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Newswise — Digging into the past is more than child's play, says a University of Florida researcher whose study shows that archaeological finds of children's artifacts reveal missing clues about the world they lived in.
Children in 18th-century Spanish colonial households in St. Augustine, Fla., had toys and games, but they also started early to learn their future roles as men and women, the study reveals.
"The main goal of childhood was to get children ready for their adult lives," said Jamie Waters, who did the research for her thesis in anthropology at UF. "Parents and other adult family members were trying to socialize children in the skills they would need as adults, which for boys included reading and writing, and for girls was domestic crafts, such as pottery making, sewing, cooking and taking care of younger siblings."
Boys were left relatively free to play between the ages of 3 and 7, before entering school, while girls were beginning to be taught the future responsibilities of motherhood, food preparation and other household tasks, Waters said. Thimbles and small ceramic bowls found at the site were among the items young girls used, she said.
Waters, a former research assistant at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus, compared the artifacts from four households known from documents to have between four and nine children with those from other households, three without children and one with one child.
The artifacts were collected during excavations headed by Kathleen Deagan, a UF anthropologist who supervised Waters' work, and by other archaeologists in excavations in the 1970s. Deagan said knowing the age and gender of people who lived in a place, along with their activities, is important to archaeologists in trying to piece together a picture of daily life.
"We usually talk about economy, occupation and income, but it's becoming increasingly evident that everyone " including children " had an impact on the shaping of the material world," Deagan said. "And the history of childhood is relevant to societies because it tells us about values and the conditions that every single person had to go through to be a grownup."
Carl Halbirt, archaeologist for the city of St. Augustine, agreed that children have been a missing element in understanding the past. "Waters' study is a very valuable source for getting a more comprehensive picture of what was going on here in St. Augustine during the colonial period," he said.
To identify each household, Waters used a 1764 map commissioned by the Spanish government to assess property holdings of the colonists. She was able to determine family size by examining parish records for births and baptisms. Other records revealed payroll amounts for the garrison, allowing her to compare the number and types of artifacts associated with children living in lower- and upper-class households.
Marbles, spinning tops, whistles and miniature ceramic figurines such as animals and birds that were excavated from households with children were typically used by boys, she said.
"Despite the fact that St. Augustine was considered an impoverished and remote garrison town compared to the rich and cosmopolitan cities of Mexico City or Lima, it appears that families still acquired amusement items for each child in the family," she said.
Family size instead of wealth determined the quantity of items related to children at particular households, Waters said. One lower socioeconomic residence with six children had 24 percent of the games and toys, compared with 7 percent for the upper-class residence with four children, she said.
"We had assumed that there would be much more evidence of children at wealthy sites," Deagan said. "Children were just as important to their parents in poor families as in wealthy ones."
Also related to the presence of children were amulets in the form of beads used since medieval times because of their perceived supernatural qualities for those considered weak or in need of protection, Waters said. One to five beads related to pregnancy, childbirth or children were found in each of the households with children, while only one bead, of a type used by women in general and not necessarily related to children or childbirth, was found in households without children, she said.
Amber and light colored stones to help in teething or lactation, as well as coral to ward off the "evil eye" -- a harmful spirit thought to cause many illnesses -- were among the amulets attached to children's clothing, incorporated into necklaces and chains or used in suckers or pacifiers, she said.
"Because of the high rates of infant mortality, children were considered to be extremely vulnerable and in need of the additional protection provided by amulets," she said.
Children also influenced the number of other household articles, which Waters found to be more than twice as prevalent at sites with children than those without. These items included fishing tackle, and pieces of brass, lead and iron, used in craft production and possibly indicating the training and apprenticeship of children, she said.
"Children seldom have been explored in archaeology because of the limited Western view of childhood as merely a prolonged period of dependence on adults," Waters said. "Yet our research shows that children clearly have been and continue to be important parts of our culture."
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