ABSTRACT
Demographic catastrophe is not new to man. Abrupt and brutal reductions in human numbers have occurred throughout recorded history with such regularity as to suggest that they are the rule rather than the exception. Archaeologists and anthropologists believe they have identified evidence of mass loss of human life as far back as the neolithic era. 1 It is safe to assume that this phenomenon shaped the human condition even earlier, when the continued survival of the species was still an open question.
