a uniform or regulated practice.
Children’s Burial Grounds (cillíní) in Ireland 615
Cillíní and the Counter-R eformation Catholic Church The earliest direct historical reference that Donnelly and Murphy (2008b: 214) encountered for the use of cillíní in Ireland derived from the north of the island in the decade following the introduction of the plantation scheme, which saw newcomers from England and Scotland settled on lands in Ulster that had been confiscated from the region’s Gaelic Irish lords in the aftermath of the Nine Years’ War (1594–1603). In a letter written on 23 July 1619 by Mr Goodwyn to the Grocers’ Company in London, it is stated that the company’s representatives in Ulster had decided not to reuse an old church site about half a mile from Muff (later renamed Eglinton) as the location for a new church. The old church was deemed to be too small; in addition, however, it had been used as a burial place for unbaptized children and suicide victims—presumably by the local Gaelic Catholic population—and the general opinion was that Muff would be a better site for the new Protestant parish church of Faughanvale (Curl 1986: 155). Catholicism had remained a religious force in Ireland despite the Tudor conquest of the island during the course of the sixteenth century, and the Catholic Church still retained the support of the majority of the Irish population, both Gaelic and Anglo-Irish (also known as the ‘Old English’, since they were descendants of the Anglo-Normans who had settled in Ireland from the late twelfth century onwards). The Council of Trent was originally convened in 1545 to explore reform within the Catholic Church due to the pressure then being exerted by the new Protestant reformers across Europe. By the time it had concluded in 1563, the council had reformed the Catholic Church in areas such as the discipline, education, and training of the clergy, but it had also reaffirmed Catholic doctrine and Canon Law. The official Roman Catechism, composed by the decree of the Council of Trent, was published in 1566 by command of Pope Pius V (Corish 1981: 16). Translated into English in 1829, the contents of this text remained in force until the major reforms instigated within the Church during the Second Vatican Council (1962– 5). Within this text, the importance of the sacrament of baptism is stressed: The faithful are earnestly to be exhorted, to take care that their children be brought to the church, as soon as it can be done with safety, to receive solemn baptism: infants, unless baptized, cannot enter Heaven, and hence we may well conceive how deep the enormity of their guilt, who, through negligence, suffer them to remain without the grace of the sacrament, longer than necessity may require; particularly at an age so tender as to be exposed to numberless dangers of death. O’Donovan (1829: 173)
While the fate of the body of an unbaptized infant was not discussed, the spiritual implication was explicit: a child would not go to Heaven if it died unbaptized and, as such, it was the responsibility of the parents to ensure this did not happen. Our (Donnelly
616 Colm J. Donnelly and Eileen M. Murphy and Murphy 2008b: table 1) assessment of the archaeological dating evidence suggested that a proliferation of cillíní had occurred in the early modern period in Ireland and we considered this to be directly associated with the reinvigorated Catholicism of the Counter-Reformation in Ireland. The role played by Flaithrí Ó Maolchonaire and the Franciscans in Louvain in this process was mentioned in this text (Donnelly and Murphy 2008b: 215), but further research on this theme has now indicated a clear connection between this individual and the Franciscan community in Louvain, and a hardline religious attitude towards the importance of baptism for children that was firmly based on an early modern reassertion of the strict teachings on the subject by St Augustine of Hippo. By the late sixteenth century, the return of Augustinianism as a theological concept led to great and impassioned debates raging within the Tridentine Church. The Protestant Reformers had sought a return to the Gospel message and they buttressed their position through the works of St Augustine (Dyer 1964: 68). ‘Catholic theologians who came to grips with the new Protestant theology were impressed by its contempt of Scholasticism and its devotion to Augustine’ (Dyer 1964: 69). This led to a reaffirmation of his teachings within elements of the Counter-Reformation Church, including his views on Original Sin, the absolute necessity of baptism for its removal, and the fate of those unbaptized. This was perhaps best exemplified by the writings of Henry Noris of the Augustinian Order who reasserted Augustine’s position that unbaptized children were in Hell and assigned to the flames of Hell, albeit agreeing with the saint’s view that their punishment would be the mildest among the damned. On the other side of this debate against the Rigorists (as they would come to be known) was the Society of Jesus, whose members are known as Jesuits, which advocated a Christian humanist position grounded in the scholastic philosophy of individuals such as St Thomas Aquinas. They believed that unbaptized children would go to Limbo and that they would enjoy a remarkable degree of happiness in the life to come (Dyer 1964: 54, 64). Adhering to such views earned the Jesuits the title of the Laxists by their opponents. It is within this context that the work and influence of Flaithrí Ó Maolchonaire becomes of central importance. A leading figure within the Irish Franciscan community in Spain, through the patronage of King Philip III of Spain, Ó Maolchonaire was instrumental in the establishment of the Royal College of St Anthony of the Irish Franciscans in Louvain in 1606 ‘for the express purpose of training Franciscans to combat heresy in Ireland’ (O’Connor 2002: 99). His new college soon became ‘a confluence for the Augustinian streams of Spain and the Low Countries’, while Ó Maolchonaire himself was ‘widely regarded as the most important Rigorist of the age’ (Downey 2002: 105). Ó Maolchonaire’s work certainly had a significant influence on Cornelius Jansen, rector of the Dutch College at Louvain, and the originator of what would come to be known within the Catholic Church as ‘Jansenism’, with its heavy Calvinist affinities over issues associated with predestination and grace. That the two men were friends is not to be doubted, but the Augustinianists had to be careful since Jesuit influence within the Inquisition in Rome meant that the Laxists were in the ascendancy and this could lead to a charge of heresy being levelled. This did not, however, prevent Ó Maolchonaire from
Children’s Burial Grounds (cillíní) in Ireland 617 preparing publications, and a letter by Jansen in 1622 to his friend (and fellow Rigorist) Jean du Vergier de Hauranne, the Abbé of St Cyran, noted the following: The treatise which ‘Gemer’ [Ó Maolchonaire] sent to Rome to Cardinal de Trejo for consideration, De Poena Parvulorum, contains succinctly what ‘Seraphy’ [St Augustine] defended as an article of faith, that they [deceased unbaptized children] are damned to sore punishments, in truth fire, although he dares not say it openly, and consequently they are Pelagian who deny it . . . Downey (2002: 106)
Ó Maolchonaire’s text was subsequently published in 1624, although in a toned-down fashion that dealt with the ‘state rather than the penalty of the unbaptized deceased infants’ (Downey 2002: 106). Ó Maolchonaire’s logic, based on the teachings of St Augustine, was that Original Sin had brought mankind under the power of the Devil— hence the importance of baptism as the means to remove a person’s Original Sin and restore them to God’s vision. However, children who had not been baptized were still under the power of the Devil and, as such, they were condemned to Hell. If the latter conclusion was to be denied then it must logically lead to a denial of the concept of Original Sin (Heaney 1935: 51). Elsewhere in his letters Jansen also revealed that, before the publication of this work, the students in the Irish College at Louvain had requested that Ó Maolchonaire’s writings should be read out to them at dinner in their refectory (Downey 2002: 106). These would be the same young men who would subsequently return to Ireland to be at the heart of the Franciscan Counter-Reformation efforts in that country. The spiritual fate of unbaptized children had now become part of a theological battlefield within the Catholic Church. The Jansenists denied the existence of Limbo and accused the Jesuits of heresy, while the Jesuits retaliated by attacking St Augustine and his teachings on the subject of baptism. The Augustinian Order reacted badly to this attack on their founding father and they moved to a hostile, anti-Jesuit position. The Jesuits in turn then accused the Augustinian Order of being closet Jansenists (Dyer 1964: 81). This continued to be the situation into the eighteenth century, with each group making claim and counterclaim against the other to the authorities in Rome. If, however, either side thought they could force the papacy to proclaim their position as dogma (a statement which Catholics are obliged to accept as true because it has been decreed by the Church as an essential part of their faith) then they were to be disappointed. Two papal decisions in 1759 and 1794 saw the Church hierarchy treat the doctrine of Limbo and the denial of Limbo simply as the ‘opinions’ of theologians. The result of this was that heat was drawn out of the issue and, by the start of the nineteenth century, the matter had fallen into theological obscurity (Dyer 1964: 89–90). Given their strong support for Augustinianism, it can be seen how the Franciscans in Louvain might wish to prosecute a campaign against the unbaptized that would lead to the physical expression of their position in the demand that—as children of wrath— they should be buried outside consecrated ground in those places, such as rural Gaelic
618 Colm J. Donnelly and Eileen M. Murphy Ireland, where the Franciscans were in a position of power. In essence this would have been a return to a position evidenced in the medieval English historical sources, where the unbaptized were not to be buried in consecrated ground but buried separately according to Canon Law, and—given their views on the subject—it is a distinct possibility that the Franciscans may have forced the creation of such separate burial places in Ireland. We certainly know they could be forceful in their reforming zeal in other aspects of their work, such as, depriving priests of their benefices, if they had a wife or concubine, and making couples marry again if they had been married by an improperly ordained priest (Donnelly and Murphy 2008b: 214). Long established within Gaelic medieval society, the Franciscans proved popular among the Gaelic Irish, thereby bringing men such as Ó Maolchonaire, but also Hugh MacCaghwell, Donagh Mooney, and Hugh Ward into their numbers. In contrast, the Jesuits in Ireland were very much ethnically an ‘Old English’ phenomenon, and they tended to recruit in Munster and Leinster (Hazard 2010: 30). A total of 255 members of the Irish clergy are listed in an English manuscript of 1613, and from the surnames that can be identified it would seem that 65 came from a Gaelic background, while 84 were of ‘Old English’ origin. Of those who can be identified as clergy or from religious orders, the ‘Old English names slightly predominate among the secular clergy and Jesuits, whereas Gaelic names are the more common among those identified as “Franciscan Fryers” ’ (Meigs 1997: 185). This is further emphasized by the fact that only two of the 18 men in the Irish Jesuit Mission in 1613 were of Gaelic background (Meigs 1997: 185), and from this ‘fragmentary evidence it would seem that there was almost certainly a majority of Old Irish [Gaelic] among the Franciscans, whereas the Jesuits were almost entirely composed of men from the Old English families of the Irish towns’ (Meigs 1997: 93). It would be in their heartlands in the Pale counties around Dublin and in the country’s urban centres that the Jesuits would become firmly based, with residences in ten towns, and with colleges established in Dublin, Drogheda, Waterford, and Kilkenny (Meigs 1997: 100–2). To what extent their ‘laxist’ theological position on the fate of unbaptized children would have influenced these Jesuits to advocate separate burial according to Canon Law remains unknown, but the contents of Figure 33.1 should be considered at this point since the geographical location of known cillíní in Ireland indicates a marked lack of the monuments in the Old English lands of Leinster. There are two recorded examples apiece in Counties Westmeath, Meath, and Dublin, and small numbers have been reported for Counties Kilkenny (three examples), Wexford (four examples), Carlow (five examples), Louth (five examples), Laois (six examples), and Wicklow (seven examples). Counties Kildare and Offaly, which each have 12 examples, are the only two counties in Leinster were the numbers move into double-figures. It is also of interest to note that this is a trend that extends across the modern political border into Northern Ireland, with very low numbers recorded in both Counties Down (one example) and Armagh (two examples), a region of Ulster which was under the influence of the Old English and the Pale during the late medieval period. It is possible that this is simply a reflection of a lack of folklore tradition along the eastern seaboard of the island, or that some form of bias has been exercised during the collection of that local knowledge
Children’s Burial Grounds (cillíní) in Ireland 619 by those engaged in past fieldwork programmes (factors which might also explain the strangely low number of three recorded examples in County Limerick in comparison with its surrounding counties in Munster). The figures do, however, stand in contrast to those recorded in an arc that stretches from Antrim (19 examples), Londonderry (12 examples), and Donegal (35 examples) in the north, through to Sligo (21 examples), Mayo (216 examples), Roscommon (88 examples), Galway (478 examples), and Clare (136 examples) in the west, and down to Kerry (260 examples) and Cork (32 examples) in the south, in what would have been the Gaelic regions of the country. It can, therefore, be tentatively suggested that the distribution map of the monuments may reflect a genuine historical division between those Gaelic regions that were under the influence of the Franciscans, and where cillíní predominated, and those Old English regions where the Jesuits held sway and where, as a consequence, cillíní were few in number.
The end of the tradition One point that should be emphasized is the fact that the Roman Catholic Church may still have been in existence in the seventeenth century, but it was very much the poor cousin to the new Protestant Church of Ireland whose bishops had ensured that all church land in Ireland had been placed into their hands. The scale of this expropriation had been huge, with some 61,000 acres of land having been transferred into their possession (Hill 1877: 210; Jefferies 1999: 127–9). As such, even before the implementation of the Penal Laws in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the Catholic Church in Ireland had been placed in a much weakened position, impoverished and at the margins of civil society. The tribulations that Ireland experienced in the seventeenth century during the Cromwellian Conquest (1649–53) and Williamite Wars (1688–91) only served to further undermine the Church’s position, while its adherents were economically disadvantaged as well, with Catholic landownership across the island shrinking to only 15 per cent by 1703 (Gillespie 1993: 47). In essence, the majority of the Catholic population was living in a land that was not theirs, and when it came to death they did not even have the legal right to bury in their own graveyards or have the funeral service officiated by a Roman Catholic cleric. Given the difficulties that the Catholic Church faced in relation to the burial of baptized practitioners of the faith, during the period from 1610 until formal Catholic emancipation came about in 1829, it is small wonder that special places were sought out for the burial of the unbaptized in locations which would have been of no economic benefit to the island’s predominantly Protestant landowning class. The use of an old abandoned medieval ecclesiastical site or a ringfort would also be a sure way, however, to ensure that the infants’ remains would not be disturbed. The archaeological evidence would certainly indicate that care and resources had been expended on the burials—the mortuary practices frequently involved the use of stone boxes, coffins, and shrouds, and respected the individuality of those buried within a cillín. At least two of the babies in the cillín at Reask (County Kerry), were buried with toys, and often
620 Colm J. Donnelly and Eileen M. Murphy cillín graves are demarcated with single stones, stone furnishings, and/or quartz. The majority of individuals interred within consecrated burial grounds at this time would not have been able to afford an elaborate grave memorial, and their graves would have been marked with a simple metal or wooden cross. As such, despite Church teachings, it would appear to be the case that real effort was being made by the families of those buried within cillíní to replicate the funerary practices that would have been used for those interred within consecrated graveyards at this time (Murphy 2011a, b). An assessment of the dating evidence for the abandonment of cillíní in County Kerry was undertaken by Emer Dennehy (1997: 104–6) who was able to obtain information for 154 sites, or 60 per cent of the monuments in the county, from cartographic and literary sources in combination with local oral tradition. This work identified that nine sites (6 per cent) had been abandoned prior to c.1850, while 73 sites (48 per cent) had been abandoned in the period from c.1850 to c.1900, and a further 25 sites (16 per cent) had been abandoned between c.1900 and c.1950. As such, between c.1800 and c.1950, the majority of cillíní in the county—107 sites, representing 70 per cent of her sample of 154 sites—had become abandoned, with the remaining 47 sites (30 per cent) abandoned after c.1950. The implication of her work is that forces were at play within Kerry that had led to the majority of cillíní having been abandoned prior to c.1950, with the remainder presumably abandoned in the years surrounding the reforms within the Catholic Church that were made as a consequence of the Second Vatican Council (1962–5). These findings mirror the conclusions reached by Deirdre Crombie (1990: 54) in her study of the cillíní in County Galway, who noted that in some areas the separate burial of the unbaptized had ended by the early twentieth century. She placed the credit for this change on the actions of a ‘more enlightened clergy’ and she noted a tale from Ballinakill where, at the end of the nineteenth century, the local parish priest, Fr Larkin, had proclaimed that all children should and would in future be buried in consecrated ground. A similar change would seem to have been underway in north Antrim at this time as well. The appointment of Fr Bernard Murphy to the Parish of Ballintoy on 30 August 1892 led to a major phase of new infrastructural activity that witnessed the demolition of the old chapel in Ballinlea and its replacement with a new church, dedicated on 1 September 1895. In addition, the small school had been enlarged, a new parochial house was constructed, and a new cemetery was laid out, surrounded by a fine stone wall (Donnelly 1999: 43). This was the first specifically Roman Catholic graveyard in the parish and, prior to this time, the local Catholic population had used neighbouring graveyards—mainly belonging to the local Church of Ireland—for the interment of their dead. A number of cillíní are known to have been in use at Lignalaniv (the ‘Infant’s Hollow’), at Toberann, and at Kilmoyle (Donnelly, Donnelly and Murphy 1999: 112), but provision was now made at the ‘foot-end’ of the new cemetery for the burial of unbaptized children, in an area of the graveyard that remained as unconsecrated ground, albeit set within the new stone boundary wall (Figure 33.2). This action by Fr Murphy can be viewed as enlightened, but it was also supported by Canon Law and, specifically, Canon 1212, which stated that:
Children’s Burial Grounds (cillíní) in Ireland 621 Besides the blessed cemetery, there shall be, if it can be had, another place, likewise enclosed and guarded, for the burial of those to whom ecclesiastical burial is denied. If possible, this section should be outside the enclosure of the blessed cemetery; but if that cannot be conveniently arranged, even a non-blessed section within the same enclosure seems not to be prohibited. Abbo and Hannan (1960: 476)
As such, while Canon 1239 stated that infants of Catholic parents who died without baptism were not to be buried in a blessed cemetery (Woywod 1957: II, 51), the contents of Canon 1212 enabled the clergy to create a solution as to what to do with the bodies of unbaptized infants through the use of non-blessed sections within a cemetery. Nor would it seem that Fr Murphy was alone among the clergy in County Antrim in taking such action; research by Maguire (2007: 65, 68–9, 128–9, 144–5) has identified four other churches—St Joseph’s, Glenavy, St James’s, Aldergrove (Figure 33.3), St Mary’s, Martinstown, and St Patrick’s, Crebily—where areas were set aside within the confines of the graveyards to be specifically used for the burial of unbaptized infants. Other than
Figure 33.2 Plan showing Roman Catholic Church property at Ballinlea in the Parish of Ballintoy (County Antrim, Northern Ireland) c.1900, with an area of unconsecrated ground within the new graveyard (e) designated for the burial of unbaptized infants (map based on Ordnance Survey second edition six-inch map). Drawing by Libby Mulqueeny.
622 Colm J. Donnelly and Eileen M. Murphy
Figure 33.3 (a) The location of an area set aside for the burial of unbaptized infants at St James’s Church, Aldergrove (County Antrim, Northern Ireland). (b) Detail of a modern memorial in the burial ground acknowledging the use of this area for the burial of unbaptized babies. Photograph by Eileen M. Murphy.
being driven by a notion of enlightenment, however, might there have been any other forces at play that may have led Fr Murphy and other parish priests to act as they did? The Act of Union in 1800 had created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and after this date, and until the partition of Ireland into two new states in 1922—the Irish Free State (now the Republic of Ireland) and Northern Ireland—all legislation relating to the island was designed and passed into law within Westminster. This included
Children’s Burial Grounds (cillíní) in Ireland 623 legislation relating to the registration and burial of the dead. An Act to amend the Burial Grounds (Ireland) Act 1856 (23 & 24 Vict. c.76) would seem to have been an attempt by the legislators to bring Ireland into conformity with what was happening elsewhere within the United Kingdom. Of more importance to the current discussion was the 1863 Act for the Registration of Births and Deaths in Ireland (26 Vict. c.11), which set out that it was ‘expedient that a complete System of Registration of Births and Deaths should be established in Ireland, as in other Parts of the United Kingdom’. This latter Act provided for the establishment of a General Register Office in Dublin and the appointment of a Registrar General of Births and Deaths, and it instructed that, by 31 December 1863, the Guardians of every Poor Law Union were to be supplied with printed notices: to be fixed or placed on the Outside of the several Church and Chapel Doors, or other public and conspicuous Buildings or Places within their respective Unions, and which said Notices shall specify the several Acts required to be done for the Purpose of registering any Birth or Death, under the Provisions of this Act.
Parents were now obliged to register within 21 days the birth of a child with the local District Registrar, while ‘some person present at the Death or in attendance during the last Illness of any Person dying . . . shall, within Seven Days next after the Day of such Death, give Notice of such Death to the Registrar of the District in which such Death occurred’. Special note was also given for those who might discover the body of a newborn child or dead person: In case any Person shall . . . find exposed any new-born Child, or any dead Body, the Person first having Charge of such Child in the Case of the new-born Child and the Coroner in case of the dead Body, shall forthwise give Notice of the Finding of the same and of the Place where the same was found to the Registrar of the District in which the same shall have been found.
Penalties for failing to give notice of births and deaths now existed: ‘Any person required by this Act who shall, within the Period specified by this Act, fail to give Notice of any Birth or Death to the Registrar of the District within which such Birth or Death shall have occurred shall be liable to a Penalty not exceeding Twenty Shillings’, with a similar penalty for those neglecting to give notice to the Registrar regarding the discovery of a newborn child or dead body. It is our opinion that it is the introduction of this new legislation that can be considered as a starting point for the end of the cillín tradition in Ireland. No longer would it be the case that the local Parish Priest could ignore the death of a child without legally being obliged to declare it to the District Registrar; no longer could a parent silently bury a stillborn child in the cillín without threat of financial penalty hanging over them. In addition, however, the introduction of this legislation occurred at a time of great change in the position of the Roman Catholic priest within Victorian Irish society. Following Catholic Emancipation in 1829, the Catholic Church in Ireland had to
624 Colm J. Donnelly and Eileen M. Murphy set about re-establishing and re-organizing itself, beset as it was by many difficulties inherited as a result of the outworking of the eighteenth-century anti-Catholic Penal Codes. Its buildings were either of poor quality or were even non-existent; attendance at mass was low, and pilgrimages and patens formed the basis of much of Catholic worship. By the middle of the nineteenth century, however, a revolution had occurred, led by the increased number of priests who had been trained and ordained in the seminary at Maynooth (County Kildare). A key concept within this process was respectability, both for the Catholic Church as an institution and for its priests as its representatives. This concept found its physical expression in the construction of hundreds of new churches across the Irish landscape in the second half of the nineteenth century, but also in the position that the parish priest now held within a locality, which now mirrored that of the area’s Protestant clergy (Donnelly 2004: 123). The parish priest now had a role to play at the apex of local society, but this required taking a lead in ensuring that his flock obeyed the law. Turning a blind eye to parishioners burying their unbaptized children in ancient monuments would not have fitted well with this image, and it is at this point that Canon 1212 comes into play, with the parish priest now advocating the burial of such children within an unconsecrated section of the local Roman Catholic graveyard. There was not an immediate abandonment of the tradition, however, as the work undertaken in County Kerry by Dennehy (1997: 104–6) has shown, and some cillíní continued to be used throughout the first half of the twentieth century. The last burial in the cillín at Kilgarve, near Cushendun (County Antrim), for example, took place around 1945 (Eileen McAuley, pers. comm., 2014), while a priest in a parish near Draperstown (County Londonderry) was still refusing to bury unbaptized infants within the church graveyard during the 1960s (Réamaí Mathers, pers. comm., 2014). It was the reforms that swept through the Catholic Church as a result of the Second Vatican Council (1962–5), however, that would finally put paid to the whole issue. In the resulting new Catechism of the Catholic Church, published in 1994, the baptism of infants was still viewed as being of central importance for the removal of Original Sin, thereby enabling children to become ‘freed from the power of darkness’ (Catholic Church 1994: 283). However, ‘as regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them’ (Catholic Church 1994: 285–6). Limbo as a concept does not even get mentioned within the pages of this vast tome, and by 2005 it had been formally abandoned by the Vatican, dismissed as a theological hypothesis. With unbaptized infants now buried within family plots in consecrated graveyards, there has also been a ready willingness in recent decades among the modern clergy to officiate at acts of religious worship at the sites of cillíní, to consecrate the monuments, and—in those cases where skeletons have been disturbed by archaeological excavations—to rebury the individuals within the parish graveyard. We end our discussion with an example of this process in action. An archaeological excavation within the interior of the medieval castle at Castle Carra near Cushendun (County Antrim) had led to the surprise discovery of 19 near complete children’s skeletons; evidently, the old castle had been reused as a cillín following its abandonment (Hurl and Murphy 1996). At St Patrick’s Church, Cushendun, on Sunday 17 August 2014 the parish priest officiated over a religious service attended by the local community that
Children’s Burial Grounds (cillíní) in Ireland 625 marked the reburial of the children’s skeletons just inside the entrance—a key location within the church’s graveyard—and the unveiling of a headstone to mark their new burial place (Figure 33.4). The congregation was content that these children were an important part of its ancestry and were highly deserving of the consecrated burial that had been denied to them all those years ago.
Figure 33.4 (a) The Medieval castle at Castle Carra (County Antrim, Northern Ireland), the interior of which was used as a cillín during Early Modern times. Photograph by Tony Corey. (b) Grave memorial for the children from Castle Carra erected when they were reburied within the interior of the graveyard at St Patrick’s Church, Cushendun (County Antrim, Northern Ireland), on Sunday 17 August 2014. Photograph by Eileen M. Murphy.
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Acknowledgements We are grateful to Eileen McAuley for her oral history of the cillín at Kilgarve (County Antrim), and to Réamaí Mathers for his information about the parish near Draperstown (County Londonderry). Assistance with the legislation associated with the Burial Acts was gratefully received from Dr Harry Welsh, Queen’s University Belfast. Thanks are due to Tony Corey, Historic Environment Division, Department for Communities, for providing us with Figure 33.4a. We are also very grateful to Libby Mulqueeny, Queen’s University Belfast, for her help with the illustrations.
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Children’s Burial Grounds (cillíní) in Ireland 627 Egan, O. (2013). ‘A Silent Memory’. Seanda: National Roads Authority Archaeology Magazine, 8: 16–20. Fanning, T., and Sheehan, J. (1983). ‘Killeens, or Children’s Burial Grounds, in the Diocese of Galway’. Galway Diocesan Directory, 18: 97–100. Finlay, N. (2000). ‘Outside of Life: Traditions of Infant Burial in Ireland from Cillín to Cist’. World Archaeology, 31/3: 407–22. Fry, S. L. (1999). Burial in Medieval Ireland 900–1500. Dublin: Four Courts Press. Gillespie, R. (1993). ‘Plantations in Early Modern Ireland’. History Ireland, 1/4: 43–7. Hamlin, A. and Foley, C. (1983). ‘A Women’s Graveyard at Carrickmore, County Tyrone, and the Separate Burial of Women’. Ulster Journal of Archaeology, 46: 41–6. Hazard, B. (2010). Faith and Patronage: The Political Career of Flaithri Ó Maolchonaire, c.1560– 1629. Dublin: Irish Academic Press. Heaney, C. (1935). The Theology of Florence Conry, OFM (1560–1629). Drogheda: Drogheda Independent. Hill, Rev. G. (1877). An Historical Account of the Plantation in Ulster. Belfast: McCaw, Stevenson, & Orr. Hurl, D. P. and Murphy, E. M. (1996). ‘Life and Death in a County Antrim Tower House’. Archaeology Ireland, 10/2: 20–3. Hurley, V. (1982). ‘The Early Church in the South-west of Ireland: Settlement and Organization’, in S. Pearce (ed.) The Early Church in Western Britain and Ireland: Studies Presented to C. A. Ralegh Radford. British Archaeological Reports British Series 102. Oxford: Tempvs Reparatvm, 297–332. Jefferies, H. (1999). ‘George Montgomery, First Protestant Bishop of Clogher (1605–21)’. Clogher Record, 16: 127–9. Lehane, J., and Delaney, F. (2010). ‘Archaeological Excavation Report E3770—Owenbristy, Co. Galway: Cashel and Burial Ground’. Eachtra Journal, 8: 1–385. MacNamara, G. (1900). ‘The Ancient Stone Crosses of Uí-Fearmaic, County Clare’. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 10: 32–3. Maguire, M. T. A. (2007). Gardens of Limbo: The Identification and Analysis of Cillíní in County Antrim. Unpublished BSc Dissertation, Queen’s University Belfast. Meigs, S. A. (1997). The Reformations in Ireland: Tradition and Confessionalism, 1400–1600. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan Ltd. Murphy, E. M. (2011a). ‘Children’s Burial Grounds in Ireland (Cillíní) and Parental Emotion towards Infant Death’. International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 15/3: 409–28. Murphy, E. M. (2011b). ‘Parenting, Child Loss and the Cillíní of Post-medieval Ireland’, in M. Lally and A. Moore (eds), (Re)Thinking the Little Ancestor: New Perspectives on the Archaeology of Infancy and Childhood. British Archaeological Reports International Series 2271. Oxford: Archaeopress, 63–74. Murphy, E. M. (2015). ‘Lives Cut Short: Insights from the Osteological and Palaeopathological Analysis of the Ballyhanna Juveniles’, in C. J. McKenzie, E. M. Murphy, and C. J. Donnelly (eds), The Science of a Lost Medieval Graveyard: The Ballyhanna Research Project. Dublin: National Roads Authority. Murray, E. V. (2014). Excavations at Struell Wells, Co Down. Unpublished Data Structure Report No. 110, Centre for Archaeological Fieldwork, Queen’s University Belfast. O’Connor, T. (2002). ‘ “Perfidious Machiavellian Friar”: Florence Conry’s Campaign for a Catholic Restoration in Ireland, 1592–1616’. Seanchas Ardmhacha: Journal of the Armagh Diocesan Historical Society, 19: 91–105.
628 Colm J. Donnelly and Eileen M. Murphy O’Donovan, J. (1829). The Catechism of the Council of Trent, Published by Command of Pope Pius V, and Translated into English by the Rev. J. Donovan. Dublin: Richard Coyne. O’Hare, P. (1997). ‘A Brief Note on a Number of Children’s Burial Grounds in East Kerry’. The Kerry Magazine, 8: 11–17. Orme, N. (2001). Medieval Children. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Ó Súilleabháin, S. (1939). ‘Adhlacadh Leanbhí’. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 69: 143–51. O’Sullivan, M., and Downey, L. (2013). ‘Children’s Burial Grounds—Know Your Monuments’. Archaeology Ireland, 27/3: 22–5. Rynne, E. (1974). ‘Excavations at Madden’s Hill, Kiltale, Co. Meath’. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 74C: 267–75. Tait, C. (2002). Death, Burial and Commemoration in Ireland, 1550–1650. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan. Troy, C. (2010). Final Report on the Human Remains from Ardreigh, Co. Kildare. Volume 1: Report. Unpublished report prepared for Headland Archaeology Ltd. Walsh, M. (2005). Roman Catholicism: The Basics. Abingdon: Routledge. Waterman, D. (1967). ‘The Early Christian Churches and Cemetery at Derry, Co. Down’. Ulster Journal of Archaeology, 30: 53–75. Wilkins, B., and Lalonde, S. (2008). ‘An Early Medieval Settlement/Cemetery at Carrowkeel, Co. Galway’. Journal of Irish Archaeology, 17: 57–83. Wood-Martin, W. G. (1895). Pagan Ireland. London: Longmans, Green & Co. Woywod, Rev S. (1957). A Practical Commentary on the Code of Canon Law (revised and enlarged edition of combined Volumes I and II, revised by Rev C. Smith). New York, NY: Joseph F. Wagner Inc.
SECTION VIII
SE E I N G , P R E SE N T I N G , A N D INTERPRETING THE A RC HA E OL O G Y OF C H I L DHO OD
Chapter 34
Ga zing on th e Past ( an d Being Photob ombe d by Childre n) Archaeology, the Early Years of Modern Photography, and the Visible/Invisible Child Sally Crawford and Katharina Ulmschneider
In this chapter, the authors will be investigating ways in which archaeologists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries encountered and ‘saw’ (or did not see) children in their photographs of archaeological sites. Our source archive is the photographic collection at the Institute of Archaeology, Oxford University, created before the introduction of 35 mm slide technology. The images in this study range in date from c.1880 to c.1945, and include unlabelled glass negatives and negative film as well as annotated photographs and glass lantern slides. The collection is available to view online at HEIR, the Historic Environment Image Resource.1 The images in this collection are a useful resource for visual information about nineteenth- century and early twentieth- century childhoods (Crawford and Ulmschneider 2015). The children in these images reflect their culture. They reflect the care their parents put into their clothing and appearance. They reflect their own childhood experiences, which allowed them the freedom to follow the curious strangers with their photographic equipment. Above all, they reflect children having childhoods. Looked at another way, however, these images are also revealing in terms of how archaeologists responded to the children captured by their camera lens. Photography by archaeologists in the early years of the modern discipline, often used to teach and illustrate archaeology to generations of scholars through the first six decades of the twentieth century, indicates the extent to which a contemporary constructed idea of what ‘should’ be seen in archaeological illustrations mirrored the relative ‘invisibility’ of children in
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Figure 34.1 Ephesus (Turkey), taken in c.1880, with a child in the foreground. No caption. Negative film. Photographer: T. R. R. Stebbing. HEIR 33679. Reproduced courtesy of the Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford.
their interpretation of the archaeological record. Photography by archaeologists in the early years of the modern discipline also helped to affirm and confirm the constructed gaze, shaping and directing an idea of childhood as not relevant to the bigger picture in archaeological thought (Figure 34.1).
Early photography and archaeology Archaeology is a ‘visual subject’ (Harlan 2005: 203), and so it is not surprising that the history and mentalities of photography and archaeology are intertwined (Downing 2006: 3). William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–77), the photography pioneer who invented the processes that were the precursors to nineteenth-and twentieth-century photography, was himself an archaeologist (Schaaf 2000). As photographic techniques developed in the late nineteenth century, archaeologists were amongst the first to benefit from the opportunity of recording monuments with the new technology. This was also a time when the aspiring middle and working classes were desperate for access
Gazing on the Past (and Being Photobombed by Children) 633 to education and travel. Commercial photographers, whose business of making and selling photographic images and lantern slides flourished in the second half of the nineteenth century, recognized the popular appetite for images of archaeological sites. Some, such as John Pattison Gibson (1838–1912), who photographed excavations by the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries along Hadrian’s Wall in Northumbria, or Henry Taunt (1842–1922), who photographed a number of excavations in and around the Oxfordshire area, became skilled photographers of archaeological sites, setting the photographic standards for capturing excavations in progress. By 1880, commercialization of the processes needed to form photographic images on glass plates meant that photography, previously restricted to professionals, was available to scholars, who no longer had to rely on the work of photographic businesses to illustrate their lectures. Antiquarians and scholars were able to travel with their own relatively portable cameras and photographic equipment and to record important sites and monuments on glass plates and film negatives. Archaeologists were part of a burgeoning use of photography by academics and amateurs to survey and record the material remains of the past (Edwards 2012). At Oxford University, lantern slides made from glass plate negatives and film rapidly became an important way of displaying images to large audiences and allowing students, colleagues, and members of the public to visit, through these slides, sites they could never hope to see in person. Lantern slide collections that could be shared and borrowed became a central teaching tool not just at universities, but also in schools (Harlan 2005: 203). Knowledge of archaeological sites—and how to view them—was being disseminated through photographic images. Professor Percy Gardner (1846–1937), Lincoln and Merton Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Oxford, was able to report to the Ashmolean in 1896 that ‘a considerable collection of lantern-slides has been formed for use in lectures, and catalogued’ (Harlan 2005: 204). This collection was built from his own photographic images, as well as those of his colleagues T. E. Peet, D. G. Hogarth, E. T. Leeds, and J. L. Myres. Most of the images that form the focus of this chapter are part of this original teaching collection of lantern slides brought together within the Ashmolean Library at the University of Oxford. This significant assemblage represents the archaeological environment as perceived by archaeologists through images bought from professional photographers, or photographed by archaeologists, for research or teaching purposes from c.1880 onwards. The archaeologists’ photographs within the Ashmolean Library collection offer a unique insight into what British archaeologists, the founders of the discipline in their country, ‘saw’ when they looked through the camera lens. The glass lantern slide and glass negative teaching collection represents a visual text recording what was ‘seen’ in their present by the men and women who visited, photographed, excavated, and interpreted archaeological sites in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Each photographic image is the product of the photographer’s decision about which sites and monuments were ‘worth’ photographing, and their idea of which sites it was important to display for teaching purposes. Together with the captions on the lantern slides, the collection was designed with the dual purposes of illustrating lectures and
634 Sally Crawford and Katharina Ulmschneider also helping to teach students what to look for and how to look at the past. One of Percy Gardner’s complaints about the British educational system was that ‘Boys pass through our public schools without receiving any systematic training of the eyes’ (Gardner 1903: 44–5); the teaching collection was intended to rectify this fault.
The archaeological gaze Seeing, like childhood itself, is a ‘culturally and historically specific’ construct: what you see and how you interpret it is influenced by what you have been trained to see by your society (Classen 1993: 1; Banks and Morphy 1997; Banks 2001: 7). Seeing is not a matter of individual psychology, but of socially patterned and learned ‘ways of seeing’ (Urry 1990; Larsen 2006). Gaze is structured and constructed (Urry 1990; Larsen 2006). Ways of ‘seeing’ in tourists’ or travellers’ images may be categorized by the different ‘gazes’ they present, both at the time the image was taken, and later, as the image is viewed and reviewed. Gazes shape and form the way a scene is captured, and gazes may overlap and compete for control of a given image. First, there is the photographer’s gaze through the lens: we ‘see’ only the part of the view that the photographer chose to look at, and the edges of the photograph frame that part of the image—usually the centre—that is supposed to draw the viewer’s eye. Then there is the institutional gaze—how the image is later cropped and arranged for the audience, and how successive images are combined in a lecture series. The gaze of the audience may also be directed and framed by other contexts, including captions on the slide, which say what the image is supposed to show, and comments by the lecturer, guiding the gaze to specific aspects of the photograph. Gazes change over time, however, and images may be re-viewed at later dates from alternative cultural viewpoints—a process exemplified by this chapter. In addition, there are the returned gazes—of the traveller in the picture, who expects to re-view the image when it is processed and printed at a later date, and the locals in the picture, who look back at the camera, conscious or unconscious that they are the focus of the camera’s gaze (Lutz and Collins 1991: 134). Archaeologists taking and using lantern slide images may have intended to capture sites and ruins through their lenses, and may have thought that each image they photographed was the result of their own personal interaction with the landscape, their own agency in terms of where they stood to take the image, and which aspects of the landscape around them they chose to make the focus of their lenses. However, all photographers are situated in a cultural context that inherited constructs about ways of viewing monuments, and equally importantly, ways of viewing children. The archaeological photographer’s decisions about how to include, exclude, or ignore children when taking photographs might reflect unconscious, subliminal cultural promptings, or might have sprung from a conscious idea about ‘correct’ ways to compose photographs and the desirability, or otherwise, of having children in the picture—to add cultural ‘colour’, or to provide a scale, for example. Sir John Myres, whose images contributed
Gazing on the Past (and Being Photobombed by Children) 635 significantly to the Ashmolean lantern slide teaching collection, drew attention to the use of children for both purposes in a note in the journal Man, in which he describes how a colleague induced some unwilling Italian boys to stand in front of a wall ‘to show the scale’. All the boys wriggled to avoid their faces being captured, except one, who gestured with his hand to ward off the evil eye, ‘and thus impenetrably armed stands steadily up to be shot at’ (Myres 1905: 12). From the mid-nineteenth century, travel books abounded with instructions on ‘how’ to view monuments and landscapes—what had value and importance and what could be overlooked (Palmowski 2002: 108). As Jonas Larsen noted in his essay on the geographies of tourist photography, these are crucial decades for the creation of the western traveller’s gaze: This is the moment when the ‘tourist gaze’, that peculiar combining together of the means of collective travel, the desire for travel and the techniques of photographic reproduction, becomes a core component of western modernity . . . tourism and photography came to be welded together and the development of each cannot be separated from the other. Larsen (2006: 248–9)
Guide books and travelogues were closely intertwined with the gaze of archaeologists and their cultural positioning. These were the decades in which the means of travel, the ability to photograph sites and monuments, and the ability to share a specific, photographed view of the past with large audiences at universities, in schools, and in workers’ education classes, made the archaeologist photographer’s perception of the past an influential gaze. The extent to which the early photographic images taken by professionals and archaeologists were disseminated and literally provided the lens through which a specific archaeological photographic view of the past could become a collective view of the past is exemplified by the history of Sir John Myres’s photographic archive. Myres was a photographic pioneer, using his camera to capture hundreds of images of his travels and fieldwork in Greece and the Greek Islands from the 1880s to around 1910. John Myres’s photographs, along with those of his colleagues Percy Gardner, Walter Leaf, and Jane Harrison, formed the lantern slide lending collection of the Hellenic Society and the Roman Society. The Societies’ collections were open to members of the Teachers’ Guild—catalogues of the lantern slides were published in the Teachers’ Guild journals as early as 1897—emphasizing that most teachers used this provision rather than their going to the trouble and expense of taking their own photographs. Myres also placed negatives with George Philip and Son, Ltd, Geographical and Educational Publishers of Fleet Street, for loan or purchase, and in 1894, many of Myres’s photographs were published by teacher Reverend T. Field as the Catalogue of Lantern Slides to illustrate Fyffe’s History of Greece (Harlan 2005). The public could thus buy Myres’s views of Ancient Greece, and Myres’s views formed part of the British school curriculum, perpetuating Myres’s gaze—quite literally his point of view—in succeeding generations.
