Demographic archaeology (Archaeology)

This paper utilizes recent advantages in Social Network Analysis software to examine differences in the structures (topology) of Algonquian and Iroquois social networks.  These social networks were modeled in a simplified manner by looking at just two core variables that define connections between actors in the society: kinship and political organization.  The actors consist not of individuals, but of core family units that have both political and kinship relations with other family units.  The models examine 4,096 actor family units representing approximately 33,000 individuals.  This number is arbitrary, but likely represents the coastal population of Native southern New England, and perhaps three-fourths the population of the League of the Iroquois.  After establishing the general characteristics of these networks, I model the effects of population loss on their structural integrity by randomly removing a proportion of families from each.  The results of the Social Network Analysis strongly suggest that the underlying political and kinship organizations of these two societies resulted in significant differences in their ability to maintain cohesiveness in the face of population loss.

This volume presents a collection of studies focussing on population and settlement patterns in the Roman empire in the perspective of the economic development of the Mediterranean world between 100 BC and AD 350. The analyses offered here highlight the issues of regional and temporal variation in Italy, Spain, Britain, Egypt, Crete, and Asia Minor from classical Greece to the early Byzantine period. The chapters fall into two main groups, the first dealing with the evidence for rural settlement, as revealed by archaeological field surveys, and the attendant methodological problems of extrapolating from that evidence a view of population; and the second with city populations and the phenomenon of urbanization. They proceed to consider hierarchies of settlement in the characteristic classical pattern of city plus territory, and the way in which those entities are defined from the highest to the lowest level: the empire as 'city of Rome plus territory', then regional and local hierarchies, and, more precisely, the identity and the nature of the 'instruments' which enables them to function in economic cohesion.

Introduction:
http://fdslive.oup.com/www.oup.com/academic/pdf/13/9780199602353_chapter1.pdf

The relationship between Rome and its surrounding territory has long been a focus of historical and archaeological study and debate. This paper aims to add to this discussion in two specific ways. First, it questions and dismisses the pervasive dichotomy between metropolis and hinterland. Second, it uses regional field survey data to quantify the population of the early imperial suburbium. The paper explores the nexus of social, political and economic flows in order to assess the interaction and integration of metropolis and suburbium. The chronological focus is the early imperial period (c.27BC-AD100). Particular attention is placed upon the degree to which rural populations can be considered not simply as 'rustici' but as a sizeable and integral part of the population of Rome itself. The conclusions suggest that considering metropolis and suburbium as a single unit has important implications for the study not only of rural areas, but also for the city of Rome itself, and for studies of the Roman Italy in general.

RESUMEN Antonio Plaza, ubicado al margen del río Uxpanapa, es conocido y señalado como el lugar de origen de uno de los hallazgos más polémicos de la arqueología de la costa del Golfo, hacemos referencia a la escultura conocida como El Luchador. A pesar de que esta extraordinaria pieza ha provocado la discusión entre académicos, durante décadas, sobre su autenticidad arqueológica, no se había realizado una investigación sistemática arqueológica en la región de Capoacan-un área estratégica intermedia entre los ríos Coatzacoalcos, Capoacan y Uxpanapa; una isla ubicada justo en medio de los sitios olmecas de San Lorenzo, Veracruz y La Venta, Tabasco. Por tal motivo, en 2018 dio inicio un proyecto sistemático en la región que tiene como uno de sus objetivos la clarificación de hechos y la contribución al conocimiento de la arqueología regional. En este artículo se presentarán los resultados de la primera temporada de campo y análisis de los materiales, mismos que revelan información importante sobre la dinámica poblacional de un sitio intermedio, espacial y temporalmente, a las dos capitales olmecas del periodo Preclásico mesoamericano. Palabras clave: Olmecas, patrón de asentamiento, dinámica poblacional, interacción. 1 Instituto de Antropología, Universidad Veracruzana, México.

