Toys, scratching, and quantum strategies

Your new Strategy Toolkit newsletter (February 11, 2025)

(1) It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt…

Who would have thought that the choice of toys could have such strategic implications?

Well, parents for one. And now, it seems, anthropologists in Denmark, whose research* gives an entire new dimension to the category of “educational toys”.

“In cultures around the world, toys have been used to teach children what they need to know about the society they live in. When the toys teach the right skills, the children are prepared for adulthood and thrive. When they do not, calamity beckons.

“And how. New work led by Mathilde Meyer, a PhD student at Aarhus University in Denmark, and Felix Riede, her supervisor, reveals that giving the wrong toys probably played an important part in dooming the Norse settlers who came to Greenland from Iceland in 985…

“They report in the European Journal of Archaeology that, although eight social-play toys were found among the Norse settlements and 23 social-play toys were found among the Inuit settlements between 1000 and 1200, over the next 200 years the gap grew to 11 social-play toys for the Norse and 158 social-play toys for the Inuit…

“Though the lack of toys may indicate that Norse society was less creative from the start, the researchers argue that their tendency to give irrelevant toys compounded any initial lack of creativity and ultimately sabotaged their survival. In contrast, the Inuits’ preference for diverse and relevant toys paved the way for their children to be more innovative and adaptive. A parable for parents if ever there was one.”**

* Meyer, M. V., & Riede, F. (2024). Playing to Survive: Children and Innovation During the Little Ice Age in Greenland. European Journal of Archaeology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1017/eaa.2024.36

** Anonymous, “Clear and Present Danger,” The Economist (December 21, 2024): 63; https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2024/12/18/giving-children-the-wrong-or-not-enough-toys-may-doom-a-society