Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2006, Page 58

Christopher Callow
est in recent decades in the archaeology
of medieval children in particular, and in
life course studies generally among his-
torians: we can begin to think about the
relevant issues for Iceland.
The archaeology of childhood
This subject has emerged as an important
strand in academic archaeology over the
last twenty years. Just as Philippe Ariés’
work (see below) has come to be seen as
a defining moment in the historical study
of childhood, so Grete Lillehammer’s arti-
cle in Norwegian Archaeological Review
in 1989 was a defining moment in study-
ing childhood through archaeology
(Lillehammer 1989; Baxter 2005: 16).
Lillehammer used the term “the child’s
world” to foreground the multi-faceted
nature of childhood and the differing
ways in which childhood can be analysed.
In essence, the archaeology of childhood
has developed out of a deeper interest in
gender archaeology and studies of the life
course (e.g. Crawford 1999, Dommasnes
1999, Harlow and Laurence 2002). Lille-
hammer and others have opened up a
broad range of issues which we might
consider to be part of the archaeology
of childhood. Socialization is clearly a
key part of this: determing how children
are defined and how they define them-
selves and each other through work and
play.
It has been recognised that child-
ren have an obvious impact in the archae-
ological record - through artefacts such
as toys as well as the buildings and spaces
which they use and, of course, by their
deaths. They also have other, less obvious
and less recognised contributions to the
archaeological record: they use tools and
have working roles sometimes too readily
ascribed solely to adults; it has long been
appreciated that their activities can have
an unpredictable impact on the archaeo-
logical remains of settlement (Bonnich-
sen 1973). Thus traditional concems
(investigating the attitudes of society as
a whole to individuals buried in cemeter-
ies; defining ‘status’ and age- and gender-
related categories; diet, life expectancy,
pathology; settlement and building func-
tions) have been reshaped to recognise
children as active members of society
who have an impact on the ‘adult’ world.
Defining what past societies meant by
‘child’ is clearly still important as such
ideas are social constructions which vary
across time and space. The significance
of all of this can be underlined by remind-
ing ourselves of the likelihood that chil-
dren were a far larger proportion of past
populations than most modern westerners
are used to considering. Having said that,
it is recognised that for many past socie-
ties it is difficult to find much archaeo-
logical evidence of children in cemetery
populations (e.g. Lillehammer 1989: 95-
6; Crawford 1999: 24). This could pose
a very considerable problem beyond the
obvious point that many children might
have been buried somewhere away from
the adult population.
Medieval Children
Historians have revised the generally neg-
ative portrayal of medieval children’s lives
given in the landmark study of Philippe
Ariés (1962). Ariés used art historical
evidence to suggest that medieval chil-
dren were considered to be little adults.
Ariés’ view was, in effect, that medieval
western societies did not consider child-
hood a recognisable stage of life demar-
cated from adulthood; children were little
adults. Seemingly almost every scholar
ever since has disagreed with Ariés but
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