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Children in the picture By the late Victorian period, there were artistic and social conventions for appropriate ways of seeing children in the landscape. There is an extensive literature on the history of photographic images, which concur in arguing that, especially in the late nineteenth century, children were an embedded part of the construct of ‘seeing’ through the lens: ‘It is crucial to realize ways in which in Western culture, since the invention of the medium, concepts of the child and photography have been linked’ (Smith 1998: 8). Children were a conventional addition to Victorian landscape images, as exemplified by the work of professional photographer George Cowen (1865–1948). Cowen exploited public and tourist interest in the historic monuments and archaeology of his native Isle of Man by situating children, especially pre-pubescent girls, in the foreground of his compositions. Several of these lantern slide images were incorporated into the Ashmolean Museum lantern slide teaching collection, and were presumably used to illustrate University lectures (Figure 34.2). Cowan’s use of children in his photographs (intended for sale to a growing tourist market) expresses the ‘use’ of children as an attractive commodity in tourist photography, associated with a manipulation of innocence. Photography is used to construct an idealized childhood, linked to a carefree and happy experience: photography was used in this way to ‘manufacture’ an idea of childhood (Smith 1998: 7). The construct of the tourist’s gaze and ways of seeing the child came together in contemporary political and social reform campaigns. Since the mid-nineteenth century there had been a strong drive in Britain to place all children in a school system. There was a pervasive discourse through the late nineteenth century on uneducated children as ‘ragged and wayward individuals’ (Rose 2008: 138). Children not in school, especially poor working-class boys, were a cause of concern (Cunningham 1991: 123–7): ‘they were often described as “street arabs”, locating them in a group that was racially and culturally “other”, and linked to fears of racial degeneration’ (Rose 2008: 137). For British photographers recording what they saw abroad, we should be alert to the possibility that there would be a perceived contrast between the messages conveyed by a photograph of British children, who represented—as in Cowan’s commercial lantern slides—innocence, normality, and potential future adults who would sustain the British Empire, and the messages conveyed by photographs of ‘other’ children abroad. The sense that children, if not controlled and educated, might embody the pre-civilized ‘other’ had found its way into archaeological discourse: late nineteenth-century popular archaeological publications persistently used childhood as a metaphor for ancient societies (Crawford 2010). The underlying message of a nineteenth-century archaeological perspective that attempted to articulate the evolution of the British Empire from wild and uncivilized Germanic forest tribes reflected a wider Victorian suspicion that children might be psychologically close to ‘primitive’ cultures.
Gazing on the Past (and Being Photobombed by Children) 637
Figure 34.2 Commercial lantern slide taken in c.1880. No Caption. Photographer: George Cowan. HEIR 55501. Reproduced courtesy of the Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford.
Children in late Victorian photographs were presented through this pervasive cultural interpretation of juveniles as ‘other’. At one extreme of this perception are the images taken by amateur Oxford photographer Charles Dodgson/Lewis Carroll. It has been argued that some of Carroll’s most disturbing sets of images are those in which children dressed up to ‘enact various cultural and national fantasies—the Indian, the Greek, the Turk, the directly theatrical guises, or Carroll’s unrealized lifelong desire to create a “gypsy” ’ (Smith 1998: 28). However, Carroll was exploiting a Victorian family pasttime. Dressing up in costumes representing other cultures was part of middle-class childhood. Archaeologist John Myres also photographed English children dressing in exotic clothing—in this case his own family, who appear to engage in the costume play with enthusiasm (Figure 34.3). In this image, Myres’s own children are the focus
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Figure 34.3 Film negative. J. L. Myres’s children Claude and Nowell in Oxford (England), 1910. Photographer: J. L. Myres. Reproduced courtesy of the Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford.
of his gaze, and the children’s clothes and poses are clearly staged. These images exist in the Ashmolean Library negative collection and as printed photographs, but were not made into lantern slides for teaching purposes: family pictures did not belong in the Ashmolean Library Lantern Slide Lending catalogue. Commercial lantern slides of this time drew on a similar repertoire of ‘otherness’ and ‘innocence’ to present foreign children posed as actors in photographs for public consumption, backed up by captions such as ‘Children of Nazareth’ (number 34 in a series on the Holy Land: HEIR 44750), or ‘Bethlehem Maidens’, which captions an image by professional photographer Felix Bonfils (HEIR 44781) (Crawford and Ulmschneider 2015). Victorian photographers and their audiences were familiar with the idea of children’s bodies being posed for the camera, but also being dressed to relay a particular ‘message’ about cultural otherness (Rose 2008).
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Oxford: the institutional gaze and the inclusion/exclusion of children When archaeologists embarked on travels to record monuments and ancient landscapes, they carried with them a variety of social identities and perceptions of themselves— Myres was a husband, a father, a tourist, an archaeologist, and a lecturer, among other identities. They also carried a suite of conscious and subconscious cultural conceptions about how, when, and why to include children in the picture depending on which social identity was paramount. The impulse to separate the archaeological gaze from the general tourist gaze, for example, is expressed in some of the captions attached to lantern slides in the Ashmolean lantern slide and glass plate teaching collection. This is a curated template for ‘seeing’ the past, in terms of what the photographer saw, filtered through the collection process, which determined whether the image would be retained for teaching processes, and constructed through the captions on the lantern slides, which directed the lecturer how to ‘see’ the image. The majority of the images in this collection were designed to be framed and viewed by an archaeological gaze, which constructed all people, including children, out of the picture. Lantern slides are both an image and an artefact, and the placing of the image within the glass frames, sealed by tape and labelled, created a very specific and directed ‘reading’ of the picture. Figure 34.4 illustrates the lantern slide as both image and as object, and emphasizes the caption as a way of framing the image and controlling the gaze. The label instructs the reader to ‘see’ ‘Tipaza Forum A’. But as an image, there are a number of ways of viewing the picture, and the viewer’s gaze moves towards the people at the centre of the photograph, posing and gazing at the camera. They are four adults in European dress posing self-consciously, and some younger people, in local costume, also looking towards the camera. The story behind the image—the relationship between the older visitors and the younger boys, and all their names and identities—are now unknown, but the contrast between the photographer’s intention to juxtaposition of their fellow tourists alongside native children, and the exclusive teaching ‘purpose’ of the image, is written onto the object. The date at which the image was taken, the name of the photographer, and the people gazing back at the lens are irrelevant to the academic discourse, which instead focuses attention on the immutable remains of the Roman ruins. The contrast in this lantern slide between the object label and the actual image inadvertently provides a context for the actors in the scene. If Tipaza (Algeria), had been more readily accessible to academic visitors at the time this photographic image was prepared for the lantern slide teaching collection, then there would have been other, ‘better’ versions of the picture, uncluttered by people, available to illustrate the archaeological site. In fact, Tipaza lay off the beaten track for the majority of travellers through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Much of the academic discourse on the history of travel photography has focused on the identity of the photographer as tourist, but what sets the archaeological traveller apart is a very strong self-identity as an archaeologist. As the label on the Tipaza lantern slide emphasizes, the archaeological
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Figure 34.4 Lantern slide image captioned ‘Tipaza. Forum A’ (Algeria), date c.1930. Photographer unknown. HEIR 37819. Reproduced courtesy of the Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford.
traveller was first and foremost focused on the archaeology, a fact that distanced the scholar from the ordinary tourist and even more so from the gaze of the ordinary consumer of commercial products created by professional photographers such as Cowen or Bonfils. Critical analysis of the early years of photography has emphasized the lack of agency of children in posed photographs (Smith 1998: 5). However, within the Ashmolean Library lantern slide teaching collection, the photographer’s intention was frequently challenged by the reverse gaze of other people, often children. One set of images in the lantern slide library were taken by the clergyman and scientist T. R. R. Stebbing in the 1890s (Harlan 2009). His images regularly include a woman—his wife, Mary Ann Stebbing—who is always dressed in a characteristic large hat, cloak, and wide skirts with a lugubrious expression on her face, perhaps indicative of the time it took to take a
Gazing on the Past (and Being Photobombed by Children) 641 glass plate negative image in this period. She always posed for her picture, but Stebbing’s work as a photographer was compromised by the number of children who managed to intrude themselves into the frame, staring straight at the lens and coming so close to the camera that only their heads or the top of their bodies appear in the photograph (e.g. Figure 34.1; see also HEIR 33651, HEIR 33671, and HEIR 33737). Figure 34.5 (HEIR 33675) is typical of Stebbing’s work. The photograph is ‘of ’ the Roman Odeon of Herodes Atticus in Athens. In addition to its antiquarian content, it is also, on a personal level, ‘of ’ Stebbing’s wife, who is positioned to the middle left of the image, close to the monument, patiently posing for the camera and staring across the open space towards the photographer. While the photographer is framing his companion and the monument, his preparations and unusual equipment have caught the attention of two other people who also gaze into the camera. A little further back is an adult male, whose pose is nervous. It contrasts with the frank, curious gaze of the boy who has come so close to the camera that only his head and shoulders appear in the picture. This image, ‘officially’ of the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, personally of Stebbing’s wife, and inter alia of two curious ‘others’, is characteristic of large numbers of images in the lantern slide collection, which differ significantly from the work of commercial
Figure 34.5 Roman Odeon of Herodes Atticus below the Acropolis on the south west side, Athens (Greece). Negative film. Photographer: T. R. R. Stebbing. HEIR 33675. Reproduced courtesy of the Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford.
642 Sally Crawford and Katharina Ulmschneider photographers such as Cowen in that, while the photographer’s gaze is fixed on the monument, the camera is also capturing, unposed, local adults and children. As such, the images form an interesting resource for viewing the geographies of childhood. A limitation of the resource is that the images are almost exclusively outdoors, which means there is very little information within them about the domestic life of late nineteenth-and early twentieth-century children. But the images do form a record of the life of those children who spent time outside, providing data about their age, gender, activities, levels of supervision, and clothing. Take an image captured by R. W. Wylie, for example (Figure 34.6), which dates to about 1910. Wylie’s collection of glass plate negatives illustrates the photographer’s interest in recording standing buildings and monuments around Britain and France. The majority of his images exclude people altogether: his primary aim is to photograph the buildings. However, children do find their way into his pictures. In this view ‘of ’ the medieval Cannongate Bridge in Jedburgh (Scotland), small groups of people, predominantly children, are also present. Through the middle span of the arch, on the far bank, it is possible to make out a group of four or five girls wearing the distinctive white pinafore costume of the day. More readily visible, their heads and shoulders standing
Figure 34.6 Glass plate negative, no caption, showing Canongate Bridge, Jedburgh (Scotland), c.1900. Boys congregate on the bridge while a group of girls stand on the far bank. Photographer: R. W. Wylie. HEIR 35270. Reproduced courtesy of the Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford.
Gazing on the Past (and Being Photobombed by Children) 643 out against the skyline, is a collection of men and boys lined up on the parapet of the bridge itself. They wear jackets and caps, and several lean on the bridge, idly observing the photographer. Their presence is a reminder, again, that photography was a difficult and time-consuming business, even using the dry collodion process as Wylie did, and that in England, as abroad, a photographer was likely to draw a curious crowd, or at least a crowd of boys. The girls on the far bank seem oblivious of the photographer and are absorbed in their own activities. Much of the discourse about children in Victorian photographs, and about the relationship between the photographer and the photographed, has focused on the ‘power’ of the photographer, who chooses the site, frames the picture, and directs the gaze of those who will later view the image: as psychologist Alex Gillespie argued, ‘The interaction between tourist photographer and local photographee is a dynamic site of identity construction. To date, this interaction has been theorized mainly in terms of the power of the tourist photographer, which has been shown to mediate and commodify local cultures and create new identities amongst those photographed’ (Gillespie 2006: 343). However, what transpires from the attempts of archaeologists to photograph standing monuments in the late nineteenth century is the extent to which children effectively directed and dictated the picture. The still moment of photographic time is also a record of the series of interactions between the photographer and local children in the moments leading up to the photograph. Figure 34.7 exemplifies the dynamic between the photographer, his subject (the standing monument), and the children interposing themselves between the viewer and the viewed. The photograph was taken by J. N. Myres in about 1890 in Bari (Italy). It is a scene capturing the eastern seafront of the old town, with the Basilica of St Nicholas in the centre. However, the image is dominated by the foreground group of boys, cheerfully and enthusiastically posing on the wall for the photographer, though the group to the edge of the image have already been distracted away from the excitement of the English archaeologist and his camera by some other curiosity to the right of the picture and out of the frame. Myres was a keen anthropologist and folklorist, as well as an archaeologist, and this particular composition—local boys in the foreground, representing contemporary cultures, with an archaeological site or monument in the background, is replicated in several other Myres images, such as HEIR 34477, where a group of boys are posing for Myres with the site of Argos in the background, or HEIR 34416, showing a group of small boys wearing traditional caped hoods posing for Myres’s camera at the site of the ancient city of Lappa (Crete). Superficially, Myres’s motivation for introducing local children into the photograph may seem analogous to Cowan’s ‘maidens’ in his commercial works, but Myres’s publications suggest that he was using children to illustrate his belief that ancient cultures and historical experiences may be perpetuated through the centuries in local communities (Myres 1926; Samiei 2014: 124–8). However, not all archaeologists were as interested as Myres in the potential for ancient folkways to intrude into modern populations. The focus of attention in the majority of the images in the teaching collection is archaeological sites and monuments, rather than
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Figure 34.7 A group of boys in the foreground with the basilica of St Nicholas, Bari (Italy), in the background, c.1890. Photographer: J. L. Myres, HEIR 34467. Reproduced courtesy of the Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford.
the people (many of them children) who were also in the picture. In fact, photographers appear to have gone to some effort to remove people from their pictures—an example is a photograph of medieval buildings in northern France taken by R. W. Wylie in about 1900 (HEIR, Resource ID 36352). In the foreground of the picture there is a stream. By the stream there is a bucket with wet laundry in and about it. The scene indicates that an activity has been interrupted by the photographer, and either the person doing the washing has chosen to step out of camera range, or has been asked to do so, or the photographer waited for an opportunity to photograph the building without the washer in the foreground. The photographic archive and accompanying letters of the brilliant and influential British archaeologist Stuart Piggott further illustrate the cultural and scholarly processes that made children almost invisible to the archaeological gaze. Piggott falls slightly outside the archaeologists discussed previously in this chapter, since his photographs were not part of the Ashmolean lantern slide teaching collection.2 Younger than Myres, Stebbing, and Wylie, his development as an archaeologist was influenced by the work and teaching of their generation (Bradley 2015: 25). In 1942, Piggott, having already
Gazing on the Past (and Being Photobombed by Children) 645 participated in important excavations in England at prehistoric Avebury (Wiltshire), and having participated in the famous excavation of the Sutton Hoo Mound 1 ship burial (Suffolk), found himself posted to India as part of the wartime Aerial Photographic Intelligence Unit. Piggott, according to his own letters and unpublished writings, was not happy in the army. Once in India, he shucked off his unwelcome military costume as soon as he could, and was delighted to report to his wife that, in his travelling outfit, his companion had remarked that ‘now you really look like an archaeologist’ (Piggott Archive Box 11/1). The Institute of Archaeology at Oxford holds letters that Piggott wrote about two sightseeing journeys while he was in India. The first took him into Tibet, the second, in 1943, saw him travelling into the area now known as Himachal Pradesh in Northern India. Piggott’s letters to his wife Margaret, recording his trips, show that what he ‘saw’, or at least that part of what he saw, which he was allowed to write to his wife about in wartime, was observed relentlessly from the viewpoint of an archaeologist. The letters also show an intriguing dissonance relating to the presence or absence of children in what Piggott photographed, and what he recalled in his writing. Describing an experience in Baijnath (India) (a paradigm-shifting moment for Piggott, one of several that led him to reconsider and rewrite European prehistoric archaeological theory after the war), he noted: . . . and finally there was a silversmith at work with the most primitive bellows you could imagine, made in the best primitive African style of two leather bags made from the intact skin of a goat's hind leg with mouths strengthened by bamboo strips, and these were used alternately to keep up a continuous blast by closing the mouth as the bag was squeezed (difficult to explain but I have a good photo of them in action), and there's a drawing of them. A clay tuyeau and hearth is used and it’s all very Glastonburian. Piggott Archive Box (11/7)
This was the moment when Piggott realized that the exquisite metalwork produced by European Iron Age culture did not demand sophisticated technology—but the second part of the story, illustrated by his photograph (Figure 34.8), is that children were an active part of the metalworking process. There was not just ‘a silversmith’, the only agent noted by Piggott—there was also a child, working the bellows and learning the craft. Piggott did ‘notice’ children, but only when they were in a setting that fitted Piggott’s cultural expectations as a tourist rather than as an archaeologist (Figure 34.9). For example, he notes that: . . . at Mandi the ‘city’, which is a small town, of course, lies very beautifully situated on a knoll by the river Beas, surrounded by high wooded mountains up to 8 or 10 thousand feet I imagine. Rather improbably, one crosses the river to it by a suspension bridge in Balmoral Gothic erected in 1867 and adorned with medallions of the great and good Queen: it is very comic to see the bridge, that might so well be in Scotland,
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Figure 34.8 Man and boy metalworking in India, 1943. Photograph by Stuart Piggott. Piggott Archive negative collection. Reproduced courtesy of the Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford.
acting as foreground to a group of temples and native houses. On our getting out of the bus small girls came up and put garlands of jasmine round our necks—the local custom, we found, to visiting strangers and a very charming one too.
In addition to noticing the children’s role in the local custom, Piggott also comments on children in a remote village: After about a thousand feet of very stiff climbing we came up onto a sort of ‘alp’, with a herdsmen's village of tents pitched on it. Lots of small, excessively dirty, excessively charming children came running and shouting to meet us, and were duly rewarded with sweets, with which we’d filled our pockets for this very purpose.
Piggott’s images of these encounters with children raise questions about the agency of children in their encounters with archaeologists. Foreign visitors were a draw for children—a source of sweets, gifts, and excitement. Both Piggott’s picture (Figure 34.9) and the anonymous image of Tipaza forum discussed earlier (Figure 34.4) illustrate the agency lying behind the ‘returned gaze’—children pulling the focus to themselves rather
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Figure 34.9 Children with garlands, Mandi, Himachal Pradesh (India), 1943. Piggott Archive negative collection. Reproduced courtesy of the Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford.
than the landscape or monument. Alex Gillespie, travelling through the same areas as Piggott some 60 years later, noted the tourist camera as an empowering tool for children: . . . the desire to be photographed is most evident amongst the Ladakhi children. They often follow tourists chanting ‘one photo, one photo’, meaning that they want the tourist to take a photograph of them. Again it is very unusual for these children to request money for being photographed. Rather, it seems, they get an identity reward, or some form of recognition, by virtue of being photographed—it positions them as valuable. Gillespie (2006: 351)
Comparison of Piggott’s images and text also gives the insight into the cultural conditioning that prevented archaeologists through most of the twentieth century from thinking about the impact of children and childhood on archaeological interpretation— Piggott only ‘saw’ children when they were engaged in ‘charming’, and essentially ephemeral, behaviour. In his letters he makes careful note of the clothing adults and horses wore, he discusses the transference of identity of a cheap, common Woolworths teapot in England to an exotic and prized artefact in a Tibetan monastery, and he mulls
648 Sally Crawford and Katharina Ulmschneider over the processes that allow objects to be transmitted from one culture to another, but he observes no archaeological relevance in children’s activities, even though he records them being given objects (a ritual so embedded in the local culture that Piggott and his British companions were carrying gifts specifically for the children), exchanging objects, proactively engaging with foreign visitors, and moving around the village. Some of Piggott’s photographs, like others in the Ashmolean lantern slide teaching collection, also highlight an intriguing parallel between the gaze of the archaeologist and the gaze of children that might shed a different light on why archaeologists are culturally conditioned not to ‘see’ children in the picture. Children, from the earliest days of photography, have been constructed as ‘other’—liminal, outsiders, primitive. In this respect, archaeologists and children are often seen as sharing the same outsider’s gaze, because there are times when they are both culturally ‘other’—one as a foreign adult and traveller, one as a child—both watching and learning (Figure 34.10). In this figure, both Stuart Piggott, standing behind the camera lens and the children in the foreground share the same ground outside the frame of the picture’s focus. Both Piggott and the children look on, watching the final stage of a Hindu festival (Ganesha Chaturthi) unfold below them. They share the same curiosity, but also the same detachment from the event the camera is recording. This image raises the possibility that
Figure 34.10 Ceremony at Mandi, Himachal Pradesh (India), 1943. Piggott Archive negative collection. Reproduced courtesy of the Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford.
Gazing on the Past (and Being Photobombed by Children) 649 part of the answer to the conundrum of why archaeologists do not ‘see’ the child is because subconsciously they are the child, slightly outside, slightly apart, observing, and learning. The children recorded by archaeologists through their camera lens raise intriguing questions about how and why archaeologists included, highlighted, or ignored the child in photographs where monuments and sites were the object (Crawford and Ulmschneider 2015). Archaeologists were not setting out to photograph children: their focus was the site they were trying to record, in the same way that excavators in the twentieth century rarely anticipated ‘finding’ children in the archaeological record. When children are present in the images, it is because they were useful as objects (for scale), or to provide cultural context for the monuments, but also because they placed themselves in the camera’s lens through their own agency. Where children are in the picture, they are rarely mentioned in the captions on lantern slides. The parallels with the ‘invisible’ archaeological child are difficult to escape. The social ‘persona’ of scientist encouraged archaeological photographers to ignore the child as an irrelevant part of the scene, a perception reinforced by directive labels on the lantern slide. In the same way, as previous chapters in this volume have explained, children have been consistently been written out of the archaeological discourse as a distraction to the archaeological record.
Notes 1. HEIR: The Historic Environment Image Resource project is supported by generous grants from the Oxford University Fell Fund and The Reva and David Logan Foundation. Our grateful thanks go to Dr Janice Kinory for her work on the HEIR project and on suggesting images for this chapter. All the images discussed in this chapter are online via HEIR database and may be accessed http://heir.arch.ox.ac.uk. HEIR images will be referenced throughout this chapter by their unique HEIR identification number. The original images are held in the archive of the Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford, and are reproduced here by kind permission of the Institute and the HEIR Project 2. The Piggott Archive is kept at the Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford.
References Banks, M. (2001). Visual Methods in Social Research. Sage: London. Banks, M. and Morphy, H. (1997). ‘Introduction: Rethinking Visual Anthropology’, in M. Banks and H. Morphy (eds), Rethinking Visual Anthropology. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1–35. Bradley, R. (2015). ‘Repeating the Unrepeatable Experiment’, in R. Chapman and A. Wylie (eds), Material Evidence: Learning from Archaeological Practice. London: Routledge, 23–41. Classen, C. (1993). Worlds of Sense: Exploring the Senses in History and Across Cultures. New York, NY: Routledge. Crawford, S. (2010). ‘ “Our Race had its Childhood”: The Use of Childhood as a Metaphor in Post-Darwinian Explanations for Prehistory’. Childhood in the Past, 3/1: 107–22.
650 Sally Crawford and Katharina Ulmschneider Crawford, S. and Ulmschneider, K. (2015). ‘HEIR: A New Interdisciplinary Source for the Study of Global Childhood in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries’. Childhood in the Past, 8/1: 5–23. Cunningham, H. (1991). The Children of the Poor: Representations of Childhood since the Seventeenth Century. Oxford: Blackwell. Downing, E. (2006). After Images: Photography, Archaeology, and Psychoanalysis and the Tradition of Bildung. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press. Edwards, E. (2012). The Camera as Historian: Amateur Photographers and Historical Imagination, 1885–1918. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Gardner, P. (1903). Oxford at the Crossroads: A Criticism of the Course of Litterae Humanoires in the University. London: A. and C. Black. Gillespie, A. (2006). ‘Tourist Photography and the Reverse Gaze’. Ethos, 34/3: 343–66. Harlan, D. (2005). ‘The Archaeology of Lantern Slides: The Teaching Slide Collection of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford’, in R. Crangle, M. Heard, and I. van Dooren (eds), Realms of Light: Uses and Perceptions of the Magic Lantern from the 17th to the 21st century. Ripon: Magic Lantern Society, 203–10. Harlan, D. (2009). ‘Travel, Pictures, and a Victorian Gentleman in Greece’. Hesperia, 78: 421–53. Larsen, J. (2006). ‘Geographies of Tourism Photography: Choreographies and Performances’, in J. Falkheimer and A. Jansson (eds), Geographies of Communication: The Spatial Turn in Media Studies. Gøteborg: NORDICOM, 243–61. Lutz, C. and Collins, J. (1991). ‘The Photograph as an Intersection of Gazes: The Example of National Geographic’. Visual Anthropology Review, 7: 134–49. Myres, J. L. (1905). ‘The Evil Eye and the Camera’. Man, 5: 12. Myres, J. L. (1926). ‘Presidential Address: Folkmemory’. Folk-Lore, 37: 12–34 Palmowski, J. (2002). ‘Travels with Baedeker: The Guidebook and the Middle Classes in Victorian and Edwardian Britain’, in R. Koshar (ed.), Histories of Leisure. Oxford: Berg, 105–30. Rose, C. (2008). ‘Raggedness and Respectability in Barnardo’s Archive’. Childhood in the Past, 1: 136–50. Samiei, S. (2014). Ancient Persia in Western History: Hellenism and the Representation of the Achaemenid Empire. London: I. B. Tauris. Schaaf, L. J. (2000). The Photographic Art of William Henry Fox Talbot. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Smith, L. (1998). The Politics of Focus: Women, Children and Nineteenth Century Photography. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Urry, J. (1990). The Tourist Gaze: Leisure and Travel in Contemporary Societies. London: Sage Publications Ltd.
Chapter 35
F rom the Archa e ol o g y of Ch ildho od to Mode rn Children V i si t i ng Archaeol o gica l Mu se ums An Italian Perspective Claudia Lambrugo
Cum puerulis Socrates ludere non erubescebat Socrate non si vergognava di giocare con i bambini Socrates did not blush to play with children (Seneca, De tranquillitate animi, 17)
This chapter addresses three main topics, each tightly connected to each other. It starts with a short overview of the archaeology of children and childhood in Italy, explaining how and why the Italian contribution to the topic has been very recent. The chapter then moves on to explore the relationship between modern children, Italian scholars of ancient history of art and archaeology, and museums; it notes that for a very long time Italian universities and museums have not been interested in developing didactic archaeology at all, especially when the spectators were children, whether of pre-school or older age. The chapter discusses some recent didactic projects in order to bring archaeology into schools and vice versa. Finally, returning to children in the past, two noteworthy case studies of the presentation of ancient children at exhibitions are illustrated as an interesting point of convergence between current archaeological studies in Italy on childhood in the ancient world, and the newly generated need to communicate to the general public the result of research works.
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Studying ancient children: notes on archaeology of childhood in Italy It is well-known that from the beginning of the 1980s there developed, particularly in the English speaking world and in Scandinavia, a trend known as ‘Gender Archaeology’ that followed in the wake of post-processual archaeology, and that was also driven by feminism. It is equally well established that the even more recent ‘Archaeology of Children’ amounts to an extension into a field of investigation initiated with gender archaeology, studying the world of childhood in the ancient world where the child was ‘socially invisible’ and ‘culturally hardly worthy of reference’. The Italian contribution to childhood archaeology has been very recent and has its own particular characteristics. This has been due in large part to the reluctance of Italian academics to pay attention to theses and papers from north of the Alps, so that even now many excellent archaeological excavators remain decidedly allergic to debates from far afield. Moreover, scholarship in the field of ancient history has in Italy always been firmly rooted in the history of art and in figurative and stylistic exegesis, with a great part of the work in the twentieth century occupied with Kopienkritik and the bordering Meisterforschung (Manacorda 2008: 216–32; Papini 2010; Chiesa 2012: 89– 96). These approaches and inclinations are most likely encouraged by a certain pragmatism in Italian archaeology that has always had to deal with enormous quantities of material both from digs and collections. Such collections have notoriously been lacking in context (often due to the date of their formation) and hence have been approachable only from formal and stylistic directions. While on the one hand this has led to continuous and arduous analysis of formal language, it has on the other resulted in a noticeable delay in embracing new areas of interest such as that of the ‘Archaeology of Children and Childhood’. This is testified by the slim, almost nonexistent, Italian literature cited by Dasen et al. (2001: 6–17) in a bibliographic review at the start of the twenty- first century and more recently by Beaumont (2012) in the volume Childhood in Ancient Athens: Iconography and Social History. All this is also confirmed by the only sporadic presence of Italian scholars in recent miscellaneous works on childhood in the classical world (Neils and Oakley 2003; Cohen and Rutter 2007; Crawford and Shepherd 2007; Bacvarov 2008) and the conferences of the Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past (SSCIP), whose seventh event was held in Melbourne in March 2014, with the catchy title: Telling Tales: Children, Narrative, and Image. It is, therefore, only in the last few years that the archaeology of childhood has set foot in Italy, where it has developed particularly through the extraordinary results that have emerged from the field of mortuary archaeology. Academic discussion has been committed to the codices that govern the difficult relationship between living populations and the community of the dead—‘società dei vivi e comunità dei morti’— to use a neat phrase coined by Bruno d’Agostino (1985)—especially by the Scuola Napoletana. This has inaugurated a fertile period of investigation of the ancient
Modern Children Visiting Archaeological Museums 653 cemeteries as autonomously structured systems that mirror society not so much as it is but as how it should be understood when represented through specific ideological filters (d’Agostino 1985, 1990, 1996; Cuozzo 2000, 2003). Major Italian studies of the last decade have worked on decoding the childhood funerary arena against determined historical archaeological and cultural backdrops. Worthy of particular mention are the works of Anna Muggia (2004) on subadult burial in the necropolis of Spina and those of the school led by Maria Bonghi on the constitution of certain anomalous infant tombs in inhabited areas and sanctuaries (Modica 2007; Bonghi Jovino 2007–8, 2009; Zanoni 2011), while this author would also refer to her own study of the necropolis of Gela (Lambrugo 2013, 2015) (Figure 35.1). Indicative, however, of a still desultory interest in the field is the fact that the space given over to childhood in important conferences on funerary archaeology, even in relation to unusual rites and their fecund correlations with anthropology, remains at best occasional (Bartoloni and Benedettini 2007–8; Belcastro and Ortalli 2010; Nizzo 2011; Bonomi and Malacrino forthcoming; Panvini and Sole forthcoming). On the other hand, there has been an area of fertile debate in Italy, generated by these studies of cemeteries, on so-called ‘indicatori infantili’, or childhood markers, an area of great interest also taken up in the latest conference in the series L’Enfant et la mort dans l’Antiquité (Hermary and Dubois 2012). The semantic value of what those in the archaeological literature have often dismissively referred to as ‘markers’ in subadult tombs has been broadly analysed in the light of documentation provided from important cemetery areas, especially in Magna Graecia and in Sicily (Taranto, Locri, Gela, and also Spina and others). A substantial group of works has emerged, including the ones from the University of Turin on the astragals (knucklebones), the pupae (dolls), and other toys (Carè and Scilabra 2013, with bibliography), as well as on the types of child burials and how they were marked (Elia 2012; Elia and Meirano 2010, 2012, with bibliography). The polysemous use of the ‘terracottina’ (small clay statuette) and its very close association with the rite of passage have slowly emerged from an abundant series of studies (Graepler 1997; Lippolis 2001; Lucchese 2005; Todisco 2005; Portale 2012;
Figure 35.1 Gela, Borgo necropolis, Via Pecorai, T. 49, burial in monolithic sarcophagus belonging to a young girl; c.570 bc, Syracuse (Sicily, Italy). Museo Archeologico Regionale. Photographed by Claudia Lambrugo.
654 Claudia Lambrugo Albertocchi and Pautasso 2012, with bibliography), while others have carried out semantic analyses of miniaturization in pots, and aryballic and reticulated lekythoi (oil vessels) in the tombs of children and infants (Di Stefano 2003; Grasso 2004; Lambrugo 2004; Muggia 2004: 31–3). There is also presently at least one ongoing study on the ambiguous cultural significance of shells (Carè forthcoming). If then Italian archaeological studies on childhood in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds date only from the most recent times, it should be noted that historical and educational interest in the theme has been going on a little longer. A joint work of Egle Becchi and Dominique Julia dates from 1996 and brings together a miscellany of essays on childhood from antiquity to the contemporary age. Egle Becchi, who has taught pedagogy and the history of pedagogy over many years, had already published a diachronic anthology of documents, drawings, poems, sketches, and sound, as direct expressions of the world of children (1994), while there have also been other more recent works (Becchi and Semeraro 2001; Covato and Ulivieri 2001) and Italian translation of studies from other countries (Delgado 2002).
Explaining the past to common people: the ‘Archeologia didattica’ ‘Archeologia didattica’ (Didactic Archaeology) at museums, archaeological areas, and digs, which in Italy are usually owned by national, regional, or local governmental authorities, has only been a recent feature, especially as regards information and explanations directed specifically towards the youngest visitors. This is hardly surprising given the historical role of Italian museums as places intended ‘to serve scholarship’, with no room for teaching as such. Researchers seem to have had no fear of indulging in practices that might expose them to the risk of being labelled ivory tower hermits (Cantoni, Macellari, and Mazzoni 2003: 49). The objective of archeologia didattica took its lead from the approach to the museum prevalent in the English-speaking world, especially in America from the end of the nineteenth century. In that century, the principal museums in the United States formed around great collections of objects that had originally come from the other side of the Atlantic. The exhibits were, therefore, of articles quite outside the environment and the culture of the geographical region in which they were displayed, with the result that the need immediately arose to provide the visiting public with the tools to understand the nature and content of the museums. It is interesting that George Brown Goode, curator of the US National Museum of Washington, spoke in terms of the ‘educational museum’ at the service of the public as far back as 1889 (Fiorio 2011: 119). Pursuit of the educational objective was a task facilitated by the fact that the American museums were all newly established and hence free from the restrictions imposed by their placement in very old buildings. It meant that space could be found to dedicate to
Modern Children Visiting Archaeological Museums 655 all the functions deemed necessary for the museums’ various roles. The situation in Italy was quite the opposite, where most of the museums, even after post-war reconstruction following World War II, returned to occupy historic buildings. Museologists and museographs were faced with finding a delicate balance between the historic and artistic integrity of the building itself and the proper working of a museum. The museum has not only to provide exhibition halls, but also restoration laboratories, study halls, spaces for temporary exhibitions, conference rooms, and large spaces for lectures and workshops. The objectives of a museum go beyond those of acquisition, exhibition, conservation, and research, as they should also include communication, for research, certainly, but also for education and for fun. This principle was formulated in this way in 1951 by ICOM (International Council of Museums). It was in that very year that Italy embarked on its first didactic museum experiment following the reopening of the Pinacoteca di Brera (Milan). After World War II, the superintendent Fernanda Wittgens started a series of quite new initiatives for the country, which saw the involvement of primary and middle schools, their teachers, and the recreational organizations of Milanese industry. The aim was to reach out to varied strata of the community’s population. Brera started opening its doors to the public in the evenings, so that those who worked could come and so that guided tours given by young university assistants could be provided, as well as tours by the curator herself (Fiorio 2011: 196–7). The manner of interaction with the public has seen a trend towards ever greater openness, not so much towards scholars, as towards people simply interested in, and enthusiastic about, the exhibits. This trend has become increasingly established in the decades that have followed, with the principles adopted at the general meeting of ICOM in 2001, which affirmed communication as a core function of museums. In the meantime, the chronic lack of personnel capable of fulfilling the museums’ educational role was at least in part solved by the so-called Ronchey Law (4/1993) and Paolucci Law (41/1995), which permit the use of private individuals, recruited on contract, to carry out a series of ‘additional services’, including of course educational services (Fiorio 2011: 4, 195–6). Today, most Italian museums of all kinds, whether of archaeology, art, history, science, or natural history, outsource didactic management procedures for various sections of the public, whether for pre-school children, schoolchildren, or adults. It is not, however, rare to find that the museum itself will have an in-house manager for educational services who will work with the curator and conservators on educational policy, liaising with external bodies and individuals, and organizing courses and teaching content in partnership with schools and training institutions in the community (Diani 2008). It is naturally up to the museums themselves to update the exhibition spaces. Historically, these have often been treated as if hermetically sealed and stuffed to the gunnels with exhibits. Museums are now creating new and more modern exhibitions that are more selective in nature, concentrating on a smaller number of significant and well-explained works. Broad-spectrum effective communication of the cultural heritage of a given area has become ever more urgent, as it is clear that good education is the first step towards
656 Claudia Lambrugo protecting the heritage itself. It is essential that the conservation and handing down to future generations of artefacts and experiences of the past are a shared aim of the society itself. The same is true of the universities, which in Italy were, for a long time, diffident about the real spread of knowledge. The universities have, however, recently entered the fray and are doing their part, opening their doors to activities that engage the public, publishing educational material, and presenting their research work in conferences, guided tours, and other public engagement activities (Andò 2002).
