ABSTRACT

In a grudging and minimal manner, historical archaeologists have acknowledged that children peopled the past. However, the presence of children in this sub-discipline arises not from any superior or enlightened interpretative or theoretical frameworks, but rather as an artefact of the material culture that historical archaeologists study. The material culture of the recent past, particularly since the mid-nineteenth century, includes a wide range of materials that were designed, manufactured and sold with children in mind as the users. It is the presence of these mass-produced, easily recognisable artefacts that has compelled historical archaeologists to at least admit that children once peopled the past (e.g. di Zerga Wall 1994; Farnsworth and Wilkie-Farnsworth 1990; Larsen 1994; McKillop 1995; Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1990; Pritchett and Pastron 1980; Reinhart 1984; Wilkie 1994a).