A Demographer's View of Prehistoric Demography [and Comments and Replies]

Abstract

The direct data on the population of prehistoric man are typically too sparse to be used alone. However, such supports as the population-resources model can easily become distortive prisons rather than aids to analysis, and the most important general point from ethnographic analogy-that contemporary primitives differ widely in their demographic characteristics but in all cases these are affected by a belief in the supernatural-is seldom reflected in discussions of ancient man. There is every reason to believe that the conscious control of procreation was practiced in prehistoric times, and one can surmise that the shift from ranging to a sedentary life resulted in a rise in fertility. Early death was prevalent, but one should note also that the age at death undoubtedly varied considerably according to a people's therapeutic skills, nutritional standards, proclivity toward violence, and the like. The balance between births and deaths, the growth or decline of a population, is no easier to estimate, paradoxically, than its two components. The numbers of persons inhabiting a site at successive dates do not constitute data that archeological evidence yields easily and automatically.Such factors as migration and race mixture, often impossible even to guess at, complicate the estimation of population growth and structure. During the past two decades a new interest in the demography of prehistoric man has developed, and one can anticipate a considerable improvement in the techniques of analysis over the next generation.