Modern children visiting archaeological museums The need to communicate is an appreciable objective for museums and archaeological sites, which by their very nature display fragments of objects and structures that are often far from the experience of everyday and that are not immediately recognized by a lay public (Balbi De Caro et al. 2008). The ‘putting on a show’ of the ancient object and communicating its meaning are real challenges when the spectator is a young child, perhaps of pre-school age. A simple outpouring of content, however well explained, on the history of ancient people or culture will be entirely ineffective where the audience is the five-, six-, or seven-year-old child. We know that it is only towards the ages of eight or nine that the individual starts to perceive a sufficiently differentiated chronology and geography to enable him or her to find their way in space and time, in the present, the past, and the future. A young elementary school pupil will only grasp, with the greatest difficulty, clearly the idea of past time. The child is essentially interested in the first person experience, while the rest of humanity is something of an undifferentiated blur and the country and town that is his or her home is the centre of the whole universe (Pagnin 2003, with bibliography). It is essential, therefore, for the young visitor to feel the experience of the museum in a way that is not reliant on geographical and historical detail, focusing for example on the perception and description of the objects gathered and exhibited there. An interesting and very successful experiment carried out on this subject in 2001 involved the civic museums of Reggio Emilia and some of the local schools for young children in their community. The didactic project, entitled Dalla Spazzatura al Museo (From Rubbish to the Museum), sought to present the museum as a place in which objects were collected, since the idea of collecting, whether small stones, shells, or toy animals, is a familiar one even to children just three or four years old. The visit to the museum was thus seen as a voyage of exploration and discovery of the various collections. The children easily identified the stones (flint tools), pieces of coloured glass (Roman glass), pots (ceramics), realizing that they were not just placed there randomly, but that they were arranged in cupboards (display cabinets) in rows, in order, and were often grouped together by types. For example, all the ‘tools’ (metal instrumenta) were shown together, all the pots together, and so on. They thus came to the conclusion that, to make a museum,
Modern Children Visiting Archaeological Museums 657 it is not enough just to collect objects, but also to put them in order according to strict rules. The children were brought to a heap of ‘modern rubbish’ made up of articles made of wood, ceramics, cloth, paper, glass, and plastic, and so forth, and were then asked to group them together according to the materials they were made of, and later according to their use. The use categories worked out were those of the kitchen, the bathroom, health and hygiene, and getting dressed, etc. (Cantoni, Macellari, and Mazzoni 2003). The warm response from the young public to the initiative has seen the programme repeated over several years. The educational provision for school students of all kinds and grades is now much broader ranging and complete. Archaeology is brought into schools, and schools undertake excursions to digs and archaeological museums, all essential for the development of real historical awareness among adolescents, who are after all the adults of the future. This is a particular pressing concern for our own times given increased cultural uniformity and globalization, and the dictates of a technological society that tends to look only towards the future. The risk is that the past can turn into a formless mass, where space and time, the X-and Y-axes of history, have been lost or can no longer be discerned. The present becomes a stage on which protection, conservation, development, and redevelopment are spoken as empty words, mere rhetorical exercises in intellectual exhibitionism. Making archaeology a historic science and the perception of the archaeological heritage of a geographical area and its community are fundamental stages in bringing people to participate fully in the management of civic life as a whole, in primis as regards the individual’s home city, town, or village. The educational programmes for school children in Italy generally include guided tours and workshops (Squillacciotti 2004). The former usually concern themselves with a specific section of the museum, often linked to the current curriculum and are preparatory to the workshops that follow. The aim is to give the young visitors the opportunity and the tools to establish a relationship with the ancient object as spectators and to enrich their general education with the help of the guides and educators. The tour must not be envisaged in terms of a guide pouring knowledge into recipient ‘vessel’ children, but as an exchange of views and the meeting of minds. Any understanding and interpretation of the ancient artefact, whether statue, mosaic, painting, or other object, must be stimulated in the young visitors through a process of description. When children describe a work—and this is true of adults too—they carry out implicit procedures of interpretation by means of an individual process of choices and selection based on rules of priorities. They discover, and are often struck and amused, when they find themselves before a portrait of the emperor Augustus velato capite, that a man can be represented with a veil, just as women sometimes are, or that a face may have no pupils, but strangely empty eyes. Making sense of an ancient object through the eyes of a child helps the museum operator approach the work in different ways, no longer having to stand before the audience simply holding forth on its cultural significance. He or she must be agile and ready to change perspective as deflected in one direction or another by the responses of the children. A sense is developed that every museum visit is unique in character and is defined by the relationship that forms between the ancient objects and the group.
658 Claudia Lambrugo The workshops (Let’s Play Like the Romans Did, Let’s Dress Like the Ancient Greeks, Let’s Live Like the Ancient People, knapping flint stones, making ceramics, weaving, or writing, and so on: Diani, Maggi, and Vecchi 2003; Maggi 2008) are an additional and different experience from the guided tour. They hinge on the belief that knowledge involves practical and constructive aspects where, especially for children, taking on board the messages given out by works from the past can also be achieved through the reproduction of objects and activities. Teaching and explaining archaeology to very young and older children, as well as to adults, has made great strides in Italy in recent decades, to the extent that it is now often the subject of specific policies of the Heritage and Cultural Activities Ministry, as well as figuring as the subject of conferences and an increasing number of articles (as cited here). Progress has, however, been rather slower in improving the physical presentation of museum spaces to make them genuinely communicative, enthralling, and engaging environments well adapted to the visits of adults and children together without the assistance of a museum guide. Interactive dioramas, multimedia installations, videos, and reproductions of ancient artefacts with which the young public can play and interact while the parents continue to study the exhibits and read the information are often expensive. The result is they are often sparsely spread across museums in Italy, while the museums themselves complain of chronic understaffing and underfunding. Professional, clear, and simple communication and presentation of the content of the museum, updated to reflect the most recent research have been, however, in recent times, able to count on the cooperation of some Italian universities. One particular success story was the so-called Cubo archeologico (Archaeological Cube), an innovative teaching idea of Prof Stefano Maggi of the Centro di Ricerca Interdipartimentale per la Didattica dell’Archeologia Classica e delle Tecnologie antiche dell’Università degli Studi di Pavia (Figure 35.2). The Cube (about 1.5 x 1.5 m) reproduces in miniature, and in different materials, the stratigraphy of an archaeological site and gives visitors a real sense of the experience of an actual dig. The visitors peel back layers of the cube, after studying the physical nature and arrangement of the strata, to bring to light archaeological finds. The aim of the Cube is to explain to the pupils how a modern dig is approached, the
Figure 35.2 The Cubo Archeologico (Archaeological Cube) with some different strata. Courtesy of Stefano Maggi.
Modern Children Visiting Archaeological Museums 659 methods employed, and the theoretical principles of archaeology so that they gain an insight into the logical and deductive processes involved in historical reconstruction. With the aid of the Cube, the students try out for themselves the methods and techniques of stratigraphic archaeology in a practical and hygienic way at the Museum, or in the school itself, since the Cube can be easily transported (Maggi 2001, 2010). Another idea that has proven very effective is one funded by the Regione Lombardia and the Municipal Authority of Calvatone (Cremona), in which some young archaeologists at the University of Milan created two manga cartoon characters called Carlo and Beatrice who help the numerous pupils of the primary schools of Cremona when they visit the dig at the Roman city of Bedriacum–Calvatone (CR), which has for decades been the object of research by the University. The two characters, whose names come from the initials of the ancient and the modern location (CArlo = Calvatone; BEatrice = Bedriacum), are the leading characters of cartoons that tell their story of the time at the dig, of encounters with the archaeologists, and the stages of the works of excavation and discovery (Figures 35.3 and 35.4). In this case, the understanding of the children, in the seven to ten age group, is developed through the manga cartoons in a language familiar to them (www.progettocalvatone.unimi.it). Most recently, museums have arisen that have from their very conception been created for children. The celebrated Bambimus Museum of Art in Siena was a project close to the heart of the municipal government of the city in 1998 and moved in 2007 to the Museum
Figure 35.3 Manga cartoon characters, Carlo and Beatrice, helping young visitors in understanding the Calvatone Archaeological site (created by Stefano Nava, Archivio Calvatone- Bedriacum, Università degli Studi di Milano). Courtesy of Maria Teresa Grassi.
660 Claudia Lambrugo
Figure 35.4 Manga cartoon characters, Carlo and Beatrice, helping young visitors in understanding the Calvatone Archaeological site (created by Stefano Nava, Archivio Calvatone- Bedriacum, Università degli Studi di Milano). Courtesy of Maria Teresa Grassi.
complex of Santa Maria della Scala in Piazza Duomo. Its principal mission lies in bringing the past world of childhood in art and artistic culture to modern children, of around three to 11 years of age. The Bambimus collection consists of works that it owns, or that have been donated or loaned, dating from many different historical periods from antiquity to the contemporary, where the subject matter is childhood itself or where our gaze has been directed to childhood by the artists. Naturally, much educational work is carried out here, each year with different themes and interdisciplinary approaches, looking at personalities or the historical and artistic heritage, while there are continuously changing exhibitions designed and conceived to interest the young mind (Eremita 2004; Zucchi 2004).
Showing ancient children at exhibitions: the Milan example An interesting point of convergence between current archaeological studies on childhood in the ancient world and the need to communicate to the public the result of the research work has been seen in recent exhibitions that have been on a small scale, but with interesting content.
Modern Children Visiting Archaeological Museums 661 In 2011, the redesign of the Milan Archaeological Museum involved also an extension to the Via Nirone area, designed by the architect Andrea Bruno of Turin, exclusively for its museum collections. This adjacent site, with its special collections of Etruscan and Greek artefacts, was separate from the traditional structure of Corso Magenta, which continued to be reserved to the archaeological history of the Milan area. The museum design, a project also of this author, saw the heterogeneous Greek material that came almost wholly from local nineteenth-century collections with some later additions, presented along lines that are at once chronological and thematic. A small space has thus been dedicated for the first time to the world of children in ancient Greece, from birth to death, illustrated with terracotta toys, tintinnabula (bells), and pupae (dolls), Attic pots showing youngsters at play, choes (small jugs) with pictures of children stalking prey, these last generally connected to the archaeological reviews on child participation in the ancient Greek Anthesteria festivals (Figures 35.5 and 35.6); and reticulated lekythoi, astragals, shells, and miniature pots with small animals are used to simulate the prematurely deceased child’s objects in tomb (Lambrugo 2008; Caporusso, De Marchi, and Lambrugo 2011). In 2012, Milan took a journey back to the world of childhood in classical times with its exhibition ‘A che gioco giochiamo? L’infanzia e il gioco nel mondo antico’ (What game shall we play? Childhood and play in the ancient world) organized at the Alda Levi Antiquarium in a collaboration between the University of Milan and the local
Figure 35.5 Terracotta Greek tintinnabula for children at the Archaeological Museum in Milan (Italy) (Archivio Civico Museo Archeologico di Milano). Courtesy of Donatella Caporusso.
662 Claudia Lambrugo
Figure 35.6 Crawling child on an Attic squat lekythos at the Archaeological Museum in Milan (Italy) (Archivio Civico Museo Archeologico di Milano). Courtesy of Donatella Caporusso.
Superintendency for Archaeology (Figure 35.7). The project was forged by the desire to draw the general public’s attention to the historical Sambon Archaeological Collection that, having been on view at La Scala Theatre’s museum, had been moved to the stores of the Archaeological Superintendency where it was fairly inaccessible. For its return to the scene, it was decided that the showing of the Sambon Collection should avoid displaying a plethora of objects, for reasons of available space and to not focus on its original unifying thread, that of the theatre. It was decided to opt for the ‘mise en scène’ of the apparently secondary subject of childhood, ludus (play), which had also attracted the eye of the collector Jules Sambon and led him to buy on the antiquarian market a range of artefacts connected with children’s play. The theme of the game in childhood in the Greek and Roman world could focus on a number of different issues as Sambon’s interest was attracted over a broad spectrum. He had an extraordinary intuition that led him unfailingly to rare and precious objects, such as the puppets and dolls that are not often found in such substantial numbers in historical collections. Another aim was to attract public interest in, and develop public awareness of, childhood in the ancient world through its principal manifestations. There was also a certain attraction in the idea that both elements, the Sambon Archaeological Collection and the ancient world of childhood, had both suffered in some way from neglect and invisibility to the public eye, the collection snatched from the people’s gaze and put in storage and the latter overlooked by scholars until quite recent times (Ceresa Mori, Lambrugo, and Slavazzi 2012). The exhibition was associated with much in the way of educational initiatives
Modern Children Visiting Archaeological Museums 663
Figure 35.7 The book published for the exhibition A Che Gioco Giochiamo? L’Infanzia e il Gioco nel Mondo Antico (Milano 2012).
directed towards the schools, with guided tours and workshops on play in the ancient world, as well also as a series of unexpectedly successful conferences for the adult public organized by the lecturers from the University of Milan.
Conclusion Very significant progress has been made in the study and presentation of the archaeology of children and childhood in Italy in recent decades. Although the first experiments in ‘archeologia didattica’ were made over half a century ago in Italy, most progress has been made in this area since the late twentieth century, aided by changing perceptions of the role of the museum, new technology, and appropriate legislation. Recent highly innovative projects have reinterpreted older collections and focused upon the active role of the child in the museum experience. These initiatives are accompanied by increased interest
664 Claudia Lambrugo in exploring the archaeology of childhood that, although a relatively late addition to Italian scholarly interests, is nevertheless gaining momentum and casting new light on Italy’s rich archaeological resources. In these respects, Italian researchers may justifiably be described as at the forefront of childhood studies, and in turn can actively contribute to debates in the wider international community, and share their knowledge, experience, and vision for the study and presentation of childhood in the past.
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666 Claudia Lambrugo Elia, D. (2012). ‘Sepolture di pre-adulti nelle necropoli greche dell’Italia meridionale: osservazioni sulle strategie di rappresentazione tra periodo tardo-arcaico ed età classica’, in A. Hermary and C. Dubois (eds), L’Enfant et la mort dans l’Antiquité. Le matériel associé aux tombes d’enfant. Actes de la Table Ronde (Aix-en-Provence, Maison Méditerranéenne des Sciences de l’Homme 2011). Paris, Aix-en-Provence: Éditions Errance, 97–109. Elia, D. and Meirano, V. (2010). ‘Modes de signalisation des sépultures dans les nécropoles grecques d’Italie du Sud et de Sicile. Remarques générales et le cas des tombes d’enfant’, in A.-M. Guimier-Sorbets and Y. Morizot (eds), L’Enfant et la mort dans l’Antiquité I. Nouvelles recherches dans le nécropoles grecques. Le signalement des tombes d’enfants. Actes de la Table Ronde Internationale du Projet EMA (Athènes 2008). Paris: De Boccard, 289–325. Elia, D. and Meirano, V. (2012). ‘La typologie des tombes d’enfants dans les colonies grecques d’Italie du Sud: problèmes et cas d’études’, in M.-D. Nenna (ed.), L’Enfant et la mort dans l’Antiquité II. Types de tombes et traitement du corps des enfants dans l’Antiquité gréco- romaine. Actes de la Table Ronde Internationale du Projet EMA (Alessandrie 2009). Alexandrie: Centre d’Études Alexandrines, 429–57. Eremita, M. S. (2004). ‘Lungo la linea rossa: dallo spazio del museo allo spazio dell’opera. Bambimus, il Museo d’arte per i bambini’, in M. Squillacciotti (ed.), LaborArte. Esperienze di didattica per bambini. Roma: Meltemi Editore, 131–41. Fiorio, M. T. (2011). Il museo nella storia. Dallo studiolo alla raccolta pubblica. Milano: Bruno Mondadori. Graepler, D. (1997). Tonfiguren im Grab. Fundkontexte hellenischer Terrakotten aus der Nekropole von Tarent. München: Biering and Brinkmann. Grasso, L. (2004). Ceramica miniaturistica da Pompei. Napoli: Loffredo. Hermary, A. and Dubois, C. (eds) (2012). L’Enfant et la mort dans l’Antiquité. Le matériel associé aux tombes d’enfant. Actes de la Table Ronde (Aix-en-Provence, Maison Méditerranéenne des Sciences de l’Homme 2011). Paris, Aix-en-Provence: Éditions Errance. Lambrugo, C. (2004). ‘Ceramica magnogreca a figure rosse. I vasi miniaturistici’, in G. Sena Chiesa (ed.), La Collezione Lagioia. Una raccolta storica dalla Magna Grecia al Museo Archeologico di Milano. Milano: Comune di Milano, 239–47. Lambrugo, C. (2008). Civico Museo Archeologico di Milano. Il mondo dei Greci, Guida. Milano: Comune di Milano. Lambrugo, C. (2013). Profumi di argilla. Tombe con unguentari corinzi nella necropoli arcaica di Gela. Roma: L’Erma di Bretschneider. Lambrugo, C. (2015). ‘Dying young in Archaic Gela (Sicily): From the Analysis of the Cemeteries to the Reconstruction of Early Colonial Identity’, in M. Sánchez Romero, E. Alarcón García, and G. Aranda Jiménez (eds), Children, Spaces and Identity. Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past Monograph 4. Oxford: Oxbow, 282–93. Lippolis, E. (2001). ‘Culto e iconografie della coroplastica votiva. Problemi interpretativi a Taranto e nel mondo greco, Mélanges de L’Ecole Française de Rome’. Antiquité, 113/1: 225–55. Lucchese, C. (2005). ‘Statuette teatrali e riti di passaggio. Contesti di Atene’. Annuario della Scuola Archeologica Italiana di Atene e delle Missioni italiane in Oriente, 83: 437–62. Maggi, S. (2001). Archeologia a Scuola. Un percorso ‘ecologico’. Pavia: Greppi Editore. Maggi, S. (2008). Educare all’antico. Esperienze, metodi, prospettive, Atti del Convegno (Pavia- Casteggio 2008). Roma: Aracne. Maggi, S. (2010). ‘Archeologia e gioco’, in A. Brusa and A. Ferraresi (eds), Clio si diverte. Il gioco come apprendimento. Molfetta: Edizioni La Meridiana, 115–22. Manacorda, D. (2008). Lezioni di archeologia. Roma-Bari: Editori Laterza.
Modern Children Visiting Archaeological Museums 667 Modica, S. (2007). Rituali e Lazio antico. Deposizioni infantili e abitati. Milano: Cuem. Muggia, A. (2004). Impronte nella sabbia. Tombe infantili e di adolescenti dalla necropoli di Valle Trebba a Spina. Firenze: All’Insegna del Giglio. Neils, J. and Oakley, J. H. (eds) (2003). Coming of Age in Ancient Greece: Images of Childhood from the Classical Past. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Nizzo, V. (ed.) (2011). Dalla nascita alla morte: antropologia e archeologia a confronto, Atti dell’Incontro Internazionale di Studi in onore di Claude Lévi-Strauss (Roma 2010). Roma: E.S.S. Pagnin, A. (2003). ‘Aspetti psicologici della comprensione del tempo: il rapporto con l’antico’, in M. G. Diani, S. Maggi, and L. Vecchi (eds), Scuola Museo Territorio. Per una didattica dell’archeologia, Giornata di Studio (Casteggio 2002). Firenze: All’Insegna del Giglio, 45–8. Panvini, R. and Sole, L. (eds) (forthcoming). Il Mondo di Ade. Ideologie, spazi e rituali funerari per l’eterno banchetto (VIII–IV Secolo A.C.). Atti del Convegno Internazionale (Gela, Ragusa 2010). Papini, M. (2010). ‘Archeologia e storia dell’arte greca e romana: Tendenze dell’insegnamento universitario in Italia’, in E. La Rocca (ed.), L’archeologia classica. Un’introduzione. Roma: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 19–29. Traduzione italiana di Hölscher, T. (2006). Klassische Archäologie. Grundwissen. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Portale, C. (2012). ‘Le Nymphai e l’acqua in Sicilia. Contesti rituali e morfologia dei votivi’, in A. Calderone (ed.), Cultura e religione delle acque. Atti del Convegno Interdisciplinare (Messina 2011). Roma: Giorgio Bretschneider Editore, 169–91. Squillacciotti, M. (ed.) (2004). LaborArte. Esperienze di didattica per bambini. Roma: Meltemi Editore. Todisco, L. (2005). ‘Bambini, fanciulli e dediche votive in Italia Meridionale’, in A. Comella and S. Mele (eds), Depositi votivi e culti dell’Italia antica dall’età arcaica a quella tardo- repubblicana. Atti del Convegno (Perugia 2000). Bari: Edipuglia, 713–24. Zanoni, V. (2011). Out of Place. Human Skeletal Remains from Non-Funerary Contexts. Northern Italy during the 1st Millennium bc. Oxford: Archaeopress. Zucchi, V. (2004). ‘Attività educativa e sensibilità culturale. Il Santa Maria della Scala’, in M. Squillacciotti (ed.), LaborArte. Esperienze di didattica per bambini. Roma: Meltemi Editore, 49–76.
Chapter 36
M aterial C u lt u re , M u seum s, Mov i e s , a nd Make Be l i ev e Representing Medieval Childhood Mark A. Hall
It is comparatively recently that the understanding of past childhoods through the archaeological record has acquired the status of a turn or moment in academic analysis. The field now has at least one journal, Childhood in the Past, and an increasing wealth of focused studies (such as Wileman 2005). For the medieval context there are some significant foundations to be acknowledged, principally laid by historical analysis, including studies by Nicholas Orme (2003, 2009), Shulamith Shahar (1990), and Barbara Hanawalt (1986). These and several others have comprehensively shown that there was such a thing as childhood in the medieval period and that it was a diverse, complex experience. This marked a crucial, decisive turn away from earlier studies (notably Ariès 1960) that regarded childhood as an essentially post-medieval and modern phenomenon. Archaeology has gone on, in particular, to begin tackling the challenges of simply seeing childhood in material remains (both skeletal and artefactual; see for example Mygland 2007) and the detailed analysis of the cultural context of aspects of childhood such as play (see e.g. Egan 1996 and Hall 2015) and education (e.g. Willemsen 2008). Excavation reports have been wary of childhood, with toys and games often dealt with in a perfunctory, classificatory way, and the full implications of childhood sidestepped. The Winchester Object and Economy report (detailing the urban archaeology of medieval Winchester (England), in the vicinity of the Cathedral) is no different in this respect, but Biddle (1990: 697–8) at least identifies context as important in helping to identify where toys and games were being used and left (and by implication the reader might deduce that some adult material culture may have been lost or placed somewhere by children, and there remained until found by archaeologists). The publication of a single volume (Mygland 2007) on childhood in the Bergen excavation series, recording the
Material Culture, Museums, Movies, and Make Believe 669 extensive and rich archaeology of medieval Bergen (Norway) helps to signal a change of approach in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Whilst it does not tackle the question of ambiguity and biography, even eschewing board games on the grounds that they are an adult pursuit, this study nevertheless brings together the archaeological evidence (425 toys and 2,088 shoe soles) and a theoretical framework of childhood studies to ask illuminating questions about children in medieval (c.1120–c.1700) Bergen, particularly in relation to ‘childhood as a separate stage of life and how archaeological artefacts may be interpreted to shed light on children’s everyday life and presence’ (Mygland 2007: 101). That change has certainly been cemented by the landmark 2010 Lübeck Colloquium on Urban Archaeology in the Hanseatic League, which took as its special theme ‘Childhood and Youth, Education and Leisure’. This was published in 2012 (Gläser 2012) and brings together 44 papers from across northern Europe, to assess the presence and agency of children in the archaeological record from many of Europe’s key urban environments (including Ribe (Denmark), Waterford (Ireland), and Novgorod (Russia)). This contribution will seek to explore medieval childhood through contemporary, medieval representations, and present-day representations, particularly in the cinema and the museum, or rather their respective media of expression, movies, and exhibitions. It seeks to trace some of the overlaps and contrasts between these varied representational approaches against the background of archaeological and interdisciplinary approaches to the understanding of medieval childhood. A range of films will be considered for their powerful and vital depictions of constructed and variously authentic notions of medieval childhood. The approach of this chapter is not to separate out the different classes of evidence and representation but to interweave them in varying proportions to bring out more fully their differences and concerns without undue repetition.
Ever just a child? This chapter begins proper with an exploration of whether representations of medieval childhood tackle its multivalency, the sense that childhood is contingent and contextual. In the summer of 1959, archaeologists discovered the interlocking tombs of a 28-year-old woman and a six-year-old boy underneath Köln Cathedral (Germany). Both were members of the Merovingian royal family buried in the seventh century. Along with their grave goods they are on display in the Treasury of the Cathedral, and contemplating the displays (as I was able to do in 2010) makes it clear that childhood can be a nebulous, almost paradoxical concept and not simply a straightforward biological definition. Accepting that some children do not get to leave childhood, for most it is a cultural and social stage of development as well as a biological one. The boy from Köln was buried with an adult warrior’s weapons but with child-sized helmet, shield, bed, and chair, along with a gold finger-ring, a wooden sceptre, and bottles of oils and
670 Mark A. Hall scents. Simultaneously the boy was defined, at burial, as a man or at least a man-to-be (through his weapons), as a prince (through his high-status regalia), as a boy (through his appropriately sized armour and furniture), and as a son (through the link to his mother’s tomb). The duality of child and royal heir is hilariously satirized in The Court Jester (USA 1955), which narratively centres on a royal infant with a posterior birthmark (‘the purple pimpernel’). The infant is clearly a baby, but he is also a very physical testament of royal, dynastic power, and authority. For all its intended silliness and genre satirizing, it also reflects with some perception the reality of a child not as a person but as dynastic blood property—symbolic of its authority and continuity. Whilst we cannot point to any medieval babies or infants made king, we can note several boy kings: Henry III of England ascended the throne at age nine years for example, and Louis IX of France became king in 1226, at the age of 12 years. By this later medieval period, the royal authority of a child was not a strange notion and it had precedents in both Christianity (the Christ child) and earthly politics. We have seen it evidenced in Köln in early medieval times, but further back we can see it in a series of child Roman emperors of the fourth and fifth centuries. In ad 402, Theodosius II, at the age of nine months, was made co- Augustus with his father Arcadius, becoming sole emperor in 408, at the age of seven. In ad 424, he made his six-year-old cousin co-emperor in the West (McEvoy 2010: 156). A key factor linking both the late Roman child emperors and the medieval boy kings is Christianity, which makes only an inconsequential showing in The Court Jester to avoid dividing its American audience. It is equally absent in the audacious piece of mythopoesis that is The Lost Legion (UK/France/Italy/Slovakia/Tunisia 2006), in which boy emperor Romulus (who reigned c.ad 475) escapes to Britain where he discovers Excalibur, becomes Pendragon, and fathers Arthur. The powerful image of Christ as a child (as God-made man) authenticated other inherently powerful children (and no doubt resonated with ideas of emperors as deities). This was not just a case of impersonal blood politics and the infantilization of the imperial office was a critical element of an often stable, ceremonial style of late Roman government (MacCormack 1981; McEvoy 2010). Within a Christianized imperial office, child emperors were valued for their virtues of youthful promise, piety, innocence, and meekness. This was to remain a staple of medieval thought. A late fifteenth-century engraving of Christ and John the Baptist jousting with windmills (Willemsen 2005: ill. 18.8) is a clear later expression of the innocence of children. Because of the belief in the dual nature of Christ, as both god and human, the latter was most readily signalled in medieval art through his depiction as a child, frequently a playing one. Christ thus validated childhood and children playing. A similar validation may be at work in those illuminations that link children-playing images with those of praying saints. A popular vignette was that of two boys spinning tops and frequently shown in front of, or on, the steps of a church porch. There are two examples in the Book of Hours of James IV of Scotland: fol. 18 carries it at the beginning of St Mark’s Gospel, alongside a small image of St Mark, and fol. 190, the beginning of the Psalter prologue, shows the boys alongside an image of St Benedict praying. Of course, the inherent multivalency of
Material Culture, Museums, Movies, and Make Believe 671 medieval art means that such scenes also worked as vignettes of observable reality, a reality we find confirmed in the finds of playthings and the play-spaces they are found in (Woodfield 1981; Egan 1996; Khoroshev 2007; Crawford 2009; Lewis 2009; Leenen 2010; Gläser 2012). Social status more generally within museum displays is widely tackled, usually with conventional cases of grave-group material. An innovative departure was recently undertaken at the Landesmuseum Württemberg, Stuttgart (Germany) (Figure 36.1). Its gallery exploring the rich early medieval Alamannic/Merovingian burials from the region adopts a silhouette approach to succinctly explain gender, age, and social ranking. Five pairs of male–female, white, life-size silhouettes run down opposite sides of the gallery. Each represents particular individuals excavated in the region and each silhouette is kitted out with their grave goods. The adult pairings are an old man and woman, a poor man and woman, a rich man and woman, and an averagely wealthy woman and man. The child pairing represents a four-year-old girl (wearing a belt buckle, jewellery, and a girdle hanger) and an eight-year-old boy (wearing a simple buckle and a jewelled pendant), of late sixth-century date and both excavated in Pleidelsheim (Germany). This simple technique has great clarity and communicates death in childhood, burial with few goods (and by extension independent owners of fewer possessions), membership of families, and possible trajectories of maturation into adults. Many later medieval burials were not generally committed to the ground with grave goods (but see Gilchrist and Sloane 2005; Gilchrist 2008) and the challenge then
Figure 36.1 Stuttgart silhouettes: photograph by H. Zwietasch; © and courtesy of Landesmuseum Württemberg, Stuttgart (Germany).
672 Mark A. Hall confronting museums is to display skeletal material. Perth Museum and Art Gallery’s (Scotland) most recent and large-scale display of human remains formed part of the temporary exhibition (2010–11) Skin & Bone: Life & Death in Medieval Perth (a project led by the author). The human remains element of this exhibition proved highly successful and popular. The museum had not previously tackled the issue of medieval death and did so for both humans and dogs. The human remains included a sample of the large number of the remains of children (who had apparently died from epidemic disease) excavated from beside St Johns Kirk (Roberts 2005: 27–41). The comments left by visitors indicated that our choice of remains displayed neutrally on beds of gravel and sand helped to ameliorate some of the discomfort some visitors felt in seeing children’s skeletons, in particular. The museum saw the representation of children as dying very early in their lives as a key fact to communicate and the large number of visitor comments accumulated indicates visitors relating to the remains of the dead, with particular sentiment attached to the children. The fact that adult skeletons can sometimes add to the story of childhood was explored through the inclusion of adult skeletal material that exhibited traces of childhood stress and illness, disruptive of the normal growth processes of bones and teeth (Roberts and Manchester 1995: 58; Gilchrist 2012: 51; Bruce 1995: 982 gives some Perth examples, and Lewis 2002 gives examples from Raunds (Northamptonshire), York (St Helen-on-the-Walls) and Wharram Percy (Yorkshire), all in England). It contributed to some visitors’ sense of the past, to some visitors’ thrill of the supernatural, and to reflections on death and religious belief (for a breakdown of the comments and their analysis see Hall 2013: 79–84). What the display of child-age skeletons can achieve is a physical reality about childhood, but what it cannot achieve (for all that some adult skeletons preserve childhood scars) is a sense of an entire life from cradle to old age (albeit this is not a fixed reality for everyone): skeletal remains fix the person they represent at a certain stage of life. Movies are ideally placed to counter this problem by their ability to visualize entire life stories though, of course, some films pander to a fixed stereotype of a narrowly defined life. A case in point is the magically brought-to-life museum exhibits of Attila the Hun, Christopher Columbus, and Ivan the Terrible in Night at the Museum (USA 2003) and Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (USA 2006). Comedically successful, these films pale against the poetic genius of the bringing to life of the people behind and in the collections of the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg (Russia), in Russian Ark (Russia/Germany 2002). In Kristin Lavransdatter (Norway/Sweden/Germany 1995 and adapted from the trilogy by Sigrid Undset) we follow the whole life of Kristin, a wealthy farmer’s daughter living in fourteenth-century Norway. Her childhood and adolescent years are marked by arguments with her parents, betrothal, breaking of the betrothal, and having an affair with a married man. She is complicit in the death of his wife and subsequently marries him, undertakes a pilgrimage to gain forgiveness, brings up her own children, and retires to a nunnery where she dies having contracted the Black Death. The film also authentically captures some of the subtleties of people’s use of objects. On two occasions, as a teenager, Kristin receives and gives a simple buckle as
Material Culture, Museums, Movies, and Make Believe 673
Figure 36.2 The Viking gallery, Swedish Historical Museum, Stockholm (Sweden); photograph by Mark A. Hall.
674 Mark A. Hall a token of love and friendship respectively. Taken as a package, a film such as this lays down a challenge to museum displays to integrate objects and structures more fully to reflect the human lives that hold them together. Some museums have risen to this challenge. For example, the Viking gallery of the Swedish Historical Museum, Stockholm (Sweden) communicates children and their material culture as a vital element of the human story. A case entitled ‘Children’ contains toys, playthings, jewellery, and small bells from child burials excavated at Birka: ‘Children could have an important social position. The superlatively equipped graves show this’. One of the children—named ‘Birka Girl’ by the Museum—is displayed as found in her grave, with pieces of jewellery and textile equipment. Alongside is a reconstruction of what the six-year-old may have looked like: in a red dress, holding a toy boat and posed as if on a street corner playing (Figure 36.2). This interpretation successfully communicates the link between children and play, the danger of infant mortality (with half of all Viking age children dying before the age of 10 years), the allotting of gender roles at a young age, and the value of scientific examination of children’s skeletons. Whilst there are examples of sound recordings or cartoon characters introduced to several exhibitions to give snatches of fictionalized lives (a good example, though not medieval, is ‘the young girl’s story’ a listening-post recording in the voice of a ten-year-old girl playing during the building of her parents’ villa, in the 2006 Yorkshire Museum exhibition Constantine the Great: York’s Roman Emperor) the challenge remains to bring objects together imaginatively from across sites to tell whole life stories. This is something that the displays at the Landesmuseum Württemberg begin to do.
Innocence abused and teenage agency One way to characterize the twentieth and the early twenty-first centuries is in terms of their progressive, cumulative concerns about children, their status, their rights, and their welfare. These concerns are reflected, for example, by the cinematic portrayal of medieval children, its principal contested ground being their innocence, their right to self-determination, and their transition to adulthood. Generally they do this through linking their narrative to the life of an individual, whether real (as in Anchoress (UK 1993), based on the life of English anchorite Christine Carpenter, and Andrei Roublev (USSR 1966), based on the life of Russian monk and icon painter of that name) or imaginary (as in Marketa Lazarová (Czech 1967), The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey (Australia/NZ 1988), and Kristin Lavransdatter (NWY/SWE/GER 1995)). We have seen already how the Gospels and their dependent teachings gave an image of innocence authenticated through Christ as a child. The Bible also provided a template for the crushing of such innocence in King Herod’s massacre of the Holy Innocents, which has been labelled the ‘classic medieval story of child abuse’ (Orme 2003: fig. 34). Child abuse in the medieval period was an endemic danger (Orme 2003: 99–106; Grubbs 2011; Vuolanto 2011), but the plentiful evidence in terms of material culture
Material Culture, Museums, Movies, and Make Believe 675 (including images and written accounts) and buildings has not, to this writer’s knowledge, been translated into museum exhibitions, though one could regard the Foundling Museum, London, as important here. Although it is primarily related to an institution founded in the eighteenth century (The Foundling Hospital), it deals with a common medieval issue, the trajectory of which led to the founding of the Hospital (of which there were several medieval examples across Europe). The museum has a number of resources to call on to explore the difficult issue of child abandonment, including the surviving buildings and their furnishings (Wedd 2004), registers, and a range of tokens (including a medieval silver groat) used to identify the children should parents ever return to reclaim them (Styles 2010; Bright and Clark 2011). Child abuse makes a slightly less rare appearance in movies. Hour of the Pig (UK/ France 1993) is a legal drama set in rural France (Ponthieu) in which a key plot strand is the uncovering of a serial killer (the son of the local Seigneur) who preys on Jewish boys. It weaves in racism against Jews (see Hall (forthcoming) for medieval cults around boys said to be martyred by Jews) and gypsies, witch persecution, and the prosecution of animals in the legal system (an attempt is made to frame a pig with the murder of one Jewish boy) in a believably human drama that asks the audience to take on both the otherness of the medieval past and the longue durée of sociopolitical corruption. The corruption of power is also the theme in The Reckoning (UK/Spain 2003 and adapted from the novel Morality Play by Barry Unsworth). Within a wider story of the evolution of theatre from Biblical morality play to contemporary social drama, it tells of a troupe of travelling actors exposing a nobleman as a sexual abuser and killer of young boys and proclaiming it through a dramatic performance. In both films, the abused children are really no more than a narrative plot device to earn our condemnation of the corrupted powerful. A rare example of a film dealing with child abuse whilst presenting it from the perspective of the abused and successfully embedding it in an authentic complex web of human behaviours and religious, political, and social mores is Anchoress (UK 1993). It is based on the life of anchorite Christine Carpenter, of whom very little is known beyond that she was walled up in her village church in Shere (Surrey) in 1329. The film does not shy away from portraying the victimization of a confused teenage girl, but it also gives her a voice and reasoned choices. Being walled up could have been a rational decision for a young woman facing a life of anonymity doing backbreaking work on the land and being married off to the reeve (a late medieval English manorial estate manager). This does not end the sexual attentions of the reeve but adds to them those of the lecherous village priest and her own frustration-driven fantasies. In the end, she makes a fresh choice and digs her way out of the cell. The church at Shere still stands and the location of Christine’s cell is marked with stones. Watching the film and visiting the church offers a rare opportunity for reflection where the reality of evidence and its imaginative reconstruction reinforce each other. As a teenage anti-heroine Christine stands easily beside Marketa in the compelling evocation of brutal life in medieval Czechoslovakia, Marketa Lazarová (Czech 1967). Marketa has to find her own agency to chart a route through domestic abuse, rape, and
676 Mark A. Hall religious abuse; she refuses to join a Carmelite nunnery and heads off to make her own life. The director, František Vláčil, followed this film with Valley of the Bees (1967), which tackled religious abuse from a male-child perspective, telling the story of Ondrej and his bid to escape the religious order he was brought up in. Christine, Marketa, and Ondrej share a rejection of the formal strictures of religious authority and the conventional bounds of family authority. It is easy to see this as simply a reflection of contemporary late twentieth-and twenty-first-century rejection of religious authority. Few historians or archaeologists would today hold that medieval religious practice was uniform and orthodox as opposed to heterogenous and contested (Todd 2002; Cooper and Gregory 2006; Hall 2011, and forthcoming). Beyond that, it also adds a further dimension to the use of medieval childhood to justify a sense of progress in our contemporary attitudes to childhood. In a nutshell, they help to confirm a popular sense that today we are more sentimental and loving towards our children (Hall 2015). Children of course were also prey to natural endemics such as plague, notably the Black Death. Such could operate in conjunction with human politics: one of the effects of the Black Death was to ratchet up the persecution of the Jews, frequently seen as the cause of the plague. This only intensified persecution of the Jews, including children, who were already a target for persecution (Hall forthcoming and discussion of Hour of the Pig above). The Black Death is no stranger to cinema screens but is less frequently treated in museum exhibitions. Generally speaking, beyond illustrating the corrupting power of fear, films offer little insight and certainly do not consider the impact on childhood, with perhaps three exceptions (Aberth 2003: 216–55), to which we will turn shortly. Typical though is the most recent foray into this territory, Black Death (UK/ GER 2010), which takes a misogynistic, visceral, violent, horror approach. It is not devoid of a childhood presence however: two of its characters are a young novice monk and an equally adolescent village girl, who fall in love. The novice seeks to protect the girl from the Black Death and witchcraft (here the target cause of the plague). The film airs the conflicts faced by young people in their transition to adulthood and deciding on life choices, not least when second and third sons rarely had a choice about becoming a novice, but they are used as a thin justification for witchcraft persecution. The dynamic of teenage, novice monk and romance (or rather sexual encounter) with a village girl is lifted from The Name of the Rose (West Germany/France/Italy 1986 and adapted from Umberto Eco’s novel), which in turn refers back to Andrei Roublev and his sexual encounter with pagan villagers (Haydock 2008: 52–3). Three exceptions in portraying the Black Death and with varying emphases on children and Jews are The Seventh Seal (Sweden 1955), The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey (New Zealand/Australia 1988), and Book of Days (USA/France 1988 and not currently commercially available). In all three films, death, in the principal form of the Black Death, inevitably stands triumphant over all, including innocent children. Bergman’s The Seventh Seal has everyone, including the children of the troupe of travelling actors, joining in with death’s socially levelling danse macabre, representing the end in a very medieval way that directly evokes depictions in wall paintings (Gertsman 2010). Bergman even includes a scene of Albertus Pictor painting a Black Death mural in a
Material Culture, Museums, Movies, and Make Believe 677 church. The Navigator and Book of Days both have teenage children (Conor and Eva respectively) as the leading protagonists. Both children have skills of prophecy and both films weave the present day with the medieval past (which is something many visitors do when exploring representations of the medieval past in museums and galleries). In The Navigator, Conor is the teenage leader of his community as it seeks to forestall the deprivations of the Black Death, to which he ultimately succumbs in an act of self- sacrifice. In Book of Days, Eva is a Jewish girl and is part of the film’s dramatization of the consequences of the Black Death for the Jewish community—her visions of the future indicate future plagues and mass murders (including the Holocaust) to come as an ongoing Jewish experience. The last third of the film visualizes both the effect of the Black Death (shown to take Christian and Jew with indifference) and the persecutions by Christians who blamed Jews for the Black Death. Museum exhibitions have explored the Black Death but rarely its consequences for Jews and for children. The exhibition Treasures of the Black Death (Wallace Collection, London, 2009) explored both the plague and the consequences for Jews through its display of two hoards of Jewish treasure from central Germany: Colmar and Erfurt. Though it did not explicitly deal with children, the presence of adolescents was strongly signalled by the amatory nature of some of the jewellery and its clear functioning as betrothal or wedding gifts (an aspect that also brought out shared cultural concerns with mainstream Christian culture: Descatoire 2009). It has to be recognized, of course, that films have the dramatic license to invent in their facilitation of the popular understanding of and relationship with the past (Hall 2009). Many also commercialize that past. Several medieval-set dramas produced in Hollywood—including A Knight’s Tale (USA 2001), Black Knight (USA 2001), and King Arthur (USA 2005)—consciously appeal to the teen market (Finke and Shichtman 2010: 335–68), being aimed squarely at the youth culture of the years 13–20. They commercially treat as one a hugely diverse social category and it has been argued that that diversity is such that the unified category of teenager (both now and in the recreated medieval past) is in reality fictitious: ‘an invented transition between two carefully constructed norms, childhood and adulthood’ (Long 1990: 156). It remains a recognized developmental category because a prolonged period of adolescence is economically lucrative. This does not stop many young people seeing themselves has having a shared teenage identity. Films tend to project this construction back into the past and are often roundly condemned for doing so on the grounds that the social category of teenager did not exist in real life (Finke and Shichtman 2010: 335–67 and the issue surfaces in several of the contributions in Driver and Ray 2004). However, whilst the term teenager was not used, there does seem to have been a strong medieval concept of adolescence, a long transitional phase between childhood and adulthood. The range of legal responsibilities and entitlements that defined later medieval adults, for example, were not assumed until the age of 21 and sometimes as late as 30. This is not to say that there were not markers that began the transition at an earlier age: in many early medieval societies a boy ceased to be a child when he was able to carry arms into battle and in later medieval England for example, the age of criminal responsibility was set at the age of 12 (Hanawalt
678 Mark A. Hall 1986: 88–9). Hanawalt (1986: 189) observes the transition from childhood to adulthood as an extended one: most adult responsibilities accrued to late teenagers with the exception of criminal responsibility, which started at 12. Hanawalt (1986) saw this as a gap between childhood and adulthood. Lewis (2009: 88) sees the age of criminality and the requirement of boys to enter a tithing group at the age of 12 as indicating that age as the start of adulthood. On reasonable, pragmatic grounds Mygland’s (2007) study of children in the archaeological record of Bergen adopts 12 as the age when children became ‘invisible’, simply because they are no longer evident in a range of artefacts (e.g. leather shoes) or in their skeletal remains because of the physical maturity that physical remains tend to reflect. I close this section with reference to one of the most compelling episodes in Andrei Tarkovsky’s re-imagining of the life of Andrei Roublev (USSR 1966). The film’s penultimate episode brings to life the casting of a bell at the hands of teenage agency. Apprentice Boriska is ordered to make a new, massive bell to mark the recovery of the town of Vladimir and the defeat of the Tartars. Boriska is the son of the deceased bell maker and confidently assures all of his skill and possession of his father’s know-how. Boriska supervises the whole operation from the digging of the pit to the clay selection, mould making, furnace firing, bell hoisting, and chiming, in the knowledge that if the process fails at any point the Grand Prince will take his head. It transpires that Boriska had no knowledge of bell casting. It is certainly a portrait of a confident teenager who succeeds through natural skill, instinct, and faith that teenagers and adults today can readily relate to, but it is also one that is authentic and imaginatively rooted in an understanding of the medieval past and its processes.
