Abstract
Recently, the value of the study of children and childhood from archaeological contexts has become more recognized. Childhood is both a biological and a social phenomenon. However, because of specialization in research fields within anthropology, subadults from the archaeological record are usually studied from the biological perspective (bioarchaeology) or, more predominantly, the social perspective (social archaeology), with little research that incorporates both approaches. These polarized approaches to childhood and age highlight the dualistic way in which “biological” and “social” aspects of the body are viewed. Some recent literature criticizes bioarchaeological approaches, and calls for the incorporation of childhood social theory, including social age categories, into subadult health analysis. However, few studies have explicitly addressed the practicalities or theoretical issues that need to be considered when attempting this. This paper critically examines these issues, including terminology used for defining subadulthood and age divisions within it, and approaches to identify “social age” in past populations. The important contribution that bioarchaeology can make to the study of social aspects of childhood is outlined. Recent theoretical approaches for understanding the body offer exciting opportunities to incorporate skeletal remains into research, and develop a more biologically and socially integrated understanding of childhood and age.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Examples of conferences and conference sessions with the theme of the archaeological study of children and/or childhood include: Symposium on “Prehistory’s children and children’s prehistories” at the Society for American Archaeology Meeting, at Anaheim, California, April 1994; Some of the contributions in Sofaer Derevenski (2000) are from papers originally presented in the “Children in the past” session at the Theoretical Archaeology Group Conference in Liverpool, UK, December 1996; Schwartman’s (2001) book was inspired by the “Children and anthropology: Perspectives for the 21st century” session at the International Congress of Anthropology and Ethnological Sciences, at Williamsberg , Virginia, US, July 1998; Symposium on “Infant feeding and nutrition: New approaches to childhood health in prehistory” at the American Association of Physical Anthropologists Meeting, at Columbus, Ohio, US, April-May 1999; Session at the American Anthropological Association Meeting, at Washington DC, US, November-December 2001 (Baxter 2005b); The Archaeology of Infancy and Childhood Conference, at Kent, UK, May 2005; Children, Identities and the Past Conference, at Bergen, Norway, March-April 2006; The “Babies Reborn: Infant/children burials in prehistory” session at the Congress of the International Union for the Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences, at Lisbon, Portugal, September 2006; Children and Childhood in Human Societies cluster meeting, at Burlington, Canada, October 2006; The “The patter of tiny feet: The bioarchaeology of infants and children” session at the British Association of Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology Conference, at Reading, UK, September 2007; and The Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past (SSCIP) conference on “Investigating childhood”, at Oxford, UK, September 2007.
References
Allison, J., & Prout, A. (Eds.) (1997). Constructing and reconstructing childhood: Contemporary issues in the sociological study of childhood. London: Falmer.
Ariès, P. (1962). Centuries of childhood: A social history of family life. London: Cape.
Ascádi, G., & Nemeskéri, J. (1970). History of human life span and mortality. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.
Barry, H., & Paxson, L. M. (1971). Infancy and early childhood: Cross-cultural codes 2. Ethnology, 10, 466–508.
Baxter, J. E. (2005a). The archaeology of childhood: Children, gender, and material culture. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press.
Baxter, J. E. (Ed.) (2005b). Children in action: Perspectives on the archaeology of childhood. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Beall, C. M. (1984). Theoretical dimensions of a focus on age in physical anthropology. In D. I. Kertzer, & J. Keith (Eds.) Age and anthropological theory (pp. 82–95). New York: Cornell University Press.
Bennike, P., Lewis, M. E., Schutkowski, H., & Valentin, F. (2005). Comparison of child morbidity in two contrasting medieval cemeteries from Denmark. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 128, 734–746.
Benthall, J. (1992). A late developer? The ethnography of children. Anthropology Today, 8, 1.
Bentley, R. A. (2006). Strontium isotopes from the earth to the archaeological skeleton: A review. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 13, 135–187.
Bentley, R. A., Douglas Price, T., Lüning, J., Gronenborn, D., Wahl, J., & Fullager, P. D. (2002). Prehistoric migration in Europe: Strontium isotope analysis of early Neolithic skeletons. Current Anthropology, 43, 799–804.
Bluebond-Langner, M., & Korbin, J. E. (2007). Challenges and opportunities in the anthropology of childhoods: An introduction to “children, childhoods, and childhood studies". American Anthropologist, 109, 241–246.
