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Deconstructing Pacific palaeodemography: a critique of density dependent causality
Author(s) -
Sutton Douglas G.,
Molloy Maureen A.
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
archaeology in oceania
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1834-4453
pISSN - 0728-4896
DOI - 10.1002/j.1834-4453.1989.tb00203.x
Subject(s) - fertility , prehistory , causality (physics) , construct (python library) , population , demography , geography , sigmoid function , history , genealogy , ethnology , econometrics , archaeology , sociology , mathematics , computer science , artificial intelligence , artificial neural network , programming language , physics , quantum mechanics
Three demographic assumptions which underlie widely accepted models of process in Polynesian prehistory are examined. These are: 1) that population growth follows a sigmoid curve; 2) that the form of this curve is density dependent; and 3) that mortality increased as density rose. We argue that these three assumptions are based on the misuse of demographic algorithms; misapplication of a model based on colonising animal populations and the use of extraordinary cases to construct a general ‘Polynesian case‘. Algorithms developed since 1983 indicate that differences in fertility, rather than mortality, have structured the results of life table analyses in Pacific palaeodemography. These fertility shifts are not density dependent.