Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T13:24:36.078Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Past Population of Britain: An Archaeological Approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 August 2014

D. F. Renn
Get access

Extract

Conjectural estimates of the early population of Britain are subject to wide margins of error. Professor Grahame Clark (1957) has put forward tentative figures of early prehistoric numbers, based upon the native population density in newly colonized lands. The Upper Palaeolithic population density of Britain was compared to that of Alaska in 1867 and the North-West Territories in 1911, and the Mesolithic to that of Tasmania. Since prehistory has no specific dates, being measured in periods of hundreds or even thousands of years, overall numbers must be similarly imprecise in date. Again, the colonial figures themselves are only estimates (the two Palaeolithic estimators being in the ratio 20:3), so that the estimates of prehistoric population might not even be of the correct order of magnitude.

Estimates of between a half and one and a half million have been made for the population of Roman Britain in the second century A.D., based upon different interpretations of the evidence for population density of town and country (Wheeler, 1930). Here we have agreement on the order of magnitude, but the estimates are still imprecise in date and size.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Staple Inn Actuarial Society , Volume 15 , Issue 6 , March 1960 , pp. 445 - 454
Copyright
Copyright © Institute of Actuaries Students' Society 1960

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

Atkinson, R. J. C. et al. (1951). Excavations at Dorchester, Oxon. Vol. 1. Oxford: Ashmolean Museum.Google Scholar
Carrier, N. H. (1958). A note on the estimation of mortality and other population characteristics given deaths by age. Popul. Stud. 12, 149.Google Scholar
Clark, Grahame (1957). Archaeology and Society. London: Methuen and Co. Google Scholar
Cooper, Lord (1947). The numbers and distribution of the population of mediaeval Scotland. Scot. Hist. Rev. 26, 2.Google Scholar
Cornwall, I. W. (1956). Bones for the Archaeologist. London: Phoenix House.Google Scholar
Darby, H. C. (1952 and onwards). The Domesday Geography of England. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dingwall, D. & Young, M. (1933). The skulls from excavations at Dunstable, Bedfordshire. Biometrika, 25, 147.Google Scholar
Dunning, G. C. et al. (1931). A barrow at Dunstable, Beds. Archaeol. J. 88, 199.Google Scholar
Eversley, D. E. C. (1957). A survey of population in an area of Worcestershire from 1660–1850 on the basis of Parish Records. Popul. Stud. 10, 253.Google Scholar
Gabriel, K. R. & Ronan, I. (1958). Estimates of mortality from infant mortality rates. Popul. Stud. 12, 164.Google Scholar
Glass, D. V. (1950 a). Gregory King's estimate of the population of England and Wales, 1695. Popul. Stud. 3, 338.Google Scholar
Glass, D. V. (1950 b). Graunt's Life Table. J.I.A. 76, 60.Google Scholar
Greenwood, M. (1942). Medical statistics from Graunt to Farr. Biometrika, 32, 101.Google Scholar
Kyd, J. G. (1952). Scottish Population Statistics. Edinburgh: Scottish History Society.Google Scholar
Mckeown, T. & Brown, R. G. (1955). Medical Evidence related to English Population Changes in the Eighteenth Century. Popul. Stud. 9, 119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rickman, J. (1812, etc.). Abstracts of the Answers and Returns to the Census: (1812) Parish Registers, 1801. (1822) Preliminary Observations, 1821. (1833) Enumeration, 1831. (1843) Enumeration, 1841. London: Registrar General.Google Scholar
Russell, J. C. (1948). British Mediaeval Population. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
United Nations (1955). Age and Sex Patterns of Mortality. Model Life Tables for Underdeveloped Countries. New York: Department of Social Affairs, Population Branch.Google Scholar
Wheeler, R. E. M. (1930). Mr Collingwood and Mr Randall: a note. Antiquity, 4. 91.Google Scholar
Wheeler, R. E. M. (1943). Maiden Castle, Dorset. London: Society of Antiquaries.Google Scholar