Skills, scaling, and the role of youngsters in adaptation during the Northern European Final Palaeolithic

At any one time in the Palaeolithic, children constituted the largest group of individuals in a given community. While not many objects ascribed to children are known from these remote periods, it is beyond doubt that children participated in many aspects of daily life, including knapping. These youngsters played a vital role in generating technological variation and in societal adaptation. We here focus on the role of children in Northern European Final Palaeolithic societies that experienced markedly different climatic regimes in order to better understand how youngsters and their playful, exploratory learning may have contributed to adaptation. Using a mixed-methods approach we study inexperienced knappers with emphasis on three distinct groups of flintwork: blades, cores, and projectile points. We apply 2D geometric morphometrics coupled with technological attributes, quantitative and qualitative analyses to interrogate the variability within these groups with the aim of tracing the possible work of children through notions of skill level and artefact scaling. The purpose of this analysis is to investigate (i) how we can identify the signatures of children knapping flint, and (ii) how children’s participation in flintwork varied between inventories from periods characterised by distinctly different climates. Finally, to better understand the role of children in innovation and adaptation, we discuss how children’s knapping relates to the generation of technological variability, innovation, and differences in adaptation. The combined analytical focus on blades, points and cores allow us to more securely identify evidence for children, allowing us to compare their contributions to cultural variability across the two time periods.