Growing Up North: Exploring the Archaeology of Childhood in the Thule and Dorset Cultures of Arctic Canada

Abstract

In late prehistoric times the Canadian Arctic was occupied sequentially by the peoples known to archaeologists as the Dorset and the Thule cultures, the latter being the direct cultural and biological ancestors of the Inuit who live there today. For archaeologists interested in exploring aspects of childhood, the Thule culture has three very desirable characteristics: potentially magnificent preservation due to the effects of permafrost; a complex and varied material culture; and, from their Inuit descendants, a rich and detailed body of ethnographic information that can be drawn upon for analogy. With these advantages it is possible to identify a wide range of Thule items, especially miniature versions of implements, specifically associated with children. These can be studied to explore the roles of children in Thule society. Intriguingly, it is far more difficult to identify items associated with children of the Dorset culture, despite their material culture's being equally complex and their sites being often almost as well preserved. This chapter summarizes the results of research into childhood among the Thule and shows how the experience of childhood for Dorset children may have been somewhat different from that experienced by their Thule successors.

The role of play objects and object play in human cognitive evolution and innovation

“…First, Saqqaq material culture is remarkably uniform in Greenland, while Thule material culture is highly dynamic in the development of many different harpoon forms, boat designs, and clothing styles. Second, obvious play objects are absent in Paleoeskimo contexts, whereas the children's material culture from Neoeskimo sites is astoundingly rich, 58 an observation that articulates well with ethnographic reports of children's worlds and objects in these societies ( Figure 3). 59,60 With exceptionally well-preserved sites known from both periods, this difference in the occurrence of play objects in Paleo-and Neoeskimo assemblages cannot be reduced to taphonomy.…”

Unearthing Childhood: The Archeology of Children in North America

“…He explains an even higher discrepancy of 15% of miniatures versus 2% of full-sized items in the "Transportation" category with the fact that most artifacts were found in houses and that most full-sized sleds and transportation items likely were not stored inside. In other categories the proportions of miniatures and full-sized models were more comparable, suggesting that children were treated as small adults as the ethnographic data suggests, even in prehistoric times (Park 2006).…”

“…It is therefore well-suited for the study of childhood archaeology (Park 2006). Here ethnographic information is crucial in helping researchers to understand the archaeological material.…”

Finding Children Without Toys: The Archaeology of Children at Shabbona Grove, Illinois

“…Instead … children's graves were a means to learn about the (adult) political organization of a society … children were seen as a site-formation process affecting the material culture produced by adults, and … children were invoked as a means of separating out seemingly aberrant potsherds so that they would not confuse the stylistic and other kinds of analyses that were being applied to the remaining 'adult' potsherds. Park (2005) is correct in that children's activities are often seen as indicators of more important adult actions; post-medieval archaeologies especially struggle with recognising the importance of children's effects (Morrison and Crawford, 2013). Even detailed archaeological analyses focused on children, such as Buchli and Lucas's (2000) study of children's material culture in an abandoned tenant house, also tend to cultivate conclusions directed, ultimately, towards the adults of the study.…”

“…Low-quality or novelty-size replicas of full-sized, functional material culture that many archaeologists assign to children's work also fall under this category (e.g. Finlay, 1997;Greenfield, 2000;Grimm, 2000;Bagwell, 2002;Smith, 2003;Park, 2005;Smith, 2005;Cunnar, 2015;Finlay, 2015). Child-specific material culture also refers to the personal effects of children -shoes, buttons, ribbons, pacifiers, cradles and clothing.…”