Play and heirlooms Today, as a specialist material culture of childhood, toys are a hugely profitable commercial and consumer enterprise, but this does not stop many children playing, of necessity, of choice, and of invention, with non-toy designated material (whether manmade or natural, such as stones, shells, sticks, water, and snow), redefining it and appropriating it through toy use. During the medieval period, when capitalism was still in its infancy, and notwithstanding that there were purpose-made toys, it seems self-evident that the imaginative adaptation and appropriation of non-toys as toys was even more common. It is an idea that applies beyond the medieval period, as Crawford (2009) has recently demonstrated in her exposition of the need for archaeologists to start recognizing ‘toy’ to be a quality as much as a thing, a phase that many objects pass through, or in-and-out of, part of their social engagement or biography. The concept was effectively widened by Lewis (2009) in her exploration of rural, medieval environments as play spaces (on which also see Willemsen 2005: 429, which finds a fruitful correspondence between manuscripts depicting children’s play, archaeological examples of both the toys depicted, and the urban spaces they were recovered from). Spaces, like objects, are amenable to appropriation by children for the purpose of play (compare the late twentieth-century
Material Culture, Museums, Movies, and Make Believe 679 use of town streets as play environments despite the dangers of road traffic, and indeed often incorporating those dangers). This rhetoric about spaces and things seems so obvious (and so recognizable from our own upbringings) that one wonders why archaeology has shied away from confronting it. In part, it may be down to a ‘taken-for-granted’ sensibility, in part a reluctance to sully site interpretation with mere and ‘unserious’ notions of play. But in reality can our interpretation of the medieval urban environment of, for example, Perth, be complete without imagining how children moved through it, playing as they went, loosing, hiding, and sometimes stealing objects they made into toys? This role of children in site formation is hardly considered and even when synthetic analyses of the burgh are written (e.g. Hall 2002, which includes gaming material) they tend to assume only an adult presence as a default assumption. Museums are seizing the opportunity to get to grips with these new interpretations. In 2010, the LWL-Museum für Archäologie (the State Archaeology Museum of Westphalia, Herne, Germany) celebrated Essen and the wider Ruhr conurbation’s designation as European City of Culture and staged a major exhibition on its medieval past: AufRuhr 1225! Ritter, Burgen und Intrigen Das Mittelalter an Rhein und Ruhr, (AufRuhr 1225! Knights, Castles, and Intrigue, the Middle Ages in the Rhine and the Ruhr) retelling the story (in a CSI inspired mode) of the assassination of Archbishop Engelbert I of Köln in 1225. A source-critical narrative of events and elite politics was contextualized by a wide range of themes exploring secular and ecclesiastical power structures. A key strand of evidence in unpicking knightly culture was the display of a range of toys, including ceramic knights and wooden swords, the majority from castle sites and interpreted as indicating the teaching through play of children destined to become knights (for a full catalogue and discussion of the material see Leenen 2010: 359–83). In cinematic terms, the promoting of a knightly culture, one reframed to suit today’s teenagers (see discussion above) both male and female, is transparent from such films as Excalibur (USA 1981), Knightriders (USA 1981), A Knight’s Tale (USA 2001), Black Knight (USA 2001), King Arthur (USA 2005), and, albeit briefly, in Luc Besson’s retelling of Joan of Arc’s story, The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (France 1999). The depictions of children in medieval art—notably carvings (including misericords), wall paintings, and illuminated manuscripts—are extensive and a crucial source of evidence for understanding how medieval society represented childhood to itself and to the future. A key strand here is the medieval concept of the Ages of Man, fundamental to which was a classificatory scheme that linked set periods of time (measured in years) with developmental thresholds and humeral characteristics (derived from the Classical traditions of medicine). There were varying schemes relying on six, seven, eight, ten, or twelve Ages of Man (Goodich 1989; Gilchrist 2012: 34 and App. 1) with the most long- lasting being that devised by Bishop Isidore of Seville (d.ad 636), which included three stages of childhood: infantia (birth to seven years), pueritia (seven to 14 years), and adolescentia (14 to 21 years) (Gilchrist 2012: 34). The schemes associate particular objects with childhood and youth, including cradles, walking-aids, toys, learning equipment, and vanity kits (Gilchrist 2012: 253). Although the depictions of the Ages of Man and their associated material culture do represent childhood, they do not always represent
680 Mark A. Hall its reality. They give a sense of the general perception of age group characteristics mediated by the intended purpose of a given image and its context of use (Willemsen 2005, 2007–8 on play as an indicator of Man’s youth; Gilchrist 2012: 36; Skov 2012: fig. 2). Representations of children playing and representing children playing figure strongly in the domains of museum display (as in AufRuhr 1225! above) and movie medievalisms. An example of each will serve to make the point: At Home in Renaissance Italy (staged at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 2006–7) and the Disney/Pixar animated feature Brave (USA 2012). At Home in Renaissance Italy explored the domestic interior of the high status town houses or casa (meaning both house and household) in which children were of great significance, not least because they represented dynastic continuity. The exhibition’s key strategy was to recreate a sense or representation of the casa’s main rooms and their contents, including several portraits of children, with or without their parents (see e.g. Italian artist Giovanni Francesco Caroto’s early sixteenth-century painting Young Boy with his Drawing in which the boy proudly shows his stick-man drawing (Figure 36.3); a representation of a child’s mode of representation that dissolves the barrier of time
Figure 36.3 Giovanni Francesco Caroto’s early sixteenth-century painting Young Boy with his Drawing. Copyright Zenodot Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, licensed under the DNU Free Documentation License.
Material Culture, Museums, Movies, and Make Believe 681 between then and now; Brown 2006: pl. 9.7). The domestic interior of the casa was an important play space, in which play was pivotal to cultivating a sense of sociability across and within families (Ajmar-Wollheim 2006: 215–19; Brown 2006: 142–3). Much of the evidence displayed—dice, board games, and cards—related to adolescents and adults, but we know that this material extended further down the age ladder of children, and it is visible in one of the exhibition’s key portraits: Sisters Playing Chess was painted in Cremona in 1555 by Sofonisba Anguissola, and shows her own three sisters (aged between around 10–16 years?) (Ajmar-Wollheim 2006: pl. 15.4). The two eldest are playing chess whilst the third and an elderly maid looks on; Anguissola has painted an inscription along one edge of the chessboard, which reads: ‘The maiden Sofonisba Anguissola, Amilcare’s daughter, painted her three sisters and a maid from life 1555.’ Certainly, the artist has constructed this image (including a fictional exterior landscape as backdrop) as an idealized representation of the sisters, but there is no reason to doubt that it reflects, because of its perceived intellectuality and gentility, a reality of acceptable play for young, educated women. That this was part of the education of young women so that they might acquire the necessary social skills for the time they ran their own households. Anguissola’s painting makes it clear children could declare their own agency. In the film Brave, the setting is medieval (a sort of fairy-tale version of mainly tenth- century Scotland) and the chief protagonist is teenage princess Merida, more interested in her archery skills than being consigned into an arranged marriage. She also plays chess, but here it is not identified as a tool of sociability. In tantrum mode in rejection of her proposed arranged marriage, Merida storms into her room (not so much a medieval bedroom as a twenty-first-century teenage retreat), the furnishing of which includes a Lewis-style chess set. Her mother uses this to give her a lesson in realpolitik, linking the kingdom’s political stability to her arranged marriage. Underneath the narrative framework and the twenty-first-century child–parent dynamics and feminism, necessary to transport viewers to a perceptible other, there is a sense of family above self, dynastic security, a landscape of mythologized ruins, and the educational facility of board games. At several points, I have indicated the complexity of the associations of childhood with play and equal complexity attaches to our understanding of heirlooms. These have been recognized as a taphonomically troubling archaeological phenomenon since the early 1970s, but their social complexity has only begun to be more fully explored in recent years (Gilchrist 2013). In the medieval period, heirlooms served as both memory objects (commemorating either ancestors or biographical events) and sacred relics (often through association with the statues of saints for example): ‘Their agency embraced family skills, knowledge and myths of origin, or quasi-magical properties of healing and protection. The inalienable quality of these objects was animated by a process of sacralization that included ceremonial use, ritual gestures and exchanges between the medieval domestic and religious spheres’ (Gilchrist 2013: 179). Because of these qualities, heirlooms were the focus of ritual, ‘including their withdrawal from everyday use for special occasions, their display and cleaning, their gifting at rites of passage and their use as mnemonics and family storytelling’ (Gilchrist 2013: 179 and drawing on Small 1999). In all this, children are implicit as recipients of both objects and
682 Mark A. Hall stories, as contributors to stories (or biographical episodes), and as ritual participants or observers. Several objects in the At Home in the Renaissance exhibition already discussed, including wedding chests, birth trays, and toys, were not explicitly described as heirlooms, but their display and catalogue discussions (Ajmer-Wollheim and Denis 2006: 103–44, 288–93) clearly imply this possibility, not least as a linkage between children and the rest of the family and household. Children may have been excluded from some rooms in the casa, but their presence was still felt. The scrittoio (study), for example, started out as simply a business space but became ‘a treasury, a Kunstkamer, a library, even a protomuseum which could proclaim whole set of messages about the Medici, the head of the family, his wealth and his cultural interests’ (Syson 2006: 288); to this we can add that it was the repository of family memory and future intent to which children were essential. The layout of the exhibition reinforced these ideas, with the design evoking the various living spaces of the casa. Ideas of family stories and heirlooms are powerfully captured in Brave: it winds-up with Queen Elinor making a textile panel recording Merida’s exploits and adding it the gallery of panels that record the family’s rise to power.
Conclusion We have seen that the complexity of medieval self-representation was not conditioned by reality alone (whether in depicting childhood or anything else) but by perception, desire, and aspiration. A similar dynamic holds for later depictions of medieval childhood and my concern here has not been to seek only a purely authentic representation of medieval childhood. Certainly in cinema, narrative engagement with the past generally seeks other rewards (Hall 2009). The pitfalls of anachronism and ahistoricism are ever present and have their own pleasures, but as The Navigator and Book of Days (and one might add in a horror vein, the medieval St Nicholas clashing with modernity in the bloodbath that is Saint (Netherlands 2010)) so graphically illustrate, representations, reinterpretations, retellings, and other explorations of the medieval past seek to collapse the space between past and present and explore the one through the other. This is nothing new and is as much a trope of medieval narratives (which frequently looked to a Classical past, including the re-invention of the Trojan War) as it is our own (Pugh and Weisl 2013: 61). In the context of medievalism in literature for children and young adults (which has a strong overlap with film fictions), Pugh and Weisl (2013: 62) observe it is this past/present interface that facilitates that fundamental quest, for knowledge of both self and the other. Medievalism (film or literature) ‘contrive[s]visions of history and legend that work in the present . . . [they] are about the play of exotic difference and unlikely affinities. Such works leverage the constructedness of received history in order to screen contemporary desires, conflicts, and anxieties’ (Haydock 2008: 111).
Material Culture, Museums, Movies, and Make Believe 683 Childhood is at the centre of both many conflicts and anxieties and also of a need for innocence and optimism, which is why it is such fertile ground for the diverse explorations and representations of its meaning which this chapter has sought to explore. Material culture, museums, and movies comprise a spectrum of such explorations, a spectrum in which museums occupy the mediating, middle ground. They are clearly allied to the academic pursuit of the meaning and understanding of material culture whilst at the same time needing to be accessible to a range of audiences and to combine the evidence with imagination to tell inspiring stories about the past and the people who live there. This crucial necessity for dynamic engagement and a people-focus also gives them a foot in the movie camp. In drawing this chapter to a close let me reference a film that brings together expert knowledge, museum display, and film representation. The film is Museum Hours (Austria/ USA 2012) and it charts a developing relationship in and around the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Vienna, Austria) between a museum warder and a visitor. It particularly dwells on and encourages the viewer to look at the museum’s room of Breughel paintings. In one scene, we see a visiting Breughel scholar giving a lunchtime lecture in the Breughel room. She draws attention to Brueghel’s 1567 painting, The Conversion of St Paul, and suggests that one might see the child standing beneath a tree just to the left of Paul’s unfolding conversion, as the centre of the picture. Given Breughel’s awareness of children (see e.g. his painting Children’s Games; Hindman 1981), this is an entirely plausible interpretation. The boy echoes the notion of conversion in that he appears to be a boy becoming a man or at least a boy playing a man: his helmet looks much too big for a boy and he is buried in a huge cloak. He clearly does not belong as part of the army watching Paul and as a figure he is not part of the Biblical story of Paul’s conversion (Acts 9: 3–7). The representation of children and childhood in medieval art, in museums, and in movies reflects the importance of children and the significance of that contested life stage to our understanding of the human condition. There is much that museums can learn from the movies about the portrayal of childhood experience and there is much both can do to illuminate more fully the darker side of medieval childhood.
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Material Culture, Museums, Movies, and Make Believe 685 Hall, M. A. (2015). ‘ “Merely Players . . .”: Playtime, Material Culture and Medieval Childhood’, in D. M. Hadley and K. A. Hemer (eds), Medieval Childhood: Archaeological Approaches. Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past Monograph 3. Oxford: Oxbow, 39–56. Hall, M. A. (forthcoming). ‘Places Forged with Belief and Blood: Approaching Medieval Sacrality’, in C. Gerrard and A. Gutiérrez (eds), Oxford Handbook of Later Medieval Archaeology in Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hanawalt, B. (1986). The Ties That Bound: Peasant Families in Medieval England. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Haydock, N. (2008). Movie Medievalism: The Imaginary Middle Ages. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company. Hindman, S. (1981). ‘Pieter Bruegel’s Children’s Games, Folly, and Chance’. The Art Bulletin, LXIII/3: 447–75. Khoroshev, A. S. (2007). ‘Toys and Miniatures’, in M. Brisbane and J. Hather (eds), Wood Use in Medieval Novgorod. Oxford: Oxbow, 344–53. Leenen, B. (ed.) (2010). Ritter, Burgen und Intrigen, Aufruhr 1225 Das Mittelalter an Rhein und Ruhr. Exhibition catalogue of the Museum für Archëologie Westfälisches Landesmuseum Herne. Mainz: Verlag Philip van Zubern. Lewis, C. (2009). ‘Children’s Play in the Later Medieval English Countryside’. Childhood in the Past, 2: 86–108. Lewis, M. E. (2002). ‘Impact of Industrialization: Comparative Study of Child Health in Four Sites from Medieval and Post-medieval England (ad 850–1859)’. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 119/3: 211–93. Long, S. (1990). ‘Nightmare in the Mirror: Adolescence and the Death of Difference’. Social Text, 24: 156–66. MacCormack, S. (1981). Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. McEvoy, M. (2010). ‘Rome and the Transformation of the Imperial Office in the Late Fourth- Mid Fifth Centuries ad’. Papers of the British School at Rome, 78: 151–92. Mygland, S. S. (2007). Children in Medieval Bergen. An Archaeological Analysis of Child-Related Artefacts. Bryggen Papers Main Series 7. Bergen: Fagboklaget. Orme, N. (2003). Medieval Children. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Orme, N. (2009). ‘Medieval Childhood: Challenge, Change and Achievement’. Childhood in the Past, 1: 106–19. Pugh, T. and Weisl, A. J. (eds) (2013). Medievalisms: Making the Past in the Present. London: Routledge. Roberts, C. and Manchester, K. (1995). The Archaeology of Disease (2nd edn). Stroud: Sutton. Roberts, J. (2005). ‘The Human Remains’, in C. Fyles, J. Roberts, and D. Hall, ‘Watching Brief on Environmental Improvements around St John’s Kirk, Perth’. Tayside and Fife Archaeological Journal, 11: 19–46. Shahar, S. (1990). Childhood in the Middle Ages. London: Routledge. Skov, H. (2012). ‘Infancy and Adolescence, Education and Recreation in Aarhus from 800– 1700’, in M. Gläser (ed.), Kindheit und Jugend, Ausbildung und Freizeit. Lübecker Kolloquium zur Stadtarchäologie im Hanseraum VIII. Lübeck: Schmidt-Römhild, 591–604. Small, L. M. (1999). ‘Sacred Space (Teminos) and Heirlooms (Sacra) serve a Totemic Function within the Homes of Elder Americans’. Journal of Religion, Disability and Health, 3/1: 99–114. Styles, J. (2010). Threads of Feeling: The London Foundling Hospital’s Textile Tokens, 1740–70. London: Foundling Museum.
686 Mark A. Hall Syson, L. (2006). ‘The Medici Study’, in M. Ajmar-Wollheim and F. Denis (eds), At Home in Renaissance Italy. London: V&A Publications, 288–93. Todd, M. (2002). The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Vuolanto, V. (2011). ‘Infant Abandonment and the Christianization of Medieval Europe’, in K. Mustakallio and C. Laes (eds), Dark Side of Childhood in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Oxford: Oxbow, 3–20. Wedd, K. (2004). The Foundling Museum. London: Foundling Museum. Wileman, J. (2005). Hide and Seek: The Archaeology of Childhood. Stroud: Tempus. Willemsen, A. (2005). ‘The Game of the Month: Playful Calendars in Ghent-Bruges Books of Hours’, in B. Dekeyzer and J. Van der Stock (eds), Manuscripts in Transition: Recycling Manuscripts, Texts and Images. Leuwen: Uitgeven Peeters, 419–30. Willemsen, A. (2007–8). ‘The Age of Play: Children’s Toys and the Medieval Cycle’. Ludica, 13–14: 169–82. Willemsen, A. (2008). Back to the Schoolyard: The Daily Practice of Medieval and Renaissance Education. Studies in European Urban History 1100–1800 Monograph 15. Turnhout: Brepols. Woodfield, C. (1981). ‘Finds from the Free Grammar School at the Whitefriars, Coventry c.1545–c.1557/8’. Post-Medieval Archaeology, 15: 81–159.
Chapter 37
Presenting C h i l dre n f rom the Dista nt Past in M u seums Sharon Brookshaw
Museum collections are a fundamental repository of and resource for material evidence (Pearce 1994: 15) and, despite the idiosyncrasy of their assemblages, present a unique and intriguing opportunity for examining objects from the past related to children and childhood. The vast majority of museums are ‘preoccupied in one way or another with the display of their collections’ (Vergo 1989: 42), and thus where these collections contain objects relating to children in the past we might well expect to see (at least some) of them on display, and to see the child appearing in exhibitions and galleries. In this chapter, the presentation of children from the distant past will be discussed in the context of museums in Britain (see, for contrasting examples, Lambrugo, Chapter 35 of this volume). The distant past is used here to refer to antiquity, those times that may be better evidenced through archaeological or material remains rather than historical texts, and to children where there may be little or no surviving written sources to inform us of their lives and activities. Opportunities for examining such presentations are, however, quite limited. It has been argued that children are underrepresented in museums (e.g. Crosson 1988; Shepherd 2001; see also Lambrugo, Chapter 35 of this volume); that is, they do not seem to appear in interpretations of the past as often as might be expected given the numbers of children who exist and must have existed as part of both present and past populations (40–65 per cent of most documented social groups from forager communities to industrialized nations are noted to be children: Baxter 2005: 10). Several reasons have been put forward for this phenomenon: because children are often viewed as materially invisible in anything other than the very recent past, because unlike minority adult groups, children are largely unable (or at least, are perceived to be largely unable) to represent themselves and their interests in museums, and because children may be regarded as being insignificant, or at least less important to include than other (more vocal) groups
688 Sharon Brookshaw within the community. Furthermore, it has been suggested that children are thought of as a mere subset of a cultural group, and hence are assumed to be included whenever an ethnic group, social class, or any other section of society is represented in the museum (Shepherd 2001: 2). Children, although far more numerous than many other minority groups in society (and indeed could be in the numerical majority in some cases), are in an especially weak position because they are relegated to the state of ‘childhood’, and are seen in terms of play and (to adult eyes) insignificant or unproductive activities rather than as active people with their own thoughts, ideas, opinions, and abilities (what Sutton-Smith (1970) termed the ‘triviality barrier’). While museums over recent years have moved to be more inclusive in their collection strategies and displays (see e.g. Sandell 2002; for Italy, see Lambrugo, Chapter 35 of this volume), children, despite being a large group with wide relevance to visitors, do not seem to have benefitted from such policies as much as other perceived minority groups. When it comes to displays, museums often still think of society as being composed only of adults, and this lack of acceptance or recognition of age stratification is omitting children from being fairly represented within their galleries (and possibly also their collections). Indeed, this omission has even been termed ‘the last frontier’ (Shepherd 2001: 1) in the social role of museums, reflecting the fact that children (and the related ‘childhood’) are largely insignificant or invisible in many museums. This is despite the growing role of children as museum visitors; figures published by the Museums Association show that in 2009, for example, 45.8 per cent of adults visited a museum at least once, a figure that rose to 59.7 per cent of 11-to 15-year- olds, and 66.3 per cent of five-to ten-year-olds (Museums Association 2010). What about the exhibitions where children and their experiences are presented? As museums are ‘exercises in classification’ (Jordanova 1989: 23), attempting to impose order and meaning upon ranges of hugely differing objects, the presentation of the child in museums is often restricted to a limited number of situations, predominantly in exhibitions concentrating on recent social history. The literature on the history of childhood in the Western world either frames childhood as a black history of cruel ignorance and abuse from which we emerge into happier, more enlightened times (such as De Mause 1974 and Shorter 1975) or conversely, many later texts portrayed a past golden age of protected freedom and pleasure from which modern society has irretrievably declined into an era of delinquent children and ‘kidults’ (e.g. Sommerville 1982; Postman 1994). Both these images can be seen reflected in museum displays (Roberts 2006a). The representation of children is often left to specific museums or exhibitions of childhood, despite ‘children’ and ‘childhood’ not necessarily being synonymous, and the plurality of childhood experiences (no one would attempt to create a museum of adulthood). Children also sometimes appear in museum presentations as part of other social history displays, which usually cover no more than the past 150 years or so. While popular with many visitors, such displays have been criticized as being ‘content with portraying the childhood of the Edwardian nursery, the innocence of the gingham dress and the sailor suit, the Meccano set, the teddy bear, the doll’s pram’ (Fleming 1989: 31).
Presenting Children from the Distant Past in Museums 689 Such displays typically portray a sentimentalized and nostalgic image of the child, incorporating icons of childhood such as rocking horses and dolls, and ‘by focusing on the playful material culture of children, museum representations of childhood have often implied that children’s heritage is less serious and less important than that of adults’ (Pascoe 2013: 209). The ‘Edwardian nursery’ image of childhood is perhaps straightforward to explain: it has been described as a ‘soft option . . . there is nothing like a bit of childhood nostalgia to get the visitors cooing appreciatively’ (White 1996: 22). In other words, this is perceived as the easiest image of children and childhood for museums to construct and for visitors to consume, flattering the preconceived notion of a rosy childhood past and playing on the visitor’s own memories of happy experiences as children. Other museums have produced less romanticized images of childhood, however, demonstrating how children in the past may have had worse experiences than their modern counterparts. Installations at institutions, such as the National Trust Museum of Childhood in Derbyshire, which has extensive galleries dedicated to the history of working children that leave you in no doubt as to the unpleasantness of many jobs done by children in the past, has followed this tradition (Roberts 2006a: 159; Sleight 2013: 126), while Quarry Bank Mill in Cheshire shows the demands of working life for young apprentices in an early nineteenth-century cotton mill. Equally, the Foundling Museum in London, which holds collections relating to the Foundling Hospital for abandoned children, deals with incredibly difficult aspects of children’s experiences (Harris 2013). However, there is evidence for material that could represent children being held by museums. A survey of curators in accredited museums in mainland Britain (Roberts 2006b: 177) demonstrated that 95 per cent of the 240 respondents could identify something in their institution’s collections that was associated with children. A diaspora of objects this may be, but one that suggests that if children are being underrepresented in museum displays, it is not from a lack of material objects held in collections. The study also concluded that, in Britain at least, the increasing popularity of childhood displays (and exhibitions on allied themes such as schooldays or toys) suggested that children were being included more and more in museum displays and any underrepresentation was probably not as bad as the earlier reviews had suggested. However, the increasing representation of children and childhood seemed only to be happening in social history galleries, particularly those covering more recent times. Indeed, Sofaer Derevenski (1999: 7) has commented that, ‘in museum settings, children are active as visitors through their participation in educational and fun activities, but are often missing from archaeological displays and dioramas, especially in interpretations of pre-or proto- history . . . the message is that children do not make history, they just learn it! This reinforces the perceived “place” of children in modern society as passive and socially insignificant’. As the development of an archaeology of childhood is increasingly showing that children are visible in the more distant past (e.g. Moore and Scott 1997; Kamp 2001; Lally and Moore 2011; Hadley and Hemer 2014), this perhaps suggests that opportunities to include children in archaeological displays in museums should be greater now than ever
690 Sharon Brookshaw before. There may be difficulties in the identification of objects from a long ago and unfamiliar past as related to children: data may not have been collected or analysed with children in mind, children may have operated in a very different social world from our own in the time and place an artefact came from, children’s bones often do not survive as well as more robust adult remains, and children’s activities could be considered too ephemeral to leave a lasting material trace. Such challenges have been contested (e.g. Wileman 2005) and it has been noted that ‘archaeologists have always been excavating the remains of children. What is changing is our competence to interrogate the archaeological record in ways that reveal the presence of children’ (Baxter 2005: 115). While there has been an increase in discussion surrounding challenging, developing, and expanding stereotypical images of children and childhood in museums via collections and displays (e.g. Shepherd 2001; Roberts 2006a; Pascoe 2013), most of this centres on children in the recent past. What about the many children who lived prior to Edwardian nurseries and Victorian schoolrooms? Does the archaeology of children and childhood have a place in illuminating the lives of children from the more distant past in museums?
Children and the distant past: a curatorial perspective As museums cannot display that which has not been collected (by either themselves or another museum willing to loan an artefact), it is sensible to first address the question of whether museums have access to material that might reflect the archaeological child. Data that can be used to answer this question are sparse, but a study by this author into three large museum collections in Britain—Tyne & Wear Museums (Newcastle upon Tyne), Nottingham City Museums, and the Museum of London—has revealed a total of 4,580 object records that could be recognized as relating to children, of which 146 were identified from the museum records as being from an archaeological collection (Brookshaw 2010: 222). Although these figures seem rather insignificant when seen within collections of this size—the archaeological objects represented 3.2 per cent of the data as a whole, or 1.2 per cent (13 objects), 0.2 per cent (five), and 10.9 per cent (128) of the individual collections respectively—it nevertheless demonstrates that items relating to children and childhood from the more distant past do exist and can be identified in archaeological museum collections. If broken down further, these data could be used to identify objects from the prehistoric, Roman, and medieval periods as well as the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries (Brookshaw 2010: 222), all of which dates from before the material usually depicted in childhood displays. These objects included a bracelet, rings, shoes, sandals, pattens, and a child-size spur once worn by a young rider. These data illustrate that, while limited, material related to children from the more distant past can be identified in the collections of museums without great difficulty (with further investigation of the objects rather than just their records, period specialists
Presenting Children from the Distant Past in Museums 691 could perhaps identify more items). This analysis relied on sufficiently detailed records being held by the museum; with further analysis of less well recorded items, it may be possible that further items could be identified in the collections. Not surprisingly, it was the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that yielded the greatest amount of material culture (26.4 per cent and 49.7 per cent of the total data respectively) due to survival bias and there being a greater number of artefacts that could be easily associated with children from this time, with the growth of the consumer society. Specialized toyshops selling goods aimed specifically at children and children’s books first appeared in the UK in the late eighteenth century (Cunningham 1995: 72), and this trend continued into the nineteenth century, with children increasingly gaining a role as consumers during the first half of the twentieth century (Cunningham 1995: 177). Despite this inevitable weighting of collections towards more recent times, these data would suggest that it is not impossible to include children from the more distant past materially into museum displays, and when loans and collaborations between institutions are considered, the possibilities grow further. Having established that some artefacts that can be associated with children beyond the Victorian schoolroom and Edwardian nurseries do exist in British museums, it is appropriate to consider the views and opinions of the curatorial staff entrusted with caring for and displaying such material. The items on display in any museum usually represent only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what is actually held in storage by the museum, and objects therefore have to be selected by curatorial staff to be put on display (and may also be enhanced by objects loaned from other museum collections). The criteria for ‘the selection or rejection of material for an exhibition are neither random nor arbitrary—on the contrary . . . they are based on an underlying though usually unspoken sense of purpose’ (Vergo 1989: 46). With curatorial staff therefore being pivotal in this regard, the examination of their opinions and perspectives seems a logical extension to the study discussed above. A survey conducted amongst the 325 curators in accredited British museums listed in the Museums Yearbook is helpful in this regard; there were 240 respondents, a response rate of 74 per cent, of which 44 described themselves as being a specialist in archaeological collections (Brookshaw 2010: 223–4). This group was initially asked their opinion on the importance of the roles and activities of children in the past, with answers spread over a five point scale ranging from very important to very unimportant, and also permitting an ‘unknown’ option. The majority of respondents answered ‘very important’ or ‘important’ (36.7 per cent and 44.5 per cent respectively overall with 36.4 per cent and 47.7 per cent for the archaeology group alone), with 15 per cent opting for ‘fairly important’, 0.4 per cent for ‘unimportant, irrelevant, or inaccessible’, and none for ‘very unimportant’ (1.3 per cent elected for ‘unknown’ and 2.1 per cent declined to answer) (Brookshaw 2010: 225). With such a question, there was always the problem of respondents giving an ‘acceptable’ answer rather than their own thoughts (the current emphasis on social inclusion in museums may be an influence here), and of variations between how individuals rate the attributes along the scale provided because of factors such as acquiescence bias (the tendency of survey respondents to agree to statements regardless of their content) (Oppenheim
692 Sharon Brookshaw 1992: 181). Indeed, one archaeologist noted that children should not automatically be included in displays if there is insufficient evidence for their presence, as such generic displays would be ‘at best a highly simplistic and distorted view of the past and at worst no more than political tools to put over some modern agenda’ (Brookshaw 2010: 225). However, there were also comments such as ‘we all are or were children’ (provided in some variant by six respondents) and ‘children are a major proportion of the community as a whole . . . you cannot achieve a balanced interpretation of past times without specific reference to children/childhood’ (Brookshaw 2010: 225). This may indicate that many archaeology curators would be inclined to display material relating to children if it could be readily identified and was available to them. The survey next queried whether the respondents felt that children had a place within the subject matter displayed by their own institution, with possible answers collected over the same type of scale. The pattern of answers here was somewhat different, with answers peaking lower down the scale at ‘relevant’ (42.8 per cent overall or 34.1 per cent for the archaeologists) and ‘slightly relevant’ (29.2 per cent and 29.5 per cent respectively) while only 19.2 per cent (15.9 per cent of archaeologists) opted for ‘very relevant’ (Brookshaw 2010: 226). This would seem to suggest that while many curators— including archaeologists—claim to see the importance of children in the past, fewer can see how they might be included in their own museum’s displays. Where children and childhood past have been included in archaeology displays, the result may sometimes be viewed as a, perhaps somewhat cynical, means to appeal to modern audiences, as Harlow (2013: 147) notes: ‘there is certainly an interest within museums such as Bath and Corinium (Roman Cirencester) in the UK to exploit both the perceived emotive nature of children’s history (to a twenty-first-century audience) and to encourage the interest of children as a distinct audience through display of “childhood” ’. With children making up a significant proportion of museum visitors—26 per cent of visitors to UK museums were noted to be 15 or under in 2006, with numbers of visits having increased over time (Morris Hargreaves McIntyre 2006: 19)—perhaps we should not blame the institutions for ‘exploiting’ this audience by seeking to find relevance with them. The survey then moved on to assess how curators perceived public interest in displays about children and childhood, as the curator’s perception of potential public interest can act as a driving force in selecting items and themes to display. There was agreement amongst the respondents that this would be a theme of interest to visitors, and from the comments and explanations, it appears that this interest stems particularly from two major groups of museum visitors—school parties and families. Amongst the responding group as a whole, 41.7 per cent selected the answer ‘very interesting’ and a further 41.7 per cent ‘interesting’, while 10.3 per cent thought it would be ‘fairly interesting’, and 4.2 per cent ‘impossible to mount’; none considered that visitors would find it uninteresting (Brookshaw 2010: 226). Notably, a significant minority of archaeological curators (13.6 per cent) thought it would be impossible to display such a theme (due to the absence of suitable artefacts for display, the difficulty in associating any artefacts with children in the past, or a lack of information to be used in interpretation), making the interest of their visitors irrelevant.
Presenting Children from the Distant Past in Museums 693 In the final question, the respondents were asked specifically whether it was generally feasible to mount displays about or including this theme in archaeology museums or galleries; 47.5 per cent of the group said ‘yes’ with another 34.6 per cent saying ‘some’ could do so, while 43.2 per cent of the archaeologists said ‘yes’ and 47.7 per cent said ‘some’. The responses to this question seem to suggest that curators think it is generally possible to mount exhibits on the archaeology of children and childhood, but comments left on the surveys suggest reasons why this is not often done; factors such as lack of collections in individual museums, lack of information, and lack of resources may restrict such efforts. A small number of respondents also seemed to see children in the past as inaccessible or as a topic that was not appropriate for archaeology to approach. A respondent at a large archaeology museum noted ‘as I went through your questionnaire, I realized that throughout the museum there are large numbers of objects connected with children and childhood, but I doubt if anyone other than our Education Officer has given this much thought’ (Brookshaw 2010: 227). One example that does highlight the changing attitudes of archaeologists and museum staff to the archaeology of children is the case of Yewden Roman villa in Hambleden (Buckinghamshire). First excavated in 1912 by Alfred Heneage Cocks, one of the most striking finds in an otherwise largely unremarkable Romano-British villa site was the discovery of 97 apparently newborn infants buried separately from the older children and adults in the community (Baxter 2005: 98). In the excavator’s own words, ‘the ground, roughly speaking throughout the northern half, was littered with babies. They numbered 97 and most of them are newly born . . . As nothing marked the position of these tiny graves, a second little corpse was sometimes deposited on one already in occupation of a spot’ (Heneage Cocks 1921, quoted in Scott 1999: 110). Heneage Cocks and later writers pointed to shame, illegitimacy, and infanticide as the cause of these deaths (Scott 1999: 110), which may have influenced their later treatment. Work following up on these finds in the mid-2000s discovered that the excavated material from Yewden had been passed on to local museums; while the adult remains had all been placed into documented storage and had therefore survived, the infant bones had apparently at some point either been declined or disposed of, and no records were kept about them (Gowland, pers. comm.).1 At the time, it was considered that this was an example of museum workers considering the remains of children to hold less significance than those of adults (Brookshaw 2010: 216), but an unexpected find in the late 2000s by staff at the Buckinghamshire County Museum has since revealed that the infant bones do still exist and some survive in good condition. Heneage Cocks, an unusually meticulous recorder for his time, had packaged the bones in cigar and gun cartridge boxes, and ‘squirreled them away’ (BBC 2010) from the other Hambleden finds, devoting only a remarkably short section to these infants in his report. In more recent work conducted between 2008 and 2011 (Eyers 2011), these remains are a key theme in site interpretation, with much greater attention paid to them than in the earlier report. This example illustrates the link between children in the distant past, archaeologists, and museums. Children in the distant past can only be included in and presented as part of museum displays if their presence is acknowledged by both archaeologists and
694 Sharon Brookshaw curators. For archaeologists, an understanding of children as active participants in the material record will enable a greater understanding and enriched interpretations of archaeological deposits (Baxter 2005: 10). For curators, the inclusion of children within museum displays helps exhibitions walk the fine line between something they are familiar with (everyone is or was a child) and something challenging (how different things were for children in the past). Museums therefore act not only as a repository of materials to be studied via their collections, but also can interpret and exhibit these materials in their galleries, acting as a means of education and information about children in the past.
