PALEODEMOGRAFÍA: PROBLEMAS METODOLÓGICOS Y PERSPECTIVAS

Abstract

Important  methodological   diff iculties  are  faced  in  paleodemography   studies.  These  issues include sex and age at death estimation, sample selection bias or population nonstationarity. An added problem is to relate bone lesions to mortality and morbidity models in the population of origin. All this has lead to state that the results obtained from paleodemographic analysis cannot be considered as conclusive, and even to doubt of its utility. The kind of information provided by paleodemographic analyses cannot be obtained from any other resource. So, despite all diff iculties, it is worthwhile to continue these studies as long as they are conducted with the required rigour. It is necessary to keep searching for  methods more and more capable to minimize error and to learn to work with the unavoidable remaining error.