ABSTRACT
Superficial reporting of methods provides very little insight into potential sampling bias, relies heavily on collegial trust, and ultimately decreases the chance that significant mistakes will ever be detected or corrected. The study population is composed of the group called Northern Ache, and authors' demographic sample spans the period from 1890 to the end of 1993. Although interviews provide a good deal of information about demographic patterns, the time depth of the information is limited by the age of the oldest individuals in the population. Anthropologists collecting demographic and genealogical information often express confidence that their data from reproductive history interviews are reliable, since they were extensively cross-checked. In addition, data from different siblings provide a cross-check on the accuracy of the parent, grandparent, and sibling reproductive history interviews. Reproductive histories were thus obtained either by direct observation and frequent censuses with prospective interview data or through retrospective interviews conducted between 1981 and 1992.