This article explores a number of ways in which to reconstruct the possible extent of monastic Buddhism in the Khorat Plateau during the Dvaravati period. In an attempt to so, it is consequently multidisciplinary in its conception, being primarily archaeological while also drawing on areas of anthropology, art history, demographics and Buddhist studies. In doing so, it attempts to move beyond the sole analysis of archaeological
and art historic objects in order to investigate the social, demographic and geographical factors that lie behind the production of these artefacts. It proposes to do so by a number of quantitative means: first, by giving hypothetical population estimates of urban centres/moated sites during the Dvaravati period and consequently the number of monks these settlements could have supported. These estimates are then used to consider how many monks may have been sustained according to these figures. Second, by carrying out a quantitative analysis of sema stone numbers and their distribution throughout the Khorat Plateau this also provides a method to calculate the number of possible consecrated spaces (viz., sīma) in the region and their geographic extent. The analysis shows that institutional, monastic Buddhism primarily spread and settled along the major river systems throughout the region. Third, by plotting the distribution, quantity
and quality of Buddhist narrative artwork on sema to pinpoint the locations of possible workshops and centres. This also allows for a number of conclusions to be drawn in terms of the socio-economic support needed to develop and maintain workshops and craftsmen and relates directly to population densities. It should, however, be stated at the outset that this paper proposes nothing more than a possible scenario to aid in explaining and understanding the extent and spread of Buddhism during this period.  Therefore, I adopt the term “scenario” over “model” to emphasize the fact that what is being proposed here is an interpretive framework as opposed to a testable hypothesis in the strictly scientific sense.

This paper compares the early imperial period results from thirty surveys in and around regio VII Etruria in order to identify similarities and differences of settlement, population and economy. Three sub-regional patterns are defined: the suburbium, coastal Etruria and inland Etruria. Consideration of methodological issues of survey comparison suggests the problem is real, but not insuperable. A range of interpretative models is discussed with particular reference to the impact of the urbs on economic, agricultural and social developments. The structural connections between the sub-regions are emphasized, particularly the organization of labour, demography and agricultural strategies. The results reveal varied responses to Roman control, leading to more not less social and economic diversity. More generally, the results underline the value of comparing regional survey data.

Bevölkerungsschätzungen zur vorrömischen Eisenzeit, der Merowingerzeit und späten vorindustriellen Neuzeit im Rheinland auf der Basis GIS-gestützter Analysen; diachroner Vergleich der Ergebnisse; Untersuchungen zu methodisch verursachten Spannbreiten in den Schätzungen.

In this paper, we review two recent models of Roman agriculture presented by Nathan Rosenstein and Paul Erdkamp. Firstly, we identify the similarities and differences between these models in terms of starting assumptions and variables, and evaluate the impact of these differences on their interpretation and significance. We then take these models and locate them within a ‘real world’ environment. This involves confronting theoretical ideals with the complexities of a specific landscape and, in particular, with the evidence of archaeological field survey. We take a small case study area in the ager Veientanus and outline a flexible Geographical Information System (GIS) methodology for modelling agricultural production, with broad implications for Roman demography and economy.

We suggest our preliminary model raises questions for further consideration. The assumed existence of Mid Republican ‘proto-villas’ emphasizes the issue of agricultural productivity – in particular, the parity of Mid Republican and Early Imperial productivity, and the Late Republican productivity decline. Neither of these observations sits comfortably with the conventional narrative of Republican  agriculture (in which under-developed Mid Republican agriculture is replaced by Late Republican capitalist ‘agro-business’), but nor have such issues been explicitly recognized within emerging revisionist narratives. Such trends may or may not lend support to these interpretations. Another question concerns how farms were able to access increasingly better land, whilst villas occupied poorer land. We argue that the emergence of tenancy is one way to explain these trends. In turn, this requires us to define a new socio-economic category – the tenant farm – and to model the implications. One effect is likely to be greater agricultural output and, therefore, higher productivity and larger supported population. In turn, this encourages us to reflect on the relationship between rural production and Early Imperial urbanization, particularly the intensification of monumental building by local landowners. Finally, we note that a crude productivity measure of one (‘rural’) food-producer supporting four other (‘urban’) persons is the reverse of the widely-cited figure of an urban population rate of 10-20%. Are our modelled estates too productive? Was there a large non-food producing rural population? Were urban populations higher?