Presenting the archaeological child in museums The appearance of the child from the more distant past in museum displays is often fleeting. The British Museum’s multiple Ancient Greece & Rome galleries, for example, have just one small case labelled ‘childhood’, displaying objects connected with the traditional view of children as associated with education and toys (Harlow 2013: 154). The Museum of London’s ‘Medieval London’ displays have, amongst other items, a pair of child-size bone ice skates, which also form part of online learning resources aimed at children to help them consider what life might have been like for their counterparts in the twelfth century. In other cases, where material culture that can be readily associated with children is lacking, reconstructed games have been included for visitors to play (such as at Chedworth Roman Villa in Gloucestershire), although the association of such activities with children is not as clear-cut as in the modern world, and the inclusion of such items may invoke a more generalized leisure time than specifically children’s experience; something more for than of children. There have been, however, some notable examples where children from the more distant past have appeared in museums. Between November 2003 and January 2006, a special touring exhibition entitled Buried Treasure brought the child from the distant past into museums displays in a small but fascinating way. Buried Treasure was a celebration of items found outside formal archaeological excavation by amateurs, enthusiasts, and members of the public; it was assembled by the British Museum and after an initial four months on show in London, it visited the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff, the Manchester Museum, the Hancock Museum in Newcastle upon Tyne, and Norwich Castle Museum. Within Buried Treasure was an installation entitled Toys Were Us, a selection of ‘toys, miniatures and trifles’ (Hobbs 2003: 120) dating mostly to between the sixteenth and mid-eighteenth centuries, but with the earliest examples going back to around 1250. These artefacts had been found preserved in the thick mud flanking the River Thames in London by local metal detector enthusiasts, the Thames Mudlarks. These items, made mostly of pewter, had survived in the anaerobic conditions of the mud in often remarkable condition; they
Presenting Children from the Distant Past in Museums 695 consisted of household miniatures such as jugs, cooking pots, and furniture (presumed to be part of doll houses), toy guns and cannons (some of which could actually have been fired), as well as male and female figures dressed in the latest fashions. These objects (part of the collection later described in comprehensive depth in Forsyth and Egan 2005) are a fascinating window into the lives of some children from the past and the world they lived in, but also have wider implications—many of the full sized versions of these objects have not survived in the material record, and because the miniatures were modelled directly on them, they stand as vital social and historical documents in their own right. The objects were a revelation in understanding children’s experience in the post-medieval and particularly the medieval world: ‘for many years, social historians thought that this was a time of little enjoyment for children, particularly in terms of toys . . . [these] discoveries in London completely reversed this view and demonstrated once again how new discoveries . . . can completely change our perception of the past’ (Hobbs 2003: 118). Interestingly, this is therefore a rare example where the material culture of children has been used to make inferences about the adult world rather than vice versa. One of the most intriguing examples of the presentation of the archaeological child comes in a very literal form. In the Alexander Keiller Museum in Avebury (Wiltshire), is displayed the complete skeleton of a child aged three to four years, nicknamed ‘Charlie’. Charlie was found in a ditch at the nearby Neolithic site of Windmill Hill by amateur archaeologist Keiller in the 1928–9 excavation season, and has been displayed in Avebury for around 50 years. Exhibiting such remains in museums could be interpreted as a morbid and inappropriate way of including children in exhibitions, and may cause some ethical debates to surface that could discourage curators from going down this route. Indeed, Charlie was the subject of a reburial request from the Council of British Druid Orders in 2006, which, in accordance with Department for Media, Culture, and Sport guidelines, went out to public consultation in 2009 (English Heritage 2009). English Heritage and the National Trust, which jointly manage the Avebury site, ultimately refused the request and opted to retain Charlie on display. One of the key reasons for this decision was the result of a survey of public opinion, which indicated that 91 per cent of respondents agreed that museums should be allowed to display human remains (English Heritage 2009). The remains of Charlie are also considered by staff to be the most popular display in the museum because s/he ‘acted as an emotional handle to help bridge the gap of 5,000 years between the builders of the monument and the modern museum visitor’ (Stone 1994: 200). Charlie helped turn the past from something that exists only in textbooks and school lessons to something that really happened—especially for children who could understand seeing another child somehow like them. This finding was reiterated in the results of an unpublished survey conducted by the museum’s curator— who found that visitor opinions were strongly in favour of retaining the skeleton on display, with the interest of children in a child from the past being repeatedly cited as justification (Cleal, pers. comm.).2 Interestingly, Griggs and Hays-Jackson (1983) found that the general public widely associated archaeology museums with education and
696 Sharon Brookshaw needing background knowledge before visiting, and considered them particularly unsuitable for children, a view that was still evidenced in work by Nick Merriman in 2000 (Merriman 2000: 101). The inclusion of a child in the Alexander Killer Museum displays seems to have had quite an impact in mitigating this effect and underlines the value of including children from the distant past. In another example, a combination of fictional characters and a selection of artefacts from multiple sites were used to recreate the life of an Anglo-Saxon family in Sutton Hoo’s temporary People of Sutton Hoo exhibition between March and October 2011. In this case, the mother Mildrith and her two children, young son Esi and older daughter Ricula, were the guides around the domestic and familial early medieval world. This form of interpretation, while based around imaginary characters rather than real people who populated Sutton Hoo, aimed to create a display that would appeal to the emotions of visitors. Research at the site has shown that many visitors do not engage well with the more scholarly information panels presented in parts of the permanent display (Wainwright 2011: 3) and this approach was a deliberate attempt to overcome this barrier. It has been demonstrated that people who are rare museum visitors do not lack a sense of the past, but rather that they much prefer finding out about it using home-based methods (such as television) rather than museum displays (Merriman 2000: 120–1). The People of Sutton Hoo exhibition attempted to engage the emotions of visitors in building their sense of the past at this site by using an imaginative fictional thread combined with genuine period material culture from across East Anglia and Kent. Objects can be a powerful vehicle for experiencing a sense of the past and engaging the visitor’s imagination (Merriman 2000: 122) and when presented in the context of a woman and children who could have existed—rather than objects with just descriptive labels—the artefacts presented have more context and can be argued thus to have greater potential to leave the visitor with a more complete sense of the Anglo-Saxon child and their family environment (Figure 37.1).
Conclusion Presenting the child from the distant past is a challenge for museums. It has been noted that over half the respondents to the curator survey considered that it was not feasible to mount displays or include themes about children in archaeological exhibitions. However, the examples used here, while inevitably selective, indicate that the archaeology of children and childhood can find a place in museums. In the examples given above, the museums in question have had objects relating to children to display, and where they have been scarce or disparate, their display has been enhanced using imaginative storytelling to fill in the gaps for visitors and by gathering objects from a variety of archaeological sites to present a greater context. For those without ready access to such (or sufficient) objects, other approaches, such as inclusion of children as part of interpretive artwork, images, and dioramas, may be sufficient to remind visitors of their presence. Visual imagery can act as a powerful interpretive device in the construction
Presenting Children from the Distant Past in Museums 697
Figure 37.1 People of Sutton Hoo. © Nigel Maslin/Sutton Hoo Society.
of knowledge and understanding in museums, especially for the more distant past that may feel otherwise unimaginable to visitors (Moser 1996: 83). While current representations of the child in museums are mostly limited to recent periods and exhibitions specifically about childhood, this chapter has shown that it is possible for museums concerned with the more distant past to include younger members of society in the interpretations of the past that they present to the public. Material objects do exist, albeit in small quantities; there is also evidence for museum staff recognizing the importance of children and for considering them to be of interest to visitors. As noted in the case of Charlie, including children can help bridge the gap between visitors—especially those who are still children themselves—and events that happened so long ago as to be otherwise almost incomprehensible. It has been argued for some time that ‘childhood history is a fundamental part of that [social history] and, therefore, a very important subject for our museums’ (Frostick 1989: 3). The same consideration should perhaps now be given to childhood archaeology as being a fundamental part of all archaeology.
698 Sharon Brookshaw
Notes 1. Dr Rebecca Gowland, Archaeologist, Cambridge University. Childhood and the Life Course in Archaeology, speaking at The Archaeology of Infancy and Childhood Conference, University of Kent, 7 May 2005. 2. Rosamund Cleal, Curator, Alexander Keiller Museum, April 2003.
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Presenting Children from the Distant Past in Museums 699 Lally, M. and Moore, A. (2011). (Re)Thinking the Little Ancestor: New Perspectives on the Archaeology of Infancy and Childhood. British Archaeological Reports International Series 2271. Oxford: Archaeopress. Merriman, N. (2000). Beyond the Glass Case: The Past, the Heritage and the Public. London: University College. Moore, J. and Scott, E. (eds) (1997). Invisible People and Processes: Writing Gender and Childhood into European Archaeology. London: Leicester University Press. Morris Hargreaves McIntyre (2006). Audience Digest: Why People Visit Museums and Galleries, and What Can Be Done to Attract them [online]. Available at: http://webarchive. nationalarchives.gov.uk/20120215211132/research.mla.gov.uk/evidence/documents/audience%20knowledge%20digest.pdf (accessed 16 August 2013). Moser, S. (1996). ‘Museums and the Construction of an Identity for Archaeology: Dioramas and the Presentation of Early Prehistoric Life’, in G. T. Denford (ed.), Representing Archaeology in Museums. Winchester: Society of Museum Archaeologists, 83–5. Museums Association (2010). Visitors Love Museums [online]. Available at: http://www. museumsassociation.org/campaigns/love-museums/facts-and-figures (accessed 13 February 2015). Oppenheim, A. N. (1992). Questionnaire Design, Interviewing, and Attitude Measurement. London: Continuum. Pascoe, C. (2013). ‘Putting Away the Things of Childhood: Museum Representations of Children’s Cultural Heritage’, in K. Darian-Smith and C. Pascoe (eds), Children, Childhood, and Cultural Heritage. London: Routledge, 209–21. Pearce, S. (1994). ‘Living With Things As They Are’. Museums Journal, 94/12: 15–16. Postman, N. (1994). The Disappearance of Childhood. New York, NY: Vintage. Roberts, S. (2006a). ‘Minor Concerns: Representations of Childhood in British Museums’. Museum and Society, 4/3: 152–65. Roberts, S. (2006b). Childhood Material Culture and Museum Representations. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Sandell, R. (2002). Museums, Society, Inequality. London: Routledge. Scott, E. (1999). The Archaeology of Infancy and Infant Death. British Archaeological Reports International Series 819. Oxford: Archaeopress. Shepherd, B. (2001). Imaging the Nation: The Representation of Childhood in Australian Museums. Unpublished paper given to the Museums Australia conference 2001, Canberra. Shorter, E. (1975). The Making of the Modern Family. London: Fontana. Sleight, S. (2013). ‘ “Let Children be Children”: The Place of Child Workers in Museum Exhibitions and the Landscapes of the Past’, in K. Darian-Smith and C. Pascoe (eds), Children, Childhood, and Cultural Heritage. London: Routledge, 126–43. Sofaer Derevenski, J. (1999). ‘Children in Archaeological Narrative’. Museum Archaeologists News, 28: 6–9. Sommerville, C. J. (1982). The Rise and Fall of Childhood. London: Sage. Stone, P. G. (1994). ‘The Re-display of the Alexander Keiller Museum, Avebury, and the National Curriculum in England’, in P. G. Stone and B. L. Molyneaux (eds), The Presented Past: Heritage, Museums and Education. London: Routledge, 190–205. Sutton-Smith, B. (1970). ‘Psychology of Children: The Triviality Barrier’. Western Folklore, 29: 1–8.
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author Index
Aamodt, C. 41 Abadia, M. 316 Abbo, J. 621 Abel, E. J. 230 Aberth, J. 676 Ablow, R. 469 Abrams, L. 423 Acsadi, G. T. F. 491 Adams, J. 243 Adams, P. 78 Adembri, B. 369 Adhémar, J. 598 Adkins, L. 276, 277, 279, 290 Adkins, R. 276, 277, 279, 290 Adorno, R. 582 Agarwal, S. 112 Ajmar-Wollheim, M. 681 Alarcón, E. 338, 346, 347 Alarcón Garcia, E. 6, 32, 44, 129, 339 Albertocchi, M. 654 Alcock, L. 180 Aldridge, R. B. 610 Aleshire, S. B. 364 Alexander, R. T. 130 Alexeeva, T. I. 324 Alfonso-Durruty 44 Alix, G. 155 Allain, J. 150, 156 Alland, A. 378 Allason-Jones, L. 170 Allegro, N. 524 Allen, C. J. 575, 583 Allen, R. 405, 413 Allison, P. M. 16, 20, 141 n.4, 166, 169–70, 171, 172, 173, 174, 231, 378, 380, 381 AlQahtani, S. J. 57, 60 Als, H. 317 Alt, K. W. 44, 492
Altermüller, H. 543 Aly, A. A. 455 Amedick, R. 153 Amir, L. H. 450 Amsterdam, B. 495 Ancona, G. 527 Anderson, A. S. 451 Anderson, B. 475 Anderson, T. 5, 59 Andò, V. 656 Andrushko, V. A. 582, 584 Angel, J. L. 531 Angel, L. 469 Anke, B. 486, 488, 489, 497 n.1 Anthony, D. W. 404, 513 Appadurai, A. 387 Appelt, M. 220 Arafat, K. 364 Aranda, G. 338, 344, 347 Aranda Jiménez, G. 6, 32, 44, 338, 343, 344, 346 Arcini, C. 255, 260 Ardeleanu-Jansen, A. 180, 187, 191 Ardren, T. 6, 41, 91 Argent, A. 234 Ariès, P. 3, 40, 41, 551, 590, 591, 596, 598, 601, 668 Aristotle 366 Armelagos, G. J. 5, 78, 113, 264, 266 Arnold, B. 454 Arnold, C. D. 95 Arnould, E. J. 141 n.4 Arriaga, F. P. J. D. 582 Asher-Greve, J. 540 Ashton, N. 131 Ashworth, A. 451 Aubert, M. 325 Aufderheide, A. C. 287, 469
702 author Index Aulus Gellius 149 Ayshford, D. 281, 283 Ayshford, P. 281, 283 Bäckström, Y. 20, 24, 252, 256, 257 Bacvarov, K. 6, 31, 44, 345, 652 Bader, N. O. 324 Badham, S. 601, 603 Baggieri, G. 469 Bagwell, E. 343 Bahn, P. G. 326 Baills, N. 157 Baines, J. 543 Bakeman, R. 318 Bakke, O. M. 596 Balbi De Caro, S. 656 Balderas, X. C. 94 Baltussen, H. 157 Bamforth, D. B. 223 Bandelier, A. 583 Banks, M. 634 Baratte, F. 559 Barber, C. G. 291 Barbera, M. 150 Barker, D. J. P. 104, 107, 111, 113 Barlow, E. 282 Barnes, E. 528 Barr, D. G. D. 78 Barry, H. 95–6 Bartelink, E. J. 453 Bartoloni, G. 653 Barton, C. P. 230 Bartucz, L. 488 Bar-Yosef, O. 317 Batey, C. 417, 418, 420, 421 Bath, A. H. 508 Batkin, M. 240 Baud, C.-A. 5, 255, 257, 453 Baugher, S. 230 Baxter, J. E. 6, 42, 44, 131, 140, 208, 299, 315, 316, 317, 342, 343, 391, 392, 687, 690, 693, 694 Baxter, P. T. W. 92 Beard, M. 379 Beaudry, M. C. 228, 300 Beaumont, J. 107, 113, 114, 453, 458, 510 Beaumont, L. A. 40, 44, 352, 355, 357, 363, 364, 540, 549, 652
Beaupré, G. S. 431 Beausang, E. 44, 340, 454 Becchi, E. 654 Becker, M. J. 92 Beegle, K. 137 Beilke-Voigt, I. 6 Beisaw, A. M. 230, 245 Bel, V. 150 Belcastro, M. G. 653 Bell, R. D. 240 Bello, S. M. 321, 324 Bender, D. R. 128, 141 n.4 Bendinelli, G. 561, 562 Benedettini, M. G. 652 Bengtsson Levin, M. 255, 258 Bennike, P. 76 Benson, E. P. 574, 579, 583 Bentley, S. 573, 583 Beňuš, R. 489 Beranová, M. 492 Bérard, R.-M. 525 Bereczki, Z. 497 n.1 Berget, A. G. 453 Berggrén, G. 260 Bergold, H. 252 Berk, L. E. 546 Berman, M. 387 Bernshtam, A. N. 485, 486 Bernstein, F. 174 Berrelleza, J. A. R. 94 Berridge, F. R. 78 Berry, J. 166, 380 Bertelsen, R. 43 Besom, T. 579, 582, 583 Bettinger, R. L. 430, 433 Bhattacharya, J. 317 Bianchi, R. S. 549 Biddle, M. 419, 668 Bieler, L. 613 Bierbrauer, V. 489 Binder, M. 488, 497 n.1 Binder, S. 543 Binford, L. R. 326 Binkley, D. A. 97 Binkley, T. 79 Bird, D. W. 429 Birk, S. 558, 559, 560, 562, 564, 565, 567, 568, 569
author Index 703 Birkby, W. 469 Birket-Smith, K. 217, 218 Black, S. 56, 57, 58, 59, 61, 62, 66, 254, 281, 282, 285, 288, 436 Blackwood, B. 493, 494 Blaizot, F. 155 Blanco-Freijeiro, A. 149 Blanton, R. E. 141 n.4 Blegen, C. 524, 530 Bliege Bird, R. 429 Blom, D. E. 25, 28, 483, 494, 509, 575, 577–8 Bluebond-Langner, M. 207, 208 Blumberg, H. E. 280 Boardman, J. 543 Boas, F. 217, 218, 222 Boatwright, M. T. 154 Bobou, O. 22, 355, 359, 360, 363, 364, 369 Bock, J. 90, 95, 429 Bocquet-Appel, J.-P. 130 Bodson, L. 172, 383 Boev, P. 489 Bogin, B. 90, 282 Bohman, S. 255 Boivin, N. 130 Bojanic, I. 285 Bokovenko, N. A. 486 Bolen, K. M. 340, 454 Bolger, D. 43, 46 Bolin, I. 575, 583 Bombi, A. S. 377 Bóna, I. 488 Bondiolo, L. 180 Bonghi Jovino, M. 653 Bonnichsen, R. 4, 6, 43 Bonomi, S. 653 Bonsall, L. 64 Boo, K. 207 Bookidis, N. 363, 364 Boquet-Appel, J.-R. 326 Borg, B. 369, 561, 562 Borić, D. 495 Bornstein, M. H. 317 Borrman, H. 266 Boston, C. V. 20, 24, 278, 279, 280, 283, 286, 288, 289, 292 Bourbou, C. 531, 533 Bourdieu, P. 339
Bourdillon, M. 140 Bourget, S. 576, 583 Bovini, G. 558, 568, 569 Bowlby, J. 319, 320 Boyd, R. 430 Boyer, P. 198 Boyle, A. 469, 471, 472, 476 Boymel Kampen, N. 369 Brace, C. L. 197–8 Brack, A. 544 Bradford, C. A. 597, 599 Bradley, K. R. 152, 166, 167, 168, 382 Bradley, R. 644 Bradney, M. 79, 430 Brandenburg, H. 558, 568, 569 Brasili, P. 155 Brasilli, P. 469 Brather, S. 497 n.1 Bray, D. 493 Bray, T. L. 583 Bretherton, I. 319 Brettell, R. 508 Breward, S. 448 Brickley, M. 73, 74, 76, 78, 79, 80, 281, 285, 452, 471, 472, 473 Briers, P. J. 78 Briggs, J. 217 Bright, J. 675 Brighton, S. A. 229, 240, 302, 305, 309, 406, 408, 411, 412 Brink, S. 414 Briz i Godino, I. 127, 128–9 Brockliss, L. 40, 539 Brogdon, B. 476 Broise, H. 533 Brooks, A. 244 Brooks, S. T. 281 Brookshaw, S. 31, 690, 691–3 Brosseder, U. 486 Brothwell, D. 469 Brovarski, E. 548 Brown, K. 302 Brown, K. H. 448, 451, 453 Brown, P. E. 681 Brown, T. A. 453 Browne, D. M. 577 Bruce, M. 672
704 author Index Brumfiel, E. M. 124, 141 n.4 Brunner-Traut, E. 543 Bruyère, B. 543 Buchet, L. 488 Buchli, V. 400 Buchner, G. 525 Buckberry, J. L. 5, 10, 11–12, 61, 62, 64, 281, 453 Budd, P. 263, 507, 509 Budin, S. L. 46 Bugarin, F. T. 134, 135, 137 Bugos, P. E. Jr. 94 Buikstra, J. E. 27, 56, 60, 61, 436, 473, 474, 526, 578 Bulman, J. S. 81 Bunge, S. A. 318 Burmeister, S. 404, 410 Burrow, J. A. 596 Burr-Thompson, D. 360 Burström, B. 258 Burton, M. L. 137 Busby, A. M. 430 Bustamante, A. H. 389 Butt, A. 92 Butzer, K. W. 326 Buzilhova, A. P. 316 Bynum, C. W. 603 Caffel, C. 243 Caffell, A. 475 Calandre, E. 369 Callow, C. 420 Calvert, K. 207 Camacho, A. 404 Cameron, S. L. 448, 451 Camp, S. L. 229 Campbell, B. 263 Canesssa, A. 575 Cantoni, G. 654, 657 Cantwell, A. M. 198 Capasso, L. 152, 287, 288 Capel, A. K. 543 Caporusso, D. 661 Cardini, L. 322, 323 Cardoso, H. F. V. 63, 72, 78, 78 Carè, B. 653, 654 Carlson, K. J. 430 Carrasco, C. 338
Carroll, M. 16, 21, 108, 148, 150, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 379, 467 Carter, D. R. 5, 431 Caruso, E. 528 Casella, E. C. 405, 412 Casimir, M. J. 91 Cassella, E. 300, 301, 302, 303, 308, 309 Castle, S. 451 Cato the Elder 166, 169 Cavallari, F. S. 527, 528, 530 Cavalli-Sforza, L. L. 94 Cavill, I. 469 Cébeillac-Gervasoni, M. 526 Cecil, R. 108, 109 Centurion, J. 579 Ceresa Mori, A. 662 Cerulli, E. 91 Ceruti, C. 582 Ceruti, M. C. 582 Cessford, C. 16, 19–20, 234, 240, 242, 300, 407 Chaki-Sircar, M. 93 Chamberlain, A. T. 64, 108, 109, 130, 156, 281, 315, 317, 458, 467, 527, 614 Channing, J. 612 Chapman, J. 115 Chase, G. H. 170 Chenery, C. A. 415, 458, 507, 508, 509, 510, 511, 512, 513 Cherryson, A. 242–3 Chesterfield, R. 94 Chethik, M. 319 Chiesa, F. 652 Childs, G. M. 91 Chochol, J. 491 Chudacoff, H. P. 198, 202, 203–4, 205, 208, 317 Churchill, S.E. 430, 435 Cicero 149, 157 Cichero, J. A. Y. 448 Clark, G. 675 Clarke, J. 165, 174 Clarke, R. 243 Clarren, S. 475 Classen, C. 634 Cleal, R. 695 Clinton, K. 365, 369, 370 Clottes, J. 326 Clough, S. 469, 471, 472, 476
author Index 705 Coates, M. M. 449, 452 Codreanu-Windauer, S. 489 Cohen, A. 6, 652 Cole, M. 317 Collins, J. 634 Colls, K. 243 Columella 158 Conceição, E. L. N. 63, 72 Conheeney, J. 472 Conkey, M. 43, 315–16 Conklin, B. A. 91 Connah, G. 244 Cook, A. G. 574, 576, 579 Cook, D. C. 76, 77 Cool, H. 170 Cooney, J. B. 21, 22, 216, 315, 319, 32, 322, 323, 324, 327, 328 Cooper, D. M. L. 79 Cooper, K. 676 Cope, D. J. 155 Coqueugniot, H. 317 Corbin, J. E. 207, 208 Cordero, R. M. 430 Cordioli, A. 377 Corish, P. J. 615 Corthals, A. 584 Cortopassi, R. 150 Cosçkunsu, G. 6 Couillloud, M.-Th. 360 Coulon, G. 44 Counts, D. A. 454 Course, M. 573 Couture, D. E. 492 Couture, N. C. 577, 578 Covato, C. 654 Cowgill, L. W. 430, 431, 440 Cox, M. 56, 65, 281, 284, 285, 457 Coysh, A. W. 235, 237 Craig, O. E. 156 Crandal, J. J. 44 Crawford, S. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 13, 14, 15, 17, 30, 31, 40, 43, 44, 45, 46, 57, 95, 131, 219, 229, 230, 235, 245, 316, 320, 416, 457, 458, 631, 636, 638, 649, 652, 671, 678 Crewe, V. A. 21, 230, 240, 300, 301, 303, 305, 306, 307, 308, 309, 407, 408, Crombie, D. 611, 620
Crook, P. 240 Crossland, Z. 242–3 Crossman, K. 457 Crosson, D. 687 Croucher, S. 300, 301, 302, 303, 308, 309 Crown, P. 7, 95, 343 Crubézy, E. 483, 489 Crumplin, M. 291 Cruse, K. 5 Cucina, A. 469 Culin, S. 394 Cunnar, G. 7, 32 Cunningham, D. L. 430 Cunningham, H. 298, 301, 307, 309, 636, 691 Cuozzo, M. 653 Curl, J. S. 615 Curo, M. 579 Czyzewski, D. I. 448, 450 D’Agostino, B. 652, 652 Dakaris, S. L. 365 Dales, G. F. 180, 182, 189, 190 Dalland, M. 418 Daltabuit, M. 91 Danby, P. M. 493, 494 Danielson, J. J. 487 Darian-Smith, K. 44 Darling, W. G. 507, 508 Dasen, V. 148, 150, 151, 152, 165, 652 Daux, V. 508 Davey Smith, G. 106, 111, 112 Davies, N. de G. 540, 542, 545 Davies, P. 245 Davies, T. G. 436 Dawe, B. 343 De Cazanova, O. 152 De Landa, D. 493 De Lucia, K. 131, 135 De Marchi, M. 661 De Mause, L. 688 De Miguel, M. P. 341 De Rossi, G. B. 559, 563 De Vito, C. 5 Deacon, H. J. 434 Deacon, J. 434 Dean, C. 574 Deetz, J. 379
706 author Index Dehejia, R. H. 137 Deichmann, F. W. 558, 568, 569 Delaney, F. 612, 613 Delgado, B. 654 Della Corte, M. 382 Dellborg, H. 266 Demars, P.-Y. 326 Demirjian, A. 59 Denis, F. 682 Dennehy, E. A. 611, 620, 624 Denoyelle, M. 352 Derks, T. 152 D’Errico, F. 320, 322, 324 Derriks, C. 541 Descatoire, C. 677 Descoedres, J.-P. 171, 378 Despinis, G. 369 Dettwyler, K. A. 94, 448, 451 Deutsch, S. 396 Dewar, G. 433 DeWitte, S. 454, 458 Deyts, S. 158 Di Leo, J. H. 377 Di Stefano, G. 654 Diaconu, G. 486 Diani, M. G. 655, 658 Dickens, C. 297 Dickey, K. 525, 526, 532 Dimas, S. 559, 564, 565, 568 Dingwall, E. J. 483, 497 n.1 Dionisotti, A. C. 381 Dittmann, K. 458 Dixon, S. 149, 165, 166 Domett, K. M. 76 Dommasnes, L. H. 6, 44 Donald, A. J. 279, 280 Donnan, C. B. 576 Donnelly, C. J. 21, 29, 609, 611, 612, 613, 615–16, 618, 620, 621, 624 Donnelly, Rev K. 620 Donnelly, S. 611, 620 Donnet-Hughes, A. 448 Donovan, S. M. 449, 450 Dorman, P. F. 549 Doro Garetto, T. 524, 526 Douglass, J. G. 128, 141 n.4 Dove, M. 603
Downey, D. M. 616, 617 Downey, L. 608, 609, 611 Downing, E. 632 Draper, J. 105, 108, 110 Draper, P. 98, 435 Dresken-Weiland, J. 558, 561, 562 Drew, R. 288 Drinkall, G. 457 Driver, M. W. 677 Dubois, C. 6, 525, 653 Duday, H. 106, 155, 525 Dugstad, S. A. 7, 95 Duhig, C. 475 Dumond, D. E. 214 Dunbabin, K. 168 Duncan, W. N. 493, 494 Duncan-Jones, R. 157 Dunn, P. M. 455 Dunwell, A. 420 Duplouy, A. 365 Dupras, T. L. 152, 155, 455 Düring, B. S. 16, 129 During, E. 287 Duviols, P. 579 Dyer, G. J. 616, 617 Eckardt, H. 510 Edmondson, J. 157, 455 Edvinsson, R. 258, 263 Edwards, C. A. 448 Edwards, E. 633 Eeckhout, P. 579 Eerkens, J. W. 453 Egan, G. 4, 6, 591, 668, 671, 695 Egan, J. A. 137 Egan, O. 611, 612 Egmond, F. 254 Eiselt, B. S. 18, 23, 390, 395 Elamin, F. 59, 63, 66 Elder, G. H. 105, 106, 107 Elia, D. 653 Elipoulos, C. 470 Ellmoos, P. 240 Enchev, Y. 489 Engelbertsson, B. 257, 258, 263 Equiano, O. 279 Érdy, M. 486
author Index 707 Eremita, M. S. 660 Ericksen, M. F. 284 Evans Grubbs, J. 148 Evans, J. A. 24–5, 266, 404, 507, 508, 509, 511, 512, 513, 514, 515 Evans, S. P. 64 Eveleth, P. B. 62, 71, 72, 96 Ewald, B. C. 557, 564, 565, 567, 568, 570 Eyers, J. 64, 109, 467, 693 Fabbri, P. F. 529 Fabian, S. M. 92 Facchini, F. 155, 469 Faerman, M. 5, 6, 66, 467 Fagan, G. G. 381, 382 Fahlander, F. 44, 46, 141 n.2, 251 Fairgrieve, S. I. 153, 155, 455 Fanning, E. A. 59, 263, 281 Fanning, T. 611 Farwell, D. 471, 475, 476 Fass, P. 40, 41 Fauduet, I. 150, 156 Faux, J. L. 582 Favorinus 149 Fazekas, I. 64 Fecher, R. 172 Feister, L. M. 230 Feldesman, M. R. 74 Fenton, T. 469 Fentress, M. 180 Feraudi-Gruénais, F. 561, 562 Ferber, E. 155 Ferembach, D. 281 Ferencz, S. 488 Ferguson, J. R. 95, 132 Ferrer, E. 318 Ferrier, A. 229 Feucht, E. 539, 545, 549, 551 Février, P.-A. 156 Field, H. 485 Fildes, V. 455, 457 Finke, L. A. 677 Finlay, N. 7, 104, 108, 223, 343, 611 Finneiser, K. 150 Fiocchi Nicolai, V. 562 Fiorio, M. T. 654, 655
Fischer, J. 366 Fischler, S. 108 Fittà, M. 150 Fitts, R. 198, 240, 299, 302, 307, 406, 408 FitzGerald, C. 155 Fitzgerald, R. M. 72, 73 Fitzpatrick, A. P. 508, 509, 511, 512, 513 FitzSimmons, E. 493, 494 Fjellström, M. 267 Fleming, D. 688 Fletcher, P. 228 Floud, R. 282, 283 Fluck, C. 150, 371 Fogel, M. 341, 452 Folbre, N. 138 Foley, C. 608, 613 Foley, H. 357 Foreman, H. 457 Forgey, K. 577 Formicola, V. 316, 322, 430 Fors, C. 137 Forsyth, H. 6, 591, 695 Fortes, M. 317 Fosha, R. E. 413 Foster , C. P. 141 n.4 Foster, J. L. 540 Fóthi, E. 489 Fouts, H. N. 93 Fowler, C. 114–15 Fox, S. 524, 526 Foy, T. M. 448, 450 Foyster, E. 228 Frank, R. 389 Franke-Vogt, U. 180 Frankius, M. 252 Freed, R. E. 540, 547 Freke, D. 420, 422 Fremont-Barnes, G. 276 Friedl, E. 94, 95 Friesen, H. 452 Frost, G. 298 Frost, J. L. 319 Frostick, E. 697 Fry, S. L. 614 Fulford, M. 172 Fuller, B. T. 82, 341, 453, 456 Fulminante, F. 341, 455, 492
708 author Index Gaither, C. 579 Gaius 153 Galanidou, N. 44 Galen 455 Gallazzi, C. 150 Gallimore, R. 90, 92 Gallou, C. 348 Gambier, D. 321, 324 Gamble, C. 42 García y García, L. 382 Garcia, E. 396 García, R. 577 Garcia, S. 76, 78 Gardiner, A. H. 549 Gardner, P. 633, 634, 635 Gargano, E. 228 Garn, S. M. 11, 56, 58, 59, 63, 66, 72, 78, 79 Garnsey, P. 155 Garofalo, E. 74, 83 Garratt, C. 387 Garwood, P. 420 Gaskins, S. 90, 95 Gatti, R. 137 Gazda, E. 369 Geber, J. 290 Geertz, H. 92 Geisler, H. 489, 491, 495 Gejval, N.-G. 257 Geller, P. L. 494 George, F. W. 65 George, M. 153, 173 Gercke, P. 360 Gero, J. M. 43 Gertsman, E. 676 Gesch, D. B. 487 Getz, L. M. 396, 398 Gibb, J. G. 230 Giddens, A. 387 Gilad, J. 451 Gilchrist, R. 41, 43, 43, 106, 342, 672, 679, 680, 681 Giles, M. 454 Gillespie, A. 643, 647 Gillespie, R. 619 Ginzburg, V. V. 485 Giostra, C. 488, 491 Gish, C. 206
Glaser, F. 488 Gläser, M. 6, 669, 671 Glencross, B. 112, 290 Gluckman, P. D. 111 Goergen, T. 476 Goette, H. R. 364 Goettel Cole, S. 370 Golden, M. 43, 155, 352 Goldstein, R. C. 59, 128 Gómez-Carballa, A. 584 Gonlin, N. 128, 141 n.4 González, N. 389 González Moráles, M. R. 316 González-Ruibal, A. 400, 401 Goodey, C. 475 Goodich, M. E. 679 Goodman, A. H. 5, 77, 78, 264, 266 Gordon, C. C. 27, 526 Gordon, J. 474 Gorer, G. 91, 92 Gosso, Y. 94 Gottlieb, A. 92, 108 Gourevitch, D. 155 Gowland, R. 10, 14, 42, 57, 64, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 155, 156, 256, 281, 317, 320, 420, 457, 467, 469, 472, 524, 693 Gradish, S. 276 Graepler, D. 653 Graesch, A. P. 141 n.3 Graham, E. J. 148, 152 Graham, M. A. 575 Graham-Campbell, J. 420, 421 Gras, M. 533 Gräslund 4, 43 Grasso, L. 654 Gravel-Miguel, C. 320 Greenfield, P. 7, 319 Greenhill, F. A. 593 Greenwood, R. S. 414 Gregory, A. 282, 283 Gregory, J. 676 Griffin, J. E. 65 Griffith, F. L. 547 Griggs, H. 302, 408 Griggs, S. A. 695–6 Grimm, L. 7, 132, 223, 343 Grindal, B. T. 94
author Index 709 Grine, F. E. 430 Groënen, M. 326 Grove, M. A. 7, 12, 13, 14, 90, 91, 94, 126 Groves, S. E. 512, 513 Grubbs, J. A. 675 Grupe, G. 458, 492 Guaman Poma de Ayala, F. 574, 582 Guemple, L. 216, 218 Guéry, R. 156 Guimier-Sorbets, A. M. 6 Gulløv, H. C. 220 Gunz, P. 317 Guss, D. M. 96 Guthrie, R. D. 316 Guy, H. 5, 255, 257, 453 Gyulai, F. 492 Haapasalo, H. 431 Hadji-Minaglou, G. 150 Hadley, D. M. 6, 13, 15, 16, 18, 21, 23, 24, 31, 46, 230, 240, 299, 300, 301, 303, 307, 309, 414, 415, 416, 505, 512, 513, 515, 689 Haffner, A. 150 Hafner, A. 132 Hagberg, L. 260 Hager, L. D. 431 Hakenbeck, S. 24, 484, 491, 492, 495, 497 n.1 Halcrow, S. E. 42, 317, 320 Hales, S. 165 Hall, B. 289–90 Hall, M. A. 30–1, 668, 672, 675, 676, 677, 679, 682 Hallam, E. 109 Haller, T. 137 Hallett, C. H. 367 Hames, R. 98 Hamilton, R. 357 Hamlin, A. 608, 613 Hamlin, C. 454, 457, 467 Hammel, E. A. 127, 128, 141 n.4 Hammond, G. 4, 43 Hammond , N. 4, 43 Hanawalt, B. 668, 677 Hanel, N. 173 Hannan, J. 621 Hänninen, M.-L. 152 Hansen, A. 416
Hanson, A. E. 151 Hanson, J. 17 Hanson, M. A. 111 Harb, P. 132 Hare, A. M. 326 Harlan, D. 632, 633, 635, 640 Harlow, M. 106, 148, 166, 167, 169, 546, 692, 694 Harrington, L. 22, 24, 433, 434 Harrington, N. 27, 541, 542, 543, 545, 547, 550 Harris, O. 575, 576 Harris, O J. T. 495 Harris, P. L. 318 Harris, R. 688 Harrison, E. 370 Harrison, R. 400 Harrison, S. 421 Haselgrove, C. 454 Hassan, N. A.-M. 66 Hatzisteliou-Price, T. 359 Haverkort, C. M. 433 Hawass, Z. 543, 544, 545, 547 Haydock, H. 458 Haydock, N. 676, 682 Hays-Gilpin, K. 43 Hays-Jackson, K. 695–6 Hazard, B. 618 Heaney, C. 617 Heath, A-L. M. 448, 451 Hector, M. P. 57, 60 Hedenborg, S. 251 Heikel, H. J. 485 Heinicke, C. M. 319 Helander, B. 91 Helmecke, G. 371 Helmuth, H. 489, 491, 492 Hemer, K. A. 6, 24–5, 31, 46, 266, 404, 414, 415, 416, 417, 418, 419, 506, 509, 512, 513, 515, 687 Hemingway, S. 367 Heneage Cocks, A. 693 Hendon, J. A. 131, 141 n.4 Henneberg, M. 6, 65 Henry, J. 207 Henrywood, R. K. 235, 237 Herdt, G. 96 Hermary, A. 6, 525, 653 Hernando Gonzalo, A. 340
710 author Index Herring, D. A. 152, 452 Herschkowitz, N. 317 Hershkowitz, L. 206 Hertzman, C. 104, 110, 111 Hewlett, B. S. 94 Heywood, C. 3, 94 Hicks, D. 228 Hill, Rev G. 619 Hill, K. 94 Hill, K. R. 316 Hillier, B. 17 Hillson, S. 58, 59, 60, 66, 263, 506, 507, 530 Himes, J. H. 78, 79 Hindman, S. 683 Hložek, M. 7, 131 Hobbs, R. 694, 695 Hobbs, S. 124 Hockey, J. 105, 107, 108, 109, 110 Hofling, C. A. 493, 494 Högberg, A. 7, 32, 45, 132, 223, 343 Högberg, U. 258 Holden, L. H. 548 Holliday, T. W. 317 Holloway, A. 579 Holmes, M. A. 74, 83 Hölschen, B. 155 Holst, M. 475, 476 Holt, B. M. 429, 430 Homman, L. 251 Honigmann, J. 216, 218 Hooker, V. 389, 398 Hoorweg, J. 78 Hopkins, E. 228 Hopkins, K. 155 Hoppa, R. 5, 63, 64 Hoppa, R. D. 72, 73, 81 Horner, V. 318 Horstwood, M. 514 Houby-Nielsen, S. 533–4 Howard, A. 96 Howarth, G. 109 Howcroft, R. 44, 251, 454 Howe, I. 197, 206, 207 Howell, N. 97, 435 Howson, J. 199 Hrdy, S. B. 92, 316 Huck, T. 489