Bocquet-Appel, J. P., & Naji, S. (2006). Testing the hypothesis of a worldwide Neolithic demographic transition. Current Anthropology, 47, 341–365.
Bogin, B. (1997). Evolutionary hypotheses for human childhood. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology, 40, 63–89.
Bogin, B. (1999a). Evolutionary perspectives on human growth. Annual Review of Anthropology, 28, 109–153.
Bogin, B. (1999b). Patterns of human growth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bogin, B. (2003). The human pattern of growth and development in paleontological perspective. In J. L. Thompson, G. E. Krovitz, & A. J. Nelson (Eds.) Patterns of growth and development in the genus Homo (pp. 15–44). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Boric, D., & Stefanovic, S. (2004). Birth and death: Infant burials from Vlasac and Lepenski Vir. Antiquity, 78, 526–546.
Bowman, V. (Ed.) (2007). Scholarly resources for children and childhood studies: A research guide and annotated bibliography. Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press.
Brown, P. J., & Inhorn, M. C. (1990). Disease, ecology and human behaviour. In T. M. Johnson, & C. E. Sargent (Eds.) Medical anthropology: Contemporary theory and method (pp. 187–214). New York: Praeger.
Buckley, H. R. (2000). Subadult health and disease in prehistoric Tonga, Polynesia. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 113, 481–505.
Buikstra, J. E. (1977). Biocultural dimensions of archaeological study: A regional perspective. In R. L. Blakely (Ed.) Biocultural adaptation in prehistoric America (pp. 67–84). Athens: University of Georgia Press.
Buikstra, J. E., & Ubelaker, D. H. (1994). Standards for data collection from human skeletal remains. Arkansas archaeological survey report no. 44. Arkansas: Fayetteville.
Cain, M. (1977). The economic activities of children in a village in Bangladesh. Population and Development Review, 3, 210–227.
Caputo, V. (1995). Anthropology's silent ‘others': A consideration of some conceptual and methodological issues for the study of youth and children's cultures. In V. Amit-Talai, & H. Wulff (Eds.) Youth cultures: A cross-cultural perspective (pp. 19–42). London: Routledge.
Clark, J. G. D. (1973). Bioarchaeology: Some extracts on the theme. Current Anthropology, 14, 464–470.
Cohen, A., & Rutter, J. B. (Eds.) (2007). Constructions of childhood in the ancient world. Athens: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
Corsaro, W. A. (2005). The sociology of childhood. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press.
Cox, M. (2000). Ageing adults from the skeleton. In M. Cox, & S. Mays (Eds.) Human osteology in archaeology and forensic science (pp. 61–81). London: Greenwich Medical Media.
Crawford, S. (1991). When do Anglo-saxon children count? Journal of Theoretical Archaeology, 2, 17–24.
Cunningham, H. (1995). Children and childhood in western society since 1500. London: Longman.
de Beauvoir, S. (1949). The second sex. Harmindsworth: Penguin.
Domett, K. M. (2001). Health in late prehistoric Thailand. Oxford: Archaeopress.
Egan, G. (1998). Miniature toys of medieval childhood. British Archaeology, 35, 10–11.
Ericson, J. E. (1985). Strontium isotope characterization in the study of prehistoric human ecology. Journal of Human Evolution, 14, 503–514.
Finlay, N. (2000). Outside of life: Traditions of infant burial in Ireland from cillín to cist. World Archaeology, 31, 407–422.
Forfar, J. O., Arneil, G. C., Campbell, A. G. M., & McIntosh, N. (Eds.) (1998). Forfar and Arneil's textbook of Paediatrics. New York: Churchill Livingstone.
Forfar, J. O., Arneil, G. C., McIntosh, N., Helms, P. J., & Smyth, R. L. (Eds.) (2003). Forfar and Arneil's Textbook of Pediatrics. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone.
Fortes, M. (1984). Age, generation, and social structure. In D. I. Kertzer, & J. Keith (Eds.) Age and anthropological theory (pp. 99–122). New York: Cornell University Press.
Ginn, J., & Arber, S. (1995). ‘Only connect': Gender relations and ageing. In S. Arber, & J. Ginn (Eds.) Connecting gender and ageing: A sociological approach (pp. 1–14). Buckingham: Open University Press.
