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摘要
ObjectivesIn paleodemography, the Bayesian approach has been suggested to provide an effective means by which mortality profiles of past populations can be adequately estimated, and thus avoid problems of age-mimicry inherent in conventional approaches. In this study, we propose an application of the Gompertz model using an informative prior probability distribution by revising a recent example of the Bayesian approach based on an uninformative distribution. MethodsLife-table data of 134 human populations including those of contemporary hunter-gatherers were used to determine the Gompertz parameters of each population. In each population, we used both raw life-table data and the Gompertz parameters to calculate some demographic values such as the mean life-span, to confirm representativeness of the model. Then, the correlation between the two Gompertz parameters (the Strehler-Mildvan correlation) was re-established. We incorporated the correlation into the Bayesian approach as an informative prior probability distribution, and tested its effectiveness using simulated data. ResultsOur analyses showed that the mean life-span ( age 15) and the proportion of living persons aging over 45 were well-reproduced by the Gompertz model. The simulation showed that using the correlation as an informative prior provides a narrower estimation range in the Bayesian approach than does the uninformative prior. ConclusionsThe Gompertz model can be assumed to accurately estimate the mean life-span and/or the proportion of old people in a population. We suggest that the Strehler-Mildvan correlation can be used as a useful constraint in demographic reconstructions of past human populations. Am J Phys Anthropol 159:523-533, 2016.
- 出版日期2016-3