The objective of the study was to assess the determinant factors of
low birth weight among newborns delivered at Mekelle Hospital,
northern Ethiopia.  A  cross-sectional  study  was  employed  and  cards
of 180 mothers who  gave birth to low birth weight babies were
assessed. Data was collected using pre prepared structured checklist
and analyzed using SPSS version 16.00. The association between
dependent  and  independent  variables  was  assessed  and  presented
using  descriptive  statistics,  student  t-test,  and  ANOVA  test.  Out  of
the180 mothers, 45% of them fall into the age category of 15-19
years.  The  study  finding  showed  maternal  age,  fetal  sex,  parity,
number of antenatal care, gestational age, birth order, and history of
abortion had significant association with low birth weight (P-value <
0.05).  This  study  depicted  that  low  birth  weight  is a  public  health
problem  in  the  study  area.  Hence,  attention  should  be  given  to
increase  community  awareness of antenatal  care  service,  access  to
family planning and male involvement, prevention of abortion, and
community mobilization to prevent early pregnancy.

El objetivo de este trabajo es realizar un cálculo preliminar de la población de la ciudad hispanorromana de Lucentum (Tossal de Manises, Alicante) durante el siglo I d.C., mediante procedimientos que relacionan la superficie útil residencial de un yacimiento con el número de sus habitantes.  Los resultados obtenidos indican un total de 671 personas para las 2,5 Has. del recinto fortificado original, lo que equivale a una densidad de 265 habitantes / Ha., un índice que no es inconsistente con lo sugerido hasta ahora para las ciudades hispanorromanas. Si se considera la existencia hipotética de una prolongación urbana aledaña de unas 15,8 Has., y en la cual se dieran densidades menores a la del recinto fortificado, la población de Lucentum a finales del siglo I d.C. pudo estar entre 2.000 y 2.800 habitantes.

This article considers some of the key debates concerning the demography of Roman Italy from the perspective of archaeological field survey. First, it addresses the question of whether or not the results of survey archaeology reveal the supposed decline of the peasantry during the second century BC; specifically, it examines the republican settlement evidence of the South Etruria survey. Second, it considers a demographic model of the early imperial suburbium (Witcher 2005) and evaluates its working assumptions; in particular, it considers the significance of this suburban population for the wider debate about the size of the early imperial population of Italy as a whole — the ‘high’ vs. ‘low count’ debate.

Finally, two models are developed to explore the implications of these high and low population figures for assessment of the significance of the archaeological evidence; they imply two very different reconstructions of the socio-economic organization of Roman Italy. In particular, the ‘high count’ population model assumes very low archaeological site recovery rates; in turn this suggests relatively unintegrated rural economies and limited consumption. In contrast, the ‘low count’ population model assumes high archaeological site recovery rates, indicative of a more integrated rural economy with extensive access to manufactured and imported goods. However, both models suggest that regionality is a critical consideration for the study of early imperial Italy.

Since the early 1970s, the demic diffusion model is the cornerstone of the migrationist approach of the European neolithization. It considers the latter as a slow, gradual and unintentionally process. During the last decade its relevance has been challenged by the observed variability of the spread, such as the extreme one exhibited by the LBK expansion in Central Europe. To account for it, migration - which is usually explained by exogenous push-pull factors - must rather be viewed as the result of farmers’ spatial behaviour. We adopt this approach and highlight the influence on farmers’ location choice of agglomeration effects and Allee effect in settled areas, an influence which also leads to define migration endogenously. Both effects – which find support in archaeological records - exhibit demographic density dependence and help to explain an observed but counter-intuitive result. Indeed, a high demographic density is associated with a slower rate of expansion of farming; this may result from strong agglomeration and Allee effects which hinder – or even stop - the migratory spread of agriculture. Farmers’ cooperation with indigenous populations is leading to acculturation of the latter and therefore may reduce the influence of both effects, fostering farmers’ migration.

The authors deal with the issues of the beginnings of the parish system in the Czech lands, which formed the prerequisites for a deeper Christianisation of the rural milieu. Based on the distinctive transformations in burials observable in a large part of Bohemia and Moravia, they place the beginnings in the period around 1100 A. D. The evidence of the archaeological sources is confronted with the testimony of the written evidence and critically also with the conception of art historians, who do not suppose a boom of sacral architecture in the rural milieu until the second half of the 12th century and later. The shift of the beginnings of parish organisation further into the past opens a number of historical and methodological questions.

