ABSTRACT
The data at the base of archaeology are so thin and tenuous that to someone outside the discipline it seems overmeticulous to object to a careful extrapolation from present-day primitive to past prehistoric populations, and there are indications that this view is gaining support. When migrant food-gatherers settled down and their foraging could be supplemented with agriculture and dairying, it was not only an increased food supply but also the more complex social structure accompanying sedentary life that resulted in a rapid growth of population. In 1922, A. M. Carr-Saunders, an English social analyst who had been trained as a biologist, argued for a totally different kind of balance between fertility and mortality among primitive peoples. Estimating prehistoric populations presents a different set of dilemmas, of which one of the most important is timing. The difficulties in estimating the current aboriginal population of the Americas can be exemplified by the various definitions of "Indian" in the United States.
