Looking into the demography of an iron age population in the western Mediterranean. I. Mortality

In this paper, we attempt to reconstruct the mortality pattern of the popul ation buried in S'Illot des Porros (Majorca), an Iron Age necropolis in the western Mediterranean, by means of paleodemographic analysis. The skeletal sample consists of 285 individuals, 93 subadults (under 20 years old) and 192 adults. The aim of this study is twofold: first, to identify and to eva luate the structural anomalies of the skeletal sample, and second, to obtai n a possible and realistic description of the biological dynamics of this p opulation, with special reference to its mortality pattern. The study uses current demographic methodology and several demographic models (for compari son). An abridged life table was built to estimate the mortality parameters . To evaluate the likelihood of the estimated data, an indirect analysis, w hich consisted of a comparison of our results with different population mod els (Weiss [1973] American Antiquity 38; Coale and Demeny [1996] Regional M odel Life Tables and Stable Populations. Princeton: Princeton University Pr ess; Ledermann [1969] Nouvelles tables-types de mortalite. Paris: Presses U niversitaires de France), was carried out. An important bias was identified in the case of children, mostly affecting infants but also children betwee n the ages of 1 and 5. This was interpreted as a census error due to taphon omic reasons and to an excluding differential funeral rite. A life expectan cy at birth of approximately 28 years was estimated from the observed data. When this bias was removed, the estimated life expectancy at birth dropped to 23 years. The use of the Brass legit system allowed us to sketch a poss ible mortality profile for this population: low life expectancy, high infan t mortality and hard life conditions, which were the cause of the low level s of survivorship in old ages. (C) 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.