The Archaeology of Childhood

The second edition of The Archaeology of Childhood continues to explore the interdisciplinary field of studying childhood across time and cultures, using artifacts, the built environment, spatial analyses, artistic representations, skeletal remains, and mortuary assemblages to illuminate the lives of children, their families, and communities. It covers eight chapters, including the cultural creation of childhood, socialization, behavior, and the spaces and places of childhood, socialization, symbols, and artistic representations of children, socialization, childhood, and mortuary remains, and looking back and moving forward. Case studies and examples from around the globe are included, and the authors expertise on childhood in 18th-20th century America is drawn upon to provide more familiar examples for readers.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 262 pages
Publication date: 29 June 2022
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

The Archaeology of Childhood, first published in 1996, is widely recognized as a pioneering work that established a new field of scholarship in archaeology. The second edition, published 17 years later, continues to emphasize the integration of diverse sources from archaeology, anthropology, environmental studies, psychology, and sociology to create a robust interdisciplinary foundation for studying childhood across time and cultures. The second edition incorporates recent archaeological studies on childhood, spanning the past 20 years, and highlights the relatively short but rich history of the archaeology of childhood. Archaeologists explore children's lives in the recent past, as well as those of Neanderthal and early modern human children, and every period in between. These studies employ a wide range of artifacts, the built environment, spatial analyses, artistic representations, skeletal remains, and mortuary assemblages to shed light on the experiences of children, their families, and communities. The book's eight chapters cover various aspects of the archaeology of childhood, including its contextualization, themes, foundations, cultural creation, socialization, behavior, spatial arrangements, symbolic representations, and mortuary remains. It also introduces the concept of socialization as a framework for archaeological scholarship on children. Case studies and examples from diverse global regions are included, providing a comprehensive overview of the field.

Weight: 400g
Dimension: 151 x 227 x 19 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781442268500
Edition number: Second Edition