ESTIMATES OF AGE STRUCTURE AND MORTALITY FROM THE WARD SITE, A LATE-ARCHAIC POPULATION

Abstract

Very old prehistoric cemeteries associated with habitation sites are located along the Green River in Kentucky. Late-Archaic archaeology, skeletal biology, and paleodemographies have been described for Indian Knoll (15Oh2) and Carlston-Annis (15Bt5), which reveal young age distributions, high dependency ratios, and low life expectancies.

More than 16,000 ft2, representing 16% of the Ward site (15McL11), were carefully excavated in 1938. Evidence of year-round habitation, elaborate grave goods associated with infant burials, good levels of preservation, careful supervision of the recovery of all burials, and our reassessment of the burial inventory all argue for a cemetery fully representative of a once living population.

Subadults were aged using conventional dentition standards. The adult portion of the cemetery was aged with only one indicator the auricular surface of the ilium. Field study accounts of fertility performances in modern primitive populations were used to complete the paleodemographic reconstruction of this presumably sedentary fisher-hunter-gatherer population.