The roots of palaeodemography extend back to the work of E. A. Hooton with skeletal samples from Madisonville, Ohio, and Pecos Pueblo, New Mexico. While at that time, most reporting of human skeletal data consisted largely of tables of measurements and observations published as appendices within archaeological reports, Hooton introduced a population approach which included a look at mortality and other demographic type issues.
In the late 1940s, J. Lawrence Angel, a 1942 doctoral student of Hooton, used similar approaches to study samples from ancient Greece. His work in the area continued through the 1950s and culminated in several publications in the 1960s that explored theoretical aspects of demographic reconstruction and broad correlations of demographic factors with cultural and other biological variables.
Other notable contributions during this period include Acstidi and Nemeskriri’s work in Hungary, M. Fuste’s research on the length of life in ancient Spain, M. S. Goldstein’s comparative study of vital statisties derived from skeletal samples, and New World studies of Anderson, Blakely, Walker, Churcher, and Kenyon. These studies examined a variety of samples, including communal ossuary deposits to generate age and sex profiles and related vital statistics.
In 1970, Acstidi and Nemeskeri published a book, presenting details on palaeodemographic method and theory, including life table construction from skeletal data. The volume synthesized their considerable work on a variety of Hungarian samples from archaeological contexts and presented their ‘complex’ method of estimating age at death in adults. This landmark publication presented methodology utilized for decades in Europe and elsewhere and demonstrated how demographic profiles could be used to examine long-term trends in mortality and adaptation.
Shortly thereafter, similar approaches were utilized in the Americas to address broad anthropological problems. Ubelaker utilized palaeodemographic methods and ossuary samples from the mid-Atlantic area of the United States to reconstruct mortality profiles, life tables, and generate new estimates of population size. Buikstra working with skeletal samples from the Lower Illinois Valley of the United States used reconstructed demographic information to elucidate mortuary site dynamics and examine archaeological hypotheses. Through these works and others in the 1970s, palaeodemography emerged not only as a novel way to organize age at death data, but as a promising approach to understand past patterns of mortality and address broad anthropological issues.
World History