Goodman, A. H. (1993). On the interpretation of health from skeletal remains. Current Anthropology, 34, 281–288.
Goodman, A. H., & Armelagos, G. J. (1989). Infant and childhood morbidity and mortality risks in archaeological populations. World Archaeology, 21, 225–243.
Goodman, A. H., Lallo, J., Armelagos, G. J., & Rose, J. C. (1984a). Health changes at Dickson Mounds, Illinois (A.D. 950–1300). In M. N. Cohen, & G. J. Armelagos (Eds.) Paleopathology at the origins of agriculture (pp. 271–305). Orlando: Academic Press.
Goodman, A. H., & Leatherman, T. L. (1998). Building a new biocultural synthesis: Political-economic perspectives on human biology. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
Goodman, A. H., Martin, D. L., Armelagos, G. J., & Clarke, G. (1984b). Indications of stress from bones and teeth. In M. N. Cohen, & G. J. Armelagos (Eds.) Paleopathology at the Origins of Agriculture (pp. 13–50). Orlando: Academic Press.
Gottlieb, A. (2000). Where have all the babies gone? Towards an anthropology of infants (and their caretakers). Anthropological Quarterly, 73, 121–132.
Gould, S. J. (1996). The mismeasure of man. New York: Norton.
Gowland, R. L. (2002). Age as an aspect of social identity in fourth- to sixth- century AD England: The archaeological funerary evidence. Durham: University of Durham.
Gowland, R. L. (2006). Ageing the past: Examining age identity from funerary evidence. In R. L. Gowland, & C. Knüsel (Eds.) Social archaeology of funerary remains (pp. 143–154). Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Halcrow, S. E., Tayles, N., & Buckley, H. R. (2007). Age estimation of children in prehistoric Southeast Asia: are the standards used appropriate? Journal of Archaeological Science, 34, 1158–1168.
Hamilton, M. D. (2007). Book review of “The body as material culture: A theoretical osteoarchaeology". American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 132, 161–162.
Hanawalt, B. A. (1986). The ties that bound: Peasant families in medieval England. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hanawalt, B. A. (1993). Growing up in medieval London: The experience of childhood in history. New York: Oxford University Press.
Harman, M. (1989). Discussion of the finds: Cremations. In A. G. Kinsley (Ed.) The Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Millgate, Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire (pp. 23–25). Nottingham: Department of Classical and Archaeological Studies, University of Nottingham.
Herring, D. A., Saunders, S. R., & Katzenberg, M. A. (1998). Investigating the weaning process in past populations. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 105, 425–439.
Heuzé, Y., & Cardoso, H. F. V. (2008). Testing the quality of nonadult Bayesian dental age: Assessment methods to juvenile skeletal remains: The Lisbon collection children and secular trend effects. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 135, 275–283.
Hooton, E. A. (1930). Indians of Pecos Pueblo: A study of their skeletal remains. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Hopkins, B., & Barr, R. G. (Eds.) (2004). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Child Development. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Hoppa, R. D. (1992). Evaluating human skeletal growth: An Anglo-Saxon example. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 2, 275–288.
Hrdlicka, A. (Ed.) (1924). Catalogue of Human Crania in the United States National Museum Collections: The Eskimos, Alaska and related Indians, Northeastern Asiatics, Vols. 16. Washington: Government Printing Office.
Humphrey, L. T. (2000). Growth studies of past populations: An overview and an example. In M. Cox, & S. Mays (Eds.) Human osteology in archaeology and forensic science pp. 23–38. London: Greenwich Medical Media.
Humphrey, L. T. (2003). Linear growth variation in the archaeological record. In J. L. Thompson, G. E. Krovitz, & A. J. Nelson (Eds.) Patterns of growth and development in the genus homo (pp. 144–169). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ingvarsson-Sundström, A. (2003). Children Lost and Found: A bioarchaeological study of the Middle Helladic children in Asine with a comparison to Lerna. Uppsala: Department of Classical Archaeology and Ancient History, Uppsala University.
Insoll, T. (Ed.) (2007a). The archaeology of identities: A reader. London: Routledge.
Insoll, T. (2007b). Introduction: Configuring identities in archaeology. In T. Insoll (Ed.), The Archaeology of identities: A reader. London: Routledge.
James, A., Jenks, C., & Prout, A. (1998). Theorizing childhood. Cambridge: Polity Press.
