Researchers at The Australian National University (ANU) direct maintain uncovered a previously unconfirmed population blast across South Eastern Asia that occurred 4,000 years ago, cheers to a novel method for measuring prehistoric population growth.
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| The Man Bac burial site inwards Vietnam [Credit: Lorna Tilley] |
Lead researcher Clare McFadden, a PhD Scholar alongside the ANU School of Archaeology too Anthropology, said the population tendency was consistent across samples taken from fifteen locations.
"We saw huge population growth associated alongside the agricultural transition," McFadden said. "Up until most 4,000 years agone you lot direct maintain hunter gatherer type populations, too then you lot direct maintain the introduction too intensification of agriculture. Agricultural transition has been widely studied but about the the world too nosotros consistently come across pregnant population growth every bit a result."
The argue these population changes direct maintain never been quantified earlier is the tools used to mensurate prehistoric populations were all designed for Europe too the Americas where archaeological weather condition are unlike to Asia.
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| Lead researcher Clare McFadden, a PhD Scholar alongside the ANU School of Archaeology too Anthropology [Credit: Australian National University] |
"For skeletal remains inwards Europe too America nosotros oftentimes come across the consummate absence of infants too children, they are rattling poorly represented," she said. "The preservation isn't practiced - pocket-sized bones don't save well. Children are also idea to oftentimes live buried inwards a unlike cemetery to adults. So the method researchers used to mensurate populations excluded children because they didn't direct maintain accurate representation."
Ms McFadden said her novel method for determining the charge per unit of measurement of natural population growth takes into concern human relationship the proportion of infants too children compared to the total population. This agency researchers were able to convey population growth figures inwards trouble alongside other archaeological evidence inwards the part which suggested a rapid rise.
"In South Eastern Asia too the Pacific, nosotros truly direct maintain pretty practiced preservation of bones from children," she said. "The skeletal evidence was there, nosotros were seeing populations alongside huge numbers of infants too children compared to the adult populations, which suggests it was a growing population at that time. But the existing tools weren't detecting that growth. The trends the novel tool constitute aligned perfectly alongside what researchers hold off to come across inwards reply to agriculture."
The report has been published inwards a newspaper inwards the Journal of Archaeological Science.
Author: Aaron Walker | Source: Australian National University [September 19, 2018]
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