Paleodemography

From archaeology and skeletal age estimation to life in the past

Bibliographic Data

ID24314574
AuthorsJesper L Boldsen (0000-0002-2850-0934, ADBOU University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55 Odense M Denmark), G R Milner (0000-0002-3330-0726, Department of Anthropology The Pennsylvania State University University Park Pennsylvania USA), Stephen D Ousley (0000-0001-8210-2665, Department of Anthropology University of Tennessee Knoxville Tennessee USA)
Year2022
Volume178
IssueS74
Pages115-150
Publication date2022-08-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Journal of Biological Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2692-7691 • E-ISSN: 2692-7691
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/ajpa.24462
LanguageEN
Citations received26
References cited333

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.