Acta Anthropologica Sinica ›› 2019, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (01): 98-106.doi: 10.16359/j.cnki.cn11-1963/q.2018.0029

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Application of the Regional Model Life Tables in Paleodemography

LI Nan1,2()   

  1. 1. School of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University, Beijing 100871
    2. Center for the Study of Chinese Archaeology, Peking University, Beijing 100871
  • Received:2017-05-18 Revised:2018-03-27 Online:2019-02-15 Published:2020-09-11

Abstract:

As a summary of normal life tables, model life tables reflect many universal phenomena and internal disciplines of demography and thus play an important role in modern demographic analysis. In this article, Coale-Demeny’s regional model life tables are introduced into the paleodemographical research. Take Dadianzi cemetery for example, we first adjust the distribution of age at death,especially the death number of the infant and the old, in light of archaeological context and anthropological studies. Then, we use the adjusted data to reconstruct the abridged life table of this site, according to which the average life expectancy is lowered to 24.12 years old. Correspondingly, age-specific mortality shows the typical U-shaped curve, which is more reasonable than before from the perspective of demography. Considering the limitation of traditional life table method in paleodemography, we should be fully aware that it is essential to evaluate the size and representativeness of a sample before the subsequent demographic analysis.Regional model life tables can be used as a refence in the process of adjusting the biased raw data, which will promote the development of paleodemography in the future.

Key words: Regional model life tables, Paleodemography, Dadianzi cemetery, Infant and child mortality, Average life expectancy

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