[In The News] Early Hominin Footprints May Reveal Children’s Activities

Ever wondered what hominin kids were up to? Read this great, short news story from archeology.org

Early Hominin Footprints May Reveal Children’s Activities

[Teaching Resources] Explaining Human Culture

If you’re looking for a way to give your students a sense of how cross-cultural research is conducted, we highly recommend the Explaining Human Culture, produced by the Human Relations Area Files

Of note are great summaries on childhood, adolescence, games and sport, and hunter-gatherers.

Each summary outlines cross-cultural findings on a wide array of topics (e.g. gender differences, children’s play, alloparents, etc.). In the “What we do not know” section at the end of each summary, students can find a list of questions that remain unanswered, the perfect resource needed for peaking curiosity, and for finding a topic for a research project, and beyond!

[Paper Spotlight] The Cradle of Thought: Growth, Learning, Play and Attachment in Neanderthal Childr

Spikins et al. explore Neanderthal children’s role in society in this 2014 paper in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology.

Read it here!

Abstract: Childhood is a core stage in development, essential in the acquisition of social, practical and cultural skills. However, this area receives limited attention in archaeological debate, especially in early prehistory. We here consider Neanderthal childhood, exploring the experience of Neanderthal children using biological, cultural and social evidence. We conclude that Neanderthal childhood experience was subtly different from that of their modern human counterparts, orientated around a greater focus on social relationships within their group. Neanderthal children, as reflected in the burial record, may have played a particularly significant role in their society, especially in the domain of symbolic expression. A consideration of childhood informs broader debates surrounding the subtle differences between Neanderthals and modern humans.