Detailed settlement data deriving from archaeological surveys are increasingly used as a proxy for demographic and economic growth and decline. This paper uses data from field surveys in the ager of the Roman colony Antium (central Italy) to establish the extent and nature of economic growth during the Late Republican and Early Imperial period. By using additional archaeological, historical and epigraphic sources, this contribution looks into the factors that made growth possible. Following an overview of the settlement history of the area and a discussion of demographic trends, we investigate to what extent changes in pottery consumption on rural sites, particularly of fine wares and imported amphorae, may be used as evidence for aggregate and/or per capita growth. While increased levels of consumption for the elite are evident, the analysis is inconclusive for non-elite groups and cannot, on the basis of the presently available data, be taken as evidence for per capita growth. Next, we consider elite investments, as they may be important drivers and reflections of economic growth. A study of archaeological remains, ancient sources and inscriptions on tiles and fistulae shows that during the Late Republican and Early Imperial period elites were actively involved in all kinds of commercial enterprises, as well as public and private building programs that boosted the local economy. Infrastructural works and the construction of a harbour are singled out as the most important drivers for Antium’s economic success. In the final section, we zoom-in on historical and epigraphic evidence for the patrons and investors active at Antium, some of whom were connected to the imperial court. To conclude, we suggest that this case study is of value for our understanding of the integration of local economies in the wider socio-economic context of Rome’s Suburbium.

This paper reflects on the methodology for estimating population size from settlement data. Archaeologists are faced with a static record of houses which is the result of dynamic processes of population growth and house use. There is no simple relationship between the total number of houses and population size. In order to produce more realistic estimates of population size, a quantitative model is presented which takes into account population dynamics and the dynamics of house accumulation. The model is used to estimate the population size of three late Neolithic settlements in Southeastern Europe: Gomolava, Divostin and Uivar.

In archaeological and paleontological demographic temporal frequency analysis (dTFA), a handful of protocols for generating temporal frequency distributions (tfds) have emerged based on the aggregation not of single-point timestamps but instead of constituent temporal distributions, including probability summation, kernel density estimation, and human occupation index calculation. While these protocols bear a striking algebraic resemblance to one another, they are motivated by the desire to contain fundamentally different sources of uncertainty, leading to detailed differences in procedure as well as fundamental differences in the interpretation of the resulting tfd. Rather than assuming that one technique can fulfill dual purposes based on its formal resemblance with another, the joint containment of multiple sources of uncertainty therefore warrants the adoption of propagation-of-uncertainty techniques in tfd construction.

“Megamiddens” appear along the West Coast of South Africa c. 3000–2000 BP. Kalahari San ethnography was used initially to explain them as processing localities given the massive volumes of marine shell and low densities of other remains. However, recent research in Lamberts Bay using a resource intensification model seems to explain more of the observed archaeological variability. In this paper, the evidence of Elands Bay megamiddens is studied in this same light and similar conclusions are arrived to. Rising population levels between 3500 and 2500 BP are followed by a reformulation of the foraging ecology of both marine and terrestrial prey, with isotopic values from human skeletons and archaeological data showing high marine food consumption during the megamidden period when compared to other stages. Signs of black mussel overexploitation are apparent by 3000 BP, although shellfish harvesting is most intense c. 2600–2200 BP. Further sampling of Elands Bay megamiddens is needed to better understand shellfish foraging between 3000 and 2500 BP. Foragers hunted less large mobile game by 2600 BP and instead small territorial bovids were procured more heavily at this time with tortoise collection being intensified between 3000 and 2600 BP. Cave usage may have been very different to that before and after the megamidden millennium given the lack of visits to these sites in Elands Bay at this time.