James, A., & Prout, A. (Eds.) (1997). Constructing and reconstructing childhood: Contemporary issues in the sociological study of childhood. London: RoutledgeFalmer.
Jamieson, R. W. (1995). Material culture and social death: African-American burial practices. Historical Archaeology, 29, 39–58.
Jenks, C. (2005). Childhood. London: Routledge.
Johnston, F. E. (1961). Sequence of epiphyseal union in a prehistoric Kentucky population from Indian Knoll. Human Biology, 33, 66–81.
Johnston, F. E. (1962). Growth of the long bones of infants and young children at Indian Knoll. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 20, 249–254.
Johnston, F. E. (1968). Growth of the skeleton in earlier peoples. In D. R. Brothwell (Ed.) The skeletal biology of earlier human populations (pp. 57–66). Oxford: Pergamon Press.
Joyce, R. A. (2005). Archaeology of the body. Annual Review of Anthropology, 34, 139–158.
Kamp, K. A. (1998). Social hierarchy and burial treatments: A comparative assessment. Cross-Cultural Research, 32, 79–115.
Kamp, K. A. (2001a). Prehistoric children working and playing: A southwestern case study in learning ceramics. Journal of Anthropological Research, 57, 427–450.
Kamp, K. A. (2001b). Where have all the children gone?: The archaeology of childhood. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 8, 1–34.
Kamp, K. A. (2002). Working for a living: Childhood in the prehistoric southwestern Pueblos. In K. A. Kamp (Ed.) Children in the prehistoric puebloan southwest (pp. 71–89). Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press.
Kamp, K. A., Timmerman, N., Lind, G., Graybill, J., & Natowsky, I. (1999). Discovering childhood: Using fingerprints to find children in the archaeological record. American Antiquity, 64, 309–315.
Katz, S. H., Rivinus, H., & Barker, W. (1973). Physical Anthropology and the biobehavioural approach to child growth and development. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 38, 105–117.
Katzenberg, M. A., Herring, D. A., & Saunders, S. R. (1996). Weaning and infant mortality: Evaluating the skeletal evidence. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology, 39, 177–199.
Kealhofer, L. (1999). Creating social identity in the landscape: Tidewater, Virginia, 1600–1750. In W. Ashmore, & A. B. Knapp (Eds.) Archaeologies of landscape (pp. 58–82). Oxford: Blackwell.
Knussman, R. (Ed.) (1988). Anthropologie. Handbuch der vergleichenden biologie des menschen. Band 1. Stuttgart: Gustav Fisher.
Kramer, K. L. (2005a). Children's help and the pace of reproduction: Cooperative breeding in humans. Evolutionary Anthropology, 14, 224–237.
Kramer, K. L. (2005b). Maya children: Helpers at the farm. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kuefler, M. S. (1991). “A wryed existence": Attitudes toward children in Anglo-Saxon England. Journal of Social History, 24, 823–830.
Larsen, C. S. (1997). Bioarchaeology: Interpreting behaviour from the human skeleton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lesick, K. S. (1997). Re-engendering gender: Some theoretical and methodological concerns on a burgeoning archaeological pursuit. In J. Moore, & E. C. Scott (Eds.) Invisible people and processes: Writing gender and childhood into European archaeology (pp. 31–41). London: Leicester University Press.
Lewis, M. E. (2000). Non-adult palaeopathology: Current status and future potential. In M. Cox, & S. Mays (Eds.) Human osteology in archaeology and forensic science (pp. 39–57). London: Greenwich Medical Media.
Lewis, M. E. (2002a). Impact of industrialization: Comparative study of child health in four sites from medieval and postmedieval England (A.D. 850–1859). American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 119, 211–223.
Lewis, M. E. (2002b). Urbanisation and child health in medieval and post-medieval England: An assessment of the morbidity and mortality of non-adult skeletons from the cemeteries of two urban and two rural sites in England (AD 850–1859). Oxford: Archaeopress.
Lewis, M. E. (2004). Endocranial lesions in non-adult skeletons: Understanding their aetiology. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 14, 87–97.
Lewis, M. E. (2007). The bioarchaeology of children: Perspectives from biological and forensic anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lewis, M. E., & Roberts, C. (1997). Growing pains: the interpretation of stress indicators. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 7, 581–586.
