Séguy Isabelle, Buchet Luc. Handbook of Palaeodemography

Springer, 2013. — 352 p.This book examines methods for linking osteo-archaeological data with historical and environmental sources to shed light on the living conditions of past populations. Covering all time periods from prehistory to the 20th century, it aims to construct models that capture plausible demographic dynamics from highly fragmentary evidence.Starting from the known in order to explore the unknown, this book presents a historical view of methods used in the past and present as well as proposes original ones. The paleodemographic methods presented in this handbook have been tested on anthropological and archaeological data and can easily be applied.This manual represents a fruitful collaboration between historical demographers and anthropological archaeologists who, with the help of mathematicians and statisticians, detail research that opens an important historical dimension to the discipline. Written in a readily understandable manner, it serves as an ideal resource for those wishing to interpret ancient bones in demographic terms.Luc Buchet - A historian and anthropologist by training, Luc Buchet developed a multidisciplinary approach at CNRS to bring biological anthropology, via the excavation of burial grounds, into the mainstream of historical research. His research topics cover methods and applications in palaeodemography, interactions between health conditions and demographic parameters, a dynamic approach to settlement via the combined study of osteological material and archaeological and historical data. He is head of the biological anthropology laboratory at CEPAM (Cultures et Environnements. Prehistoire, Antiquite, Moyen Age), associate researcher at INED, and lectures in anthropology and palaeodemography at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis.Isabelle Seguy - An archaeologist and historical demographer by training, Isabelle Seguy is a researcher at INED and CEPAM, where she works with Luc Buchet. She studies the demographic behaviours of populations from written and material evidence. Her research focuses on the analysis of factors determining the dynamics of historical populations, governed to a large extent by their natural environment and by prevailing health and social conditions. Together with specialists from a range of disciplines, she is currently working on plague epidemics of the Middle Ages and the early modern Period, the demographic consequences of climatic and environmental variations, and on methods for estimating age in the absence of civil records.