Hug, B. 126 Huijsmans, R. 404 Hull, B. D. 457, 458 Hult, M. 251 Hummert, J. R. 78 Humphrey, L. T. 65, 72, 73, 74, 76, 81, 82, 282 Humphries, J. 228, 298, 299, 310 Hunt, E. E. 59, 263, 281 Hunt, M. E. V. 97 Hunt, S. 105, 106 Huntley, K. V. 16, 22, 174, 380, 381, 382, 383 Hurl, D. P. 624 Hurley, V. 611 Hurtado, A. M. 95 Huskinson, J. 22, 27–8, 43, 153, 369, 382, 557, 559, 560, 561, 562, 564, 565, 567, 568, 570 Huss-Ashmore, R. 78 Iacovella, A. 530 Iannacone, A. 559, 562 Ingle, M. 199 Ingvarsson-Sundstrom, A. 20, 23–4, 252, 257 Inhelder, B. 377 Iregren, E. 251 Isbell, B. J. 576 Iscan, M. Y. 281 Ivanišević, V. 487 Ives, R. 73, 74, 76, 78, 79, 80, 285, 452, 471, 472, 473 Izquierdo, C. 93, 141 n.3 Jaeggi, S. 455 Jakob, T. 76 James, A. 105, 107, 317, 545 Janik, L. 320 Jankauskas, R. 75 Janot, F. 539 Jansen, M. 180 Janssen, J. J. 545, 546 Janssen, R. 545, 546 Jansson, A. 252 Jansson, K. 252 Janusek, J. W. 577, 578 Jashemski, W. 172 Jay, M. 81, 341, 452, 454 Jefferies, H. 619 Jeffries, N. 230, 240, 242, 244
author Index 711 Jenks, C. 125 Jenner, A. 230, 235, 240 Jenness, D. 217, 218, 219–20 Jerardino, A. 434 Jesch, J. 421, 423 Jiménez-Brobeil, S. 341 Johansen, L. 132 Johnsen, B. 3, 5, 43, 251 Johnson, E. E. 72, 73 Johnson, M. 3, 298 Johnston, F. E. 4 Jones, M. 454 Jonsson, K. 252 Jordanova, L. 688 Joyce, R. A. 496 Julia, D. 654 Juvenal 154 Kagen, J. 317 Kahila, G. 156 Kahsnitz, R. 604 Kaibel, G. 155 Kaltsas, N. 352, 360, 363 Kamp, K. A. 26, 44, 95, 124, 126, 131, 267, 315, 316, 343, 505, 689 Kampen, N. B. 567 Kampp, F. 550 Kantirea, M. 369 Kaplan, H. 137 Karapaschalidou, A. 360 Karl, R. 454 Karskens, G. 240, 299, 300, 303, 305, 308, 405, 407, 408 Katajala-Peltoma, S. 545 Katzenberg, M. A. 152, 266, 433, 452, 453 Kaufman, S. R. 108 Kazanski, M. 487 Keenleyside, A. 469 Keil, F. C. 318 Keller, H. 93, 319 Kellogg, R. 377, 379 Kelly, R. 315, 319, 326 Kemkes-Grottenthaler, A. 44 Kennedy, G. E. 316 Kennedy, K. 287, 288 Kenoyer, J. M. 179, 180, 182, 189, 190 Kenyon, D. 95
Kershaw, R. 405 Ketz, K. A. 230 Key, E. 40 Keynes, S. 416 Khan, K. M. 431 Khodjaiov, T. K. 485, 497 n.1 Khoroshev, A. S. 6, 671 Killgrove, K. 455 Kinaston, R. L. 453 King, A. 383 King, J. 451 King, J. A. 128, 130 King, P. 254 King, S. E. 82 Kingston, B. 409 Kirby, P. 254, 298, 299 Kirkpatrick, J. 93 Kiszely, I. 497 n.1 Kiszely-Hankó, I. 489 Kjellström, A. 255, 266 Kjølbye-Biddle, B. 419 Klarich, E. 577 Klaus, H. D. 573, 579, 583, 584 Klein, W. 141 n.3 Kluckhohn, C. C. 91 Klute, G. 137, 138 Knudson, K. J. 106, 112, 575, 577, 578, 584 Knüsel, C. J. 106, 112, 285, 286, 475 Knutsson, K. 4 Koch, G. 559, 564 Kohut, B. M. 545 Koloski-Ostrow, A. O. 379 Konikoff, A. 558 Konner, M. 318 Konsmar, A. 252 Kontulainen, S. 431 Kósa, F. 64 Kovács, G. 129, 130 Králik, M. 7, 131 Kramer, K. L. 136–7 Kramer, S. N. 97 Kransdorf, M. 470 Krause, J.-U. 155 Kreeb, M. 366 Krieger, N. 106 Kroeber, A. L. 577 Kuzawa, C. W. 104, 112
712 author Index La Barre, W. 574, 583 La Fontaine, J. 97 Łabno, J. 598 Lacovara, P. 549 Lactantius 169 Ladd, G. W. 319 Ladd, J. D. 279, 280 Laes, C. 41, 148, 149, 152, 157, 155, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 175, 475 Lagia, A. 470, 526, 528, 529, 533 Lally, M. 6, 44, 689 Lalonde, S. 612 Lambrugo, C. 6, 30, 31, 525, 653, 654, 661, 662, 687, 688 Lampard, S. 229, 244, 299, 300, 301, 303, 304, 307, 308, 405, 406, 408, 409, 410 Lampl, M. 4 Lancaster, J. B. 95 Lancy, D. F. 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 42, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 97, 126, 137, 495, 496 Landecker, H. 111, 112 Lane, P. J. 137 Langdon, S. 352 Langner, M. 383 Lanza, M. 522 Lapidge, M. 416 Larsen, C. S. 72, 76, 77, 264, 266 Larsen, J. 634, 635 Larsson, D. 255, 258, 260, 263 Laslett, P. 128, 141 n.4 Laubenheimer, F. 155 Laurence, R. 106, 148, 166, 167, 169 Lavalette, M. 124 Lavery, B, 277, 279 Laville, H. 326 Lawrence, S. 125, 300, 303, 305, 405, 408 Lawson, J. 469 Lawton, C. 95 Lăzărescu, V.-A. 488 Lazer, E. 170 Le Mort, F. 321, 324 Leach, E. 124, 173 Leach, S. 472 Leatherman, C. 413 Leavitt, S. C. 91, 97 Lebegyev, J. 345, 346, 348 Lee, M. M. 352
Lee, P. C. 451 Lee, R. B. 435 Leenen, B. 671, 679 Lee-Thorp, J. A. 508, 510 Legge, S. 82 Lehane, J. 613 Leighton, D. 91 Leijonhufvud, L. 258, 263 Leitz, C. 549 Lengyel, I. 488 Leone, M. 298, 308, 309, 654 Lepowsky, M. A. 92, 94 Lessa, W. A. 95 Levy, R. 105, 107 Lewis-Simpson, S. 39, 44 Lewis, A. B. 72 Lewis, C. 5, 6, 8, 11, 20, 40, 41, 44, 56, 58, 63, 66, 219, 672, 678, 681 Lewis, M. E. 24, 72, 76, 78, 82–3, 92, 107, 114, 251, 257, 264, 266, 284, 452, 457, 491, 467, 469, 470, 471, 472, 473, 474, 476, 477, 491, 523, 526, 527, 528, 671 Liamputtong, P. 448, 451 Lichtheim, M. 543, 545 Liebel, M. 124, 136, 138, 140 Lieberman, D. E. 431 Lietava, J. 489 Lieverse, A. R. 433, 434, 435 Lilibaki-Akamati, M. 363 Lillehammer, G. 4, 6, 11, 42, 43, 44, 179, 315, 316, 342, 545 Lima, T. A. 229, 230 Lindauer, O. 231 Linderholm, A. 267 Lindholm, C. 94 Linehan, C. 138, 139 Ling, R. 382 Lingström, P. 266 Link, D. W. 433 Lippolis, E. 653 Lissarrague, F. 369 Liston, M. A. 528, 530, 531 Liverani, P. 567 Liversidge, H. 4, 57, 59, 60, 63, 66, 436 Lobell, J. A. 579 Lock, M. M. 106 Loe, L. 286, 287
author Index 713 Löhr, C. 365 Lohrke, B. 6, 43 Long, S. 677 Loras-Duclaux, I. 457 Lorblanchet, M. 326 Lorencová, A. 488, 497 n.1 Loridant, F. 149 Losert, H. 495 Losey, R. J. 433 Loth, S. 6, 65, 281 Lötscher, C. 132 Lovejoy, C. O. 28 Lovell, N. C. 453 Low, F. M. 111 Lozada Cerna, M. C. 574 Lucas, G. 229, 243, 400 Lucchese, C. 653 Lucretius 166, 168 Lucy, S. 4, 320, 457, 539 Luiselli, M. M. 540 Lull, V. 346 Lupton, A. 104, 108, 109, 110 Lutz, C. 634 Lyons, D. E. 318 Ma, J. 365, 369 McAlister, D. 6 McAuley, E. 624 McCarthy, J. 300, 408, 410 McCarthy, L. M. 94 MacClancy, J. 451 McClelland, D. 576 MacCormack, S. 579, 670 McDade, T. W. 452 MacDonald, D. N. 548 MacDonald, H. M. 79 MacDonald, J. 282, 284 Macellari, R. 654, 657 McEvo, M. Y. 670 McEwan, C. 579–81 McGhee, R. 220, 221 McGuigan, N. 318 Machaira, V. 360 Macintosh, A. A. 429 Mackay, E. J. H. 17, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 189, 190, 191–2 McKay, H. A. 79, 431
McKechnie, J. 124 MacKelvie, K. J. 431 Mackinder, A. 471 McKinley, J. 281 MacKinnon, M. 383 MacLeod, N. 65 McLeod, S. 415 Macmillan, R. 107, 109 MacNamara, G. 610 McNickle, C. 206 Macpherson, P. 458, 512, 513 Madella, M. 141 n.4 Maggi, S. 658–9 Maggiano, I. S. 429 Maguire, M. T. A. 621 Maher, V. 448, 449, 451 Malaby, T. M. 388 Malacrino, C. 653 Malek, J. 545 Malgosa, A. 340 Malina, R. M. 430 Mallegni, F. 469 Manacorda, D. 652 Manchester, K. 672 Mander, J. 148, 154, 157, 158 Manniche, L. 548 Manolis, S. 470 Manzanilla, L. 577 Manzi, G. 469 Maqbool, A. 447 Marciniak, A. 16, 129 Marcsik, A. 497 n.1 Maresh, M. 63, 74, 82, 263, 281 Maretzki, H. 93, 94 Maretzki, T. W. 93, 94 Markova, G. 447 Marlow, C. A. 155 Marmot, M. 113 Marshall, V. W. 105 Marshall, A. 539, 546, 547, 548 Marshall, J. 17, 179, 180, 181, 183, 191, 192 Marshall, M. 326 Marshall, P. 130 Marten, A. 228 Martin, G. T. 540 Martini, M. 93 Martin-Kilcher, S. 170, 379
714 author Index Masali, M. 524, 526 Masciadri, M. M. 152 Masnicová, S. 489 Masset, C. 5, 130, 255, 257, 453 Massler, M. 60 Masters, W. M. 92 Mastykova, A. 487 Mathers, R. 624 Mathiassen, T. 219 Matthews, C. N. 208 Matthews, W. 130 Mattingly, D. 455 Mau, M. 379 Maulucci Vivolo, F. P. 379 Maxwell, M. S. 216 May, S. 320 Mayblin, M. 573 Mayne, A. 300 Mays, S. 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 42, 58, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 73, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, 80, 82, 109, 156, 263, 264, 288, 341, 453, 467, 471, 476, 515, 526 Mazarakis Ainian, A. 532 Mazzoni, P. 654, 657 Mead, M. 90, 93 Meadow, R. H. 180 Meadows, M. E. 434 Meigs, S. A. 618 Meinecke, K. 561 Meirano, V. 653 Meiser, U. 138 Mejsholm, L. 44, 251 Melida, J. R. 357 Melikian, M. 457 Mellars, P. 326 Mellor, M. 7 Mendoza, I. 260 Menna, F. 488, 497 n.1 Menon, J. 179, 189 Mensforth, R. P. 76–7 Merchant, V. I. 81 Merker, G. 363, 364 Merriman, N. 696 Merten, S. 137 Meskell, L. 320 Messina, E. 527, 529 Messineo, G. 150 Mesterházy, K. 488
Metzger, C. 559 Metzger, I. R. 363 Meurman, R. 252 Michalaki-Kollia, M. 530, 534 Mikalson, J. D. 371 Mikić, Ž. 488, 494 Milek, K. B. 130 Miles, A. E. W. 81 Miles, E. 545 Mileusnić, M. 263 Millard, A. 263, 454, 455, 457, 467 Millet, M. 109 Milne, S. B. 223 Milward, A. J. 546 Miriţoiu, N. 486, 487, 488, 497 n.1 Mirsky, C. L. 4 Mispelaere, J. 20, 24, 251, 254, 260 Mizoguchi, K. 420 Möbius, H. 360, 368 Modica, S. 653 Moehling, C. 298, 299 Moen, P. 105 Molina González, F. 343 Molleson, T. 5, 436, 471, 475, 476 Mols, S. T. A. M. 378 Molto, J. E. 155 Monroe, R. L. 137 Montelius, S. 252 Montevecchi, O. 152 Montgomery, H. 8, 40, 42, 539 Montgomery, J. 113, 507, 508, 509, 514, 515 Montón Subias, S. 338, 346 Mooder, K. P. 436 Moore, A. 104, 109, 689 Moore, J. 6, 26, 43, 44, 131, 315, 689 Moore, K. 267, 475 Moore, M. J. 450 Moore, S. 230 Moorrees, C. F. A. 59, 263, 281 Moran, L. 451 Mordvintseva, V. 497 n.1 Morgan, C. 532 Morgan, L. M. 91, 108 Morgan, N. 603 Morganstern, A. M. 593 Mori, A. C. 6 Morizot, Y. 6
author Index 715 Morley, I. 45 Moro Abadía, O. 316 Morphy, H. 634 Morris, A. G. 435 Morris, I. 5, 523 Morrison, W. 46, 230 Morton, H. 95 Moschonissioti, S. 530 Moscone, S. R. 450 Moser, S. 697 Moussa, A. M. 543, 546, 547 Mousseau, P. 220, 221, 222 Muggia, A. 653, 654 Mughal, R. 180 Mukherjee, P. 317 Müldner, G. 266, 510 Mullins, P. R. 4 Munroe, R. H. 137 Murdoch, B. E. 448 Murphy, E. M. 8, 21, 29, 44, 109, 290, 611, 612, 613, 614, 615–6, 618, 620, 622, 624, 625 Murray, E. V. 612 Murray, T. 229, 240, 300 Musco, S. 559, 562 Musgrave, J. H. 64 Muskett, G. 346 Mussi, M. 322 Mustakallio, K. 41 Myers, S. 404 Mygland, S. S. 6, 44, 668–9 Myres, J. L. 19, 633, 634–5, 637–8, 639, 643, 644 Næss, J.-R. 43 Nag, M. 94, 95 Nagy, S. 488 Nájera, T. 341, 343, 345 Nash, D. J. 141 n.4 Nehlich, O. 456 Neils, J. 6, 357, 359, 360, 652 Nelson, A. J. 97 Nelson, J. L. 492 Nemeskéri, J. 491 Nenna, M.-D. 6 Nerlove, S. B. 95 Nero, K. L. 137 Netting, R. M. 141 n.4
Newell, P. 280 Newman, S. L. 112, 113, 115 Nicholaisen, I. 91 Nicholas, S. 283 Nielsen, M. 318 Nieuwenhuys, O. 135, 136, 137 Niwayama, G. 286 Nizzo, V. 653 Nogales Basarrate, T. 157 Nomokonova, T. 433 Norberg, P. 253 Nordahl, E. 252 Nordlund, J. 257 Nostrand, R. L. 396 Novak, M. 469 Nowell, G. 514 Nyberg, J. 260 Oakley, J. H. 6, 355, 356, 357, 359, 360, 365, 652 Oberly, J. 77 Obermeyer, C. M. 451 Obladen, M. 483, 493 O’Brien, T. G. 483 Ochs, E. 92, 93 Ockinga, B. 543 O’Connell, E. 371 O’Connell, T. C. 457, 458 O’Connor, T. 616 O’Connor, K. 319 O’Donnell, E. 340 O’Donovan, J. 615 Ódor, J. G. 488, 494 Ó Floinn, R. 421 O’Hare, E. D. 318 O’Hare, P. 611 Öhnegård, V. 252 Okazaki, K. 76 Olesky, V. 230 Olivieri, N. 470 Olsen, B. 46 Olsen, I. E. 447 Ondine-Pache, C. 363 O’Neill, J. R. 513 O’Neill, M. C. 436 Onsten-Molander, A. 252, 257 Oosterwijk, S. 28–9, 592, 593, 598, 599, 601, 602, 603, 604
716 author Index Oppenheim, A. N. 691–2 Orme, N. 41, 591, 614, 668, 674 Orr, D. 172 Orsi, P. 522, 527, 528, 530 Orta, A. 576 Ortalli, J. 653 Ortner, D. J. 5, 284, 471 Osipov, B. 24, 430 Osmond, C. 113 Österberg, E. 251 Ó Súilleabháin, S. 608, 611, 612 O’Sullivan, M. 608, 609, 611 Ottenberg, S. 96 Owen, O. 418 Owens, A. 300 Owens, L. S. 579 Owings, C. 476 Owsley, D. W. 341, 452 Oxenham, M. 469 Pachis, P. 371 Packer, M. 317 Page-Phillips, J. 492, 593, 604 Pagnin, A. 656 Paine, R. 469 Palagia, O. 365 Palmer, H. 524, 530 Palmowski, J. 635 Panayotova, K. 469 Panofsky, A. 111, 112 Panter-Brick, C. 124, 135, 138, 139 Panvini, R. 653 Pap, I. 488, 494 Papadopoulos, J. K. 528 Papini, M. 652 Párducz, M. 488 Parfitt, S. A. 321, 324 Park, R. W. 4, 19, 214, 216, 219, 220, 221, 222, 224, 317, 321 Parker, B. J. 141 n.4 Parker-Pearson, M. 123, 130, 527 Parkin, T. 148, 165, 174, 523–4 Parkinson, R. B. 549 Parrett, A. M. 448 Pascoe, C. 44, 689, 690 Pate, D. F. 510 Paterson, C. 417, 418, 421
Paulus 156 Pautasso, A. 654 Pearce, S. 687 Pearson, H. 469 Pearson, M. 4 Pearson, O. M. 430 Pecina, M. 285 Peck, J. J. 454 Peers, C. 601 Peet, R. C. 94, 95 Pelagatti, P. 522 Pellegrini, M. 508 Peniston, S. 493, 494 Perry, M. A. 320 Persaud, T. 475 Peterson, B. E. J. 546 Petrakos, V. C. 364, 365 Petrie, W. M. F. 543 Pettersson, O. 263 Pettitt, P. 320, 321, 322, 323, 324, 325 Pfeiffer, S. 433, 434, 435, 441, 442 Pfuhl, E. 360, 368 Phang, S. E. 168 Philips, C. 472 Phillips, K. M. 604 Philpott, R. 467, 472 Piaget, J. 377 Pietsch, R. 277, 278, 279, 290 Pike, A. W. 325 Pilet, C. 489 Pinch, G. 543, 545 Pingle, P. 192 Pinhasi, R. 74, 76, 77, 80, 81 Pinkwart, D. 363 Pinter-Bellows, S. 472 Pinto, G. 377 Piper, C. 483 Pitman, T. 449 Pliny the Elder 152, 156, 167, 168 Plutarch 154, 155, 156, 166, 169 Pogačnik, T. 488 Polak, B. 136 Politis, G. 342–3 Pollard, A. M. 508 Poltis, G. G. 95 Pomadere, M. 341 Pope, R. 454
author Index 717 Pope-Edwards, C. 95 Popovitch, F. 59 Portale, C. 653 Porter, J. 229 Powell, L. A. 455 Prader, A. 78, 79 Praetzellis, A. 299, 302, 304, 307, 408, 409, 414 Praetzellis, M. 299, 302, 304, 307, 408, 409, 414 Prangnell, J. 229, 298, 300, 309, 405, 408, 410 Prapamontol, T. 262 Preda, C. 487 Price, N. 414 Price, S. 369 Privat, K. L. 457, 458 Prosser, L. 229 Prost, J. H. 493, 494 Prostov, E. 485 Proulx, D. A. 5 Prout, A. 317 Prowse, T. L. 155, 455, 511 Pugh, T. 682 Quintilian 168 Quirk, K. 229, 298, 300, 309, 405, 408, 410 Race, L. 475 Raftopoulou, E. 360 Rakita, G. F. M. 574 Ralston, I. 454 Randall, L. M. C. 591 Randolph-Quinney, P. 612 Rastelli, E. 155, 469 Rathje, W. L. 141 n.4 Ratnagar, S. 179 Raum, O. F. 96 Ravelli, A. C. J. 111 Rawson, B. 41, 44, 148, 153, 157, 158, 165, 166, 167, 169, 455, 477 Ray, S. 677 Razhev, D. 485, 486 Razy, É. 91 Read, M. 94 Reckner, P. E. 411, 412 Reddy, V. 447 Redfern, R. C. 24, 107, 108, 109, 114, 155, 156, 454, 455, 456, 457, 467, 469, 476 Redmond, A. 404, 416, 513
Rega, E. 6, 320, 345 Reifel, R. S. 319 Reinhard, J. 582, 584 Renfrew, C. 45 Resnick, D. 286, 470, 476 Reynard, L. M. 453 Reynolds, P. 92, 136, 137 Ribeiro, E. R. 43 Ribot, I. 5, 80 Ricci, F. 469 Richards, C. 123 Richards, J. D. 415 Richards, M. P. 82, 266, 453, 454, 457, 458, 514, 510 Richerson, P. 430 Ridgway, D. 525, 529 Riel-Salvatore, J. 320 Rigaud, J.-P. 326 Riley, N. 235, 240, 305 Rimmer, J. 300 Rinaldi, M. R. 378 Riquier, S. 149 Rivera, R. A. 389 Robb, J. 107, 325, 495 Roberts, C. A. 5, 80, 284, 285, 457, 473, 474, 475, 476, 672 Roberts, S. 398, 688, 689, 690 Robin, C. 124, 128, 129, 135, 141 n.4 Robins, G. 542, 543, 549 Robledo, B. 469 Röder, B. 14, 15, 124, 134, 135, 136, 140 Rodger, N. A. M. 276, 277, 278, 279, 284 Rodrigues, C. 387 Rodriguez-Martin, C. 287, 469 Roebuck, C. 363 Roehrig, C. H. 543, 546 Rogersdotter, E. 18, 44, 179, 180, 182, 187, 188, 192 Rogoff, B. 136, 383, 458 Rohner, R. P. 93 Roksandic, M. 65 Romanowicz, P. 6, 31 Rösch, M. 492 Rose, C. 636, 638 Rose, J. C. 266 Rose, M. 475 Roseboom, T. J. 111 Rosenberg, B. G. 392
718 author Index Rosenfeld, A. 326 Rostroff, S. I. 530, 531 Roth, H. 491 Roth, U. 173 Rothenberg, B. 149 Rotherham, C. E. 278 Rotman, D. L. 231 Roud, S. 205 Rouquet, N. 149, 455 Rouse, W. H. D. 364 Rousseau, J-J. 40 Roveland, B. 131, 326 Rowe, J. H. 574, 579, 583 Ruddle, K. 94 Ruff, C. B. 72, 74, 79, 83, 317, 429, 430, 431, 436, 437 Russell, B. 560 Russmann, E. R. 550 Rutsch, E. S. 199 Rutter, J. B. 6, 652 Rynne, E. 612 Sabetai, V. 359 Sackett, J. 326 Sacks, J. 405 Salamon, Á. 488 Salé, P. 149 Salibra, R. 522 Saller, R. 157 Salvadei, L. 469 Samiei, S. 643 Sánchez, G. I. 396 Sánchez Romero, M. 4, 6, 21–2, 31, 44, 129, 338, 339, 340, 342, 343, 345, 346, 347, 348 Sandberg, P. A. 453 Sandell, R. 688 Sanjek, R. 128 Santistevan, C. 389, 398 Santos, A. L. 473 Santos, S. 598 Saunders, S. R. 4, 5, 59, 72, 73, 74, 152, 255, 452 Sauvageot, C. 598 Sawchuk, L. 290 Schaaf, L. J. 632 Schackel, P. A. 244 Schaefer, M. 61, 281, 282, 285, 436 Scheidel, W. 469
Scheper-Hughes, N. 106 Schettino, R. 529 Scheuer, L. 56, 57, 58, 59, 61, 62, 64, 66, 254, 281, 282, 285, 436 Schieffelin, B. B. 92 Schiffrin, E. J. 448 Schillaci, M. A. 63, 65, 74, 80 Schlebusch, C. M. 435 Schlegel, A. 95–6 Schleuder, R. 489 Schliz, A. 485 Schmidt, A. J. 230 Schmidt, B. 489 Schneider, H. D. 545 Schoeninger, M. J. 266, 267, 510 Schofield, J. 400 Schoske, S. 550 Schott, S. 541 Schour, I. 60 Schultz, M. 266 Schulz, F. 152 Schulze, B. 153 Schurr, M. R. 4, 452 Schutkowski,H. 5, 65, 458 Schwarcz, H. P. 152, 266, 455, 508, 510 Schwartzman, H. B. 124 Schweder, B. 488 Schweissing, M. M. 492 Schwidetsky, L. 281 Scilabra, C. 653 Sciulli, P. W. 77 Scott, E. 6, 43, 26, 131, 315, 523, 526, 691, 693 Scott, P. 228 Scrimshaw, N. 474 Sealy, J. 266, 434 Sear, F. 171, 378 Sears, E. 596 Seidel, M. 541, 547, 548 Seifert, D. J. 230 Sellen, D. W. 94, 448, 450, 451 Sellevold, B. 5 Semeraro, A. 654 Seneca 168, 651 Šereikienė, I. 75 Seruya, M. 484, 492 Shackel, P. 298, 300, 309 Shackelford. L. L. 430
author Index 719 Shah, P. S. 448 Shahar, S. 668 Sham Poo, K. H. 42 Shapiro, A. 360 Shapland, F. 82–3 Sharapova, S. 485, 486 Sharpe, K. 326, 328 Sharpe, P. 299, 309 Shaw, B. 155, 157 Shaw, C. N. 436, 439 Shaw, H. 456 Shaw, S. 240 Shea, J. J. 132 Shedid, A. G. 541, 547, 548 Sheehan, J. 611 Shennan, S. J. 95 Shepherd, B. 687, 688, 690 Shepherd, G. 6, 21, 26, 27, 31, 44, 316, 365, 522, 523, 525, 528, 533, 652 Shergold, P. R. 283 Sherman, J. 397 Shichtman, M. B. 677 Shilling, C. 106 Shimada, I. 579, 584 Shimmin, H. S. 137 Shingadia, D. 473 Shmerling, D. H. 78 Shorter, E. 688 Shortland, A. 280 Shuttleworth, S. 299 Shvedchikova, T. 497 n.1 Sichterman, H. 558, 564 Siddall, J. 230 Sigismund Neilsen, H. 168, 174 Sigurðsson, J. V. 40 Sillar, B. 583 Silliman, S. 298, 309 Silverblatt, L. 579 Silverman, H. 577 Simon, C. 497 n.1 Simonenko, A. 486 Simpson, L. 415 Sinn, F. 558, 564 Sinnott, C. 284, 290 Sjöberg, M. 251 Sköld, P. 258 Skov, H. 680
Šlaus, M. 469 Slavazzi, F. 6, 652 Sleight, S. 689 Sloane, B. 671 Slope, N. 278, 279, 284 Small, L. M. 681 Smith, B. H. 58, 59, 90, 436 Smith, H. 130 Smith, L. 636, 637, 640 Smith, P. 156 Smith, P. E. 132 Smith, R. R. R. 367 Smith, S.V. 7 Snow, D. R. 326 Söderberg, J. 258, 263 Sofaer, J. 105, 106, 107, 112, 495 Sofaer Derevenski, J. 6, 43, 46, 126, 131, 315, 316, 342, 454, 689 Soficaru, A. D. 487 Sole, L. 653 Somerville, C. J. 688 Somerville, K. 230 Sorabella, J. 382, 383 Soranus 104, 149, 150, 152, 153, 155, 156, 166, 167, 455 Soren, D. 469 Sørensen, M. 7, 43, 46 Sosa, T. S. 495 Soteriades, G. 530 Sourisseau, J.-C. 522, 525 South, T. J. 415 Souvatzi, S. G. 129, 141 n.4 Sparey-Green, C. 472 Späth, T. 148, 165 Specker, B. 79 Speed, G. 421 Speiser, C. 539, 549 Spencer-Wood, S. M. 124, 141 n.1 Spencer, P. 96 Spera, L. 564 Spinola, G. 567 Squillacciotti, M. 657 Stafford, P. 457 Stallings, V. A. 447 Stanfield, J. P. 78 Staniforth, M. 244, 405 Stanley, A. M. 483
720 author Index Stansell, C. 198 Stapert, D. 132, 223, 326 Steadman, S. R. 127, 128 Stearns, P. N. 42 Steele, J. 95 Steele, T. J. 389 Steinberg, M. E. 431 Steinbock, R. T. 285 Steinbok, P. 494 Steiner, L. 488, 497 n.1 Stephenson, C. B. 71 Sterling, C. 605 Sternke, F. 7, 46 Stevens, R. E. 454 Stewart, A. 367 Stieber, M. 348 Stinson, C. B. 71, 72 Stinson, S. 263 Stirland, A. J. 286, 287, 288 Stloukal, M. 281 Stock, J. T. 430, 434, 435, 436, 437, 441, 442 Stojanowski, C. M. 106, 112, 458 Stone, P. G. 695 Stones, M. A. 591 Stoodley, N. 6, 457, 513 Stortz, M. E. 596 Strathern, M. 114, 115 Straub, P. 488 Strauss, C. 90, 98 Stringer, C. B. 321, 324 Stroszeck, J. 525 Strouse, P. 476 Stuart-Macadam, P. L. 5, 448, 469 Styles, J. 675 Suchey, J. M. 66, 281 Suetonius 167, 168 Sugden, J. M. 434 Sulosky Weaver, C. 522–3, 524, 526 Sundick, R. I. 73, 81, 264 Sundin, J. 258 Sutherland, L. D. 66 Sutherland, P. D. 220, 221 Sutter, R. C. 65, 584 Sutton-Smith, B. 392, 688 Svoboda, J. 321 Swadesh, F. L. 389, 394
Sweeney, D. 540 Swenson, E. R. 574 Swift, M. G. 97 Swinton, G. 220 Symonds, L. 422 Syson, L. 682 Szécsényi-Nagy, A. 497 n.1 Tacitus 167, 168 Taçon, P. S. 220 Tagesson, G. 260 Tait, C. 614 Takaishi, M. 73 Talbot, J. C. 508 Tamura, Y. 472 Tanner, J. D. 599 Tanner, J. M. 62, 71, 72, 73, 75, 79, 96 Tanner, L. E. 601 Tarlow, S. 8, 230, 242–3 Tassie, G. J. 543 Tawfik, Z. 152 Tayles, N. 42, 317, 320 Taylor, A. 156 Taylor, C. 474 Taylor, M. 138, 139 Taylor, R. W. 448, 451 Taylor, W. E. 220 Tejral, J. 495 Temkin, O. 471 Temple, D. H. 76, 433 Tesch, S. 266 Thayer, Z. M. 104, 112 Themelis, P. G. 364, 365, 531, 533 Theune, C. 491 Thomas, K. 124 Thomas, R. B. 91 Thompson, E. 298, 309 Thompson, J. F. 42, 44, 59 Thompson, J. L. 97 Thompson, T. J. U. 107, 115 Tibullus 167 Tiesler, V. 483, 493, 494, 495 Tillier, A. M 155 Tinsley, D. F. 3 Tobias, B. 488, 497 n.1 Tobin, V. A. 371
author Index 721 Tocheri, M. W. 155, 455 Todd, M. 676 Todisco, L. 653 Tomaselli, K. 318 Tomasello, M. 318 Tong, S. 262 Torres, L. 398 Torres-Rouff, C. 483, 485, 494 Tosi, M. 180 Toumis, S. 79 Toyne, J. M. 579, 583 Trancho, G. 469 Trania, C. L. H. 596 Treggiari, S. 157 Trevathon, W. R. 447, 448 Tréziny, H. 533 Trillmich, W. 157 Tringham, R. E. 128, 130, 135, 141 n.4 Trinkaus, E. 79, 316, 317, 320, 429, 430 Tristant, Y. 539 Tritsaroli, P. 489 Trofimova, T. A. 486 Tronick, E. Z. 91 Trotter, T. 277–8, 281, 290 Troy, C. 614 Trueta, J. 431 Tschopik, J. H. 576 Tsutaya, T. 452, 453 Tuffreau-Libre, M. 150, 156 Tung, T. A. 578, 583–4 Turner, B. L. 579, 584 Turner, D. M. 93 Tuross, N. 341, 452, 453 Turov, M. 435 Tykot, R. 455 Tylor, J. J. 547 Ubelaker, D. H. 56, 60, 61, 81, 436 Ucko, P. J. 326 Ulijaszek, S. J. 82 Ulivieri, S. 654 Ulmschneider, K. 30, 631, 638, 649 Ulpian 153, 156, 157, 166, 167, 173 Urban, G. 180 Urbanová, P. 7, 131
Urry, J. 634 Uzzi, J. D. 148 Valladas, H. 326 Vallois, H. 325 van Andringa, W. 156 van Belle, R. 604 van Berg, P.-L. 132 van de Guchte, M. 579, 582 van der Meulen, J. H. P. 111 van Driel Murray, C. 172 van Gelder, L. 326, 327, 328 van Hoorn, G. 357 Vandier d’Abbadie, J. 541, 543, 544, 548 Vanhaeren, M. 320, 322 Varma, S. 17, 30, 179, 189 Vassallo, S. 529 Vats, M. S. 17, 179, 180, 181–2, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 189, 190, 191, 192 Veale, A. 138, 139 Vecchi, L. 658 Verano, J. W. 574, 576, 577, 579, 583, 584 Vergo, P. 687, 691 Vermeer, A. C. 228 Vertut, J. 326 Vicente, D. J. 44 Vida, T. 495 Vidale, M. 180 Virgil 168, 174 Vitry, C. 582 Vlachou, V. 524, 525, 531, 532 Vlak, D. 65 von Harnack, G. A. 79 von Lenhossék, J. 484–5 von Schirnding, Y. E. 262 von Schönberger, H. 173 von Tschudi, J. 485 Voss, B. L. 405, 413 Vretemark, M. 266 Vuolanto, V. 545, 674 Wachter, K. 282, 283 Wagley, C. 96 Wainwright, A. 696 Waldron, T. 457 Walker, A. 79
722 author Index Walker, P. 265, 469 Walker, S. 558, 565 Walker, W. A. 448 Wall, C. E. 82 Wall, D. D. 198, 203, 208 Wallace-Hadrill, A. F. 165, 172, 174, 376, 378, 380 Wallot, S. 447 Walls, T. 473 Walsh, M. 610 Walters, E. J. 370 Walters, H. B. 354 Walton-Rogers, P. 421 Want, S. C. 318 Ward, B. E. 96 Wardle, D. 198 Wardle, K. A. 198 Warntjes, I. 597 Watanabe, H. 435 Waterman, D. 612 Waters, E. 319 Waters-Rist, A. L. 433 Watson-Franke, M. B. 95, 96 Watts, I. 234–5, 237, 240, 241 Watts, R. 113, 265, 266 Weaver, I. C. G. 111 Weber, A. W. 433 Wedd, K. 675 Weigle, M. 396 Weisl, A. J. 682 Weisner, T. S. 90, 92 Weiss, F. 134, 138 Welch, K. 382 Welinder, S. 5, 44, 43, 251 Wenger, M. 94 Wente, E. F. 545, 548 Werner, J. 485, 486, 488, 489, 497 n.1 West, D. 449 West, S. 230 Westcott, D. J. 430 Weston, D. A. 285 Whale, S. 548, 549 Wheeler, R. E. M. 180 Wheeler, S. M. 156 White, B. N. F. 94, 95 White, C. 300 White, D. 433
White, H. 689 Whitehouse, R. H. 73 Whitelock, D. 416, 419 Whiten, A. 318 Whiting, B. B. 93, 94 Whitley, D. S. 43 Whitmarsh, T. 369 Whittaker, D. 58 Whittemore, R. D. 92, 93 Wiedemann, T. 165, 455 Wiessinger, D. 449 Wikström, A. 266 Wilcox, M. H. 280, 281 Wilczak, C. 287, 288 Wilczyński, J. 324 Wildung, D. 550 Wileman, J. 6, 44, 93, 149, 668, 690 Wilk, R. R. 141 n.4 Wilkie, L. 228, 229, 299, 300, 303, 308, 309, 315, 340 Wilkins, B. 612 Willemsen, A. 231, 591, 668, 670, 678, 680 Williams, B. 413 Williams, H. 8 Williams, S. R. 577 Williams, T. R. 95 Willner, A. 258 Wilson, A. S. 509, 583, 584 Wilson, J. 597 Wilson, J. D. 65 Wiltschke-Schrotta, K. 488, 497 n.1 Wimshurst, K. 298 Winter, F. 359 Wise, S. J. 364 Wittmers, L. E. 263 Wojnar-Johansson, M. 262 Wolf, L. 475 Wood, E. 243 Wood, J. W. 265, 339, 453 Woodard, E. 577 Woodburn, J. 109 Woodfield, C. 671 Wood-Martin, W. G. 610 Woodward, D. 396 Wortham, S. C. 319 Worthman, C. M. 452 Woywod, Rev S. 621 Wrigglesworth, M. 6, 44
author Index 723 Wright, A. P. M. 231 Wright, L. E. 451, 453, 508 Wright, R. K. 281 Wright, R. P. 179, 189 Wright, S. B. 318 Wurst, L. 298 Yablonsky, L. T. 485, 494 Yamin, R. 15, 18, 21, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 206, 229, 298, 299, 302, 303, 304, 305, 307, 308, 309, 310, 406, 408, 409 Yammine. K. 286 Yanagisako, S. J. 128, 141 n.4 y’Edynak, G. 73 Yoneda, M. 452, 453 Young, A. G. 318
Young, R. S. 524, 530 Youngs, D. 596 Zander, P. 567 Zanker, P. 564, 568 Zanoni, V. 653 Zaseckaja, I. P. 486 Zeitlin, M. 93 Zempleni-Rabain, J. 93 Zhirov, E. V. 485, 486 Zilhão, J. 316, 320, 324 Zillhardt, R. 546, 549 Zivie, A. P. 549 Zságer, L. Z. 221 Zucchi, V. 660 Zuidema, R. T. 579
Subject Index
Tables and figures are indicated by an italic t and f following the page number. ‘access analysis archaeology’ 17 Act for the Registration of Births and Deaths in Ireland (1863) 623 Act of Union (1800) 622 Act to amend the Burial Grounds (Ireland) Act (1856) 623 adolescence 13–14, 95–7, 98, 138, 677 boys, Greek world 360–3 burial rites 97 Chaga, Tanzania 96 definition (adolescent/young adult) 4 girls, Greek world 360, 363 medieval period 597, 604, 677 segregation 13–14 sexuality 96 workloads in households, pre-historic period 137 adoption 137, 405 adulthood stage 97–8 Adwick-le-Street burial, Yorkshire, England 421 Aeliola wrapped in swaddling clothes gravestone, Metz 158f Æthelhelm 416 Æthelred, Ealdorman of the Mercians 415 Aetius, Roman general 488 Afonso, son of João I 601, 602f age and ageing conceptualizations 105–7 and social identity 107 age cohorts 106 age of children at death 11–12, 25–9, 26f, 55–66 biological identity 55–6 bone length estimates 62f, 63, 63f bone size estimates 62f, 62–3, 63f, 67 n.1 from the dentition 57–60, 58f estimating age-at-death 56–7, 57t foetal and neonatal estimation from bone size 64
gender and epiphyseal fusions 60–1, 61f, 62 gender variations 56 skeletal development 60–4, 61f, 62f skeletal growth and genetic inheritance 62–3 socioeconomic status and biological age 56, 59 standards of dental development 59 Ages of Man, medieval concept 596–8, 597f, 679 aiora (‘swing’) ritual, ancient Greece 359 Aka Pygmy children 94 Akhenaten 540 Alaska 213, 214 Alderley Sandhills, England 301, 303 Alexander Keiller Museum, Avebury, England 695–6 Alfred, King of Wessex 415, 416 allomothers and alloparents 93 Alphonso, son of Edward I 599 Altenerding cemetery, Straubing, Germany 491 Amele people, Papua New Guinea 496 American War of Independence (1775–83) 276 Amphiaraos Sanctuary, Oropos, Greece 364 anaemia 25, 155, 265 ancient Greece 524 Roman Britain 468–71 Anatolia (Central), Early Neolithic sites 129 Anchoress (1993 film) 674, 675 Andes, ancient, and child sacrifice 26, 573–84 ‘capacocha’ Incan ritual 26, 28, 509, 579–82, 580f ‘child’ definitions 575–6 Chimu culture 578f, 579 ‘dedicatory burials’ 573 DNA studies 584
726 subject Index Andes, ancient, and child sacrifice (cont.) Early Intermediate Period, Peruvian coast 576–7, 577f historical overview 576–82, 577f, 578f Inca age grades (‘calles’/paths of life) 574t–5t, 574–6 Incas 578f, 579–82, 580f isotopic data 583–4 key approaches and theoretical questions 582–4, 581f Late Intermediate Period (LIP) 578f, 578–81 Late Preceramic (5000–2800) and child sacrifice 576 Moche practice and art 576, 579, 581 Nasca sites 576–7, 577f osteological evidence and taphonomical studies 583 ‘retainer burials’ 579 Sicán/Lambayeque culture 578f, 578–9 trauma analysis 583 ‘trophies’ and trophy heads 573, 576–7, 578 war captives 573, 576 Andrei Roublev (1966 film) 674, 676, 678 androgen 65 Anglo-American War (1812–14) 276 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 415–16 Anglo-Saxon England 24, 415–16 feeding infants 457–8 settlements and women’s weaving areas 14 wet nurses 457 Annawadi slum, Mumbai, India 207 Anthesteria festivals, ancient Greece 661, 661f, 662f Aphrodite 366 Apocalypse illustrations 603 apprenticeships, Roman world 168 Aquinas, St Thomas 596, 610, 616 Arachne 358 Arawe head binding, New Britain 493–4 archaeological record, children in the 4–6, 5f, 6f, 669 formation and children 7–10, 8f, 9f identification of archaeological material culture used/manufactured by 45–6, 219–223, 223–5 implications for 112–15 invisibility 505, 559, 649
archaeology of childhood, history of 38–47 archaeology of childhood, museums in Italy 652–4 childhood markers 653 guided tours and workshops 657–8 visits by contemporary children 656–60 Arctic Small Tool tradition 213–14 Ardreigh cillín, Kildare, Ireland 614 Arene Candide Epipalaeolithic burial site, Liguria, Italy 322–4, 323f Argaric pottery, Iberia 343 Argenton cemeteries, France 156 Arrington Bridge burials, Cambridgeshire, England 156 Artemis Lochia inscriptions 534 Artemis Orthia sanctuary, Messene, Greece 364 Ashmolean Library Lantern Slide collection, Oxford 633, 636, 637, 638, 639–49 Asklepieion, Messene, Greece 364 Asklepieion statue of a boy, Athens 355, 356f Astarte (goddess) 548 At Home in Renaissance Italy exhibition, Victoria & Albert Museum 680, 682 Athenian pelike (wine vessel), British Museum 355 Athens 360, 369, 533–4 Asklepieion statue of a boy 355, 356f cultural practices 370, 525 head of boy, Agora 370, 370f Hellenistic Well (G5:3), Agora 530–1, 532 Kerameikos cemetery 526 Plateia Kotzia cemetery 529 ‘Rich Athenian Lady’ burial 527–8 Sanctuary of Eileithyia statues 355 Attila 485 AufRuhr 1225! Ritter, Burgen and Intrigen Das Mittelalter an Rhein und Ruhr exhibition 679 Augustine, St 593–6, 610, 616, 617 Augustinian Order 616–18 Augustus’s (emperor) nursery 167 Aurignacian burials, Europe 324 Avar-period cemeteries 489 Aymara people, ‘child’ definitions 575, 576 Azande infants 92
subject index 727 baboons 548 babies see infants Bagasra, Harappan site 188 Bagisu brides, Uganda 97 Bakgalagadi girls, Botswana 95 Balinese infants, Indonesia 92 Ballinaby burial, Islay, Scotland 421, 422f Ballinlea Catholic Church, Northern Ireland 620–1, 621f balls, Harappan Civilization 184 Ballyhanna cillín, Donegal, Ireland 614 Ballykilmore cillín, Westmeath, Ireland 612 Balnakeil burial, Sutherland, Scotland 417f, 417–18 Baluchistan cranial modification 493 Bambimus Museum of Art, Siena, Italy 659–60 Bamburgh cemetery, Northumberland 512–13 Barbie toys 395f, 399 ‘Barker hypothesis’ 113–14 Barton-upon-Humber, England 82–3 Bayesian statistics 64 Bellerophon ship of the line, Royal Navy 278 Bene, Albert Gardener 244 Bengali girls 93 Berenike tomb enclosure, Egypt 365 Bergen excavation series, Norway 668–9, 678 Bergman, Ingmar 676 Berkeley, Sir Thomas and first wife effigy, Coberley, England 598–9, 599f Bes (god) 543 bilum, Papua New Guinea Highlands 13 birth and the external womb 91–2 Black Death 676–7 Black Death (2010 film) 676 Black Gate cemetery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England 458, 512–13 Black Knight (2001 film) 677, 679 blacking bottles 235 Blaess School, Michigan, North America 245 Blanche of the Tower 601 ‘Blue Horse’ rider, Aphrodisias 367 body, Western construct of 114–15 body ornaments 21 Boethos, sculptor 364 Bofi mothers weaning process 93 Bohun, Humphrey and Mary 601 Boleyn brass, Blickling, Norfolk, England 604
