ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2021
Approaching prehistoric demography: proxies, scales and scope of the Cologne Protocol in European contexts.
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
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18 citing papers in PubMed.
- Social dynamics signals in archaeological time-series: How cultural transmission and production biases shape assemblage diversity.PloS one · 2026Article
- Climate variability and Germanic settlement dynamics in the Middle Danube region during the Roman Period (1st-4th Century CE).PloS one · 2025Article
- Large scale and regional demographic responses to climatic changes in Europe during the Final Palaeolithic.PloS one · 2025Article
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- Tracing Neanderthal mobility through the Romanian Carpathians: A GIS-based least-cost connectivity model.PloS one · 2025Article
- Landscape of fear: indirect effects of conflict can account for large-scale population declines in non-state societies.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2024Article
- The Neanderthal niche space of Western Eurasia 145 ka to 30 ka ago.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Positive feedbacks in deep-time transitions of human populations.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Explaining population booms and busts in Mid-Holocene Europe.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Climate-driven habitat shifts of high-ranked prey species structure Late Upper Paleolithic hunting.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Article
- Changes in limiting factors for forager population dynamics in Europe across the last glacial-interglacial transition.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Review
- Approximate Bayesian Computation of radiocarbon and paleoenvironmental record shows population resilience on Rapa Nui (Easter Island).Nature communications · 2021Article
- Population density and size facilitate interactive capacity and the rise of the state.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Demographic estimates from the Palaeolithic-Mesolithic boundary in Scandinavia: comparative benchmarks and novel insights.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Archaeology, demography and life history theory together can help us explain past and present population patterns.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Review
- A manifesto for palaeodemography in the twenty-first century.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
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10 authors.
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Abstract
In many theories on the social and cultural evolution of human societies, the number and density of people living together in a given time and region is a crucial factor. Because direct data on past demographic developments are lacking, and reliability and validity of demographic proxies require careful evaluation, the topic has been approached from several different directions. This paper provides an introduction to a geostatistical approach for estimating prehistoric population size and density, the so-called Cologne Protocol and discusses underlying theoretical assumptions and upscaling transfer-functions between different spatial scale levels. We describe and compare the specifics for farming and for foraging societies and, using examples, discuss a diachronic series of estimates, covering the population dynamics of roughly 40 kyr of European prehistory. Ethnohistoric accounts, results from other approaches-including absolute (ethno-environmental models) and relative estimates (site-numbers, dates as data, etc.) allow a first positioning of the estimates within this field of research. Future enhancements, applications and testing of the Cologne Protocol are outlined and positioned within the general theoretical and methodological avenues of palaeodemographic research. In addition, we provide manuals for modelling Core Areas in MapInfo, ArcGIS, QGIS/Saga and R. This article is part of the theme issue 'Cross-disciplinary approaches to prehistoric demography'.
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