Play and recreation are sometimes considered to be less significant elements of culture in general and of individual societies than aspects such as work, politics, religion, the arts, and domestic life, but archaeological excavations and textual sources alike indicate that leisure pastimes have been and remain ubiquitous in past and present human societies. Because the very term “play” implies an activity that is the province of children, or which, when applied to adults, is inherently frivolous, or, within some religious or cultural contexts, even sinful, the historical and sociological study of this concept is not as developed as those that relate to what are widely believed to be more important subjects in the study of individual or communal life of the past. Yet even societies as regimented with respect to daily life and as concerned with the proper use of time as that of Puritan New England have been revealed to have included forms of recreation for children and adults alike. The historiography of the early modern Atlantic world includes numerous monographs, journal articles, and other types of scholarly works that depict practices of play and recreation throughout the colonial Americas, and among people of European, African, Native American, and mixed heritage in rural and urban contexts alike. The sources that are listed in this article describe activities and sites of leisure that range from wrestling matches between enslaved men on Southern plantations to fishing trips undertaken by elite Philadelphia clubmen to civic festivities in colonial Peru, and they depict the importance of such activities both among those whose lives centered on labor (free or unfree) and among those who were able to dedicate themselves to the enjoyment of leisure.
Indigenous Conservation Practices Are Not a Monolith: Western cultural biases and a lack of engagement with Indigenous experts undermine studies of land stewardship
