ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author likes to be able to generalize about the mortality conditions in a universe of populations with the environment, the technology, the cultural practices, and the genetic composition of the precontact !Kung, unaffected by the changes in diet and medical practices introduced recently by Bantus and Europeans. The exploration of random fluctuations in mortality caused by applying constant probabilities of death by age and sex to stochastically fluctuating populations can be explored, using a computer microsimulation program. Simulations are a valuable adjunct to empirical study in small populations like the !Kung because they demonstrate very graphically some of the pitfalls of generalizations from small data collections. To explore this point, the author presents the results from three series of simulations of mortality. A final implication of the AMBUSH simulations lies in the issue of internal consistency of results. Mortality does not exist in isolation in the simulations, and cannot in the real population either.