En este trabajo se propone una valoración demográfica de las poblaciones de época antigua en el área comarcal de l’Alcoià y El Comtat a partir de la evaluación de las superficies habitadas reconocidas por las investigaciones arqueológicas. Los datos de superficies ocupadas se correlacionarán con otras informaciones de carácter histórico y etnográfico para cuantificar la población. Nuestro propósito es comparar valores obtenidos según métodos análogos y relacionarlos con las capacidades de explotación agrícola de los entornos de los asentamientos. A partir de los modelos obtenidos pretendemos reflexionar sobre los espacios agrícolas explotados en la antigüedad, las capacidades de carga de los territorios y las formas de estructuración geográfica del área de estudio.//This paper proposes a demographic assessment of the populations of ancient times in the area of l’Alcoià and El Comtat based on the evaluation of the inhabited surfaces recognized by archaeological investigations. The data of occupied surfaces will be correlated with other information of a historical and ethnographic nature to quantify the population. Our purpose is to compare values obtained according to analogous methods and relate them to the agricultural exploitation capacities of settlement environments. From the models obtained, we intend to reflect on the agricultural spaces exploited in ancient times, the carrying capacities of the territories and the forms of geographical structuring of the study area.

This is a tale of three features.  They are not especially complex or otherwise interesting features, but their excavation over a short span of time from two adjacent sites raised a number of important questions, most of which remain poorly answered.  [:]  These relatively large, deep, ovate features marked by their strong-brown (“red”) sediments, were encountered during mitigation excavations of an area called the Lake of Isles in North Stonington, Connecticut, an 800-acre landscape being developed into 2 18-hole golf courses associated with nearby Foxwoods Casino.  In chronological order, AMS dates indicate that they date to 8260+/-50, 7910+/-40 and 5510+/-40, radiocarbon years BP.  They thus fall into the Early Archaic and Middle Archaic periods.  In the field, two of these features were treated as possible burials and were therefore only partially investigated.  The other, partially impacted by a septic line, was presumed to represent a Woodland period storage feature.  An interpretation that we were forced to reassess when an Early Archaic date was returned on a hazelnut shell fragment.  I propose that it is likely that all three of these features represent human burials, with no trace of human remains.  This supposition has been influenced by Dianna Doucette's excavations at the Annasnappet Pond site, which produced similar features, some of which were quite clearly burials.

Drennan, Robert D., C. Adam Berrey, and Christian E. Peterson. 2015. Regional Settlement Demography in Archeology. Elliot Werner Publications, Clinton Corners. Archaeological analysis at the regional scale investigates the past by studying how people distributed themselves and their activities across a landscape of hundreds or thousands of square kilometers. Archaeological field survey methods developed over half a century combine with powerful new quantitative tools for spatial analysis (including GIS) to unleash new potential for identifying and studying ancient local communities and regional polities. Varied approaches to estimating regional population sizes in both relative and absolute terms are synthesized and their advantages and disadvantages assessed. Tools for quantitative analysis of regional demographic data are presented. Field survey methods developed around the world are compiled from widely scattered sources and best practices for collecting archaeological data to su...

Detailed settlement data deriving from archaeological surveys is increasingly used as a proxy for demographic and economic growth and decline. This paper uses data from a survey in the ager of the Roman colony Antium (central Italy) to establish the extent and nature of economic growth during the Late Republican and Early Imperial period and, using additional archaeological, historical and epigraphic sources, looks into the factors that made growth possible. Following an overview of the settlement history of the area and a discussion of demographic trends, we review the evidence for aggregate growth and whether this occurred in conjunction with per capita growth. If so, this would indicate a rise in the standard of living. To look into this issue, we investigate changes in the rate of pottery consumption on rural sites. While a rise in living standard for the upper classes is evident, the analysis is inconclusive for the lower classes. Next, we consider elite investments as they may be important drivers and reflections of economic growth. A study of archaeological remains, ancient sources and inscriptions on tiles and fistulae shows that during the Late Republican and Early Imperial period the elite was actively involved in all kinds of commercial enterprises and public and private building programs that boosted the local economy. Infrastructural works and the construction of a harbour are singled out as the most important driver for Antium’s economic success. In the final section we zoom in on historical and epigraphic evidence for the actual patrons and investors active at Antium, some of whom were connected to the imperial court. To conclude, we comment on the value of this case study for our understanding of the integration of local economies in the wider socio-economic context of Rome’s Suburbium.

