The touch of a child: An analysis of fingernail impressions on Late Woodland pottery to identify childhood material interactions

This paper proposes an analysis of fingernail impression dimensions to identify evidence of childhood interaction on pottery artifacts. Through a study involving 38 participants divided into four age categories, a comparative database has been developed to evaluate fingernail impressions on 21 fragmented learner vessels from the 15th century CE Late Woodland Keffer village in Ontario. A series of ANOVA statistics indicate that the fingernail impression dimensions found on Keffer vessels are statistically equal to data collected from child and juvenile categories. This approach provides a fundamental material constraint to aid in identifying children's actions and broader questions of childhood identity and agency.