How did prehistoric children live? You don’t need to go to a museum to find out!

Children, this word makes people feel full of brilliant happiness and beautiful hope. In today's society, we all work together to create a safe and happy environment for children to grow up in, and put children's life needs in a high priority. However, in the distant prehistoric Neolithic period, the lives of children were very different from today.

01What did prehistoric children eat?

The Neolithic period began about 10,000 years ago and ended between 7,000 and 2,000 years ago. The famous archaeologist Gordon Childe proposed that due to the Neolithic Revolution, ancient humans in this period began to use polished stone tools, develop agriculture, domesticate livestock, and thus began to settle down. The livelihood model gradually changed from hunting and gathering to farming . During this period, crops such as millet and sorghum were grown in northern China, and rice began to be grown in the Yangtze River Basin [1].

Therefore, in the Neolithic period, children's food should have been mainly composed of locally grown crops . Archaeologists studied the skeletons of 14 children found in the Shuanghuaishu Neolithic site in Henan Province and found that their dental caries rate (i.e. the probability of tooth decay) was high, which was speculated to be caused by their frequent consumption of millet and sorghum and poor oral hygiene [8].

Image of children’s dental caries at the Shuanghuaishu site (Source: [8])

Of course, there are exceptions in many regions, such as Guizhou in China. Research on the Niupo Cave site in Guiyang, Guizhou, shows that the humans at the site maintained a hunting-gathering lifestyle throughout the Neolithic period. However, the humans at that time were selective and stable in their hunting objects and methods of use. Research shows that the ancient humans in Niupo Cave mainly preyed on water deer and sika deer for many years. In the later period, water buffalo gradually occupied a major position. In addition, the ancient humans mainly selected young individuals when hunting, and also smashed the bones to eat the bone marrow [7]. Although there are no archaeological research results on children in this area, we can speculate that the children at that time should also have eaten animal meat and bone marrow obtained from hunting .

Line chart of meat contribution of six even-toed ungulate species including sambar deer in different periods of Niupodong (Source: [7])

It is worth mentioning that scientists have found that the way the deciduous teeth of ancient children are worn is different from that of modern children. The deciduous molars of ancient children are worn more severely . This may mean that the food of ancient children was harder and rougher , which increased the chewing burden of children [6].

From this, we can infer that the food of children in many areas in the past should be relatively simple, and most of them have not been finely processed and are relatively hard .

02Prehistoric children actually had to “work”?

In today's society, the use of child labor is strictly prohibited by law. However, archaeological evidence shows that in the Neolithic Age, children in some areas had to undertake heavy work and were even skilled "workers". French archaeologists found children's milk teeth with special marks in prehistoric tombs. These marks show that these two children, who may have been only 1 to 9 years old, repeatedly pulled animal leather or plant fibers with their teeth for a long time. They were likely engaged in sewing or weaving work for a long time [5].

In the Neolithic Age, children faced problems such as malnutrition, developmental delay, and even severe abuse. In the Shuanghuaishu site mentioned above, archaeologists found enamel hypoplasia on the bones of many children, as well as bone lesions left by anemia during their lifetime. Some children also had trauma on their bones, which were identified as whipping and stick injuries , indicating that these children faced tremendous survival pressure and violence from others during their lifetime. It is speculated that the peak age of death for these children was only 5 to 10 years old.

Figure 8: Child's skeletal trauma at Shuanghuaishu site (Source: [8])

03Prehistoric children buried in trees?

In the Neolithic Age, due to low social productivity and harsh natural environment, human life expectancy was generally short and the child mortality rate was high. From the way children were buried, we can see that the relationship between children and society at that time was completely different from that of today.

In this regard, French archaeologists have conducted a systematic study. They have counted a large number of prehistoric child burials and found that in the culture of the Dayak (the indigenous people living on the island of Borneo) and the Papuans (the indigenous people living on the island of New Guinea in Oceania and nearby areas), they buried their children by placing them in tree trunks or hanging them on tree branches, believing that this was a way to allow children to return to nature [4].

Archaeologists believe that during this period, people did not think that children were connected to their social group, so they reacted less to the death of children . They also speculate that the reason why there are fewer child burials in prehistoric times is probably because children were not considered to belong to the social group before a certain age, so when foreign invaders came, the invaders would take these children with them.

Of course, this phenomenon has also changed with the progress of human society. In the early Neolithic period, children's burials were very simple and only appeared in small groups . In the middle Neolithic period, symbols with commemorative significance appeared in children's burials, such as more abundant burial objects, specific body placement postures, etc., and the scale also became collective . It was not until the end of the Neolithic period that individual child burials appeared [5].

From the above content, we can see that children in the Neolithic Age were not as happy as they are today. Instead, they endured tremendous survival pressure from nature and society. Under such circumstances, it was not easy for them to grow up. Looking back at history, we can also find that with the growth and progress of human society, we have also made great progress in caring for children.

Of course, there is still a lot of research work to be done in the archaeological community to restore the living conditions of children in the past. For example, some scholars have pointed out that there is still a lot of room for exploration in the current domestic research on the tooth wear of ancient children, and called on the academic community to establish a data database, strengthen the investigation and research of children's remains unearthed from the site, and unify the measurement standards. We look forward to learning more about the living conditions of ancient children through archaeology in the future.

References:

【1】Fuller DQ. Contrasting patterns in crop domestication and domestication rates: recent archaeobotanical insights from the Old World. Ann Bot. 2007 Nov;100(5):903-24.

【2】Le Roy. New twist on thought experiment yields conflicting results. Ardèche Archéol. 2018, 35, 12–18,.

【3】Le Roy M, Brunel E, Lateur N. Archaïque Toi-Même![J]. Découverte Anthropologique à la Grotte de l'Archaïque (Saint-Remèze). Ardèche Archéologie, 2019, 36: 30-35.

【4】Hertz, R.. Sociologie religieuse et folklore. 1970, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

【5】Le Roy, M., Rottier, S., & Tillier, A. Who was a “Child” During the Neolithic in France? Childhood in the Past, 2018, 11(2), 69–84.

【6】Li Haijun, Chen Huimin, Liu Liming, Liu Linru. Overview of research on children's tooth wear[J]. Acta Anthropologica Sinica, 2021, 40(04): 695-705.

【7】Wang Yunfu. Zooarchaeological study of Niupodong site in Guiyang, Guizhou[D]. Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 2019.

【8】Zhou Yawei, Yu Yating, Gu Wanfa. Paleopathology of children from the Shuanghuaishu Neolithic site in Henan Province[J]. Acta Anthropologica Sinica, 2023, 42(04): 458-471.

Author: Liu Min, PhD candidate at the Archaeology Research Laboratory , Hokkaido University

Reviewer: Cai Dawei, Professor of the School of Archaeology, Jilin University

Produced by: Science Popularization China

Produced by: China Science and Technology Press Co., Ltd., China Science and Technology Publishing House (Beijing) Digital Media Co., Ltd.