Children’s Games in the Sociocultural Space of a Siberian Town: Historical and Archaeological Context

Children’s Games in the Sociocultural Space of a Siberian Town:
Historical and Archaeological Context

DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2019.47.2.084-092

M.P. Chernaya¹ and S.F. Tataurov^{1, 2
1}National Research Tomsk State University, Pr. Lenina 36, Tomsk, 634050, Russia
²Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pr. Akademika Lavrentieva 17, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia

This article describes a collection of toys from a homestead in the medieval town of Tara, the Omsk Region, considered in a broader historical context. This study focuses on the spatial arrangement of toys on the ground plan of the homestead, evidencing the overlap of the adult’s world with the world of children, which is relevant to the development of children’s self-awareness and socialization through play. Games are an active way for children to organize their space within the adults’ world and using its model. Toys help them assert themselves and “inhabit” the domestic world of the homestead. The children’s presence in the space of the house – homestead – town is marked by various toys, such as mock weapons, hard and soft balls, whistles shaped like birds, tiny dishware, knucklebones, svaikas (sharpened iron pins, which, when thrown, were meant to stick in the ground inside iron rings), mumblety-peg, etc. The reconstruction of children’s games within the excavated homestead can be projected onto the entire town, since homesteads were the main habitats. Children belonging to various social classes played inside houses, in backyards, pastures, and areas between the homesteads. Because the living zone was mastered through play, games played an important role in the organization of the town’s sociocultural space. As the children grew, their living space expanded beyond the family’s limits.

Keywords: Children’s games, toys, localization, living space, Siberia, Tara, archaeology