Chapter 2: Source Data

Extract

Our model life tables are based on data from censused primitive populations and from aged skeletal populations ranging from early lithic to medieval European cultures.

Censuses among relatively unacculturated primitive populations are rare. Most of the censused groups have long been contacted and affected by Europeans. They have been exposed to European diseases and medicine, affected by trade and technology, or influenced by missions and schooling among Europeans. Many live in reservation areas, or are otherwise confined by industrial populations which have invaded their former territories. It is difficult to isolate from published accounts the precise effect of contact on the population censuses utilized for this work, this source of “error”—that is, demography not representative of aboriginal conditions—is difficult to control. Yet, this work is not intended for use solely with primitive populations; were this the case, it should have been published 50 yr ago when there were more “aboriginals” remaining. Rather, it is intended to apply to any populations of interest to anthropologists, regardless of their degree of acculturation or development, so long as they can be said to approximate stable population assumptions.