ARCHAEOLOGY OF CHILDREN. Questions and strategies for a social approach
OCTOBER 18 and 19
Childhood is a period of transcendental life in any human group, not only because its survival and proper development will depend on the regeneration of the community, but also because in that time the processes of socialization and learning that will shape the social identity of the individual take place.
That is why the analysis and reconstruction of the subadult population are essential for the historical knowledge of the societies of the past. But is it possible from the material record to identify and reconstruct this stage of life in archaeological communities? What theories and methods are allowing such an approach today? Is childhood present in the discourses of archaeological museums? To answer these and other questions The Museo Canario organizes a conference in which some of the research that is currently being carried out in different societies of the past is presented. Funeral treatment, diet traces, nutrition, disease… in bones and teeth, figurative representations that allude to children or the material evidence of their socialization and participation in different activities are some of the aspects that will take place in this meeting, in an attempt to give light to those who were also protagonists of the story: the child and youth population.
Thursday, October 18
Afternoon session
5:30 p.m. Presentation
18:00 h. Recovered childhoods. Archaeological discourses on social identity in the past. Margarita Sánchez Romero (University of Granada)
Childhood is a social, cultural and biological construction of enormous importance for the definition, maintenance and reproduction of any human community. Despite this, the archaeology of children has not had a place in the discussion of societies of the past until the beginning of this century, when the prominence of children (either as recipients, or as agents) in social and economic processes is being revealed as a suggestive and relevant source of information.
On the basis of these premises, and after a brief historiographical look, we will examine three basic elements in human existence and experience – bodies, contexts and material culture – to reflect on how to approach childhood in archaeological societies through processes such as parenting, learning and socialization.
19:00 h. Motherhood and childhood, a look from osteoarcheology. Ma Paz de Miguel Ibáñez (University of Alicante)
The study of human remains in archaeological contexts allows to write the history of people who rarely appear in books or in written sources. Of the different aspects that we can know from the study of human remains, highlights the recognition of women who died while pregnant, although few times a death directly related to childbirth has been documented. We also recognize the association of women and newborns, in synchronous deposits, among which some of them can be linked to peripartum deaths, probably due to complications of the same after birth. Another aspect on which these studies enlighten us is the recognition of the child population, their representation, the differentiated funeral rites and the diseases that left their mark, as is the case with the high number of rickets observed, in the nineteenth century, in the crypt of the convent of the Trinitarias Descalzas de Madrid, studied within the "Project Cervantes".
20:00 h. Debate
Friday, October 19
Tomorrow's session
11:00 h. All death ahead: mortuary treatment of childhood among the ancient canaries. Veronica Alberto Barroso (Tibicena. Archaeology and Heritage SL) and Javier Velasco Vázquez (Cabildo de Gran Canaria/University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria).
Around the world of death, different social formulas materialize in which both the usual and the exceptional are perfectly regulated. For this reason, the treatment conferred on the corpse, the place of deposit, with whom or with what the corpse is associated with… they are good clues from which to explain the relationships established by a group of people within a specific historical framework. In the case of the former canaries, childish individuals have been left out of this analysis, most likely because of the particular path that until a few decades ago has guided bioanthropological research and, above all, by its numerically sparse representation in much of pre-Hispanic cemeteries. Today, different mortuary expressions linked to this specific segment of the population are recognized, in which age, beyond its biological nature, constituted a socially constructed category and, as such, determined a series of particular behaviors and attitudes to death, partly different from those of the adult population, in the same way that would also mark the way of acting in life. Knowing how this differentiated treatment was and trying to explain it is one of the challenges that today's archaeology faces in Gran Canaria.
12:00 h. Modeling childhood. Teeth, bones and figurines. Teresa Delgado Darias (The Canary Museum)
Bioanthropological data documented in the wild and dental remains of the pre-Hispanic population of Gran Canaria provide clues from which to approach childhood and the way social relationships are realized at that stage of life. To this end, this presentation will address the analyses carried out so far around the oral health status of the Aboriginal child and youth population, to investigate their diet and nutrition, and the evidence of skull fractures associated with violence. Some reflections on the transitions between different stages of the course of life will also be offered through the analysis of manifestations of material culture such as cooked clay figurines.
With all this, an approach to the concept of social age among the ancient canaries is proposed, addressing how throughout the period before adulthood identities are being shaped and modified, it is difficult to understand childhood and adolescence as a single group whose social identity remains static.
13:00 h. Debate
Afternoon session
17:00 h. The chiny objects. Childhood and material culture in Gran Canaria in pre-Hispanic times. Amelia Rodríguez Rodríguez (University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria) and Miguel del Pino Curbelo (University of Alicante).
While never systematically studied, Aboriginal children often appear in island archaeology as potential producers and/or users of objects that break the registration standard. These are elements with attributes that take into account, among other aspects, their small size, their quality, their relative scarcity, or a deviation from the most common typological or symbolic patterns. So much so that classes of objects have been built that, somewhat intuitively, tend to relate to childhood.
With this in mind we will present some of these peculiar cases and share certainties and uncertainties, which could begin with the very definition of the category of "infante". In this way, we will comment on our own experience in trying to explain some of the types of evidence that are most commonly associated with the Aboriginal child population. Finally, we will reflect on how current proposals and advance knowledge of island social formations affects our ability to identify younger members of those communities.
18:00 h. Childhood and adolescence in Iberian societies: rituality, identity and memory. Carmen Rueda Galán, Carmen Rísquez Cuenca and Ana B. Herranz Sánchez (University Research Institute in Iberian Archaeology. University of Jaén).
We present a tour of the ritual and symbolic practices of childhood and adolescence in Iberian societies. We will deal with aspects related to the rites of protection of children and their symbols, which in some cases are used as class image and channel of vindication of kinship links. We will also address the rituals for death, involving newborn deposits and having broad meaning. The abandonment of childhood, materialized in the rites of age passage, has a specific weight also in The Iberian societies. Thus, the appropriation of symbols of youth, which refer to initiation and which are incorporated into their narratives, converging meanings, at times, of a collective nature.
19:00 h. Recovering forgotten little stories: Incorporation and visibility of children in archaeology museums. Isabel Izquierdo Peraile (Directorate General of Fine Arts. Ministry of Culture and Sport)
As important as defining and implementing strategies that allow research of the non-adult population segment of societies of the past, it is also the incorporation, visibility and projection of children in exhibition discourses, as well as in the strategic objectives of communication and dissemination of museums. To this end, our objective is to analyze the role of museum spaces in the knowledge and dissemination of children in past societies and the strategies that can be arbitrated for this purpose. Our optics are interdisciplinary and part of contemporary museological theory, recent museum practice in archaeology museums and archaeological research of the protohystoric stage. And from these approaches, based on figures on children's audiences in museums, the possibilities of the exhibition narrative are analyzed as a space for (re)presentation of children through a selection of cultural goods and the use of complementary museum resources. There are also several examples of museum application of these ideas in museums of archaeology and temporary exhibitions of the latest generation.
20:00 h. Debate
Location: The Canary Museum (C/ Doctor Verneau, 2, Vegueta). FREE INPUT until capacity is completed.
Certified days with 10 teaching hours by the Faculty of Geography and History of the ULPGC. Registration
Organizes: The Canary Museum. Sponsor: Government of the Canary Islands