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Playing with Flint: Tracing a Child’s Imitation of Adult Work in a Lithic Assemblage

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Abstract

This paper examines the potential for identifying play and children’s imitation in the archaeological record and reviews cultural constructions of play and cross-cultural behaviour. A case study, using a lithic assemblage from a discrete knapping area for Scandinavian Neolithic axe production in Southern Sweden which identifies a child’s activity area, is discussed. The theoretical and methodological assumptions behind play, imitation and its identification as well as its social implications are also examined.

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Acknowledgements

This text is based on a previously published study (Högberg 1999), although here set in a new, different and developed theoretical and methodological framework. Thanks to Nyree Finlay, Department of Archaeology, University of Glasgow, Mikkel Sørensen, SILA National Museum in Copenhagen; Deborah Olausson, Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Lund; Jan Apel, Societas Archaeologica Upsaliensis and Elisabeth Rudebeck, Malmö Heritage.

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    Anders Högberg

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Högberg, A. Playing with Flint: Tracing a Child’s Imitation of Adult Work in a Lithic Assemblage. J Archaeol Method Theory 15, 112–131 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-007-9050-4

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