How do children construct, negotiate and organize space? The study of social space in any human group is fraught with limitations, and to these we must add the further limits involved in the study of childhood. Here specialists from archaeology, history, literature, architecture, didactics, museology and anthropology build a body of theoretical and methodological approaches about how space is articulated and organised around children and how this disposition affects the creation and maintenance of social identities. Children are considered as the main actors in historic dynamics of social change, from prehistory to the present day. Notions on space, childhood and the construction of both the individual and the group identity of children are considered as a prelude to papers that focus on analysing and identifying the spaces which contribute to the construction of children’s identity during their lives: the places they live, learn, socialize and play. A final section deals with these same aspects, but focuses on funerary contexts, in which children may lose their capacity to influence events, as it is adults who establish burial strategies and practices. In each case authors ask questions such as: how do adults construct spaces for children? How do children manage their own spaces? How do people (adults and children) build (invisible and/or physical) boundaries and spaces?
Part 1
CHILDREN, SPACES AND IDENTITY
1. Children, childhood and space: multidisciplinary approaches to identity
Margarita Sánchez Romero, Eva Alarcón García and Gonzalo Aranda Jiménez
2. Steps to children’s living spaces
Grete Lillehammer
Part 2
PLAYING, LIVING AND LEARNING
3. Complexity, Cooperation and Childhood: An Evolutionary Perspective
Juan Manuel Jiménez-Arenas
4. Children as potters: apprenticeship patterns from Bell Beaker pottery of Copper Age Inner Iberia (Spain) (c. 2500–2000 cal BC).
Rafael Garrido-Pena and Ana Mercedes Herrero-Corral
5. Infants and adults relationships in the Bronze Age site of Peñalosa (Baños de la Encina, Jaén)
Eva Alarcón García
6. Gender and childhood in the II Iron Age: The pottery centre of Las Cogotas (Ávila, Spain)
Juan Jesús Padilla Fernández and Linda Chapon
7. “Playing with mud”: an ethnoarchaeological approach to childhood learning of pottery making in northeast Ghana
Manuel Calvo, Jaume García Rosselló, David Javaloyas and Daniel Albero
8. Infantile Individuals: the Great Forgotten of Ancient Mining and Metallurgical Production
Luis Arboledas Martínez and Eva Alarcón García
9. Learning to be adults: games and childhood on the outskirts of the big city (San Isidro, Buenos Aires, Argentina)
Daniel Schavelzon
10. Disabled children living at home in nineteenth century Britain
Mary Clare Martin
11. La evolución de los espacios de aprendizaje de la infancia a través de los modelos pedagógicos
Victoria Carmona Buendía and Elisa Valero Ramos
12. Montessori y el ambiente preparado: un espacio de aprendizaje para los niños
Fátima Ortega Castillo
13. Didactics of childhood: the case study of prehistory
Antonia García Luque
14. Once upon a time… Childhood and archeology from the perspective of Spanish museums
Isabel Izquierdo Peraile, Clara López Ruiz and Lourdes Prados Torreira
15. Home to Mother: The Long Journey To Not Lose One’s Identity
Angela Anna Iuliucci
Part 3. SPACE, BODY AND MIND: CHILDREN IN FUNERARY CONTEXTS
16. Use of Molecular Genetic Procedures for Sex determination in “Guanches” Children's Remains
Matilde Arnay, Alejandra Calderón Ordóñez, Rosa Fregel, Guacimara Ramos, Emilio González and José Pestano
17. Salud y crecimiento en la Edad del Cobre. Un estudio preliminar de los individuos subadultos de Camino del Molino (Caravaca de la Cruz, Murcia, España). Un sepulcro colectivo del III Milenio cal BC
Susana Mendiela, Carme Rissech, María Haber and Daniel Turbón
18. Infant Burials during the Copper and Bronze Ages in the Iberian Jarama River Valley: a preliminary study about childhood in the funerary context during III-II millennium BC
Raquel Aliaga Almela, Corina Liesau, Concepción Blasco, Patricia Ríos and Lorenzo Galindo
19. Premature Death in the Vaccean Aristocracy at Pintia (Padilla de Duero/Peñafiel, Valladolid). Comparative Study of the Funerary Rituals of two Little “princesses”
Carlos Sanz Minguez
20. Dying young in Archaic Gela (Sicily): from the Analysis of the Cemeteries to the Reconstruction of early colonial Identity
Claudia Lambrugo
21. Maternidad e inhumaciones perinatales en el vicus romanorrepublicano de el Camp de les Lloses (Tona, Barcelona): lecturas y significados
Montserrat Duran i Caixal, Imma Mestres i Santacreu and M. Dolors Molas Font
22. Cherchez l’enfant! Children and funerary spaces in Magna Graecia
Diego Elia and Valeria Meirano
23. Children and their burial practices in the early medieval cemeteries of Castel Trosino and Nocera Umbra (Italy)
Valentina de Pasca
24. La cultura lúdica en los rituales funerarios infantiles: los juegos de velorio Jaume Bantulà Janot and Andrés Payà Rico
25. Compartir la experiencia de la muerte. El niño muerto y el niño enfrentado a la muerte.
Virginia de la Cruz Lichet
Margarita Sánchez Romero is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology at the University of Granada, Spain. Her main research area is archaeology of women and gender relations focusing her analysis on the study of the body, material culture and maintenance activities, and the archaeology of children and childhood, taking into account process of learning and socialization.
Eva Alarcón García is a research fellow in the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology at the University of Granada, Spain. Her research interests include gender archaeology and the methodology for the study on daily life activities.
Gonzalo Aranda Jiménez is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology at the University of Granada, Spain. His research interests are related to the emergence, development and collapse of complex societies in Late Prehistory of the southern Iberian Peninsula, focusing on topics such as the construction of social identities, the ritual practices of food and drink consumption, the social organization of pottery production, and the appearance of interpersonal conflicts that involve the use of violence.