Hay una tendencia actual a definir a la antropología demográfica como una pro-puesta nacida desde la antropología física. No obstante, este enfoque teórico-meto-dológico se fundamenta, desde sus inicios, en la profunda relación histórica entre la demografía y la antropología –esta última concebida desde una perspectiva holísti-ca, donde necesariamente convergen los modelos teóricos, métodos y técnicas de todas las ramas antropológicas–. Este artículo muestra el aditamento de elementos al método de la denominada arqueología demográfica, para la obtención y análisis de información con la finalidad de inferir la estructura demográfica de poblaciones extintas a través del cálculo de habitantes por asentamiento y vivienda mediante nuevas tecnologías para el análisis espacial. Recurrimos a un estudio de caso en torno al sitio olmeca de San Lorenzo, con la finalidad de exponer el potencial del enfoque y mostrar que las investigaciones desde este campo, concebido como parte integral de la antropología demográfica, tienen que desarrollarse necesariamente desde la intradisciplina, interdisciplina y transdisciplina, con la finalidad de contri-buir a la comprensión de las variadas y complejas estructuras de las poblaciones humanas del pasado

LEMERCIER O. (sous presse) – Is it possible to observe the demographic evolution from the Middle Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age in Mediterranean France (4500-1900 BCE)?, in T. Lachenal, R. Roure & O. Lemercier (Eds.) : Demography and Migration. Population Trajectories from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. Proceedings of the XVIIIth UISPP World Congress (4-9 June 2019, Paris, France) Sessions XXXII-2 and XXXIV-8.

This study aims to look for a new signal of the demographic transition linked in time to the installation and development of an agro-pastoral lifestyle. Demographic growth has always been a component of models for the spread, during the second half of the sixth millenium BC, of the Linear Pottery Culture (LBK), and the analysis of the space–time distribution of sites appears to confirm the hypothesis. Now a different signal is used here to examine in terms of quantitative trends the strength and rate of supposed growth: household size, measured by house groundplan surface-area. This criterion is particularly suitable because the data for houses are more accurate and manageable on a large scale than the data for the sites themselves. Thus the research issue can be addressed with a representative and uniform sample. While the demographic transition is a phenomenon in itself, its coherence can best be gauged by measuring the time passing (dt) after the start of the process in each locality (time zero: t0). The intention here is to look for intrinsic trends in the strength and rate of the process. Using time-spans of 100 or 50 years, changes in the ground surface-areas of 505 houses (433 for the shorter time-span) from the different regions of LBK Europe show a curve with a sharp increase in the first two centuries of a Neolithic economy, with values falling back over the following one or two centuries. A possible rise occurs again up to 450–500 years after the start of the process, but the evidence for this needs completing. So it seems that the average size of the “family” living under the same roof (household) increases considerably for two centuries after t0 and then decreases, before rising again at roughly dt=500. This growth and decline is visible at a continental scale, as well as at local {(Bylany,} Merzbachtal) and subregional scale (Aisne, Meuse/lower Rhine), in the same rate and proportions. The trend thus appears universally valid for the LBK. The local data (Merzbachtal) suggest two correlated phenomena: a population density threshold per village and community fission once this was crossed. Further evidence suggests that the process involved the largest households rather than the village itself, although this must remain a working hypothesis for the moment. These phenomena may well explain the rapid and widespread nature of LBK dispersal. Finally, a broad overview of the historical and environmental context reveals a good match between the “universal” demographic trend proposed here and the main climatic and culture-historical changes affecting the LBK. Rather than evoking simple ecological determinism, quite contradictory to the data assembled in this study, this highlights the ability and adaptability of the first farming communities in central and western Europe.

Demographic and paleopathological studies are an important resource for the analysis of earlier populations, and can furnish useful information for the reconstruction of epidemic events, where emergencies make it impossible to have good information about the more general health of the population. The current study concerns the find of a mass grave in Milan, near the ‘Spanish’ wallls of the seventeenth century, the period during which the plague of 1630 exploded in the city. On the basis of the hypothesis that the individuals found were victims of this epidemic anthropological and paleopatholical analyses were carried out on the skeletal remains. Anthropological analyses have revealed a minimal number of 240 individuals. The population was heterogeneous in sex and age with a high mortality in peripartum, adolescential and people between 36 and 65 years old, as in the demographic structure of ancient society. The paleopathological investigations have shown nutritional deficits, chronic anemia, debilitating congenital diseases, dental pathologies indicative of a low level of oral hygene, arthritis and lesions even in the case of adolescents. A highly important find is the presence of syphilis and tuburculosis, infective diseases with social repercussions. Anthropological and paleopathological investi-gations have thus given us precious information on the health of the population of Milan during the critical period of the epidemic.