Lillehammer, G. (1989). A child is born. The child's world in an archaeological perspective. Norwegian Archaeological Review, 22, 89–105.
Lorentz, K. O. (1998). Infant Archaeology: Activities and attitudes related to children in Cyprus from the aceramic Neolithic to the late Bronze Age. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh.
Lorentz, K. O. (2003). Cultures and physical modifications: Child bodies in ancient Cyprus. Stanford Journal of Archaeology, 2, 1–17.
Lovejoy, C. O., Russell, K. F., & Harrison, M. L. (1990). Long bone growth velocity in the Libben population. American Journal of Human Biology, 2, 533–541.
Maher, V. (1992). Breast-feeding and maternal depletion: Natural law or cultural arrangements? In V. Maher (Ed.) The anthropology of breast-feeding: Natural law or social construct (pp. 151–180). Oxford: Berg.
Martin, R., & Saller, K. (1957). Lehrbuch der anthropologie in systematischer darstellung. Vol. 1. Stuttgart: Gustav Fischer.
Mays, S. A. (1995). The relationship between Harris lines and other aspects of skeletal development in adults and juveniles. Journal of Archaeological Science, 22, 511–520.
Mays, S. A. (1997). A perspective on human osteoarchaeology in Britain. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 7, 600–604.
Mays, S. A. (1999). Linear and appositional long bone growth in earlier human populations: A case study from Mediaeval England. In R. D. Hoppa, & C. M. Fitzgerald (Eds.) Human growth in the past: Studies from bones and teeth (pp. 290–312). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McDade, T. W. (2003). Life history theory and the immune system: Steps toward a human ecological immunology. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology, 46, 100–125.
Meskell, L. (2000). Writing the body in archaeology. In A. E. Rautman (Ed.) Reading the Body: Representations and remains in the archaeological record (pp. 13–22). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Messer, E. (1997). Intra-household allocation of food and health care: Current findings and understandings—introduction. Social Science and Medicine, 44, 1675–1684.
Moore, J., & Scott, E. C. (Eds.) (1997). Invisible people and processes: Writing gender and childhood into European archaeology. London and New York: Leicester University Press.
Murail, P., Maureille, B., Peresinotto, D., & Geus, F. (2004). An infant cemetery of the Classic Kerma period (1750–1500 BC, Island of Sai, Sudan). Antiquity, 78, 267–277.
Nag, M., White, B. N. F., & Peet, R. C. (1978). An anthropological approach to the study of the economic value of children in Java and Nepal. Current Anthropology, 19, 293–306.
Nieuwenhuys, O. (1996). The paradox of child labor and anthropology. Annual Review of Anthropology, 25, 237–251.
Ortner, D. J. (1991). Theoretical and methodological issues in paleopathology. In D. J. Ortner, & A. C. Aufderheide (Eds.) Human paleopathology: Current synthesis and future options (pp. 5–11). Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Panter-Brick, C. (1998). Biosocial perspectives on children. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Park, R. W. (1998). Size counts: The miniature archaeology of childhood in Inuit societies. Antiquity, 72, 269–281.
Parker Pearson, M. (1982). Mortuary practices, society and ideology: An ethnoarchaeological study. In I. Hodder (Ed.) Symbolic and structural archaeology pp. 99–103. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Parker Pearson, M. (1999). The archaeology of death and burial. Phoenix Mill: Sutton Publishing.
Perry, M. A. (2005). Redefining childhood through bioarchaeology: Towards an archaeological and biological understanding of children in antiquity. In J. E. Baxter (Ed.) Children in action: Perspectives on the archaeology of childhood (pp. 89–111). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Perry, M. A. (2007). Is bioarchaeology a handmaiden to history? Developing a historical bioarchaeology. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 26, 486–515.
Politis, G. G. (2006). Children's activity in the production of the archaeological record of hunter-gatherers: An ethnoarchaeological approach. In P. P. Funari, A. Zarankin, & E. Stovel (Eds.) Global archaeological theory: Contextual voices and contemporary thoughts (pp. 121–144). New York: Kluwer Academic.
Prentice, A., & Prentice, A. (1988). Reproduction against the odds. New Scientist, 118, 42–46.
Prout, A. (Ed.) (2000a). The body, childhood and society. Basingstoke, Hampshire: MacMillan Press.
