Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T00:08:29.188Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

New formulae for estimating prehistoric populations for lowland South America and the Caribbean

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

L. Antonio Curet
L. Antonio Curet*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado, Campus Box 103, PO Box 173364, Denver CO 80217-3364, USA. [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The estimation of past population levels continues to be an important aspect of archaeological research. Here Antonio Curet offers new formulae for estimating prehistoric populations in lowland South America and the Caribbean using data derived from houses and settlements.

Keywords

populationSouth AmericaCaribbeanethnographic analogysettlement
Type
Papers
Information
Antiquity , Volume 72 , Issue 276 , June 1998 , pp. 359 - 375
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1998

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

Carneiro, R.L. 1970. Subsistence and social structure: an ecological study of the Kuikuru. Doctoral dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (MI).Google Scholar
Cassklberry, S.E. 1974. Further refinement of formulae for determining population from floor area, World Archaeology 6: 117–22.Google Scholar
Casteel, R.W. 1979. Relationship between surface area and population size: a cautionary note, American Antiquity 44: 803–7.Google Scholar
Chavez, Mendoxa, A. & Puerta Retrkpo, M. 1988. Vivienda precolombina e indígena actual en tierradentro. Bogotá: Fundación de Investigaciones Arqueólogicas Nacionales, Banco de la Repúbliea.Google Scholar
Cook, S.F. & Heizer, R.F. 1968. Relationships among houses, settlement areas, and population in aboriginal California, in Chang, K. C. (ed.), Settlement archaeology: 79–116. Palo Alto (CA): National Press.Google Scholar
Cowel, A. 1973. The tribe that hides from man. London: Bodley Head.Google Scholar
Curet, L.A. 1992a. House structure and cultural change in the Caribbean: three case studies from Puerto Rico, Latin American Antiquity 3:160–74.Google Scholar
Curet, L.A. 1992b. The development of chiefdoms in the Greater Antilles: a regional study of the Valley of Maunabo, Puerto Rico. Doctoral dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Arizona State University, Tempo (AZ).Google Scholar
Curet, L.A. 1993. Prehistoric demographic changes in the valley of Maunabo, Puerto Rico: a preliminary report, in Cummins, A. & King, P. (ed.), Proceedings of the 14th International Congress for Caribbean archaeology: 11–24. Barbados: Barbados Museum.Google Scholar
Dumont, J.P. 1976. Under the rainbow: nature and supernature among the Panare indians. Austin (TX): University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Fabian, S.M. 1992. Space-time of the Bororo of Brazil. Gainesville (FL): University Press of Florida.Google Scholar
Farabee, W.C. 1922. Indian tribes of eastern Peru. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University. Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology.Google Scholar
Gilun, J. 1936. The Baranw River Carihs of British Guiana. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University. Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology.Google Scholar
Goldman, I. 1963. The Cubeo: Indians of the northwest Amazon. Urbana (IL): University of Illinois Press. Illinois Studies in Anthropology 2.Google Scholar
Gonzalez Torres, D. 1987. Cultura Guarany. Asunción: Universidad Nacional de Asunción.Google Scholar
Gregok, T. 1977. Mehinaku: the drama of daily life in a Brazilian Indian village. Chicago (IL): University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hassan, F.A. 1981. Demographic archaeology. New York (NY): Academic Press.Google Scholar
Henley, P. 1982. The Panare: tradition and change on the Amazonian frontier. New Haven (NY): Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Howels, N. 1986. Demographic anthropology, Annual Review of Anthropology 15: 219–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, J.E. 1983. The fish people. London: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaplan, J.O. 1975 The Piaroa, a people of the Orinoco Basin: a study in kinship and marriage. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Kolb, C.C. 1985. Demographic estimates in archaeology: contributions from ethnoarchaeology on Mesoamerican peasants, Current Anthropology 26: 581–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lathrap, D.W. 1970. The upper Amazon. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Lewarch, D.E. & O’Brien, M.J. 1981. The expanding role of surface assemblages in archaeological research, in Schiffer, M.B. (ed.), Advances in archaeological method and theory 4: 297–342. New York (NY): Academic Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lowie, R.H. 1948. The tropical forest: an introduction, in Steward, J.H. (ed.), Handbook of South American Indians 3: 1–56. Washington (DC): Bureau of American Ethnology. Bulletin 143.Google Scholar
