Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1 The Rostock Manifesto for paleodemography: the way from stage to age
- 2 Paleodemography: looking back and thinking ahead
- 3 Reference samples: the first step in linking biology and age in the human skeleton
- 4 Aging through the ages: historical perspectives on age indicator methods
- 5 Transition analysis: a new method for estimating age from skeletons
- 6 Age estimation by tooth cementum annulation: perspectives of a new validation study
- 7 Mortality models for paleodemography
- 8 Linking age-at-death distributions and ancient population dynamics: a case study
- 9 A solution to the problem of obtaining a mortality schedule for paleodemographic data
- 10 Estimating age-at-death distributions from skeletal samples: a multivariate latent-trait approach
- 11 Markov chain Monte Carlo estimation of hazard model parameters in paleodemography
- 12 A re-examination of the age-at-death distribution of Indian Knoll
- Index
1 - The Rostock Manifesto for paleodemography: the way from stage to age
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1 The Rostock Manifesto for paleodemography: the way from stage to age
- 2 Paleodemography: looking back and thinking ahead
- 3 Reference samples: the first step in linking biology and age in the human skeleton
- 4 Aging through the ages: historical perspectives on age indicator methods
- 5 Transition analysis: a new method for estimating age from skeletons
- 6 Age estimation by tooth cementum annulation: perspectives of a new validation study
- 7 Mortality models for paleodemography
- 8 Linking age-at-death distributions and ancient population dynamics: a case study
- 9 A solution to the problem of obtaining a mortality schedule for paleodemographic data
- 10 Estimating age-at-death distributions from skeletal samples: a multivariate latent-trait approach
- 11 Markov chain Monte Carlo estimation of hazard model parameters in paleodemography
- 12 A re-examination of the age-at-death distribution of Indian Knoll
- Index
Summary
Introduction
In June 1999, the Laboratory of Survival and Longevity at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany, hosted a three-day workshop entitled “Mathematical Modelling for Palaeodemography: Coming to Consensus”. The title chosen reflected two issues the workshop was meant to deal with. First, the use of biostatistical methods as a means for estimating demographic profiles from skeletal data was clearly emerging as the right direction for the future. A number of individuals were invited who had published such techniques. Second, coming to consensus was a play on words for evaluating and finding a methodological approach that best did the job for paleodemography.
The initial workshop focused specifically on adult aging techniques. This was partly a reflection of the need to find methods that could capture the right-most tail of the age distribution in archaeological populations – the oldest old. Although nonadult aging techniques have increased levels of accuracy and precision, assessing the complete age structure of the population is absolutely imperative. The statistical approaches presented in this volume, while presented in the context of adult age estimation, are more broadly applicable to age indicator methods for any group (see e.g., Konigsberg and Holman 1999).
The purpose of the workshop was to provide individuals with an identical dataset on which to test their techniques.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- PaleodemographyAge Distributions from Skeletal Samples, pp. 1 - 8Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002
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