An exercise in archaeological demography: estimating the population size of Late Neolithic settlements in the Central Balkans

Abstract

This paper reflects on the methodology for estimating population size from settlement data. Archaeologists are faced with a static record of houses, which is the result of dynamic processes of population growth and house use. There is no simple relationship between the total number of houses and population size. In order to produce more realistic estimates of population size, a quantitative model is presented which takes into account population dynamics and the dynamics of house accumulation. The model is used to estimate the population size of three Late Neolithic settlements in Southeast Europe: Gomolava, Divostin and Uivar.