Maybury-Lewls, D. 1967. Akwe-Shavante society. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Meggers, B. 1971. Amazonia: man and culture in a counterfeit paradise. Chicago (IL): Aldine.Google Scholar
Meggers, B. 1995. Judgingthe future by the past: the impact of environmental instability on prehistoric Amazonian populations, in Sponsel, L.E. (ed.), Indigenous peoples and the future of Amazonia: an ecological anthropology of an endangered world: 15–43. Tucson (AZ): University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Murphy, R.F. & Quaine, B. 1955. The Trumai indians of Central Brazil. Seattle (WA): University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Myers, T.P. 1973. Toward the reconstruction of prehistoric community patterns in the Amazon Basin, in Lathrap, D.W. & Douglas, J. (ed.), Variation in anthropology: essays in honor of John C. McGregor: 233–52 Urbana (IL): Illinois Archaeological Survey.Google Scholar
Naroll, R. 1962. Floor area and settlement population, American Antiquity 27: 587–9.Google Scholar
Nimuendaju, C. 1946. The eastern Timbira. Los Angeles (CA): University of California Press.Google Scholar
Norbeck, S. 1971. Urban allometric growth, Geografiska Annaler 32: 54–67.Google Scholar
Oberg, K. 1953. Indian tribes of northern Mato Grosso, Brazil. Washington (DC): Smithsonian Institution. Institute of Social Anthropology 15.Google Scholar
Oliver, J.R. 1997. Dabajuroid archaeology, settlements, and house structures: an overview from mainland western Venezuela, in Versteeg, A.H. & Rostain, S. (ed.), The archaeology of Aruba: the Tank) Flip Site. 363–428. Amsterdam: Foundation for Scientific: Research in the Caribbean Region.Google Scholar
Paine, R.R. 1997. The need for a multidisciplinary approach to prehistoric demography, in Paine, R.R. (ed.). Integrating archaeological demography: multidisciplinary approaches to prehistoric population: 1–18. Carbondale (IL): Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Center for Archaeological Investigations. Occasional Paper 24.Google Scholar
Rivera, V. & Rodríguez, M. 1991. The Playa Blanca 5 site: a late prehistoric ceramic site in eastern Puerto Rico (a preliminary report), in Ayubi, E.N. & Haviser, J.B. (ed.), Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Congress for Caribbean archaeology: 541–58. Curagao: Archaeological-Anthropological Institute of the Netherlands Antilles. Reports of the Archaeological-Anthropological Institute of the Netherlands Antilles 9.Google Scholar
Roosevelt, A.C. 1980. Parmana: prehistoric maize and manioc subsistence along the Amazon and Orinoco. New York (NY): Academic Press.Google Scholar
Roper, D.C. 1976. Lateral displacement of artifacts due to plowing, American Antiquity 41: 372–4.Google Scholar
Schacht, R.M. 1981. Estimating past population trends. Annual Review of Anthropology 10: 119–40.Google Scholar
Schinkel, K. 1992. The features of Golden Rock-1, St Eustatius, N.A., in Versteeg, A.H. & Schinkel, K. (ed.), The archaeology of St Eustatius: the Golden Rock Site: 143–212. Publication of the Historical Foundation St. Eustatius publication 2/Foundation for Scientific Research in the Caribbean Region publication 130. St Eutatius: Historical Foundation of St Eustatius.Google Scholar
Schreiber, K.J. & Kintigh, K.W. 1996. A test of the relationship between site size and population, American Antiquity 61: 573–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seeger, A. 1981. Nature and society in Central Brazil: the Suya ilndians of Mato Grosso. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Siegkl, P.E. 1989. Site structure, demography and social complexity in the early ceramic age of the Caribbean, in Siegel, P.E. (ed.), Early ceramic population lifeways and adaptive strategies in the Caribbean: 193–245. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. International series 506.Google Scholar
Siegkl, P.E. 1990. Demographic and architectural retrodiction: an ethnoarchae.ological case study in the South American tropical lowlands. Latin American Antiquity 1(4): 319–46.Google Scholar
Smole, W.J. 1976. The Yanoama indians: a cultural geography. Austin (TX): University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Sumner, W.M. 1989. Population and settlement area: an example from Iran, American Anthropologist 91: 631–41.Google Scholar
Wallage, A.R. 1889. Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro. London: Ward, Lock.Google Scholar
Wiessner, P. 1974. A functional estimator of population from floor area, American Antiquity 39: 343–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiessner, P. 1979. Reply to Castcel, American Antiquity 44: 808–9.Google Scholar