Prout, A. (2000b). Childhood bodies: Construction, agency and hybridity. In A. Prout (Ed.) The body, childhood and society (pp. 1–18). Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan Press.
Prout, A. (2005). The future of childhood: Towards the interdisciplinary study of children. London: RouledgeFalmer.
Qvortrup, J. (1990). Childhood as a social phenomenon: an introduction to a series of national reports. Vienna: Eurosocial.
Qvortrup, J., Bardy, M., Sgritta, G., & Wintersberger, H. (Eds.) (1994). Childhood matters: Social theory, practice and policy. Avebury: Aldershot.
Rega, E. (1997). Age, gender and biological reality in the Early Bronze cemetery at Mokrin. In J. Moore, & E. C. Scott (Eds.) Invisible people and processes: Writing gender and childhood into European Archaeology (pp. 229–247). London: Leicester University Press.
Richards, M. P., Mays, S., & Fuller, B. T. (2002). Stable carbon and nitrogen values of bone and teeth reflect weaning age at the Medieval Wharram Percy site, Yorkshire, UK. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 119, 205–210.
Ritchie, J. B., & Ritchie, J. E. (1979). Growing up in Polynesia. Sydney: George Allen and Unwin.
Robb, J. (2002). Time and biography: Osteobiography of the Italian Neolithic lifespan. In Y. Hamilakis, M. Pluciennik, & S. Tarlow (Eds.) Thinking through the body: Archaeologies of corporeality (pp. 153–171). New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.
Robb, J., Bigazzi, R., Lazzarini, L., Scarsini, C., & Sonego, F. (2001). Social “status” and biological “status": A comparison of grave goods and skeletal indicators from Pontecagnano. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 115, 213–222.
Rothschild, N. A. (2002). Introduction. In K. A. Kamp (Ed.) Children in the prehistoric Puebloan Southwest (pp. 1–13). Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press.
Roveland, B. E. (2001). Archaeological approaches to the study of prehistoric children: Past trends and future directions. In H. B. Schwartzman (Ed.) Children and anthropology: perspectives for the 21st century (pp. 41–56). Westport, Connecticut: Bergin and Garvey.
Ruff, C. (2003). Growth in bone strength, body size, and muscle size in a juvenile longitudinal sample. Bone, 33, 317–329.
Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. London: Routledge.
Saunders, S. R. (2000). Subadult skeletons and growth-related studies. In M. A. Katzenberg, & S. R. Saunders (Eds.) Biological anthropology of the human skeleton (pp. 135–162). New York: Wiley-Liss.
Saunders, S. R., & Hoppa, R. D. (1993). Growth deficit in survivors and non-survivors: Biological mortality bias in subadult skeletal samples. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology, 36, 127–151.
Saxe, A. A. (1970). Social dimensions of mortuary practices. Michigan: Michigan University, Ann Arbor.
Scheper-Hughes, N. (1985). Culture, scarcity, and maternal thinking: Maternal detachment and infant survival in a Brazilian Shantytown. Ethos, 13, 291–317.
Scheper-Hughes, N. (1992). Death without weeping: The violence of everyday life in Brazil. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Scheuer, J. L., & Black, S. (2000a). Development and ageing of the juvenile skeleton. In M. Cox, & S. Mays (Eds.) Human osteology in archaeology and forensic science (pp. 9–21). London: Greenwich Medical Media.
Scheuer, J. L., & Black, S. (2000b). Developmental juvenile osteology. San Diego, California: Academic Press.
Scheuer, J. L., & Bowman, J. E. (1995). Correlation of documentary and skeletal evidence in the St. Brodes's crypt population. In S. R. Saunders, & D. A. Herring (Eds.) Grave reflections. Portraying the past through cemetery studies (pp. 49–70). Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press.
Schurr, M. R. (1998). Using stable nitrogen-isotopes to study weaning behavior in past populations. World Archaeology, 30, 327–342.
Schwartzman, H. B. (Ed.) (2001). Children and anthropology: Perspectives for the 21st century. Westport, Connecticut: Bergin and Garvey.
Scott, E. C. (1993). Images and contexts of infants and infant burials: Some thoughts on cross-cultural evidence. Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 11, 77–92.
Scott, E. C. (1997). Introduction: On the incompleteness of archaeological narratives. In J. Moore, & E. C. Scott (Eds.) Invisible people and processes: Writing gender and childhood into European archaeology (pp. 1–12). London: Leicester University Press.
