Fitting to a Distribution of Deaths by Age with Application to Paleodemography: The Route Closest to a Stable Population/Comments/Reply

Bonneuil explores whether age at death estimated from skeletal remains can tell anything about the demography of populations by generating a demographic path over the period of deposition that is consistent with the mathematics of demography, fitting the distribution of deaths by age closely as poss...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Current anthropology 2005-12, Vol.46, p.S29-S45
Main Authors: Bonneuil, Noël, Bocquet-Appel, Jean-Pierre, Keckler, Charles N W, Robert Mc Caa
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Age
Anthropology
Death & dying
Demographics
Human remains
Paleontology
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Bonneuil explores whether age at death estimated from skeletal remains can tell anything about the demography of populations by generating a demographic path over the period of deposition that is consistent with the mathematics of demography, fitting the distribution of deaths by age closely as possible, which then becomes a target in a process governed by demographic dynamics. Keckler et al comment that Bonneuil's more sophisticated optimization would be misconceived because the real issue is what ecological conditions were experienced by the population over the period of deposition.
ISSN:0011-3204
1537-5382