Реконструкция мира детства в древностях Западной Колхиды: взгляд археолога и педагога на артефакты и этнографию
Reconstruction of Childhood in the Antiquities of Western Colchis: an Archaeologist’s and Pedagogue’s View of Artifacts and Ethnography

Summary/Abstract: According to paleodemographers, children in ancient and traditional societies accounted for at least half of the entire population. This was a necessary condition for the simple reproduction of the population. However, in archaeological terms, the remains of artifacts that testify to the children’s world, as a rule, are extremely poorly represented.In our article, we consider the very concept of childhood from the point of view of pedagogy, archaeology and ethnography, and also determine what is hidden under the concepts of “game” and “children’s toy”. In addition to various types of sources that testify to the childhood world of northwestern Colchis, specific artifacts are considered, interpreted as toys or children’s household items. We use both the data on artifacts obtained directly by the authors during excavations (settlements of Shepsi (Bronze Age), Markul settlement (4th century BC — 14th centuries AD)), as well as literary and archival data on other sites of the region. With the involvement of ethnographic data and on the basis of our own pedagogical experience, parallels with archaeological sites of other regions are considered, where children’s toys are better preserved.The results obtained make it possible to reconstruct the childhood world of northwestern Colchis and answer the question: why are the traces of the children’s world so poorly preserved in the Caucasian region?

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