Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T21:43:31.290Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Inferring Fertility from Relative Mortality in Historically Controlled Cemetery Remains from Barbados

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Robert S. Corruccini ,
Elizabeth M. Brandon  and
Jerome S. Handler
Robert S. Corruccini
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL 62901
Elizabeth M. Brandon
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL 62901
Jerome S. Handler
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL 62901
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Fertility (crude birth rate) was estimated from skeletal and corresponding historical relative mortality ratios for a seventeenth- to eighteenth-century Barbados slave population. The estimates varied widely among themselves according to which data source and mortality ratio was used; they also varied from the actual historical fertility rate. In addition, we have raised logical objections to the use of stable model life tables for inferring nonstable vital rates in archaeological populations. These points are problematic for the broad use of relative mortality to infer relative fertility.

Résumé

Résumé

La fertilidad (índice de natalidad bruta) de una población de esclavos en la Barbada, para los siglos XVII al XIX, fue calculada por los esqueletos y por la proporción de mortalidad histórica relativa correspondiente. Los cálculos varían mucho entre sí mismos, según la fuente de datos y la proporción de mortalidad usada; también varían del índice real de nacimientos. Además, hemos hecho objeciónes lógicas contra el uso de tablas de modelos de vida estables para ínferir indices vitales no estables en las poblaciónes arqueológicas. Estos son aspectos problemáticos ante el amplio uso de mortalidad relativa para inferir fertilidad relativa.

Type
Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 54 , Issue 3 , July 1989 , pp. 609 - 614
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Bocquet-Appel, J. -P., and Masset, C. 1982 Farewell to Paleodemography. Journal of Human Evolution 11: 321–333.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bocquet-Appel, J. -P., and Masset, C. 1985 Paleodemography: Resurrection or Ghost? Journal of Human Evolution 14: 107–111.Google Scholar
Buikstra, J. E., and Konigsberg, L. W. 1985 Paleodemography: Critiques and Controversies. American Anthropologist 87: 316–333.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buikstra, J. E., Konigsberg, L. W., and Bullington, J. 1986 Fertility and the Development of Agriculture in the Prehistoric Midwest. American Antiquity 51: 528— 546.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, J. 1984 Work, Pregnancy, and Infant Mortality Among Southern Slaves. Journal of Interdisciplinary History 14: 793–812.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Coale, A., and Demeny, P. 1966 Regional Model Life Tables and Stable Populations. Princeton University Press, Princeton.Google Scholar
Corruccini, R. S., Aufderheide, A. C., Handler, J. S., and Wittmers, L. E. 1987a Patterning of Skeletal Lead Content in Barbados Slaves. Archaeometry 29: 233–239.Google Scholar
Corruccini, R. S., Handler, J. S., Mutaw, R., and Lange, F. W. 1982 Osteology of a Slave Burial Population from Barbados, West Indies. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 59: 443–459.Google Scholar
Corruccini, R. S., Jacobi, K. P., and Handler, J. S. 1987b Implications of Tooth Root Hypercementosis in a Barbados Slave Skeletal Collection. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 14: 179–184.Google Scholar
Craton, M. 1971 Jamaican Slave Mortality: Fresh Light from Worthy Park, Longui Ue and Tharp Estates. Journal of Caribbean History 3: 1–27.Google Scholar
Craton, M. 1975 Jamaican Slavery. In Slavery and Race in the Western Hemisphere: Quantitative Studies, edited by Engerman, S. L. and Genovese, E. D., pp. 249–284. Princeton University Press, Princeton.Google Scholar
Craton, M. 1978 Searching for the Invisible Man: Slaves and Plantation Life in Jamaica. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Eblen, J. E. 1972 Growth of the Black Population in Ante Bellum America, 1820-1860. Population Studies 26: 273–289.Google Scholar
Eblen, J. E. 1975 On the Natural Increase of Slave Populations: The Example of the Cuban Slave Population, 1775-1900. In Slavery and Race in the Western Hemisphere: Quantitative Studies, edited by Engerman, S. L. and Genovese, E. D., pp. 211–247. Princeton University Press, Princeton.Google Scholar
Farley, R. 1965 The Demographic Rates and Social Institutions of the Nineteenth-Century Negro Population: A Stable Population Analysis. Demography 2: 386–398.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Handler, J. S., Aufderheide, A. C., Corruccini, R. S., Brandon, E., and Wittmers, L. E. 1986 Lead Contact and Poisoning in Barbados Slaves: Historical, Chemical, and Biological Evidence. Social Science History 10: 399–425.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Handler, J. S., Corruccini, R. S., and Mutaw, R. 1982 Tooth Mutilation in the Caribbean: Evidence from a Slave Burial Population in Barbados. Journal of Human Evolution 11: 297–313.Google Scholar
Handler, J. S., and Lange, F. W. 1978 Plantation Slavery in Barbados: An Archaeological and Historical Investigation. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Higmah, B. W. 1984 Slave Populations of the British Caribbean 1807-1834. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.Google Scholar
Kiple, K. F. 1984 The Caribbean Slave: A Biological History. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England.Google Scholar
Kiple, K. F., and Kiple, V. H. 1980 Deficiency Diseases in the Caribbean. Journal of Interdisciplinary History 11: 197–215.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kunstadter, P. 1972 Demography, Ecology, Social Structure, and Settlement Patterns. In The Structure of Human Populations, edited by Harrison, G. A. and Boyce, A. J., pp. 313–351. Clarendon Press, Oxford, England.Google Scholar
Newton Plantation 1796-1801 Estate Papers. Ms. 523/116, 128, 131-1, 282, 288, 315. University of London Library, London.Google Scholar
Newton Plantation 1808-1825 Journal, vol. 1. Barbados Museum Library, Barbados, West Indies.Google Scholar
Roberts, G. W. 1952 A Life Table for a West Indian Slave Population. Population Studies 5: 238–243.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sattenspiel, L., and Harpending, H. 1983 Stable Populations and Skeletal Age. American Antiquity 48: 489–498.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sheridan, R. B. 1975 Mortality and the Medical Treatment of Slaves in the British West Indies. In Slavery and Race in the Western Hemisphere: Quantitative Studies, edited by Engerman, S. L. and Genovese, E. D., pp. 285–310. Princeton University Press, Princeton.Google Scholar
Steckel, R. H. 1986 Birth Weights and Infant Mortality among American Slaves. Explorations in Economic History 23: 173–178.Google Scholar
van Gerven, D. P., and Armelagos, G. J. 1983 “Farewell to Paleodemography?” Rumors of its Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated. Journal of Human Evolution 12: 353–360.Google Scholar
Weiss, K. M. 1973 Demographic Models for Anthropology. SAA Memoir No. 27. Society for American Archaeology, Washington, D. C. Google Scholar
Weiss, K. M. 1975 Demographic Disturbance and the Use of Life Tables in Anthropology. In Population Studies in Archaeology and Biological Anthropology: A Symposium, edited by Swedlund, A. C., pp. 46–56. SAA Memoir No. 30. Society for American Archaeology, Washington, D. C. Google Scholar
Zelnick, M. 1966 Fertility of the American Negro in 1830 and 1850. Population Studies 20: 77–83.Google Scholar