ArticleFrontiers in psychology2022
Hunter-Gatherer Children's Object Play and Tool Use: An Ethnohistorical Analysis.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- Atypical tool and object use in wild immature chimpanzees reveals developmental pathways to innovation.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Recreational Fear Across Childhood. A Cross-Sectional Study of Scary Activities that Children Enjoy.Child psychiatry and human development · 2025Article
- Object play in Tsimane children: implications for sex-specific division of labour.Evolutionary human sciences · 2025Article
- Construct validity in cross-cultural, developmental research: challenges and strategies for improvement.Evolutionary human sciences · 2025Article
- A global cross-cultural analysis of string figures reveals evidence of deep transmission and innovation.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2024Article
- Children at play: The role of novices in the production of Europe's earliest Upper Paleolithic ceramics.PloS one · 2024Article
- A tool to act blind? Object-assisted eye-covering as a self-handicapping behavior and social play signal in Balinese long-tailed macaques.Animal cognition · 2023Article
- Owl-like plaques of the Copper Age and the involvement of children.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Toward a Causal Science of Early Play?Infancy : the official journal of the International Society on Infant StudiesReview
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
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Abstract
Learning to use, make, and modify tools is key to our species' success. Researchers have hypothesized that play with objects may have a foundational role in the ontogeny of tool use and, over evolutionary timescales, in cumulative technological innovation. Yet, there are few systematic studies investigating children's interactions with objects outside the post-industrialized West. Here, we survey the ethnohistorical record to uncover cross-cultural trends regarding hunter-gatherer children's use of objects during play and instrumental activities. Our dataset, consisting of 434 observations of children's toys and tools from 54 hunter-gatherer societies, reveals several salient trends: Most objects in our dataset are used in play. Children readily manufacture their own toys, such as dolls and shelters. Most of the objects that children interact with are constructed from multiple materials. Most of the objects in our dataset are full-sized or miniature versions of adult tools, reflecting learning for adult roles. Children also engage with objects related to child culture, primarily during play. Taken together, our findings show that hunter-gatherer children grow up playing, making, and learning with objects.
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