Perspectives on children and childhood in Archaeology: a brief overview

Abstract

This paper highlights the tendencies of the approaches through which childhoods and children are outlined in Archaeology, mainly based on the Brazilian case. It is known that childhoods, children and children’s cultures, since History, Pedagogy, Sociology and Anthropology, for example, find a consolidated space for research. However, in Brazilian Archaeology it is identified that childhoods and children assemble tangential themes that, driven by the presence of specific material elements, identify or predefine a child’s presence. There are also approaches that debate childhood and children as culturally defined and, therefore, historically defined social categories. Such works have provided Archaeology with important theoretical reflections, as well as with the exercise of methodological constructions to approach these social categories.