Archaeologists are increasingly concerned that the non-linear relationship between the calendric and radiocarbon timelines may introduce anomalous structures into radiocarbon-supported temporal frequency distributions (tfds) – time series data describing temporal fluctuations in the frequency of archaeological, paleontological, or other geological deposits. This concern emphasizes a need for improved middle range theory on tfd formation, addressing the interaction between several stochastic processes. This paper outlines a Monte Carlo simulation designed to explore the influence of several variables on tfd morphology, including the nonlinear calendric-to-radiocarbon age relationship. The results indicate that this non-linear relationship entails greater variance between identically generated tfds over some temporal intervals than others but does not predictably lead to tfd peaks over these intervals as previously suggested. Additional variance between identically generated tfds results from small sample sizes and high values in the underlying TFD. Smoothing the tfd is a solution not only to calibration curve interference but also to sample size-dependent sampling error.

The ForagerNet3_Demography (FN3_D) model is a non-spatial ABM for exploring:

• How demographically-relevant behaviors at the person- and household-levels are related to one another in hunter-gatherer systems;

• How those lower-level behaviors are related to system-level demography;

• How the characteristics of assemblages of dead individuals are related to the demographic characteristics of the living population from which those assemblages were drawn.

The model has three main levels: person, household, and system. Inter-related methods represent birth, death, and pair bonding (marriage). Many parameters in the model are continuously variable. The dependency ratio (the ratio of consumers to producers in a household) is a key variable in many economic decisions embedded in the methods.

The FN3_D model is not intended to represent all details of any particular hunter-gatherer system. This was a purposeful strategy to aid in constructing a model whose structure and behavior are understandable and applicable to a range of circumstances.

Recent research interest has focused on the bioarchaeology of children. Although paleodemography is essential for accurate reconstructions of lifestyle and health in past populations, currently there is no published technique for estimating fertility and life expectancy at birth for skeletal populations in which adults are under-enumerated. This paper provides a formula to predict Gross Reproductive Rate (GRR) from the proportion of young infants to subadults in a skeletal population. The formula was developed from 98 of Coale and Demeny's Female Model West Life Tables, which represented diverse fertility and mortality rates. The formula's accuracy was examined using independent samples from historical and archaeological cemeteries. Estimates of GRR from the subadult fertility formula were compared with estimates from Bocquet-Appel and Masset's juvenile:adult ratio. Results indicate that the subadult fertility formula predicts GRR with consistent accuracy (R2 = 0.98) and precision (± 1 offspring) in the model life tables, across diverse subadult age structures and demographic characteristics. The formula is useful for subadult populations with a proportion of perinates:subadults between 0.12 and 0.45. The adult component of the sample is not included in the analysis and thus the formula is similarly useful in cases where adults are under-enumerated, or not. When applied to historical and archaeological populations, estimates for GRR are similar to previous estimates from the juvenile:adult ratio. Because crude birth rate and life expectancy at birth can be calculated from GRR using established fertility centred approaches to demography, the subadult fertility formula allows skeletal populations of diverse composition to be included in demographic research, essential for understanding of how mortality and fertility are affecting the morbidity profiles of subadult samples and for comparative bioarchaeological analyses.

The aim of this article is to test the hypothesis that mobile or predominantly mobile societies have a lower ratio of average house floor area to average household size. The analysis is performed on a cross-cultural sample consisting of 11 mobile and 35 sedentary cases. The research hypothesis is supported
by the data, and the result is significant in two ways. First, it contributes to general anthropological understanding of relationships between cultural variables. Second, it has implications for demographic reconstructions in archaeology as it provides more specific information for converting observed
house floor areas into population size and average household size estimates.