South African Archaeological Society

The Archaeology of Childhood. Children, Gender, and Material Culture by J. E. BaxterReview by: Lyn WadleyThe South African Archaeological Bulletin, Vol. 61, No. 184 (Dec., 2006), p. 213Published by: South African Archaeological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20474931 .

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South African Archaeological Bulletin 61 (184): 213-218, 2006 213

Book Reviews

Baxter, J.E. 2005. The Archaeology of Childhood. Children,

Gender, and Material Culture. Walnut Creek: Altamira. 158 pp. ISBN 0-7591-0331-3 (cloth). Price US$72.00/US$26.95 (paper back).

The Archaeology of Childhood is the tenth volume in the success ful Gender and Archaeology Series, edited by Sarah Milledge

Nelson. The Series focuses on ways to understand gender in the past, using archaeology as a theoretical and methodological vehicle. This recent addition to the Series is elegantly written in an accessible style and, refreshingly, it displays none of the sentimentality that is sometimes associated with texts about children.

Childhood, like gender, is a culturally-specific construction. Both concepts are linked through socialization, and their meaning has different significance in diverse historical and cultural contexts. This statement places Baxter's comment in its own historical context because, as she points out, this was not the view of, for example, Margaret Mead who as recently as the 1950s believed in a universal childhood.

Archaeological views of childhood have also evolved from the days when cultural items that could not easily be inter preted were dismissed as children's toys. Mortuary studies are probably the oldest type of archaeology to include children; age has long been considered a determinant in grave location and body preparation. Apart from this, children were neither seen nor heard. The purpose of the book is to redress this omission of children from archaeological research. I was slightly skeptical about this possibility when I opened the book, but by Chapter 3 I was intrigued and captivated by the prospects for this field of research.

Mortuary data do, of course, provide one of the most convincing ways for recognizing children in the past. How ever, interpretation of burial practices is dependent on theory; in this regard, the study of child burials has undergone a meta

morphosis in the last decade. Almost throughout the twentieth century, children's grave goods were interpreted as relevant only to their parents' status and wealth; while child mortality was regarded as an indicator of nutritional and other stresses in

early communities. Today, interpretive approaches are more varied. Burial practices that exhibit differences between the treatment of adult, child and infant bodies can be viewed, for example, as a way of identifying age categories that once structured societies. Gender-specific placement of grave goods occasionally provides the opportunity to detect different types of transition from boyhood to manhood and from girlhood to

womanhood. Detailed examinations of skeletal remains some times show that children enjoyed good health when they were alive, but that they died violent deaths. Such information suggests that archaeologists need to probe the darker side of past community life. Mortuary monuments are particularly rich sources of information for relatively recent attitudes towards children. Victorian monuments, for instance, often depicted sleeping, androgynous children; such symbolism reflected the Western ideal, common at the time, of childhood innocence and purity.

Baxter reasons that all archaeology is the archaeology of childhood because the archaeology of children is about children's relationships with their environments, their peers and adults in their families and communities. As in the Victorian example, adult agents of socialization operate with ideal definitions of childhood and these ideals are reinforced through symbolic expressions in art, toys and other items of material culture.

Because socialization and enculturation are so important, children are taught norms, values and behaviours appropriate for specific social settings. The use of space is a good example and children quickly learn the acceptable locations for various activities. Such adult prescriptions shape a child's perception of the world and influence areas where children will spend their time. Baxter provides archaeological case-studies for the spatial recognition of children.

The book contains fascinating accounts of tracing children's spaces and behaviours archaeologically. There are some obvious arenas such as paintings and sculptures, but Baxter also cites less obvious contexts such as ceramics and even lithics. Studies of novice knapping products, their non-circulation across a living area and their occurrence on the periphery of other activity areas, suggest that children were the apprentices responsible for flakes with step and hinge fractures and even those ugly flakes with unusually large bulbs of percussion.

Fingerprints embedded in some fired pots suggest that children were, on occasion, the trainee potters. Children's contributions to the food quest can be inferred at some sites, for example, shell middens. At some of these sites, researchers puzzled over midden composition, until they realized that the contents made good sense when adult and children's collect ing habits were jointly considered. Children's visual range,

manual dexterity, lesser strength and short strides meant that they gathered different shellfish from their adult companions.

We may 'TsK at the thought of small children working at potentially dangerous tasks such as stone tool knapping or the gathering of shellfish, but, as Baxter comments, separating the concepts of work and play tends to be an adult Western construct. The varied case-studies in the book highlight time-related and cultural differences in attitudes towards children and they demonstrate that the distinct period of childhood perceived by Western cultures did not always exist. It is probably true to say that this concept differs cross culturally even in the twenty-first century. Tiny children in Egypt are still dexterous carpet-weavers in factories designed for the purpose. Children work long hours at this task, which requires great concentration and skill, and they attend school

when they have finished work. I was indignant when I saw this practice at the first factory that I visited. I mourned the loss of childhood for these under-twelves who would be retrenched

when their fingers reached teenage proportions. The children, however, were cheerful, conversational, well-fed, well-clothed and palpably proud of their status as the only bread-winners in their large families. Thus Baxter's case finds support in contexts outside of the book.

I recommend The Archaeology of Childhood as an engrossing read. Baxter is to be congratulated for this well-researched and thought-provoking book.

Lyn Wadley Archaeology Division

University of the Witwatersrand South Africa

Burroughs, W.J. 2005. Climate Change in Prehistory. The End of the Reign of Chaos. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 352 pp. ISBN 0-521-82409-5 (hardback). Price R300.00.

Climate, a subject of considerable concern in relation to current trends associated with global warming, can be seen in the context of temperature variability within the last two or

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