Making medieval toys: Using experimental archaeology to engage students in academic enquiry

Summary

The early medieval period is often thought of as a grim, violent era, characterized by conflict and social inequality. It is typically dominated by adult male narratives, albeit with a growing body of work centred on women’s lives. Children have remained in the shadows, sometimes seen but rarely heard. There is limited archaeological evidence for children’s activities and even less appears in textual sources from the Middle Ages. This paper explores the ways in which medieval children’s toys and games can be used to engage learners in thinking critically about archaeology, children, and the past. It will examine the use of experimental archaeology projects with undergraduate students, involving the production of toys and games. In particular, this project aims to assess the character of research questions, hypotheses, and experiments developed by students tasked with researching medieval children through material culture and actualistic experiments.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• On the Move: Archaeological Approaches to Children and Childhood

Keywords

Spatial Coverage