https://www.sapiens.org/column/curiosities/gender-archaeology/
Very often, the interpretations given by archaeologists for artefacts baffle me. Why is the “go to” explanation for a little figure “a hunting talisman” or “a source of ritual magic”? I am glad Dr. Nash asks if the Dolores Cave figurine is simply a toy. Why have other archaeologists of the past never considered the possibility that these little figures had no meaning at all, except to a child?
I think we as modern humans have trouble imagining that people of the past had loving, caring relationships with our families and especially our children. Because so few toys do survive from the past, we might tend to think of toys as something new and something modern, but if we really have a closer look, toys have always been there. They, like the children who played with them, are invisible until we take the time to see them. Like the children who played with them, the artefacts relating to children may not seem important until we look for them. Few archaeologists do look for the children. The commonly asked questions asked of an archaeological site seem to relate to economy, trade, life-ways, and technology, not the everyday, and certainly not the mother making certain her child is fed, warm, dry, and happy. When do we ever ask what made children happy in a Paleoindian household? We might never know, but we can ask what makes any child happy and apply that to a child any time in history. All children need is a full tummy, a warm bed, love from a parent, and something to play with and hold before they go to sleep.
When recreating an image of a Neolithic village, for the most part we focus on the survival mechanisms that allowed cultures to thrive. Seldom do we picture children chasing one another around, screaming and laughing the way our children do in a modern playground. Did bronze-age children laugh and play? Did they have wooden swords and dolls? What about games? When we find game pieces from Greece and Rome, we tend to interpret them as having been from a game for adults. But why have we done this in the past?
The only explanation I can think of is that most archaeologists in the past have been men. I am not dishonouring those men who were great Dads too, but they are not, for the most part, looking for children in the archaeological record. A majority of men are very male focussed. “How do I measure up to that other guy? How did these guys measure up to those guys?” As “man stuff” like war and violence are of interest to most men, that is what they are looking for. That Folsom Point must have been made by a man to be used by a man to hunt or to go to war with other men in rival nations. I am generalizing here (and I hope we are getting past this), but let’s face it, cedar baskets and fishing nets are not as exciting as manly things like power, politics, and hunting woolly mammoth and sabre-tooth tigers.
As Joan Gero points out, tool manufacture and use was not the absolute domain of men. Archaeologists should be willing to consider that a Folsom Point might well have been manufactured by a woman; flint-knapping requires not physical strength, but skill and finesse. A woman might have made a Folsom Point so she could cut bark to make a basket. Maybe she used it to harvest and cut squash. Perhaps she used that Folsom Point to cut corn husks and string to make a doll for her child (I have made a few corn dolls myself – I can imagine mothers through the centuries doing this). It is not beyond the realm of possibility. Could that little split trig animal have been made as a set of little animals for children to play with? Our children have animal figures, so why not?
It is unlikely that adults in past cultures always saw children as little adults that were only to be taught how to work to survive. Hunter-gather societies, unlike agricultural societies, often had spare time on their hands. In the early colonial period of the Americas, First Nations were reportedly very kind to and lenient with their children – far kinder and more lenient than colonial Europeans were – so it not beyond belief that toys for First Nations children might be commonplace. Wills from staunch early modern England show that even children there had toys and sometimes had what was referred to as “dimity” (diminutive) play furniture that was just their size, but few examples survive. Just because toys do not survive to the present does not mean they never existed.
I am a mother of four children, but I am a history and archaeology student as well. My role as a mother makes me ask, “Where are the children in archaeology?” There have always been children, so in my mind, there must always have been toys. I wonder now if archaeologists of the past have simply refused to recognise them as such.
I really enjoyed reading your reflection of Dr. Nash’s piece, because all too often, like you said, archaeologists and historians have a tendency to overlook children in the historical record (especially pre-history), and they also seem to ignore the childhood phase in general. At least in my experience, through reading various academic papers and hearing about research happening in the discipline, there seems to be a general consensus that childhood is a relatively modern phase, and that traditionally children were seen as miniature adults and had responsibilities to match. Yet, I’ve always been bothered by it because, especially in the case of pre-history, can childhood really be measured? So little material culture survives from that period, unless it’s made from durable materials like stone, which makes it challenging to get a holistic view of pre-historic cultures and how they actually viewed their children because we are only seeing them through a very specific lens and nowhere close to getting the full picture.
I entirely agree. I cannot comprehend why the first thought when carved figured and similar items are discovered is that they must be religious or related to a superstition. It is much more likely that they were toys. Many games and toys have been found in Egypt, however these were easier to identify as paintings depicted them in use or recorded the rules of the game. it would be amusing to see what a future archeologist thought of monopoly or chess as we have many themed versions of these things in addition to the traditional.
It is absolutely more difficult to identify these without visual aids, however this does not excuse the massive assumptions many archeologists start with.
This concept may also be applied to some prehistoric art which archeologists attribute to ritual or ceremonial locations. What if it was simply kids learning to draw? As a kid I quickly learned that the white limestone rocks in my yard could be used to draw on pavement almost like sidewalk chalk. Perhaps our vision of prehistoric artists as rudimentary is simply erroneous. Perhaps only or mostly children drew on cave walls and more practiced artists drew on perishable materials. There is a plethora of unnecessary assumptions used in archeology.
The article also notes the extensive bias towards seeing stone points as used in warfare and hunting as opposed to processing or other (perhaps less exciting) uses. There is no reason to assume that warfare was as much of an obsession for prehistoric peoples as it is in modern society. Archeology as a whole would be better served by including many possibilities until they are eliminated as opposed to beginning with one assumption which then needs to be disproved, even though it has not actually been proven.