Chapter 11: Confronting Field Data: Aging and Sexing Problems

Extract

This and the following chapters will deal with the practical application of our life tables to anthropological data. In order to fit field data to a model, one must be confident that the data are as accurate and reliable as possible. This is difficult with anthropological data, especially if one is working from the literature. In this chapter the methods and common problems associated with the aging and sexing of anthropological populations are discussed. This discussion may help the reader to recognize questionable aspects of his data and to correct them prior to fitting a model table.

There is always the problem of the representativeness of the sample. If there is no direct evidence to suspect one’s sampling, the sample of skeletons or the census of a living population are usually assumed to be representative of stable processes. This is necessary to the application of our models. If a skeletal series is taken from a biased sample of burials, then of course it is not representative of the population from which it came. This is often true for juveniles (Schwidetzky 1965), and some means have been developed to make up for this deficiency. Where an unbiased, representative sample or census cannot be assumed, further demographic analysis is not likely to be productive.