Is there evidence of children in the archaeological record? Some would answer no, that "subadults" can only be distinguished when there is osteological confirmation. Others might suggest that the reason children don’t exist in prehistory is because no one has looked for them, much as no one had looked for women in the same context until recently.

Focusing on the Southwest, contributors to this volume attempt to find some of those children, or at least show how they might be found. They address two issues: what was the cultural construction of childhood? What were childrens' lives like?

Determining how cultures with written records have constructed childhood in the past is hard enough, but the difficulty is magnified in the case of ancient Puebloan societies. The contributors here offer approaches from careful analysis of artifacts and skeletal remains to ethnographic evidence in rock art. Topics include ceramics and evidence of child manufacture and painting, cradleboards, evidence of child labor, and osteological evidence of health conditions.
 

Preface

1. Introduction ~ Nan A. Rothschild
2. Prehistoric Puebloan Children in Archaeology and Art ~ Kathryn A. Kamp and John C. Whittaker
3. The Morphology of Prehispanic Cradleboards: Form Follows Function ~ Claudette Piper
4. Working for a Living: Childhood in the Prehistoric Southwestern Pueblos ~ Kathryn A. Kamp
5. Ceramic Form and Skill: Attempting to Identify Child Producers at Pecos Pueblo, New Mexico ~ Elizabeth A. Bagwell
6. Learning and Teaching in the Prehispanic American Southwest ~ Patricia L. Crown
7. Children's Health in the Prehistoric Southwest ~ Kristin D. Sobolik
8. The Cradle of Death: Mortuary Practices, Bioarchaeology, and the Children of Grasshopper Pueblo ~ Stephanie M. Whittlesey
9. Thoughts Count: Ideology and the Children of Sand Canyon Pueblo ~ Cynthia S. Bradley
10. Wearing a Butterfly, Coming of Age: A 1,500-Year-Old Pueblo Tradition ~ Kelley Hays-Gilpin

References
Contributors