Landscapes of Childhood: Bodies, Places and Material Culture

ABSTRACT

In the 10 years since it was first published the journal, Childhood in the Past, has been the most obvious indication of the vivacity, relevance and transversality of the studies of childhood. Research into children is increasingly giving way to a considerable number of studies based on different theoretical and methodological positions that use innovative analytical techniques and are generating a hugely important body of knowledge on childhood in the past. In this article, I would like to present a sort of historiography of the research into childhood through the subjects dealt with in the volumes of Childhood in the Past published so far. I will use the three basic elements of human existence and experience: bodies, places and material culture, taking into account the contexts – those spaces transformed into places and landscapes through the actions of children – and the materiality of human behaviour expressed in the objects with which they are related.

KEYWORDS:

• Material culture
• landscape
• learning
• socialization
• ritual
• identity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Margarita Sánchez Romero http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3489-9195

Notes on contributors

Margarita Sánchez Romero is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology at the University of Granada (Spain). Her research is focused on archaeology of women and gender relations analyzing body, material culture and maintenance activities; and the archaeology of children and childhood, taking into account process of learning and socialization in the societies of the Late Prehistory of the Iberian Peninsula. She has published volumes such as: Arqueología y género (Universidad de Granada 2005), Sexuality: Ancient Europe (Wiley & Sons 2015), The Archaeology of Bronze Age Iberia: Argaric Societies (Routledge 2015) or Children, Space and Identity (Oxbow 2015).