Recent Advances in Palaeodemography: Data, Techniques, Patterns

ISBN-13: 9789048176373 / Angielski / Miękka / 2010 / 294 str.

Jean-Pierre Bocquet-Appel

Opis

Jean-Pierre BOCQUET-APPEL CNRS, Paris, France The written data used by demographers essentially cover the last five centuries. Since Homo ergaster moved out of Africa around 1. 8 million years ago and until the sub-contemporary periods, there is no data allowing us to reconstruct a demographic history that can be interpreted with the traditional tools of demography. If we want to be able to tackle demographic issues over a long evolutionary duration, trying to reconstitute our human demographic history and thinking out and testing macro-demographic theories, we need to draw on sources other than written data and on techniques other than those commonly used by demographers. This necessarily means using inf- mation of every kind, from archaeology, physical anthropology, pale- tology, primatology or genetics, along with relevant models of interpretation. The volume presented here has been developed from a core of papers selected for the paleodemographic session of the 25th World Population Congress (July 2005, Tours, France), to which further requested contri- tions have been added. The publication covers recent paleodemographic innovations, in terms of data, techniques and the detection of patterns making it possible to highlight hitherto unknown prehistoric demographic processes. Now that the anxiety over ways of defusing the population time bomb, which mobilized mainstream demographic thinking as from the 1960s (see, for authority, Bogue and Tsui 1979; Demeny 1979) has largely been dis- pated, the focus has shifted to other important issues."

Spis treści

INTRODUCTION: Jean-Pierre Bocquet-Appel (CNRS, Paris, France),- DATA: From genes to numbers: effective population sizes in human origins: John Hawks (University of Wisconsin, USA),- Assessment of Land Surveys in Greece: Contributions and Limitations: Jean-Nicolas Corvisier (University of Artois, France),- TECHNIQUES: Estimation of Age Distribution with and its Confidence Intervals using an Iterative bayesian procedure and a bootstrap sampling approach: Jean-Pierre Bocquet-Appel (CNRS, Paris, France) and Jean-Noël Bacro (University of Montpellier 2, France),- The Halley Band for Paleodemographic Mortality Analysis: Marc A. Luy (University of Rostock, Germany) and Ursula Wittwer-Backofen (Institute for Human Genetics and Anthropology, University Clinics Freiburg, Germany),- Model life-tables for preindustrial populations : First application in Palaeodemography.: Isabelle Seguy (INED/CEPAM, Nice, France) et al,- PATTERNS: Modeling Paleolithic Predator-Prey Dynamics and the Effects of Hunting Pressure on Prey 'Choice': Mary C. Stiner (University of Arizona, USA) et al,- The Paleodemography of Central Portugal and the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition: Mary Jackes (University of Waterloo, Canada) and Christopher Meiklejohn (University of Winnipeg, Canada),- Demographic and Health Changes during the transition to Agriculture in North America: Jean-Pierre Bocquet-Appel (CNRS, Paris, France) et al,- The demography of prehistoric fishing/hunting people: Case study of the Upper Columbia Area: Nathan B. Goodale (Washington State University, USA) et al,- The Libben Site: a Hunting, Fishing, and Gathering Village from the Eastern Late Woodlands of North America. Analysis and Implications for Palaeodemography and Human Origins: Richard S. Meindl (Kent State University, USA) et al.

Blurb

The written data used by demographers essentially cover the last five centuries. Since Homo Ergaster moved out of Africa around 1.8 million years ago and until the sub-contemporary periods, there is no data allowing us to reconstruct a demographic history that can be interpreted with the traditional tools of demography. If we want to be able to tackle demographic issues over a long evolutionary duration, trying to reconstitute our human demographic history and thinking out and testing macro-demographic theories, we need to draw on sources other than written data and on techniques other than those commonly used by demographers. This necessarily means using information of every kind, from archaeology, physical anthropology, paleontology, primatology or genetics, along with relevant models of interpretation.

This book has been developed from a core of papers selected for the paleodemographic session of the 25th World Population Congress (July 2005, Tours, France). It covers recent paleodemographic innovations, in terms of data, techniques and the detection of patterns making it possible to highlight hitherto unknown prehistoric demographic processes.