ABSTRACT
In the cultural-historical approach developed by Vygotsky and his colleagues and students, “play” as currently understood is a relatively late phenomenon in human history (Elkonin, 1978). In primitive societies, when children functioned as equals with adults in such tasks as helping to gather food or tend animals, modern play did not exist. Play at that time was primarily pragmatic in that it sharpened needed skills and could not be differentiated from the actual adult activities. Children used carpentry tools to make objects, for example, and hunted with miniature bows and arrows.
