Paleodemography: From archaeology and skeletal age estimation to life in the past. (17th December 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Boldsen, Jesper L.; Milner, George R.; Ousley, Stephen D.
• Is Part Of: American journal of biological anthropology. Volume 178:Supplement S74(2022)
• Page Start: 115
• Page End: 150
• Publication Date: 2021-12-17
• Subjects: age and sex estimation -- age‐at‐death distributions -- bioarchaeology -- paleodemography -- preindustrial populations; Physical anthropology -- Periodicals; 599.9
• DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.24462
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2692-7691

Abstract

Abstract: Much of paleodemography, an interdisciplinary field with strong ties to archaeology, among other disciplines, is oriented toward clarifying the life experiences of past people and why they changed over time. We focus on how human skeletons contribute to our understanding of preindustrial demographic regimes, including when changes took place that led to the world as we know it today. Problems with existing paleodemographic practices are highlighted, as are promising directions for future work. The latter requires both better age estimates and innovative methods to handle data appropriately. Age‐at‐death estimates for adult skeletons are a particular problem, especially for adults over 50 years that undoubtedly are mistakenly underrepresented in published studies of archaeological skeletons. Better age estimates for the entirety of the lifespan are essential to generate realistic distributions of age at death. There are currently encouraging signs that after about a half‐century of intensive, and sometimes contentious, research, paleodemography is poised to contribute much to understandings of evolutionary processes, the structure of past populations, and human‐disease interaction, among other topics.