ABSTRACT
Having furnished some models of human path allocation, time allocation and packing in a population time-budget, people are in a position to outline how time resources are mobilized for various activities and projects in pre-industrial societies. In dealing with large and complex systems, some kind of aggregation procedure is necessary, as is some sort of sampling on the other, since it is too time consuming to cover all individuals and households through field-work. A good deal of precise activity information can be extracted from similar time use accounts. Apart from the problem of overlapping or parallel activities, there are other problems of activity classification relating to the actual choice of categories. Categories are the ‘catchment-basins’ of real world processes, and they can either be catch-alls or more selective in what they include. Activity classifications must also be sensitive to technology and social organization. Reducing time use data to per capita figures is another way of obfuscating analysis.