Bomarzo infant wearing an apotropaic necklace, Italy 151f bones long-bones divergence 73 nutrition and cortical thickness 78–9 ossification of 61–2 skeletal elements other than long-bones 81 see also long bones; osteology and osteoarchaeology Book of Days (1988 film) 677 Book of Hours of James IV of Scotland 670–1 Borgo Necropolis, Gela, Sicily 530 Borono people, Brazil 496 Boscombe Down burials, Wiltshire, England 508–9, 511–12 bowhead whales 215 boys at sea, British Royal Navy (late eighteenth–early nineteenth-century) 275–93 able seamen status 279 acetabular flange lesions 288, 289f age distribution in the Royal Navy 278t, 278–9 age estimation, growth and stature 281–4, 282t, 283f amputation 291–2, 292f battle injuries 290 ‘boys first class’/midshipmen 279 boys ‘second class’/‘third class’ 279 catch-up growth 282 cribra orbitalis 284 diet 282 evidence of strenuous early life physical activity 285–90, 286f, 287t, 288f, 289f evidence of stress in early life 284–5 fractures 290–1, 291f Greenwich pensioners 280, 290–1 hip injuries 287–8 historic overview 275–6 learning the ropes 277–280, 278 manning and recruitment of boys 276–7 marines 277, 283 os acromiale 285–6, 286f osteochondritis 286–7, 287t, 288f osteological analysis 280–92 osteological analysis, materials and methods 280–1
728 subject Index boys at sea, British Royal Navy (late eighteenth–early nineteenth-century) (cont.) periostitis 284, 285 porotic hyperostosis 284 powder monkeys 290 rickets 284, 285 scurvy 284, 285 ‘servant’ rating 279 shoulder injuries 286, 287t stunting causes 283–4 topmen 277 trauma and medical intervention 290–2, 291f, 292f vitamin D deficiency 285 Brace’s Children’s Aid Society, New York 206 Brave (2012 film) 680, 681 breast milk 448–51, 450t, 458–9 colostrum 448–9, 450t, 455 breastfeeding and weaning 24 Bofi mother’s weaning process 93 European Bronze Age 340–1 and growth patterns 81–2, 84 Iron Age to early Medieval period 448–9, 450t, 451 and oxygen isotope analysis 508 Roman Britain 455–6 Roman world 154f, 154–5, 166 US Children’s Bureau survey and infant mortality 451 weanling’s dilemma 452, 454 see also feeding infants, Iron Age to early medieval period breastfeeding goddesses 543 breastfeeding mother gravestone, Dunaújváros, Hungary 154f breastfeeding woman statuette, Nikauinpu tomb, Giza, Egypt 543, 544f breathing-hole sealing 215 bride-price/dowry 97 Bridgehead site, Minneapolis, USA 410 British Museum, Ancient Greece and Roman galleries, London 694 British Royal Navy cemeteries 20–1 Brocas brass, Sherborne St John, Hampshire, England 604
Bruno, Andrea 661 Buckinghamshire County Museum, England 693 bulla 169 Burgundians 488 burial rites and age 97, 107, 97, 156 Buried Treasure exhibition, UK 694–5 Cabezo Redondo burial, Villena, Spain 340 cages, toy, Harappan Civilization 183 California Gold Rush 412 Callatis Roman cemetery, Black Sea Coast 487 Cambridge, England see Victorian children (Cambridge, England), educating Campo Santo Teutonico sarcophagus, Vatican, Rome 560, 560f Canadian Rockies, abandoned campsites 7 Canon Law, Ireland 618, 620–1, 624 Canongate Bridge, Jedburgh, Scotland 642f, 642–3 ‘capacocha’ Incan ritual 26, 28, 509, 579–81, 580f Cape region, South Africa see Holocene foragers, reconstructing childhood activity; South African Cape regions, Late Stone Age capitalism 298 Caraka Samhita text 192 Caramoro Bronze Age site, Spain 341 carbon isotope analysis 113, 509–10 Carew brass, Beddington, Surrey, England 592 caribou 215, 217 Carpenter, Christine 674, 675 Carrickmore burial grounds, Tyrone, Ireland 613 Carrokeel cillín, Galway, Ireland 612–13 carts, Harappan Civilization 181–2, 188 casting sticks/balusters, Harappan Civilization 186, 188–9, 191–2 Castle Carra, Antrim, Ireland 624–5, 625f Castledyke grave, Lincolnshire, England 457 Catalogue of Lantern Slides to illustrate Fyffe’s History of Greece (Field) 635 Catholic emancipation (1829), Ireland 619, 623
subject index 729 Catholicism in Ireland 615–19, 623–4 cave art 21 Gargas, France 326 Homo neanderthalensis and 326 Rouffignac Cave flutings by adults and children, France 327f, 328 Centuries of Childhood (Ariès) 40, 590 Century of the Child, The (Key) 40 ceramics cups (abbeveratoi) 171 as emergency currency, Five Points, New York 408 feeding bottles, pre-history period 133f included with Victorian burials 242–3 moralizing, Victorian 305–7, 306f, 407 Cerro Cerrillos burial, Peru 579 Cerro de la Encina double infant tomb, Granada, Spain 342, 343, 344f, 346, 347f Cerro de las Viñas burial, Spain 340 Chaga adolescents, Tanzania 96 Chicano movement, US 398 child/infant definition of 4 child agency 7, 21, 545, 646 child labour 20, 45, 135–7, 140, 298, 410 Maya village study, Mexico 136–7 New York 207–8 Paradise, Queensland, Australia 410 prehistoric studies 135–7, 140 Swedish mining community (1500–1600) 257–8, 260–1 see also training children for work (nineteenth century), Britain, North America and Australia childbirth rooms, Roman world 166, 167 childcare by older children 135–6 childhood as an analytical category, prehistory period 125–6 conception of, Inuit society 216 culture acquisition and/or growth theory 42 defining 11–14 defining, Ancient Andes 575–6 ‘Edwardian nursery’ image of 688–9 ideas of 39–43 innocence 41 and learning 216–17
questioning the idea of 41 sentiment de l’enfance concept 3 as socialization 46 Childhood and play in the ancient world (‘L’infanzia e il gioco nel mondo antico’) exhibition, Milan 661–3, 663f children Aka Pygmies 94 ancient, in Milan exhibitions, Italy 660–3, 661f, 662f, 663f biological definition of 46 contributions in contemporary agrarian/ pastoral societies 135–7, 140 Dusun people, Borneo 95 eastern religious sources and 41 Giriama people, Kenya 94 Guara people, Orinoco delta 94 Hadza people, Tanzania 94 identification of archaeological material culture used/manufactured by 45–6, 219–23, 223–5 Inuit society 213, 214, 215–16 invisible within the archaeological record 30, 221, 341, 505, 534, 544, 545–6, 559, 631–2, 652, 678, 687 Javanese 94 material culture used by 45–6, 218–25, 221f, 222f, 224f Matsigenka, Peruvian Amazon 93 ‘miniature adult’ concept of children, Medieval period 590 Nepalese 94 Parakaña people, Brazil 94 personhood in 495–6 Samoan 93–4 skeletons, display of 672 slave, Roman world 167, 168, 174 spaces 16–17, 169–70 Ulithi atoll 95 Chimu culture, Peru 578f, 579 Chinatown, San Jose, California 413 Chotuna-Chornancap, Peru 579 Christ as a child 670, 674 Christ Church, Spitalfields collection, London 59 Christian/pagan burial rites 472–3 chronological age 24, 42
730 subject Index chueco (Shinny or Indian Hockey) 394 cillíní burial grounds, Ireland see Ireland children’s burial grounds (cillíní); individual sites Cipău cemetery, Romania 488 circumcision 97 Cis-Baikal region, Siberia, middle Holocene 431–5, 432f dental age composition 436, 436t regional comparison with South African Cape 24, 437–40, 438f, 438t, 439t, 440t robusticity in limbs and child growth 440–1 see also Holocene foragers, reconstructing childhood activity cleft palate 457, 475 club foot 475 Cnip burial, Scotland 420 cognitive development 21, 22 Collegno, Piedmont, Italy 491 Collingwood, Vice-Admiral Cuthbert 278 colostrum 448–9, 450t, 455 Constantine the Great: York’s Roman Emperor exhibition 674 Conversion of St Paul, The (Brueghel) 683 convicts transported to Australia 283, 300, 412 Corinth, ancient Greece North Cemetery 524, 525, 526, 532 Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore 364 Coronation of the Virgin altarpiece (Enguerrand de Quarton), Villeneuve-lès-Avignon France 605 Council of Trent (1545) 615 Counter Reformation 610 Court Jester, The (US film) 670 covachas (artificial cave) burials, Bronze Age 345 Cowen, G. 636 cranial modification see infant head shaping (first millennium AD), Eurasia Cribb family (Fanny, George and Mary) 408 cribra orbitalia in bioarchaeological studies 265f, 265–6, 267f, 267–8, 284, 468, 468–9 Cromwell brass, Tattershall, Lancashire, England 604
Cromwellian Conquest of Ireland (1649–53) 619 Cubo Archaeoligico, teaching aid 658–9 cultural transmission 46 Cumwhitton burials, Cumbria, England 421 Cuzco, Inca capital 579–81 Dalla Spazzatura al Museo (From Rubbish to Museum) project, Reggio Emilia 656–7 Damaphon, Messenian sculptor 364 Dance of Death (danse macabre) 596–8 Danse Macabre des Femmes, Martial d’Auvergne 598 Danube Gorges, Mesolithic/Neolithic growth comparisons 77 Daut/d’Ault brass, Bruges, Belgium 593, 595f, 596, 604 de Grise, Jehan 591 deaf-mutism 475 death see age of children at death Deir el-Bahri shrine to Hathor, Egypt 543 Deir el-Medina, Thebes, Egypt 544 limestone ostracon 546–7, 547f Demeter and Kore sanctuary, Eleusis 369 Demeter-Isis 370–1 Demokrite and her son, Amphiaraeion, Oropos, Greece 365 dental development 72, 73 age estimation, Holocene foragers 436 atlases 60 bone size/dental age relationship 73 enamel hypothesis 80 eruption 59–60 formation 58f, 58–9 formation and malnutrition 59 and gender 59 microseriation sampling 453, 459 multi-tooth sampling 513–15, 514f Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) 113–14 Dialogue of a Man with his Ba, Middle Kingdom Egypt 549 dice cubical/tabular, Harappan Civilization 185–6 Five Points, New York 201f Dickson Mounds pre-historic agriculturalists growth study, US 77
subject index 731 didactic archaeology 30, 654–6, 663 dies lustricus naming ceremony, Roman world 152 Dionysos 366 Dipylon Painter, Louvre, Paris 354 disease 23–5, 25f, 77, 262–3 burden in pre-modern urban centres 78 and growth 71, 72 risk, and early life adversity 113 see also Roman Britain, disease and trauma in children Dixon Case, New Mexico Supreme Court ruling (1950), US 398 DNA analysis 111, 115, 436, 584 and gender 66 Dobson, Sarah 231–3, 238, 241, 243, 244 Dodgson, C. (Lewis Carroll) 637 Dodona sanctuary, Greece 365 dolls, ragdolls and doll figurines 94, 217, 219, 394 Five Points , New York 204, 304 ‘frozen charlotte’, Manor Lodge, Sheffield, England 303, 303f Inuit 217 Port Adelaide, Australia 304 pupae 653 Roman 150 Sacramento porcelain 304 Thule culture 219 Dolly’s Creek mining communities, Victoria, Australia 409 Dolní Vĕstonice Palaeolithic burial site, Czech Republic 321 dominos, Five Points, New York 201f Dorchester growth study, England 80 Dorset culture, Arctic Canada see Thule and Dorset cultures, Arctic Canada ducks and geese 215 Dusun children, Borneo 95 Dutch Famine (1944–5) 111 Eadred, Abbot 415 ‘early childhood’ (infantia) stage 93–4, 98, 166–7 Eastern European Jews, New York 199 Ecuador, abortions 109 Edward I, king of England 29
Edward III, king of England 601 Egypt, ancient children in art and iconography 27, 539–53 animal husbandry and young children 548 ‘bed’/’fertility’ figurines 543 ‘birth bower’ ostraca 543 categories of iconographical criteria 540 daily life scenes 547, 548, 549 female pubescent iconography 540–2, 541f fertility figurines 543 figurines of crawling children 543 finger to mouth poses 550–1 foreign children 544 funerary processions 545 identifying children 540–5, 541f, 542f, 543 ‘in the egg’ (in utero) hieroglyph 548–9 infants 543 life stages in children 551–3 Merysekhmet stelae 549 mortuary contexts 549–51, 550f, 551f, 552f Nakht tomb, Thebes 548 New Kingdom/Old Kingdom/middle Kingdom distinctions 540 Nineteenth Dynasty tomb decoration 549–50 Nubians and slave women 544 ostraca, figured 544–5 pre/post-pubescent differences 540 religious traditions and children 545 rites of passage 543–4 ‘sidelocks’ children’s hairstyle 542f, 542–3 Tairtsekheru painted wooden coffin, Thebes, Egypt 550, 551f ‘toys’ 545–6 work and play 545–9 Eirik the Red 423 El Agar Bronze Age settlement, Spain 346–7 El Castillo cave finger fluting, Spain 325, 327, 328 Eleithyia inscriptions 534 Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VII 601 Ellingen military fort, Raetia, Germany 16, 170 Emerita Augusta, Spain 149 Emile (Rousseau) 40 emotion, role of 8, 8f, 16, 109, 149, 611
732 subject Index endochondral bone growth 72 endosteal resorption 79 Engelbert I, Archbishop of Köln 679 Ephesus, Turkey 632f epigenetic processes 104 molecular 111 nutritional 111–12 research 112–15 Eretria Painter, ancient Greece 355, 366 Eros 363 European Bronze Age, care and socialization of children 338–48 agency of children in the funerary context 346 archaeological evidence 339 breastfeeding and weaning 340–1 double infant tomb, Cerro de la Encina, Granada, Spain 342, 343, 344f, 346, 347f dystocia 340 exogenous/endogenous causes of mortality 340–1 foetal period 340 funeral rights 342 games and play 342–3 gender differences and identities 340, 346, 347 grave goods in children’s tombs 344f, 345–8, 347f La Motilla del Azuer isotope analysis, Ciudad Real, Spain 341, 343 maternity 340 naturalization 340 osteological record 341 pottery production by children 343–5, 344f pottery vessel (pithoi) burials 345 Sintashta culture, South Urals, Russia 347 toys 342–3 toys and gender 342 Excalibur (1981 film) 679 exogamy 492 families and households 14–18, 15f family model in bourgeois society 124–5, 130, 141 n.2 Farrow family (Ellen, Johanna & John) 301, 304, 308, 409, 410 Favorinus 149
Federal (now Moynihan) Courthouse Site, Foley Square, New York 198–9, 199f feeding infants, Iron Age to early medieval period 24, 447–59 age-appropriate foods 448 Anglo-Saxon England 457–8 archaeological approaches and stable isotope evidence 452–8, 453f, 459 baby-led weaning 451 biological developments 448, 449t breast milk 448–51, 450t, 458–9 breastfeeding, Roman Britain 455–6 breastfeeding delay 448–9, 450t breastfeeding duration 451 child development and feeding 447–2 cleft palates 457 colostrum 448–9, 450t cultural norms and breastfeeding 451 developmental milestones 449t feeding vessels for infants, Anglo-Saxon England 457 female-based knowledge of midwifery 456 human feeding 448–52 human milk properties from birth to weaning 450t Iron Age Britain 454 microseriation sampling of teeth 453, 459 milk-kin 451 neonatal death 449 post-partum taboos 451 Roman Britain 455–7, 456f tettina feeding vessel, Roman 455, 456f tongue-tie 448 walking 448 weaning 448, 450t, 451–2, 454, 458–9 weaning, Roman Britain 455, 456–7 weaning age comparison 451–2, 452t weaning patterns, Anglo-Saxon England 457–8 weanling’s dilemma 452, 454 wet nurses 451 Felthorpe brass, Blickling, Norfolk, England 592 femur development femur, tibia and fibular of a 7- to 8-year old 61f length of individuals, comparison 63
subject index 733 from neonate to adult 62f figurines ‘bed’/’fertility’, Egypt 543 crawling children, Egypt 543 fertility, Egypt 543 mother goddess 191 terracotta, ancient Greece 359, 363–4, 365, 366 figurines, Harappan Civilization animals, and their interpretations 183–4, 191 female, and their interpretations 188, 190–1 human, and their classification 183, 190 finger flutings and children, Palaeolithic period 325–9, 327f, 328f, 330 fingerprints 131–2 fish models, ivory, Harappan Civilization 186 Five Points, New York, nineteenth century 302, 309–10, 406, 406f, 409 alcohol and tobacco consumption 411–12 ceramics as emergency currency 408 House of Industry 411, 411f Methodist mission, New York 198 moralizing ceramics 307 toys 304 see also migration and children in the nineteenth century; New York City working-class childhood, nineteenth century; training children for work (nineteenth century), Britain North America and Australia flint knappers 95 sites and children 132 fluid reasoning skills 318–19 foetuses 12f, 16, 27, 57t, 91, 151, 340 age at death estimation from bone size 64–5 burials and remains 108, 109–10, 113, 151–2, 528, 529, 530–1 gender 65 Iron Age to early medieval period 449 pregnancy and nutrition 114 see also infants and mothers; Roman world, archaeological and epigraphic evidence for infancy Forum Baths, Herculaneum 381 see also Roman Pompeii and Herculaneum fostering 137–8
Foundling Museum, London 675, 689 Fourth Anglo-Dutch War (1780–4) 276 Fox Talbot, W. H. 632 Franciscan Order 616–19 Franco-Cantabrian rock art 325–9, 327f, 328f Frauenberg/Leibnitz cemetery, Austria 488 Free Grammar School, Coventry, England 231 French Revolutionary Wars (1793–1802) 276 Freyja, Norse goddess 418 ‘frozen charlotte’ doll, Manor Lodge, Sheffield, England 303, 303f Fuente Álamo Bronze Age burials, Spain 345 funerary and mortuary rights and rituals 4–6, 5f, 6f, 20, 21, 92, 346 and biological age 4–5 European Bronze Age 342 processions, ancient Egypt 545 Rome, first century BC 15f steppic material culture 489–90 see also Ireland, children’s burial grounds (cillíní) funerary monuments and reliefs Greek world 360, 367–8, 369 Roman world 157–9, 158f see also Roman world sarcophagi and children; individual sites and monuments Gaignières collection 598 games medieval period 668–9 reconstructed 694 Roman world 167 see also play; Vecino archaeology, New Mexico, US gaming artefacts Harappan Civilization 185–7 Pompeii 171–2 Gardner, P. 633, 634, 635 Gargas cave art, France 326 Gela, Borgo necropolis, Sicily 653, 653f gender 56, 59, 66 archaeology 652 differentiation 95, 98 division of labour 131 DNA analysis and 66 and epiphyseal fusions 60–1, 61f, 62
734 subject Index gender (cont.) European Bronze Age 340, 346, 347 and hunting, Arctic Canada 220 and infant head shaping 494–5 and long-bones divergence 73 and Palaeolithic identity in children 324 Roman world and games 167 Roman world sarcophagi representations 567, 568–9, 570f and socialization 96 gene expression 104 Geometric period art, ancient Greece 352, 354 Gepid kingdom 488 Gibson, J. P. 633 Gillespie, A. 643, 647 Giriama children, Kenya 94 globalization and mass marketing 387–8, 399, 401 Globasnitz cemetery, Austria 488 Goebel, Edward 302 Goode, G. B. 654 Grafenegg, Lower Austria 484 graffiti see Roman Pompeii and Herculaneum Grand Palaestra, Pompeii 382 Grandson-Corcelettes Late Bronze Age settlement, Switzerland 133f grave goods European Bronze Age 344f, 345–8, 347f Greek world 525 Roman world 156 Viking-Age burials 417f, 417–22, 422f Gravettian burials 324 Great Depression 388 Great Irish Famine (1845–52) 510 Greece (700 BC–300 AD), representations of children 22, 27, 352–71 adolescent boys 360–3 adolescent girls 360, 363 aiora (‘swing’) ritual 9 Amasis painter lekythos, Met. Museum, New York 358f, 358–9 Amphiaraos Sanctuary, Oropos 364 Artemis sanctuary 364 Asklepieion, Messene 364 Asklepieion statue of a boy, Athens 355, 356f Athenian Agora head of boy 370, 370f
Athenian pelike (wine vessel), British Museum 355 Berenike tomb enclosure 365 ‘Blue Horse’ rider, Aphrodisias 367 cemetery context and functions 365 chous (jug), Eretria Painter, Athens National Museum 355 chronology and style 352–5 cult agent statues 365 Demeter and Kore sanctuary, Eleusis 369 Demokrite and her son, Amphiaraeion, Oropos 365 Dodona sanctuary 365 domestic contexts 366 Eretria painter pyxis 366 family groups 365 funerary reliefs 360 Hirschfield Painter prothesis scene 353f, 353–4, 354f, 356–7, 359 horse and jockey statue, Athens National Museum 367, 367f iconography 356–63 imperial families, younger members 369 Kyzikos funerary relief 367–8 Lipari child’s grave 365 Macedonia funerary reliefs 369 ‘Maid of Anzio’, National Roman Museum, Rome 362f, 363 marble and bronze statuary in sanctuaries 360, 364 Myrina terracotta group, British Museum 368 neck amphora, British Museum 354–5 portrayal of girls 357, 359 prothesis scenes 353f, 353–4, 354f, 356–7, 359 Roman period 368–71 sanctuary context and function 363–5 Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore, Corinth 364 Sanctuary of Eileithyia, statues, Athens 355 scenes with departing warriors 357 Sisyphos II Daochos dedication, Delphi Archaeological Museum 360–3, 361f slave children 366–7 ‘Small Herculaneum Woman’, Dresden 363 Smyrna relief 368 swaddled infants 355
subject index 735 Temple of Hera, Olympia 364 terracotta figurines 359, 363–4, 365, 366 toy and pet depictions 360 vase painting 357–9 votive reliefs 359–60 women in textile production 357–9, 358f Greek world, burials of children 27, 521–34 Athens cultural practices 525 cemeteries concept 533 child cemeteries 530–1 child mortality 523–4, 526 decay rates and child burials 526–7 domestic/habituation contexts 531–4 enchytrismos graves 522, 524, 525–30, 533, 534 excavation and detection 527–30 foetus and neonate burials 528, 529, 530–1 grave goods assessment 525 Greek cities in Sicily, Archaic period 522–3, 525 infant (0–1 year) mortality rate 524 infanticide of illegitimate/unwanted babies 531 intramural burial 532–3 Kylindra, Astypalaia 530, 534 ‘missing’ children 525 perinatal death rates 521–2 preservation 524–7 recovery bias 529 ‘Rich Athenian Lady’ burial, Athens 527–8 sanctuaries connection 533–4 shallow and/or unprotected burials 527 Greenland 213, 214 Greenwich Hospital, London 280 Guajiro girls, Venezuela 96 Guara children, Orinoco delta 94 Guthred, son of Harthacnut 415 Guthrie, George 292 Gynaecology (Soranus) 104, 149, 150, 153, 155, 166 Hadza Pygmy children 94 Hæsten, Viking warlord 415–16 Hakon, son of Harold Finehair 415 handaxe (small), Prehistoric period 134f Harappan Civilization material culture, and childhood 17–18, 179–93 balls and marbles 184
cages 183 carts 181–2, 188 casting sticks/balusters 186, 188 chronological phases 179 cult object interpretations 191 dice, cubical/tabular 185–6 figurines, animal 183–4, 191 figurines, human 183, 190–1 fish models, ivory 186 ‘gamesmen’/gaming counters 186–7 gaming artefacts 185–7, 188–9, 191–2 post cremation urns 188–9 problems of classification and attribution 190–2 rattles 181 spatial contexts 187–9 toy wheels, terracotta 182 toys 30, 179, 181–4, 192 vessels 182–3 whistles 181 who made the toys? 189–90 harpoons, miniature, Arctic Canada 218, 220, 221f Harris lines 79–80 Harrison, J. 635 Haslar Hospital, Gosport, England 280 Hathor (goddess) 541, 543 Hazda people, and motherhood 109 health 23–5, 25f, 77, 80, 112, 262 Heath Wood cremation cemetery, Derbyshire, England 415 Heinrich of Sayn, Count 604 Hellenistic Well (G5:3), Agora, Athens 530–1, 532 Henry, son of Edward I 599 Henry III king of England 601, 670 Henry’s Mill, Australia 245 Herculaneum see Roman Pompeii and Herculaneum Hereford Cathedral, stillborn and unbaptized infant burials 614 Herodes Atticus 369 Heyward brass, Teynham, Kent, England 593, 594f, 602, 604 Himera East (Pestavecchia) Necropolis, Sicily 529 Hippocratic writers 152
736 subject Index Hirschfield Painter prothesis scene 353f, 353–4, 354f, 356–7, 359 History of Childhood, The (deMause) 40 Histria, Roman city, Romania 486 Hogarth, D. G. 633 Holocene foragers, reconstructing childhood activity 429–42 activity robusticity 429, 431 adult female foragers, southern Cape, Africa 435 adult male foragers, southern Cape, Africa 435 aquatic resources 433 behavioural variation in the Holocene 430 biomechanical properties examined 436–7, 437t Cape regions, South Africa 431–5, 434f Cis-Baikal region, Siberia 431–5, 432f cross-sectional geometry comparison between regions 434–5 dental age estimation 436 Evenki groups, Central Siberia 435 genetic factors and bone development 431 Isakovo-Serovo-Glaskovo (ISG) cultural groups 433 Ju/’hoan culture 435 Kitoi forager groups 433 materials and methods 436t, 436–7, 437t mechanical factors and bone development 431 plant resources in the southern Cape, Africa 434 previous biomechanical research 430–1 puberty 431 results and regional comparisons 437–40, 438f, 438t, 439t, 440t robusticity in limbs and child growth 440–1 sex determination 436 sexual differentiation comparison 439t, 440–1 spear use and upper limb asymmetry 442 strength development and long bone cross-sectional geometry 429 subsistence strategy variation within each region 435 toolkits 442, 433, 434 Homo neanderthalensis and cave art 326 Homo sapiens, Palaeolithic 317, 326
hoops, Roman world 167 hormones 65 horse and jockey statue, Athens National Museum 367, 367f Horus 542, 549 Hour of the Pig (1993 film) 675 households and childhood, prehistoric 123–41 adolescents’ workloads in households 137 autonomous children’s groups 138 child labour studies 135–7, 140 childhood as an analytical category 125–6 children as ‘distorting factors’ 131 children’s activity areas 130–5, 132f, 133f, 134f children’s contributions in contemporary agrarian/pastoral societies 135–7, 140 ‘coalition of individuals’ 129 discovery of everyday life 126–30 family model in bourgeois society 124–5, 130, 141 n.2 fingerprints 131–2 flint-knapping sites and children 132 fostering 137–8 ‘macrocosm archaeological culture’/‘microcosm household’ contrasts 127 major household types 128 pottery production 134 social networks 138 ‘walled garden’ concept 124, 137–9 ‘work’ and ‘play’ categorizations 134 Huaca de la Luna Mocha burials, Peru 576 Hughes, John 206 Huns 486, 488–9 hunting and gender 220 Huth Bible 591 hydrocephalus 475 ‘Hypogaeum of the Octavii’, Via Trionfale, Rome 561–2 hypogaeum of ‘Roma Vecchia’ family tomb, Rome 562, 563f identifying archaeological material culture used/manufactured by children 45–6, 219–23, 223–5 ancient Egypt, children in art and iconography 540–5, 541f, 542f, 543
subject index 737 identity 21–3, 324, 340, 346, 347 Igbo boys, Nigeria 96 Incas 26, 578f, 579–81, 580f children and mobility 509 incompetence in children, presumed 9–10 ‘individuals’/‘dividuals’ concept 114–15 Indor Khera Harappan, Upper Ganges Plains 189 Industrial Revolution 276, 298 infant head shaping (first millennium AD), Eurasia 24, 483–97, 484f Arawe, New Britain 493–4 Asian cranial modification in central 485–6 Avar-period cemeteries 489 Aztec society and children 496 Baluchistan cranial modification 493 the body unfinished at birth 495–6 ethnic paradigm 497 n.2 European cranial modification in 486–9, 487f exogamy 492 funerary evidence and steppic material culture 489–90 gendered 494–5 Hephtalite Huns 486 Histria, Romania 486 Hunnic confederacy 488, 489 Mesoamerican skull modification 493, 494 midwifery tracts, modern Germany 493 millet, spread of 492 mortality tables of modified skulls by region 490–1, 491f mothers, grandmother and midwives 483, 492–4 moulding helmet therapy 494 Ostrogoths 488 Pannonia cemeteries 488 personhood in children 495–6 plagiocephaly 492 regional groupings 490f, 490–1, 491f Sargat-period cemeteries 486 Sarmatians 486, 489 Sarmato-Alans 489 sex distribution of skeletons by regions 490, 490f skull modification and Maya culture 493 sorghum 492
Viking burials 489 why shape the head? 494–5 infant mortality rates Greek world 523–4 Swedish mining community (1500–1600) 255 see also age of children at death infanticide 109, 475, 476 Egypt, ancient 543 Greek world 531 Roman world 156 Romano-British sites 64 infants grief for dead in the Roman world 149 Medieval world 597, 603, 605 Rawanduz Kurds 92 see also Roman world, archaeological and epigraphic evidence for infancy infants and mothers 14, 104–16 beginnings of life 108–10 cycles, cohorts and courses 105–7 embodiment, epigenetics and ‘embedding’ 110–12 epigenetic research 112–15 foetal remains 109–10 implication for the archaeology of childhood 112–15 miscarriages and stillborn infants 109–10 motherhood and identity 108–9 nutritional epigenetics 111–12 personhood acquisition 108 social bioarchaeology 112–15 infection and growth 71, 72 see also disease initiation rites 96 Inquisition in Rome 616 Institute of Archaeology, Oxford University 631, 645 Insula of the Menander 171 International Council of Museums (ICOM) 655 Inuit society 213, 214 children 215–16 conception of childhood 216 Ireland, children’s burial grounds (cillíní) 608–25 baptism significance, and burial rites 610, 613, 614, 615–19, 624
738 subject Index Ireland, children’s burial grounds (cillíní) (cont.) Catholic emancipation, Ireland (1829) 619, 623 Catholicism 615–19, 623–4 and the Counter-Reformation Catholic Church 610, 615–19 County Kerry cillíní 619–20, 624 dating cillíní 611–14 end of the tradition 619–25 Hereford Cathedral stillborn and unbaptized infant burials 614 parish priests’ role 624 Penitential of Finnian (Rule Number 47) 613 previous research 610–11 Protestant Church of Ireland 619 Registrar General of Births and Deaths appointment 623 suggrundarium graves 611 types of burials and numbers of sites 608–9, 609f, 618–19 Irish emigration to London 510 Irish Free State, establishment 622–3 Irish immigrants, New York 199, 302 Irish Jesuit Mission 618 Isakovo-Serovo-Glaskovo (ISG) cultural groups 433 Isidore of Seville, Bishop 679 Isis and Horus cult 370–1 isotope analysis 24, 81, 82, 481–2 see also movement and migration, the contribution of stable isotope analysis Iulia Donata epitaph, Rome 152 Iulianus epitaphs, Merida, Spain 157 Iuventus association 382 Jansen, Cornelius 616–17 Jansenism 167, 616 Javanese children 94 Jewish German families, New York 302 Jews and the Black Death 677 Jicarilla Apaches 391 Joan of Arc 679 John I (Jean le Posthume) 598 Johnstown cillín, Meath, Ireland 612 Ju/hoan culture 435 Junian Latin status 153
Kamarina, Sicily 522, 524, 526 Katherine, daughter of Henry III 601 Katherine, St 604 Kau Sai, China 96 Kazakhstan head shaping 485 Kellis 2 cemetery, Dakhleh Oasis, Roman Egypt 155, 156 Kent conference (2005) 44 Kerameikos cemetery, Athens 526 Kerry county cillíní, Ireland 620, 624 Keszthely-Fenékpuszta cemetery, Valcum Roman settlement 488 Kherednefer limestone statuette, Thebes, Egypt 552f Kilkenny workhouse cemetery, Ireland 510 King Arthur (2005 film) 677 Kirgizstan head shaping 485 kisusa rite, Chaga people, Tanzania 96 Kiszombor B cemetery, Hungary 488 Kitoi forager groups 433 Klein, Henry 207 Knight’s Tale, A (2001 film) 677, 679 Knightriders (1981 film) 679 knucklebones (astragals), Roman word 653 Köln Cathedral interlocking tombs, Germany 669–70 Kpelle ‘mother ground’ 93 Kristin Lavransdatter (1995 film) 672, 674 !Kung youth 97 Kurds, Rawanduz infants 92 Kylindra, Astypalaia 530, 534 La Madeleine child burial, Dordogne, France 322, 322f La Motilla del Azuer isotope analysis, Ciudad Real, Spain 341, 343 Lake Inkwell Late Bronze Age settlement, Switzerland 132, 132f Lampeter Bible (1297) 591–2, 592f Landesmuseum Württemberg, Stuttgart, Germany 671 Larkin, Fr. 620 Las Chimeneas stratigraphy of overlapping flutings, Spain 328 laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) 514 Le Placard Palaeolithic burial site, France 321, 324
subject index 739 lead contamination 20, 262–3 Leaf, W. 635 learning 18–21, 19f Leeds, E. T. 633 Les Rois Palaeolithic burial site, Dordogne, France 321 Lewis Morris Pease’s House of Industry, New York 206 Lief Eriksson 423 life course perspectives 454 life cycle approach 105 Life of King Alfred (Asser) 415 life stages children, ancient Egypt 551–3 Inca age grades (‘calles’/paths of life) 574t–5t, 574–6 life stages and child development, cultural studies of 90–8 adolescence 95–7, 98 adulthood stage 97–8 birth and the external womb 91–2 getting noticed 94–5, 98 joining the community 92–3 puberty 96–7 separation (‘early childhood’ stage) 93–4, 98 Limbo doctrine, Roman Catholic Church 610, 611, 616, 617, 624 linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH) 265f, 266, 267f, 267–8 ‘linked lives’ concept 105, 107, 113 Lipari child’s grave, Italy 365 London Dental Atlas 60 ‘Long Taw’/‘Follow’ marble game, New York 204–5 long-bones of children, Sala, Sweden 263 cortical thickness as indicator compared with length 78–9 and gender divergence 73 Los Penitentes lay brotherhood associations 389 Lost Legion, The (2006 film) 670 Louis IX, king of France 598, 601, 670 Lübeck Colloquium on Urban Archaeology in the Hanseatic League 669 Lucius Helvius Lupus burial epitaph 149
Lucius Valerius 157 Lukin Street Catholic cemetery, London 510 Lund medieval cemetery, Sweden 255 Lužec nad Vltavou, Bohemia 491 Mackney ringfort, Galway, Ireland 612 Magdalenian sites, France 95, 324 Maggi, Prof Stefano 658 Mahaut of Artois 601 ‘Maid of Anzio’, National Roman Museum, Rome 362f, 363 maize agriculture introduction, North America 77 malaria, Roman world 469 Malay women 97 Mali infant feeding study 451 malnutrition 94, 263–6, 269, 524 and bone growth 62, 79–83 and tooth formation 59 Manga cartoon characters (Carlo and Beatrice), Calvatone, Cremona, Italy 659, 659, 660 Manor Lodge, Sheffield, England 301, 307 manta pouch 91 marbles 18, 304–5 Five Points, New York 201f, 203 Harappan Civilization 184 New Mexico, US 396f New York 204–5 Marcus Cornelius Statius 153 Margaret, daughter of Edward IV 601 Margaret, St 604 Mari ‘tablet house’ 97 Marine Society recruitment for the Royal Navy, England 276–7, 278 marines, British 277, 283 Marketa Lazarová (1967 film) 674, 675 marriage 96, 97 Mary Rose shipwreck 286, 287 Mas del Corral Bronze Age burial site, Alicante, Spain 340 Masaii males and marriage 96 Matsigenka infants and young children, Peruvian Amazon 93 Matthew, Father Theobald 412 Maya culture and skull modification 493
