Mortality profiles as indicators of slowed reproductive rates: Evidence from ancient Egypt

Fluctuations in Nile flood levels are proposed to have played a significant role in the development of Egypt's cultural elaborations. Nile flood level s played an increasingly important role in the availability of subsistence resources after 3800 B.C, when agriculture was the dominant subsistence sys tem. A series of fluctuations in Nile flood levels are proposed to have con stituted a temporally fluctuating environment consistent with Seger and Bro ckmann's (1987) bet-hedging model. Wasteful behavior, in the form of cultur al elaborations, suggests an increased emphasis on nonsubsistence-oriented activities after 3300 B.C., indicating the population of Egypt was expendin g less energy on reproduction. Skeletal data are examined to determine whet her the population appears to meet further expectations of the bet-hedging model in the form of decreased juvenile mortality and increased lifespans. (C) 1999 Academic Press.