The past is a foreign place' that contemporary societies can only reach by means of historical and archaeological inferences. When we report our findings and communicate such inferences to members of the public, it is important that we should recognize that children are a special case. Their cognitive abilities are different from those of adults: they must go through a period of apprenticeship in order to become capable of processing critically the information that is presented to them. Children are shown images of the past and told stories about it in various contexts that range from the...