740 subject Index Mayan village child labour study, Mexico 136–7 Maynooth seminary, Kildare, Ireland 624 McKay family 304, 409, 410 meaning 25–9 medieval childhood 30–1, 668–83 adolescence concept 677 Ages of Man concept 679 and the Black Death 676–7 cinematic portrayal of medieval children 674–8 child abuse 675 early medieval mobility 512–13 Jews, persecution of 676 Jews and the Black Death 677 play and heirlooms 678–82 social status and museum displays 671 stature, Baltic children 75 Viking Age 414–23 Medieval period representation in art 28–9, 590–605 ages of man 596–8, 597f, 679 artistic conventions 591–6 children at play 591 Gothic art 591 heart burials 598–9, 599f Lampeter Bible (1297) 591–2, 592f Last Judgement depictions 603 ‘miniature adult’ concept of children 590 Pearl (Middle English poem) 604 Pearl Maiden 604 the perfect age in heaven 603–4 size 591–2, 598 tomb monuments 598–603, 599f, 600f, 602f unbaptized children 596 visceral burials 598 Megara Hyblaea, Sicily South Necropolis 524–5 West Necropolis 527, 528–9, 530, 533 Melanesian concepts of the body 115 Melikertes 363 memory and commemoration 25–9 Merysekhmet stelae 549 Messene Gymnasium area 533 middle childhood phase 13 midwives (obstetrix), Roman world 166 Mighty Morphin Power Ranger 395f, 395–6
migration 24–5, 470, 484 see also movement and migration the contribution of stable isotope analysis migration and children in the nineteenth century 23, 404–14 acculturation efforts for daughters 408–9 Bridgehead site, Minneapolis, US 410 child labour 410 Chinatown study, San Jose, California, US 413 Chinese immigrants to the US 412–14 class differences 409 convicts transported to Australia 283, 412 denying childhood 412–14 Dolly’s Creek mining communities, Victoria, Australia 409 family tensions and marital strife 408 Five Points, New York 406, 406f Five Points alcohol and tobacco consumption 411–12 Irish rural communities 410 middle-class aspirations 410–11 moralizing ceramics 407 Paradise gold mining town, Queensland, Australia 409, 410 Port Adelaide study and British identity, Australia 406 respectability and domesticity 405–12, 406f Ross Female Factory, Tasmania, Australia 412 The Rocks, Sydney, Australia and British identity 407, 407f Victorian ideals and gentility 408, 409, 410 see also (nineteenth century), Britain, North America and Australia migration and children, Viking voyages 404–5, 414–23 burial of children 416–21, 422, 417f, 418f, 419f, 422f children in political and cultural negotiation 414–16 circumstances of settlement and migration 421–3, 422f Cnip burial, Scotland 420 fosterage 416 genetic evidence 423 Hæsten, Viking warlord 415–16 intermarriage 421
subject index 741 Oda, Viking warlord 416 raiders, Weymouth, England 286, 287 raiding 414–15 Viking armies over-wintering 415 women and children on Viking raids 415 Milan Archaeological Museum 661f, 661–3, 662f, 663f Milovice Palaeolithic burial site, Moravia 321 miniature implements 218–22 miscarriage 155, 109–10 Mohenjodaro, Pakistan 180 Mollo Konto mound, Peru 577 Monkton-Up-Wimbourne burials, Dorset, England 509 Mörigen Late Bronze Age settlement, Switzerland 133f mortality rates of children see age of children at death; infant mortality rates mortuary archaeology 30 mortuary practices and rituals see funerary and mortuary rights and rituals mother goddess figurines 191 ‘mother ground’ 13 mothers see infants and mothers Mount Vesuvius eruption (AD 79) 378 movement and migration, the contribution of stable isotope analysis 505–16 Bamburgh cemetery, Northumberland 512–13 Black Gate cemetery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne 512–13 Boscombe Down burials, Wiltshire, England 508–9, 511–12 breastfeeding and oxygen isotope analysis 508 Bronze Age childhood mobility 511–12 carbon isotope analysis 509–10 conversion equations 508 early medieval childhood mobility 512–13 enamel mineralization 507 Inca children and mobility 509 Irish emigration to London 510 micro-CT scanning 515 molars (M1–M3) and age determination 506f, 506–7 multi-tooth sampling 513–15, 514f nitrogen isotope analysis 509–10
of non-adult remains 508–10 oxygen isotope analysis and climate zone data 507–8, 509, 512–13, 514f past population mobility and established methods 506f, 506–8 Pembrokeshire non-adult skeleton 509 strontium isotope analysis and soils and rocks 507, 508–9, 511–12, 513 tooth dentine 510 tooth enamel analysis 506–8 Mőzs cemetery, Hungary 488 Murphy, Fr Bernard 620–1, 622 Museum Hours (2012 film) 683 Museum of London, ‘Medieval London’ displays 694 museums, presenting children from the distant past 687–97 Buried Treasure touring exhibition (British Museum) 694–5 ‘Charlie’ skeleton 695–6, 697 child visitor numbers 688, 692 criteria for selection or rejection 691 curatorial perspectives 690–4 ‘Edwardian nursery’ image childhood 688–9 identifying material relating to children 690–1 People of Sutton Hoo exhibition 696, 697f presenting the material 694–6 reconstructed games 694 specialist collections 691 survey of museums’ relevance to childhood/ children 691–3 under representation 687–90 Yewden Roman villa newborn infant remains, Hambleden, Buckinghamshire 693–4 Museums in Italy, and the education of children 654–6 My Daughter (Gregory) 307 Mycenaean period, Greece 41, 347 Myres, J. L. 633, 634–5, 637–8, 638f, 643, 644f Myrina terracotta group (British Museum) 368 Nadaouiyeh Ain Askar Palaeolithic site, Syria 134f Nakht tomb, Thebes, Egypt 548
742 subject Index Name of the Rose, The (1986 film) 676 ‘name spirit’, Inuit peoples 216 Napoleonic Wars (1803–15) 276 Nasca sites, Peru 576–7, 577f National Trust Museum of Childhood, Derbyshire, England 689 Native American growth studies foragers, Georgia 77 foragers, Kentucky/Ohio 76–7 US Southwest 80 Native American study of puberty age, Alabama 82 Navigator, The: A Medieval Odyssey (1988 film) 676, 677 Neanderthal skulls, Shanidar, Kurdistan 483 Nebnefret, daughter of Pashedu, Deir el-Medina, Thebes, Egypt 542f neck amphora, British Museum 354–5 neonates see perinates and neonates Nepalese children 94 New York City working-class childhood, nineteenth century 18, 197–208 children’s cups 202–3 coins 202 dolls, porcelain 204 education 205–6 errand running 198 Five Points data 199, 200f, 201f from a child’s point of view 206–8 Irish on Pearl Street 200–2 labour 207–8 literacy 206 marbles 204–5 Methodist ladies’ description of children 198, 206 Orange Street Eastern Europeans 202–3, 207 photographs 204 play without toys 203–5, 204f, 207 prostitution 203 reformers’ challenges 198 scavenging 198 tea-sets 203 toys, Pearl Street 201f, 201–2, 207 working-class attitudes to education 206 working-class/middle-class child-rearing practices 203 writing slates and slate pencils 205, 205t
see also Five Points, New York, nineteenth century; migration and children in the nineteenth century; training children for work (nineteenth century), Britain, North America and Australia New York Ladies’ Home Missionary Society, New York 406f, 411 Nicholas, St 682 Night at the Museum (2003 film) 672 Night at the Museum Battle of the Smithsonians (2006 film) 672 Nine Years’ War (1594–1603), Ireland 615 nitrogen isotope values 113, 114 Noris, Henry 616 Normanton Down burials, Wiltshire, England 511 Nso of the Cameroons, and mothering 93 Nubians 548 Nukak populations, Amazon 342–3 nurses see wet nurses Nurzay people, Afghanistan 91, 496 nutrition and cortical thickness in bones 78–9 deficiencies during weaning, Roman world 155 in medieval Baltic children 75 role in growth 71, 72 Ó Maolchonaire, Flaithri 616–7 Octavia Paulina 561–2 Oda, Viking warlord 416 Odeon of Herodes Atticus, Athens 641f, 641–2 Ohio River valley growth studies, US 77 Old Kinchega Homestead, New South Wales, Australia 231 Opheltes/Archemoros 363 Orchard, John 601 Original Sin and baptism 610, 616, 617, 624 Oropos cemetery, Attica, Greece 531–2 os acromiale 285–6, 286f Osiris 543 ossification of bone 61–2 osteochondritis 286–7, 287t, 288f osteology and osteoarchaeology 12f, 20–1. see also under boys at sea, British Royal Navy (late eighteenth–early
subject index 743 nineteenth-century); skeletal growth and development; skeletal populations study of growth in Ostia sarcophagi, Rome 153, 153f ostraca (pot sherds) 27 Ostrogoths 488 Othon IV of Burgundy 601 over-imitation behaviour 317–18, 329 Owenbristy cillín, Galway, Ireland 613, 614 Pachacamac child sacrifice 580f, 581f paedogogus 167 Palaeolithic family portrait 21, 315–30 archaeological signatures of children 317 art and death 320–5, 321f, 322f, 323f art classifications and definitions 315–16 child burial records 320–5, 321f, 322f, 323f cognitive childhood 317 diversity of groups represented in burial record 324–5 finger fluting, ‘tectiform’ 328 finger flutings and children 326–9, 327f, 328f, 330 fluid reasoning 318–19 gender identity in children 324 hand stencils 326 identifying children 316–20 kinship groups 316 learning/play 319–20 miniaturization of artefacts 321–3, 324 organic developments 320 over-imitation 317–18, 329 parietal art 325–9, 327f, 328f personhood and community membership 324 society 319 Paolucci Law, Italy 655 Paphos skeletal evidence of child mortality, Cyprus 524 Paradise gold mining town, Queensland, Australia 410 Parakaña children, Brazil 94 Pardon Graveyard, London 614 parenthood and identity 108–9 Pashtun girls 94 Passo Marinaro Necropolis, Sicily 522 Paul, St 603, 683
Pearl, Middle English poem 604 Pease, Reverend Lewis 411 Peel Castle cemetery, Isle of Man 420, 422, 513 Peet, T. E. 633 Penelope 358 Penitential of Finnian, Rule Number 47 613 Pennyweight Flat Cemetery, Castlemaine, Australia 9f Penpare, depicted with his mother, Thebes, Egypt 546f People of Sutton Hoo exhibition 696, 697f Pépin de Huy, Jean 601 perinates and neonates 16, 57t, 340 age at death estimation from bone size 64–5 burials and remains 108, 113, 151–2, 340, 528, 529, 530–1 gender 65 Iron Age to early medieval period 449 perinatal death rates, Greek world 521–2 see also infants and mothers; Roman world, archaeological and epigraphic evidence for infancy periostitis 284, 285 personhood, acquisition of 108 Perth Museum and Art Gallery, Scotland 672 Peruvian modified skulls 485 pets and childhood 23 Greek world 360 Roman Pompeii and Herculaneum 383 Roman world 167, 172 photography, archaeology, and the visible/ invisible child 631–49 the archaeological gaze 634–5, 648 early photography 632–4 foreign children as ‘other’ 636, 638 institutional gaze, children’s inclusion/ exclusion 639–49, 640f, 641f, 642f, 644f, 646f, 647f, 648f lantern slide collections 633–4, 635 political and social reform campaigns, Victorian 636 power of the photographer 643 ‘Tipaza, Forum A’ 639–40, 640f the tourist gaze 635, 639 travel/guide books and viewing monuments 635 in Victorian photographs 636–8, 637f, 638f
744 subject Index physical abuse, Roman Britain 476–7 physiological age identification 42 Pictor, Albertus 676 Piggott, S. 644–8, 646f, 647f, 648f piggy banks 308 Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, Italy 655 Pius V, Pope 615 Plateia Kotzia cemetery, Athens 529 play 18 Egypt, ancient 545–9 European Bronze Age 342–3 learning/play, Neolithic 319–20 manufacture of ‘play’ items, Arctic Canada 219 medieval period 668–9 spaces for 16–17, 169–70 without toys, New York City Victorian working-class childhood 203–5, 204f, 207 ‘work’ and ‘play’ categorizations, prehistoric period 134 see also games; gaming artefacts; Vecino archaeology, New Mexico, US playgroups 93, 98 Plymouth Hospital, England 280 poems and laments on funerary inscriptions, Roman world 157–8 Pogorăşti cemetery, Romania 486 Polizzello cemetery, Sicily 529 Polydeukion, ward of Herodes Atticus 369 Poma de Ayala, male and female age categories 574, 574–5 Pompeii see Roman Pompeii and Herculaneum porotic hyperostosis 25f, 284, 524 Port Adelaide study, Australia 300–1 archaeological record 409 and British identity 406 moralizing ceramics 307 scientific and musical artefacts 308 toys 304 see also migration and children in the nineteenth century; training children for work (nineteenth century), Britain, North America and Australia Portus Romae, Rome 511 post cremation urns, Harappan Civilization 188–9
pottery classification, South Asia 190 Poundbury Camp, Dorset, England 114, 468f, 470–3, 472f, 473f, 474, 474f, 475, 476–7, 477f, 478 Praedia Iulia Felix 381 pregnancy 110, 114 Pretestato site, Via Appia, Rome 564, 569f Priory Yard, Norwich, England 243 prostitutes and Chinese immigration, US 413 Five Points, New York 304 Protestant Church of Ireland 619 Protestant Reformation 615 Ptahneferty 548 puberty Barton-upon-Humber study, England 82–3 cultural studies of life stages and child development 96–7 female iconography, ancient Egypt 540–2, 541f and growth patterns 81–2, 84 Holocene foragers 431 Native American study of puberty age, Alabama 82 skeletal populations, study of growth in 81–3 Public School Society, New York 206 Publicia Glypte 158–9 Pueblo Indians 389, 394 pushcarts, Roman world 167 Qen stela, British Museum, London 548 Quarry Bank Mill, Cheshire, England 689 Quechua people, child definitions 575, 576 Radcliffe, Ann 243 Rakhigarhi Harappan site 188 Ramose mortuary stela, Thebes, Egypt 550, 551f rattles 133f Harappan Civilization 181 Roman world 150, 166–7 Raunds Anglo-Saxon cemetery, Northamptonshire, England 458 Ravenna children’s sarcophagi, Italy 557 Reask cillín, Kerry, Ireland 619–20 Reckoning, The (2003 film) 675
subject index 745 Reeber family 302 Reggio Emilio civic museums, Italy 656 Registrar General of Births and Deaths appointment, Ireland 623 reincarnation 108 Repton grave containing three children, Derbyshire, England 419f, 419–20 rib fractures, Roman Britain 476, 477f ‘Rich Athenian Lady’ burial, Athens 527–8 rickets Anglo-Saxon England 458 British Royal Navy 80–1, 284, 285 Roman Britain 457, 471, 472f, 477 Rifriscolaro Necropolis, Sicily 522 Rigorists, Roman Catholic Church 616 Robert Hartley’s Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor (AICP), New York 206 Rocks, The, Sydney, Australia 300–1, 303, 408 and British identity 407, 407f moralizing ceramics 305, 306f see also migration and children in the nineteenth century; training children for work (nineteenth century), Britain, North America and Australia Roger de Gaignières, François 598 Roman Britain, disease and trauma in children 24, 467–78 acquired and genetic anaemia 468–71, 470f child-rearing and the evidence for trauma 476–7, 477f congenital defects and the disabled child 475–6 infanticide 475, 476 malaria in Roman society 469 physical abuse 476–7 rib fractures 476, 477f rickets 457, 471, 472f, 477 scurvy 471, 472, 473f specific metabolic diseases 471–3 tuberculosis and urbanization 473–5, 475, 477, 478 Roman Pompeii and Herculaneum animal motifs 382–4 atria as workplace 381 atrium/peristyle rooms 380–1 Bath of Mars, Rome 382
baths and bathing process 381–2 Forum Baths, Herculaneum 381 Stabian Baths, Pompeii 381 Pompeii’s public bath complex 381–2 Praedia Iulia Felix, Pompeii 381 birds 383 children’s activities and responsibilities 382–4 children’s drawing capabilities, cross-cultural nature 377 children’s graffiti 22–3, 376–84 cooking areas 380 deer and hunt scenes 383 dogs 383 domestic contexts 380–1 Grand Palaestra, Pompeii 382 House of M. Epidius Primus (Casa di M. Epidius Primus), Pompeii 381 House of the Cryptoporticus (Casa del Criptoportico) 379 House of the Lovers (Casa degli Amanti), Pompeii 383 House of the Stags (Casa dei Cervi), Herculaneum 383–4 House of Trebius Valens (Casa di Trebio Valente), Pompeii 383 identifying ‘children’s objects’ 378–9 identifying children’s graffiti 379–80 Iuventus association 382 lizards 383 non-domestic contexts 381–2 pet-keeping 172, 383 pigs 383 Termopolio dell’Asellina bar/restaurant, Pompeii 381 theoretical background to children’s drawings 376–8 via dell’Abondanza, Pompeii 381 weaving activities 381 Roman world, archaeological and epigraphic evidence for infancy 16, 148–59 bathing for newborns 153–4 biographical marble sarcophagi 153f, 153–4, 557–71 breastfeeding 154f, 154–5 burial assemblages 149–50 death and commemoration 154f, 155–9, 158f
746 subject Index Roman world, archaeological and epigraphic evidence for infancy(cont.) dolls and ragdolls 150 funerary monuments 157–9, 158f grave goods 156 grief for dead infants 149, 157 infanticide 156 infants as ‘non-persons’ in literary sources 149 life-stages of infancy 151–5, 153f miscarriage 155 mortality rate of children 155, 156 mourning at odds with classical written sources 149, 155, 156–7 necklace of amulets, infant grave 150f, 150, 151f poems and laments on funerary inscriptions 157–8 register of births 152 status and identity 148–50 swaddling clothes 151f, 152 toys 150 weaning process 152–3, 155 wet nurses (nutrix) 152, 154, 166 Roman world, household organization 165–75 archaeological evidence for children in household spaces 169–70 archaeological evidence of children’s material culture and household space 170–3 childbirth rooms 166, 167 children’s jewellery 170 coming of age 169 early childhood (infantia) 166–7 formal meals 168 gaming pieces, Pompeii 171–2 locating children within household space 173–4 military bases and children 170, 172–3 pets 167 Pompeian household artefacts 171–2, 173–4 practice alphabets 174 school-age children (puerita) 167–9 schools 168 shoes in Roman barracks 172 slave children 168, 174
tortoises in Pompeian houses 172 toys and rattles for infants 166–7 Roman world, sarcophagi and children 27–8, 557–71 ‘adult’ themes 564–5 biographical life course images 567, 569f cupids 568 dating 558 early Christian religious subjects 565 gendered representations 567, 568–9, 570f images of children behaving as children 568 inhumation replacing cremation 558 installation in tomb buildings 561–4, 563f learning themes 567 moral qualities 568, 569 and the Muses 565–7, 566f personal portraits 565, 566f, 568–9, 569f, 570f production and trade 560f, 560–1 re-use 558 studies of iconography in a social and cultural context 564–70, 566f, 569f, 570f visibility in the archaeological records 559 Romance of Alexandre, manuscript (Jehan de Grise) 591 Rome, ancient Bath of Mars 382 Campo Santo Teutonico sarcophagus, Vatican 560, 560f ‘Hypogaeum of the Octavii’, Via Trionfale 561–2 hypogaeum of ‘Roma Vecchia’ family tomb 562, 563f ‘Maid of Anzio’, National Roman Museum 362f, 363 Pretestato site, Via Appia 564, 569f Tor Cervara marble sarcophagus 559, 562–3 Ronchey Law, Italy 655 Ross Female Factory, Tasmania, Australia 412 Rotherham, Captain Edward 278, 282 Rotuman males, Polynesia 96 Rouffignac Cave flutings made by adults and children, France 327f, 328 Royal College of St Anthony 616, 617 Royaumont Abbey, Val-d’Oise, France 601 Russian Ark (2002 film) 672
subject index 747 Säby cemetery, Sweden 256 Sacramento, US 302 moralizing ceramics, US 305–7, 306f porcelain dolls 304 teasets 304 see also training children for work (nineteenth century), Britain, North America and Australia Saint (2010 film) 682 Sala salt mine, Västmanland, Sweden 251–69, 253f Sambia initiations 96 Sambon, Jules 662 Sambon Archaeological Collection 662 Samoan children 93–4 San Montano cemetery, Pithekoussai, Ischia, Italy 529 Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore, Corinth, Greece 364 Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore, Eleusis, Greece 533–4 Sanctuary of Eileithyia statues, Athens 355 Scandinavian Borre style brooches 418 Scar boat burial, Sanday, Orkney 418, 418f schools, archaeology of 230–1 Roman world 168 Scuola Napoletana 652–3 scurvy 284, 285 Anglo-Saxon England 458 Roman Britain 457, 471, 472, 473f seals 215 Sears and Roebuck catalogues 397 Second Sophistic movement 369 Second Vatican Council (1962–5) 615, 620, 624 self 21–3 Sétif cemetery, Algeria 156 Settefinestre villa, Tuscany, Italy 173 Seven Years War (1756–63) 276 Seventh Seal, The (1955 film) 676 Seward, William H. 206 sex of children at death 55–66 assessment 56, 65–6 biological identity 55–6 DNA analysis 66 metrical and geometric methods 65–6 sexual dimorphism 65 shaman’s paraphernalia 222, 225
shoes, in Roman barracks 172 Siberian foragers, Neolithic growth pattern study 76 Sicán/Lambayeque culture, Peru 578f, 578–9 sickle cell anaemia (thalassaemia) 469 Sigtuna medieval cemetery, Sweden 255, 266 Silk Routes 486 Sintashta culture, South Urals, Russia 347 Sisters Playing Chess (Anguissola) 681 Sisyphos II Daochos dedication, Delphi Archaeological Museum 360–3, 361f Skara cemetery, Sweden 266 skeletal growth and development 60–4, 61f, 62f and genetic inheritance 62–3 studies 24, 25f skeletal populations, study of growth in 71–84 ancient and modern populations 74–5, 75f biocultural studies in palaeopopulations 76–8 bone size/dental age relationship 73 catch-up growth 80 composite growth curves 73 cortical thickness as indicator compared with long-bone length 78–9 dental enamel hypothesis 80 growth profiles 92, 73, 74 interaction between bone growth and skeletal markers of disease/ malnutrition 79–81 methodological considerations 172–4 mortality bias 73 percentage of mean final adult size 73 raw dimensions methodology 73 skeletal elements other than long-bones 81 social status and growth patterns 76 stature 74–5, 75f subsistence change 76–7 urbanization, effects on growth 78 weaning and puberty milestones in development 81–3 skill acquisition 95, 318–9 Skin & Bone: Life & Death in Medieval Perth exhibition 672, 679 slates and pencils 308 slave children, Roman world 167, 168, 174 ‘Small Herculaneum Woman’, Dresden 363 Smyrna relief 368
748 subject Index snow house building, Arctic Canada 217 social age 42 ‘social bioarchaeology’ 112–15 social networks 14 social status and growth patterns 76, 80 socialization 18–21, 19f Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past (SSCIP) 44, 45 Society of Jesus (Jesuits) 616, 617–8, 619 Solutrean burials 324 South African Cape regions, Late Stone Age 24, 431–41, 434f dental age composition 436, 436t regional comparison with Cis-Baikal 437–40, 438f, 438t, 439t, 440t robusticity in limbs and child growth 440–2 see also Holocene foragers, reconstructing childhood activity spinning tops, Roman world 167, 168 St Francis of Assisi Church, New Mexico, US 389, 391f, 398 St James’ Church burial ground for unbaptized infants, Antrim, Northern Ireland 622f St Martin’s churchyard growth study, Birmingham, England 76, 79, 80 St Nicholas basilica, Bari, Italy 643, 644f St Patrick’s Church, Cushendun, Ireland 624–5, 625f St Peter’s Collegiate Church, Wolverhampton, England 243 Stabian Baths, Pompeii 381 Stamps for Toys program, New Mexico, US 397 Stanley boy effigy, Elford, Staffordshire, England 599 Stebbing, M. A. 640–1 Stebbing, T. R. R. 640–1, 641f stelai, carved 27 stillbirth 109 Sweden, mining community (1500–1600) 255 Tonga 91–2 Stoic philosophical views 149 Straumur boat burial, Iceland 420 Street, Hilda 397 Structo Toys 397
Struell Wells cillín, Down, Ireland 612 subsistence and growth patterns 76–7 suggrundarium graves 611 Sulawesi caves, Indonesia 325 Sunday schools 307 Sungir Palaeolithic burial site, Russia 324 Sura church, Sweden 260 swaddling clothes, Roman 151f, 152 Swan, Cromwellian shipwreck 288 Swedish mining community (1500–1600) 20, 251–69 age and sex distribution, and skeletal stress markers 265, 265f age limit for full responsibility, Swedish laws 254 child labour in the mines 257–8, 260–1 children and teenagers 254–5 clothed burials 259 coronet burial 259, 259f cribra orbitalia 265f, 265–6, 267f, 267–8 death of children and its sociocultural setting 255–9, 256f dietary reconstruction 266–7 dysentery 258 English rural children, late medieval period 257 female foundry workers 261–2 Frenchman’s Hoist winch 260–1 growth profile comparisons for children at Sala with post-medieval British/modern American children 263–4, 264f Gunnilbo cemetery comparison 256, 256f, 257 health and disease 262–3 historical and archaeological evidence 252–3, 253f indicators of stress 263–8, 264f, 265f, 267f, 269 lead contamination 20, 262–3 linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH) 265f, 266, 267f, 267–8 mortality rates 255 osteoarchaeological categorization 254, 257–8 Sala mining cemetery 252–3, 253f, 255–6, 256f Sala town records 256f, 258 smallpox 258 stable isotopes analysis 266–7, 267f stillborn babies’ burials 256
subject index 749 wage levels 254–5 winch boys 261 young people and their responsibilities 259–62 Syracuse, Sicily: Fusco Necropolis 527, 528 Giardino Spagna Necropolis 527 Tabellverket census, Sweden 258 Tagisken cemetery, Syr Darya, Kazakhstan 485 Tairtsekheru painted wooden coffin, Thebes, Egypt 550, 551f Tarkovsky, Andrei 678 Taunt, H. 633 Tavant, Gaul burial of infant with gladius 149 teeth see dental development Temple of Hera, Olympia, Greece 364 Termopolio dell’Asellina bar/restaurant, Pompeii 381 testosterone 65 Thames Mudlarks 694 Theodosius II 670 thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS) 514 Thjodhild, wife of Lief Eriksson 423 Thule and Dorset cultures, Arctic Canada 19, 213–25 bows and arrows, children’s 218–19, 220 cultural history 213–14, 214f ethnography 214–16 harpoon heads 220, 221f, 221–2, 222f, 223, 224f learning the tools of survival 213–25 Tîrgşor cemetery, Romania 486 Tiwanaku people, Bolivia 577f, 577–8 toddler rejection 90, 93 toga virilis 169 Tonga, stillborn children 91–2 Tongan ‘children’s culture’ 138 Tor Cervara marble sarcophagus, Rome 559, 562–3 tortoises, in Pompeian houses 172 Towton, Battle of (1461) 286 Toy Industry Foundation program (1961), US 397 toys 4, 17–9, 23 European Bronze Age 342–3 Harappan Civilization 179, 181–7 medieval period 668–9
nineteenth century, Britain, Australia and the US 302–5, 303f Roman world 150, 166–7 tea cup, Manor Lodge, Sheffield 303, 303f US government sponsored programs 401 Vecino, New Mexico, US 23, 391–3, 392t, 393t whips 230 see also dolls, ragdolls and doll figurines; marbles; Vecino archaeology, New Mexico, US Toys for Tots US Marine Corps program (1947) 397 Trafalgar, Battle of (1805) 283 training children 18–21, 19f training children for work (nineteenth century), Britain, North America and Australia 297–310 Alderley Sandhills, England 301 child labour in an industrial age 298 defining the Victorian child 299 dolls 304 Manor Lodge, Sheffield, England 301 marbles 304–5 the material record 299–300 moralizing ceramics 305–7, 306f piggy banks 308 Port Adelaide, Australia 300–1, 303, 305, 306f, 407, 407f, 408 The Rocks settlement, Australia 300 Sacramento, US 302 scientific and musical artefacts 308 slates and pencils 308 toys 302–5, 303f toys and gender 304, 305 unwaged work in the home 298, 308 work-related artefacts 308 working ages and conditions legislation 298 see also migration and children in the nineteenth century; New York City working-class childhood, nineteenth century Treasures of the Black Death exhibition (Wallace Collection, London) 677 Tripoli, boys playing at ploughing 19f Tucume Sacred Temple of the Stone 579 Tullia, daughter of Cicero 157
750 subject Index Tyrell brass, East Horndon, Essex, England 593–6 Tzeltal Maya villagers 97 Ulithi atoll children 95 Ulster plantation scheme, Ireland 615 UNICEF global agenda 42 United States Children’s Bureau, breastfeeding and infant mortality 451 Unsworth, Barry 675 urbanization, effects on growth 78 Uzbekistan head shaping 485 Valley of the Bees (1967 film) 676 Vasa shipwreck (1628) 287 Väsby estate, Sweden 252 Västerhus medieval cemetery, Sweden 256f, 257 Vecino archaeology, New Mexico, US 23, 387–401 arriada game 394 artefacts (toys) 391–3, 392t, 393t Barbie toys 395f, 399 canute (Indian stick game) 394 Chicano movement 398 children’s behaviour ‘zones’ 391–2 commercialization of childhood in the US 389 Contemporary Period 395f, 399–400 distribution of artefact type by period 393t engagement with the external world 394 functional codes of artefacts with examples 392t games and riddle culture 397 globalization and modernity, influence on children’s lives 387–8, 399, 401 Los Penitentes lay brotherhood associations 389 Mighty Morphin Power Ranger 395f, 395–6 mission statements, toy manufacturers 392 modernization and global awareness 397 muñecas (dolls) 394 photographs, Taos County 396f, 396–7 pitarilla (New Mexico checkers) 394 Retro Period (1970 s–1980 s) 395f, 398–9 schools and education in New Mexico 394–6 social politics of play 388–9
St Francis of Assisi Church 389, 391f, 398 Tafoya family 387, 391 tourists and tourism 389 TV pop/Western cultural influence 397 US government sponsored programs and toys 397, 401 Vecino ethnogenesis and the St Francis Parish 389–93 Vecinos and modernity 400, 401 vecinos/naturales differentiation 389–91, 390f Village period (1790 s–1920 s) 393–4, 395f Vintage Period (1930 s–1960 s) 394–8, 395f, 396f why study play? 388–9 Vesuvius eruption (AD 79) 152 Vetera I Roman fortress 173 Veyrier Cave infant cranial segment, France 325 via dell’Abondanza, Pompeii 381 Victorian children (Cambridge, England), educating 19–20, 228–46 animal and bird assemblages 235–7 archaeology of schools 230–1 Barrett & Sons child-sized cup and plate fragments 241f, 241–2 blacking bottles 235 ceramics associated with childhood 229 ceramics included with burials 242–3 cups 234f, 240–2, 241f, 246 garden features 237–40 ‘Indian Temple’ pattern bowl 237, 238f interpreting adult material from other garden features 243–4, 244–5 interpreting child-specific material 240–3 moralizing ceramics 240 percentages of material deposited in different contexts 246f pink colour associations 240–1 planting holes 234f, 234–7, 236f, 239f plates 242, 242f Sayle Department Store hostel sign language plate 242f Sarah Dobson’s garden 231–45, 232f, 233f ‘Sicilian’ ceramic service 243–4 slate pencils 237, 239f smoking and alcohol 244
subject index 751 Viking burials 415, 417–23, 489 Viking raiders, Weymouth, England 286, 287 Villa San Marco, Campania, Italy 383 Viminacium Roman cemetery, Moesia Superior 487 Vita Oswaldi (Byrhtferth of Ramsey) 416 vitamins 80–1 C deficiency, Late Roman world 524 D deficiency 285 Vláčil, František 676 Vronda cremations, Crete 528 Wari people 577f, 577–8 mothers and infants 91 Watts, Isaac 234–5, 240 weaning see breastfeeding and weaning; feeding infants, Iron Age to early medieval period; Roman world, archaeological and epigraphic evidence for infancy Weingarten cemetery, Germany 491 West Necropolis sarcophagi, Megara Hyblaea, Sicily 26f Westgarth Gardens Anglo-Saxon burial, Suffolk, England 5f, 6f Westminster Abbey, London 601 Westness grave, Rousay, Scotland 420, 422 wet nurses 451 Anglo-Saxon England 457 Roman world (nutrix) 152, 154, 166 Wharram Percy growth study, England 74, 75, 75f, 80, 82, 471
Wheel of Fortune (c.1240), William de Brailes 597 Wheel of Life, Psalter of Robert de Lisle 597 Wheel of Life woodcut (c.1480), Rhineland 596, 597f whistles, Harappan Civilization 181 William of Hatfield effigy, York Minster, England 599–601, 600f, 602, 603 William of Windsor 601 Williamite Wars, Ireland (1688–91) 619 Winchester Object and Economy report 668 Wittgens, F. 655 Wylie, R. W. 642f, 642–3, 644 Wynes, Mary, suicide 410 Xcambó trading site cranial modifications, Yucutan, Mexico 495 Xiongnu skull modification 486 Y chromosome 66 Yaz-Tepe, Merv, Turkmenistan 485 Yewden Roman villa newborn infant remains, Hambleden, England 693–4 Yoruba ‘mothers and grandmothers,’ and mothering 93 Young Boy with his Drawing (Caroto) 680, 680f Ytra-Garðshorn burial, Iceland 420 Yucatec Mayans, children’s activities 545–6 Zimbabwe subsistence farming and child labour 136