science

Growing Up in the Ice Age

Growing Up in the Ice Age is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Growing Up in the Ice Age rather than just read about it. In short: Growing up in the Ice Age: Fossil and Archaeological Evidence of the Lived Lives of Plio-Pleistocene Children is a 2021 book by Paleolithic archaeologist, April Nowell who is the Department of Anthropology chair and professor at the University of Victoria. This book examines the role children and adolescents played in the most recent ice age.

Key takeaways

Growing Up in the Ice Age belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Growing Up in the Ice Age to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Growing Up in the Ice Age from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Growing up in the Ice Age: Fossil and Archaeological Evidence of the Lived Lives of Plio-Pleistocene Children is a 2021 book by Paleolithic archaeologist, April Nowell who is the Department of Anthropology chair and professor at the University of Victoria. This book examines the role children and adolescents played in the most recent ice age. Nowell argues that they were an important part of the society and more study should be devoted to that role. The book received the 2023 European Association of Archaeologists book award, calling it "a novel contribution to this still underexplored aspect of Palaeolithic societies". The book was published by Oxbow Books.

Synopsis Nowell's research on Plio-Pleistocene children spans two decades, most from the end of the ice age 40,000 to 10,000 years ago. She writes "that kids are important drivers of human cultural evolution"; they learn from who they want and pass on the knowledge to future generations. Many of the artifacts we have could easily be from children learning to make tools which are necessary to group survival. Over the last two decades the study of children in this period has expanded, finding them to be independent community members. In 2022, Gregory Tague, reviewing the book, states that in chapter one, Nowell asks and answers the question "when is a child a person?" The answer being that it just depends, as there is "no real social definition of a child or childhood." The examples Nowell has found show that children in the Plio-Pleistocene engaged in "weaving or painstaking metal work" and were involved in rituals. Gender roles were not clearly defined, and oftentimes the items they created as children were smaller versions of items they would use as adults, crafted in ways that could reflect their "personalities and intelligence." In addition, there seems to be evidence that these children had access to and used musical instruments. Because early humans were mostly hairless compared to apes, they would not cling to a mother's back, but be carried in front where they could see faces and learn to "read expressions and emotions". According to Nowell, this would help with social and brain development. Chapters of the book focus on "the value of investigating child evolution", while another chapter discusses the "growth and life of teenagers in the Ice Age." Nowell feels that understanding children and adolescents from the ice age could help us understand children today. "For example, her findings show that identity crises are not universal for teenagers but that risk taking and innovation are." According to reviewers Felix Riede and Mathilde Vestergaard Meyer, the book chapters cover the importance of "Pleistocene children as evolutionary agents," play and the objects associated with playing, burials and "the use of space". Storytelling "as a means of learning" can be inferred through examination of cave art. Nowell makes the argument that children also participated in creating this art as well as benefiting from it. The book includes an appendix, "an extensive bibliography and a useful index."

Background The author's research on children and teenagers began as she became interested in "play behavior", her own children being in their early twenties at the time of the book's publication. Passing on skills to the next generation was as important to the survival of a community then as it is to today. She states that she is also interested in burial patterns for people of the Plio-Pleistocene period and expects to write a book on "anthropology ethics". In Nowell's Children of the Ice Age 2023 work she writes that there is evidence of children playing tag, "throwing clay balls at each other and at stalagmites" as well as fingerprints from a child as young as six on clay objects that were learning to make clay bowls and toy animals.

Reception Riede and Meyer describe this book as going beyond Newall's own published work -- she has created a book that is "well illustrated and written in accessible language." The European Association of Archaeologists presented Newall with their 2023 book award, writing that this book is "fascinating" and "everyone should be able to relate to and learn" from it. They describe that the book is a novel contribution to an area of Palaeolithic society that should have further study. Tague in his review writes it is a "carefully written and impeccably researched book."

References

Further reading Oregon Archaeological Society - May 3, 2022 - OAS General Meeting, Speaker: Dr. April Nowell [1] Oxbow Books - Meet the Expert - July 21, 2021 [2]

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Growing Up in the Ice Age

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Growing Up in the Ice Age claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Growing Up in the Ice Age before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Growing Up in the Ice Age ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Growing Up in the Ice Age

In research: Growing Up in the Ice Age appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Growing Up in the Ice Age in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Growing Up in the Ice Age is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2023 non-fiction books, Archaeology books, Last Glacial Period, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Growing Up in the Ice Age outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Growing Up in the Ice Age in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Growing Up in the Ice Age means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Growing Up in the Ice Age out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Growing Up in the Ice Age in simple terms?

Why does Growing Up in the Ice Age matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Growing Up in the Ice Age?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Growing Up in the Ice Age.