Current images portray childhood as primarily a time of play and learning, de-emphasizing children's economic contributions and relegating them, like women, to the less-visible realm of the home. Ethnographic and historic literature amply demonstrates that age categories are constructs and, thus, exhibit considerable temporal and cross-cultural variability. Nevertheless, archaeologists have tended to ignore prehistoric children, perhaps viewing them as only peripheral to central research concerns, or to treat them stereotypically. The archaeological record provides opportunities for the exploration of numerous aspects of childhood and archaeologists are encouraged to respond to the challenge.

http://disciplinas.stoa.usp.br/mod/resource/view.php?id=44580

Where Have All the Children Gone?: The Archaeology of Childhood

The genetics of dermal ridges

Recently, the value of the study of children and childhood from archaeological contexts has become more recognized. Childhood is both a biological and a social phenomenon. However, because of specialization in research fields within anthropology, subadults from the archaeological record are usually studied from the biological perspective (bioarchaeology) or, more predominantly, the social perspective (social archaeology), with little research that incorporates both approaches. These polarized approaches to childhood and age highlight the dualistic way in which “biological” and “social” aspects of the body are viewed. Some recent literature criticizes bioarchaeological approaches, and calls for the incorporation of childhood social theory, including social age categories, into subadult health analysis. However, few studies have explicitly addressed the practicalities or theoretical issues that need to be considered when attempting this. This paper critically examines these issues, including terminology used for defining subadulthood and age divisions within it, and approaches to identify “social age” in past populations. The important contribution that bioarchaeology can make to the study of social aspects of childhood is outlined. Recent theoretical approaches for understanding the body offer exciting opportunities to incorporate skeletal remains into research, and develop a more biologically and socially integrated understanding of childhood and age.

The Bioarchaeological Investigation of Childhood and Social Age: Problems and Prospects

KRALIK M., NOVOTNÝ V. 2003. Epidermal ridge breadth: an indicator of age and sex in paleoderma- toglyphics. Variability and Evolution, Vol. 11: 5-30, Tabs. 5, Figs. 9. Adam Mickiewicz University, Faculty of Biology, Institute of Anthropology, Poznan. Abstract: Epidermal ridge breadth of human fingerprints was investigated on ceramic artifacts from contemporary ceramic workshops. Our investigation has shown that mean epidermal ridge breadth (MRB) as observed on ceramics can be used as an indicator of age (from birth to maturity) and sex of the artifact maker in adulthood. In this study, we suggest a new method of scanning, measuring and data processing. The best age estimation method (using equation proposed by Kamp et al. from Grinnell College, USA, and modified after shrinkage by 7.5%) yielded results with mean error of estimates -0.18 years (SD = 2.36 years), median absolute error of estimates was 1.71 years and only in 3.6% of cases the absolute errors were higher than 5 years. Therefore, in a particular ethnic group epidermal ridge breadth of fingerprints on ceramics is suitable for comparing of individuals' ages. The number of fingerprints and ridges per individual had no influence on estimation errors. In adults, sexual dimorphism was clearly present even though artifacts were made from different types of ceramic clays. Ridge breadth is 9% greater in males than in females. On the whole, MRB under 0.39 mm signifies a sub-adult individual under 15 years of age and MRB values over 0.52 mm come solely from adult males. However, age changes of ridge breadth in teenagers overlap with adult sexual dimorphism and therefore, in case of MRB values between 0.39 and 0.52 mm, variability in both age and sex should be taken into account. If this method is further developed, especially the qualitative aspects of fingerprints and properties of ceramic clay, it has great potential for illuminating the social background of ceramics-making in ancient cultures.

Epidermal ridge breadth: an indicator of age and sex in paleodermatoglyphics

Although adult skeletal morphological variation is best understood within the framework of age-related processes, relatively little research has been directed towards the structure of and variation in trabecular bone during ontogeny. We report here new quantitative and structural data on trabecular bone microarchitecture in the proximal tibia during growth and development, as demonstrated in a subadult archaeological skeletal sample from the Late Prehistoric Ohio Valley. These data characterize the temporal sequence and variation in trabecular bone structure and structural parameters during ontogeny as related to the acquisition of normal functional activities and changing body mass. The skeletal sample from the Fort Ancient Period site of SunWatch Village is composed of 33 subadult and three young adult proximal tibiae. Nondestructive microCT scanning of the proximal metaphyseal and epiphyseal tibia captures the microarchitectural trabecular structure, allowing quantitative structural analyses measuring bone volume fraction, degree of anisotropy, trabecular thickness, and trabecular number. The microCT resolution effects on structural parameters were analyzed. Bone volume fraction and degree of anisotropy are highest at birth, decreasing to low values at 1 year of age, and then gradually increasing to the adult range around 6–8 years of age. Trabecular number is highest at birth and lowest at skeletal maturity; trabecular thickness is lowest at birth and highest at skeletal maturity. The results of this study highlight the dynamic sequential relationships between growth/development, general functional activities, and trabecular distribution and architecture, providing a reference for comparative studies. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2009. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Patterns in ontogeny of human trabecular bone from SunWatch Village in the Prehistoric Ohio Valley: General features of microarchitectural change

Experimental replications show that ridge breadth measurements from fingerprints on archaeological artifacts can be used to estimate the age of the individual who produced the prints. While the greatest amount of variability in human ridge breadth is due to the growth during development from birth to adulthood, there is also variability due to hand and body size, sex, and ethnicity. Despite these confounding variables, the variability due to age is great enough to allow the separation of children’s prints from those of adults using ridge breadths. The utility of this measurement is illustrated with a short case study using ceramic vessels and figurines from northern Arizona. This discovery has great potential for illuminating some of the roles that children played in prehistory.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2694281.pdf

Nichole Timmerman

Papers

Discovering childhood: using fingerprints to find children in the archaeological record