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An interdisciplinary research collaborative
investigating the pasts, presents, and futures of
forager & mixed-subsistence children's lives
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Check out this new paper in Evolutionary Human Sciences on children's play in cultural evolution.


Children and innovation: play, play objects and object play in cultural evolution

Felix Riede, Matthew J. Walsh, April Nowell, Michelle C. Langley, Niels N. Johannsen


Abstract: Cultural evolutionary theory conceptualises culture as an information-transmission system whose dynamics take on evolutionary properties. Within this framework, however, innovation has been likened to random mutations, reducing its occurrence to chance or fortuitous transmission error. In introducing the special collection on children and innovation, we here place object play and play objects – especially functional miniatures – from carefully chosen archaeological contexts in a niche construction perspective. Given that play, including object play, is ubiquitous in human societies, we suggest that plaything construction, provisioning and use have, over evolutionary timescales, paid substantial selective dividends via ontogenetic niche modification. Combining findings from cognitive science, ethology and ethnography with insights into hominin early developmental life-history, we show how play objects and object play probably had decisive roles in the emergence of innovative capabilities. Importantly, we argue that closer attention to play objects can go some way towards addressing changes in innovation rates that occurred throughout human biocultural evolution and why innovations are observable within certain technological domains but not others.

Check out this cool new paper in Child Development on the cultural components of sex differences in color preference.



Abstract: Preferences for pink and blue were tested in children aged 4–11 years in three small-scale societies: Shipibo villages in the Peruvian Amazon, kastom villages in the highlands of Tanna Island, Vanuatu, and BaYaka foragers in the northern Republic of Congo; and compared to children from an Australian global city (total N = 232). No sex differences were found in preference for pink in any of the three societies not influenced by global culture (ds = 0.31–0.23), in contrast to a female preference for pink in the global city (d = 1.24). Results suggest that the pairing of female and pink is a cultural phenomenon and is not driven by an essential preference for pink in girls.

Our team is excited to share a new FCS preprint on the archaeology of hunter-gatherer childhoods by Annemieke Milks, Sheina Lew-Levy, Noa Lavi, David Friesem, and Rachel Reckin. You can check out the preprint here.



Abstract: Theoretical engagement and methodological innovations geared towards identifying the presence and activities of children in archaeological contexts has increased in pace over the last decade. This paper presents a systematic review of the literature pertaining to the archaeology of hunter-gatherer children. The review summarises methods and findings from 72 archaeological publications in a number of research areas that show material culture relating to childhood, including children’s playthings and tools, learning to flintknap, and their involvement in the making of marks, art and footprints. By drawing on diverse evidence from all inhabited continents, we explore the implications of these data for our understanding of the cultural variability and patterning of hunter-gatherer children in the deep past. The paper closes by discussing potential improvements to archaeological and anthropological methodologies which would progress our understanding of children as active and engaged members of their societies.

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