Resumo

ARIETA BAIZABAL, Virginia. From demographic anthropology to demographic archeology: The study of extinct populations. Estud. demogr. urbanos [online]. 2020, vol.35, n.1, pp.117-152.  Epub 23-Abr-2020. ISSN 2448-6515.  https://doi.org/10.24201/edu.v35i1.1851.

Nowadays, there is common perception that conceptualizes demographic anthropology as something born from physical anthropology. Nonetheless, this theoretical and methodological approach is based, since its inception, in the deeply rooted historical relation between demographics and anthropology the latter understood in a holistic perspective, in which theories, methods and techniques from every anthropological discipline converge. The purpose of this paper is to advance a methodological reformulation of the so-called demographic archaeology, in order to be able to infer demographic structures from extinct populations through calculations of the number of inhabitants per household. We will turn to a case study of the Olmec site of San Lorenzo in order to expose the potential of the approach and show that research in this field, conceived as an integral part of a broader demographic anthropology, is necessarily developed through interdisciplinary, intradisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches, applying new technologies with the ultimate goal of contributing to the comprehension of the varied and complex dynamics of human populations.

Palavras-chave : population estimates; demographic anthropology; population density.