Scott, E. C. (1999). The archaeology of infancy and infant death. Oxford: Archaeopress.
Sellen, D. W., & Mace, R. (1997). Fertility and mode of subsistence: a phylogenetic analysis. Current Anthropology, 38, 878–889.
Shahar, S. (1990). Childhood in the middle ages. London: Routledge.
Shilling, C. (1993). The body and social theory. London: Sage.
Sofaer Derevenski, J. R. (1997). Engendering children, engendering archaeology. In J. Moore, & E. C. Scott (Eds.) Invisible people and processes (pp. 192–202). London: Leicester University Press.
Sofaer Derevenski, J. R. (2000). Children and material culture. London: Routledge.
Sofaer, J. R. (2006). The body as material culture: A theoretical osteoarchaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Stearns, P. N. (2006). Childhood in world history. New York: Routledge.
Stoodley, N. (2000). From the cradle to the grave: Age organization and the early Anglo-Saxon burial rite. World Archaeology, 31, 456–472.
Tainter, J. A. (1978). Mortuary practices and the study of prehistoric social systems. Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, 1, 105–141.
Tompkins, R. L. (1996). Human population variability in relative dental development. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 99, 79–102.
Trevathan, W. R. (2005). The status of the human newborn. In B. Hopkins (Ed.) The Cambridge encyclopedia of child development (pp. 188–192). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Turner, B. L., Edwards, J. L., Quinn, E. A., Kingston, J. D., & Van Gerven, D. P. (2007). Age-related variation in isotopic indicators of diet at Medieval Kulubnarti, Sudanese Nubia. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 17, 1–25.
Ucko, P. J. (1969). Ethnography and archaeological interpretation of funerary remains. World Archaeology, 1, 262–280.
UNICEF (1996). The state of the world's children. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Van Gerven, D. P., & Armelagos, G. J. (1983). “Farewell to paleodemography?” Rumours of its death have been greatly exaggerated. Journal of Human Evolution, 12, 353–360.
Voutsaki, S. (2004). Age and gender in the southern Greek mainland, 2000–1500 BC. Ethnographisch-archäologische Zeitschrift, 45, 339–363.
Waldron, T. (1994). Counting the dead: The epidemiology of skeletal populations. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons.
Washburn, S. (1951). The new physical anthropology. Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, 13, 298–304.
Wason, P. (1994). The archaeology of rank. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Weiss, K. M. (1973). Demographic models for anthropology. American Antiquity, 38, 1–88.
Welten, D. C., Kemper, H. C. G., Post, G. B., Van Mechelen, W., Twisk, J., Lips, P., et al. (1994). Weight-bearing activity during youth is a more important factor for peak bone mass than calcium intake. Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, 9, 1089–1233.
Wileman, J. (2005). Hide and seek: The archaeology of childhood. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Tempus.
Wiley, A. S., & Pike, I. L. (1998). An alternative method for assessing early mortality in contemporary populations. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 107, 315–330.
Wilkie, L. (2000). Not merely child's play: Creating a historical archaeology of children and childhood. In J. R. Sofaer Derevenski (Ed.) Children and material culture (pp. 100–113). London: Routledge.
Winberg, J. (2005). Mother and newborn baby: Mutual regulation of physiology and behavior—a selective review. Developmental Psychobiology, 47, 217–229.
Wood, J. W., Milner, G. R., Harpending, H. C., & Weiss, K. M. (1992). The osteological paradox: Problems of inferring prehistoric health from skeletal samples. Current Anthropology, 33, 343–370.
Wright, L. E., & Schwarcz, H. P. (1998). Stable carbon and oxygen isotopes in human tooth enamel: Identifying breastfeeding and weaning in prehistory. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 106, 1–18.
Yannis, H., Mark, P., & Tarlow, S. (Eds.) (2002). Thinking through the body: Archaeologies of corporeality. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.
Acknowledgements
We thank Mary E. Lewis for her helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Catherine M. Cameron, Jim M. Skibo and five anonymous reviewers also provided very useful comments.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Halcrow, S.E., Tayles, N. The Bioarchaeological Investigation of Childhood and Social Age: Problems and Prospects. J Archaeol Method Theory 15, 190–215 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-008-9052-x
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-008-9052-x