Fun research question

[connatic]

Heidi and I were out walking yesterday when we saw a cement truck. I said that I'd always been fascinated by cement trucks as a kid, to which she replied that an obsession with trucks and heavy machinery must be coded on the Y chromosome :-)

This leads to an interesting question, though: in a world before museums with dinosaurs, before trucks, locomotives, airplanes other big machines - what were boys obsessed with? Heidi thinks they were probably too busy working to have time for that, but I am not sure - before the Industrial Revolution (and especially before the Reformation) the pace of life was not so crazy that kids didn't have time to play or days off.

I am afraid there will be very few sources that describe kids' fascinations in the Middle Ages and before (there's little enough on toys and play), but it's an interesting question.

Comments

[ladykalessia.livejournal.com]

Probably something like "Who can turn out the most interesting and/or deadly cutting surface by banging these rocks together", but then maybe that's going back a little far. ;)

Hope all is well (or at least as well as it can be) over there!