ABSTRACT
A complete census return provides information from which a basic population framework at a specific point in time can be reconstructed. The nature of the age and sex structure of a population indicates historical factors which influenced the evolution of a group of people as they passed through their life cycle. The impact of severe epidemics, for example, can be easily traced on the population pyramid of a community. The cohort of ages between 30 and 39 is also less extensive than would be expected given the size of the 20-29 and 40-49 populations. The 1591 age structure is misshapen because of the catastrophic epidemics of the sixteenth century. The population cluster of Callalli Anansaya was relatively small in 1667 with a total population of only 267. The Peruvian national census of 1940 for the Caylloma sector exemplifies some of the same deficiencies in data collection which were prevalent in the colonial era.
