Kid-knapped Knowledge: Changing Perspectives on the Child in Lithic Studies

Abstract

The identification of children as stone tool makers has afforded key insights into stonecraft, knapping practices and constructs of social learning, with wider lessons for the archaeological recognition of the child. Through a combination of assemblage analysis, ethnographic insights and experimental methodologies such studies provide powerful tools with which to explore the interplay of emergent and novice identities in various knapping techniques and diverse lithic raw materials. This paper presents a review of key themes around episodes of playful and novice flint-knapping, looking at methodological criteria and the range of kid-knapped products with a view to exploring skill signatures and relations with lithic materiality. Drawing on specific examples taken from European prehistory and Mesolithic research it examines constructs of age, gender and personhood. Highlighting recent and emergent trends it argues for a focus on the situated properties of lithic technology and for a more relational understanding of the archaeological child.