Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2006, Page 69

First steps towards an archaeology of children in Iceland
been lost (Kristjánsson 1956: 40; McKin-
nell 1987: 79, note 1). This is one class
of object which is recognised by a medi-
eval text but, ironically, all other archaeo-
logical examples of similar, small metal
or ceramic animal figures seem to come
from a later period and only from main-
land Scandinavia; the metal versions are
most likely associated with certain kings’
attempts at standardising weights (Style-
gar 2006). A very small, plain wooden
horse excavated at the episcopal see of
Hólar in Skagafjörður in 2004 would
appear to be a toy. Although its context/
date is not clear it could be an imitation of
the miniature horses found elsewhere in
Scandinavia and Germany (Anon. 2004;
Eldjárn 1965). Another carved wooden
object, possibly a human figure, was also
found at Hólar although it is very differ-
ent in style to the horse and so does not
look like an obvious companion-piece
(Fig.3).
Otherwise it is hard to see
objects in early, accompanied Icelandic
children’s graves (or in excavated farm-
steads), which look like toys unless we
count objects such as the distinctive peb-
bles from Straumur (see above; Eldjárn
1965: 495; cf. Arnold cited by Classen
2005: 38). At least two Icelandic chil-
dren’s graves of individuals aged seven
to twelve do have ‘miniature’ objects
in them: an axe and knife at Straumur,
a spear at Grímsstaðir and an axe and
spear in a grave at Laufahvammur where
the age of the interred individual is not
known, it does appear (Eldjárn 2000:
58, 211, 221). In these cases it is possi-
ble that material culture is being used to
‘establish normative gender behaviour’
(Gilchrist 1999: 91) for boys of seven to
twelve years before they enter the adult
social arena. Iceland’s material poverty,
however, is likely to have led to few
children having any toys except those
which were readily made from animal
bones and small pieces of wood. At the
same time perhaps more so than for other
medieval societies, the apparent absence
of a material culture of childhood in Ice-
land should not be seen as an absence
of childhood. Better preservation condi-
tions have led to another sub-arctic cul-
ture, that of the Inuit, providing far more
material remains of miniature objects
(Park 1998). This gives some indication
of what may not have survived for Ice-
land or other parts of northern Europe.
One possible reason for a gen-
eral absence of toys, if not symbolic
miniature objects in graves, might be the
early introduction of the known, modern
Icelandic practice of using animal bones
as toys. Although now it is almost a cli-
ché concerning ‘the old days’ that early
twentieth-century farm children used to
imagine different small animal bones to
represent whole sheep, cattle and other
animals (e.g. Anon 2004), it would have
made sense to do this in any century of
Iceland’s history. There is even something
about the worked, wooden ‘horse’ from
Hólar, with its short legs, which resem-
bles the unworked animal bones. Given
what we know and might imagine about
children’s play, it is a salutary reminder
of the limitations of archaeological evi-
dence to think that, just maybe, some
of the unusual arrangements of animal
bones in and around the tenth-century
longhouse at Hofstaðir was the product
of children playing a game rather than
some form of pre-Christian religious
practice.
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