Cementochronology : A Solution To Reconstructing Past Populations' Mortality Profiles Using Individual Age-At-Death Estimates - Archive ouverte HAL Accéder directement au contenu
Chapitre D'ouvrage Année : 2022

Cementochronology : A Solution To Reconstructing Past Populations' Mortality Profiles Using Individual Age-At-Death Estimates

Résumé

Palaeodemographic mortality profiles are flawed due in part to well-understood methodological problems with individual age-at-death estimates and accurately estimating adult age-at-death distribution from mortuary assemblages. Cementochronology, combined with probability density analysis, potentially provides a solution; however this method has traditionally been applied only to adults, leaving non-adult skeletons out of the analysis. This chapter examines the possibility that cementochronology can be applied to non-adult skeletons. Dental cementum was used as a single age indicator to reconstruct the mortality profile and the life table of an archaeological sample buried in Notre-Dame du Bourg Cathedral (16th-18th centuries, France). We analyzed deciduous and permanent teeth from 119 individuals’ (90 adults and 29 subadults). Our results are consistent with parish registers data and demonstrate cementochronology is effective in estimating mortality under the age of 35. However, the method appears to under-estimate age at death for elderly individuals compared to death records. Unfortunately, under-estimation of elderly individuals is the most pressing concern paleodemographers had with most other methods for estimating age-at-death in adults and thus our study demonstrates that cementochronology, while it is a unique and innovative palaeodemographic tool to assess past populations’ mortality profiles, may not solve the uniformitarian challenge for paleodemographers. This research points to the need for additional testing in elderly subjects. Besides, to improve the representativeness of archaeological samples, expanding this approach to other types of teeth for adults as proposed for the subadults remains also a major issue.
Fichier non déposé

Dates et versions

hal-03701155 , version 1 (21-06-2022)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-03701155 , version 1

Citer

Laëtitia Lanteri, Bruno Bizot, Bérengère Saliba‐serre, Aurore Schmitt. Cementochronology : A Solution To Reconstructing Past Populations' Mortality Profiles Using Individual Age-At-Death Estimates. Naji S., Rendu W., Gourichon L. Dental cementum in Anthropology, Cambridge University Press, pp.338-350, 2022. ⟨hal-03701155⟩
24 Consultations
0 Téléchargements

Partager

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More