Children?

There was something that I read recently that showed that children in the past could handle trama better than the modern world. Also, childern became childbearing at very early age if I am not losing it.

And the adult too. I guest that danger was more real back then so they were more use to it.

Hi all,
in my opionion, if you want to have realism (which is one of the goals of the game), do not apply modern standards!
The kids would not build treehouses or have too much free time. As soon as they would be able, they would have to contribute to the tribes survival.
Life was hard these days, and that was far worse, than most could even imagine. Most kids would die of disease, before their immune systeme would be up and running properly. Being wounded could mean death.
A small scratch on some bushes -> Tetanus, being bitten by an animal -> bacterial infection!
The kids that made it through were usually tough -> thats natural selection for you. But I guess a lot of the kids would not even survive their first winter.
To get a grasp of these odds you do not even have to look far, just think back to the victorian age (1837ā€“1901), children had to work hard to sustain the family.

TL;DR: Donā€™t give children the status and leisure time they have today. The life back then was pure survival and rarely fun. Let the kids work little things, when the ā€œturn 4ā€. Before they turn that old they would be closely watched by their mother/father, so that they survive.

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Was it normal for women to be given to a man of great worth? I assume in hopes that the fathers worthiness would be passed to his children.

I would think that would have to do with the specific culture. Some might, but some might not.
It seems likely things like this would have occurred. Also, perhaps to a neighboring tribe as a form of bonding (also exogamy).

I am not sure whether the differentiation by class in the Neolithic was already so pronounced. Think that it was only with the development of cities that religion and origin became increasingly important in this time.

Have read that in the first legal texts children were still rated as ā€œthingsā€. We must therefore rethink very much in order to be able to move authentically at this time. Weddings were always also a deal that required a value adjustment. The extent to which families were ā€˜friendsā€™ can only be determined by finding bones. Somehow it worked.

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Iā€™m not sure I agree with the pure survival part.
Looking at modern tribal people (e.g. Himba or Amazon peoples) you donā€™t see every day as some struggle to live.
As a peripheral example, making cloth clothing is VERY time consuming. Making simple leather hide clothing is much quicker, durable and warm. The cloth feels/looks better. We obliviously had time to sew, grow, harvest, spin and weave cloth, as well as the resources diverted from wheat or other food crops. In fact, one of the hallmarks of the Neolithic was the specialization of labor, something you cannot readily do without some level of free time and certainly not if you are living so close to the edge.

I totally agree that life was hard and a bad winter or failed crop could very well leave a tribe living on the brink, if not dying. Also, children probably did lots more work than now. However, again examining contemporary tribal cultures, we find children playing en masse (watch any documentary of these people and you see children being children constantly). :smiley:

The Victorian age is a much different socioeconomic scenario which saw mass child labor and the formation of vast industry, a far cry from a small tribal society where everyone knew everyone else. :wink:

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I could imagine that the social conditions have characterized the evaluation of finds during excavations. Specifically, the approaches to how conclusions were made. The last 200 years of archeology have shaped our understanding and precisely these 200 years were economically the most distant from the Neolithic. One can not blame these scientists directly, they were children of their time. But you should never forget this fact.
Think, this is true for many areas. in the future many things will have to be re-evaluated. This is also the exciting thing about history. :wink:

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