What if children lived here? Asking new questions of the material culture from old Anglo-Saxon settlement excavations.

Summary

It has been incredibly difficult to identify children's material culture in the archaeological record using the standard parameters of the last century - is it miniature? does it look like a (modern) toy? was it found actually buried with an actual child? But recent developments in the theory of the archaeology of childhood, particularly in relation to children's toys, play spaces and activities, offer new ways of asking questions of objects to reconsider whether they might be child-related, starting from the premise that there were always more children than adults in the past, and that children did intersect with the archaeological record. In this paper I will be reconsidering the material from some excavated Anglo-Saxon settlements in the context of these new theories to see whether the range of objects which might be classed as child-related might now plausibly be extended.

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