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Ancient Populations

• Message 1.Μύ

  Posted by Darrenatwork (U11744656) on Thursday, 17th July 2008

  How do historians go about estimating ancient populations (like how many people lived in Britain prior to the Roman invasions)?
  
  How much is it finger in the air guess work or by calculations? Do historians calculate how much land was in production, how much food it produced and therefore how large (or small) a population the land could support? Can they use the number of known burials to extrapolate the population's size?
  
  What size of error is generally used (plus or minus 500,000)?
  
  My gut feeling (very much as an interested layman) is that the populations were probably quite a bit higher than the numbers generally used in books/tv programmes.

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• Message 2

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  Posted by RainbowFfolly (U3345048) on Thursday, 17th July 2008

  Hi Darrenatwork,
  
  Interesting question - I've seen vastly different figures quoted for ancient populations. In the case of the Romans, they had their census (ummm... what's the plural for census?) which were supposed to be every 5 years, although the civil wars and political unrest of the 1st century BC caused them to fall by the wayside for some time. There are also major issues with these figures as you can see from this footnote on a page showing the range of Roman census figures from a (most-likely) mythical king to the reign of Claudius:
  Note: All the figures given are problematical, in various ways. First, there is the problem of the correct transmission of numbers in the manuscripts. Second, there is the issue of who precisely are being counted in each census. Third, there is the question as to whether complete census returns were ever made. Most authorities find it difficult to believe that statistics prior to 340 B.C. are anything but fictitious.Μύ
  ROMAN CENSUS FIGURES
  
  
  If you can get your library to order a copy of "Italian Manpower 225 B.C.-A.D. 14" by P.A. Brunt, then I'd expect he probably gives a good explanation of how he calculated his figures (estimates plus census I think) and why he didn't use other methods. I suppose the methods for calculating the populations for each civilisation would be different, but the general approach should be kinda about the same.
  
  I'm sure I've something at home that gives charts and tables of Roman populations, so I'll have a root around tonight and see what I can find. I do remember that it looked deadly dull so don't expect anything too interesting...
  
  Cheers,
  
  
  RF
  
  p.s. Personally, I think there's a lot of finger-in-the-air stuff...

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• Message 3

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  Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Thursday, 17th July 2008

  Hi Darrenatwork,
  
  Medieval historians can make an informed guess at the population of Norman England using the information contained in the Domesday Book and extrapolating for those areas not covered in the Domesday survey.
  
  Students of Roman Britain could then look at the density of towns, rural settlements, villas, forts etc and ask whether Roman Britain had a smaller population than Norman England. It is really hard to believe that it did and more rural Romano-British settlements are being discovered. Both populations have been estimated at around 2 million.
  
  You could then look at the late pre-Roman Iron Age sites and determine how their density compares to the Roman. Dating is much more difficult now but some estimates have suggested that there were 25-50% of the later settlements. This would give an Iron Age population of 0.5-1 million, but this is very imprecise.
  
  Medieval historians have a fairly good idea of how many people a unit area of agricultural land supported. If you could model the area of land in cultivation during the Iron Age you could then estimate the population this area might support. Again imprecise, but better than guessing.
  
  All these populations, especially that of the Iron Age, seem to be greatly underestimated in located burial and cremation sites.
  
  TP

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  Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Friday, 18th July 2008

  ROMAN CENSUS FIGURES
  Μύ
  
  A good link there RainbowFfolly.
  
  Do we know whether the Augustan census of 8 BC or 14 AD is the one mentioned in the Luke's Gospel? Or was it another?
  

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  Posted by RainbowFfolly (U3345048) on Friday, 18th July 2008

  Hi Vizzer,
  Do we know whether the Augustan census of 8 BC or 14 AD is the one mentioned in the Luke's Gospel? Or was it another?Μύ
  It appears that it's neither. There seems to be a lot of controversy over the census mentioned by Luke, and if you type in "biblical census luke" you get links to a lot of christian websites and also to a few of the "The-Bible-Is-Wrong-Because-It-Says" websites. As this is a history board, I sifted through them until I could find one that was a bit more subjective, which believe me wasn't easy. This is a link to an article on JSTOR called "The Nativity Census: What Does Luke Actually Say?". Unfortunately, JSTOR only give you a taster of the article (in this case the first page) but it's probably enough to answer your question - and create plenty more questions in its place...
  
  
  Here's the Wikipedia link to this controversial "Census of Quirinus":
  
  
  Those Roman census figures are pretty interesting, but extremely unreliable (not to say highly improbable!) for the early years. After saying that, they do give some information - for example, the dramatic fall in population during the fifth century BC. This ties in with a series of migrations during the period, and the pretty much constant wars that Rome was supposedly fighting against the Volscians and Aequians. There's evidence that Rome experienced an economic recession and a good few losses in battle (this is the era of that momma's boy, Coriolanus) which were probably related. Anyway I'm starting to ramble a bit here, but what I'm trying to say is that even though they're blatantly inaccurate they are of some value.
  
  Cheers,
  
  
  RF

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  Posted by RainbowFfolly (U3345048) on Friday, 18th July 2008

  Hi DarrenAtWork,
  
  Further to TwinProbe's reply, specifically where he explains about land and the people it can support, you might find this interesting.
  
  Beloch, the founder of modern historical demography, realised that population levels are a function of the area and productivity o available cultivated land. If we know the size of Rome's territory in the sixth century, and can estimate the likely yield of the cultivated parts of it, we can arrive at a figure for the maximum population that it could sustain. Naturally, the result will be imprecise, and will depend on such variables as the amount of land under cultivation in any one year, the likely annual yield in conditions of ancient agricultural practice, and an assessment of how much food a person needs to keep alive and reasonably healthy (an issue on which experts cannot agree, even today). Nevertheless, it is possible to establish the range within which a correct answer will fall - in other words, a correct approximation.Μύ
  SOURCE : The Beginnings of Rome : T.J. Cornell, pg 205 (Routledge 1995)
  (Any spilleng misteaks and bad grammer are mine and not the authors )
  
  Interestingly he then goes on to quote Beloch's estimates of 20,000-25,000 which he claims to be too low, and someone else's estimate of 40,000-50,000 which he says is probably too high. Someone else has argued for a maximum population of 35,000, and Cornell points out that all the figures fall into the same range (20,000-50,000) and himself suggests a probable figure of 25,000-40,000). As TwinProbe says, it's far from being a a precise science, but it is definitely of some value...
  
  Oh, and the Beloch he mentions, wrote what is supposed to be a "pioneering study" in 1885 called "Die Bevolkerung der Griechisch-Romischen Welt". I don't speak or read German, but I think it's safe to assume it's not exactly a page-turner...
  
  There are other sources that are useful for estimating populations in the later Republic, for instance, those people liable to claim the infamous "Corn Dole".
  
  Cheers,
  
  
  RF
  
  p.s. Is it just me, or does the phrase "correct approximation" sound a bit of an oxymoron?

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  Posted by priscilla (U1793779) on Friday, 18th July 2008

  RF/TP
  
  There are interesting modern continental scholars who use hut/hamlet size and spread to evaluate population. The premise being that a wooden hut lasts for about 25 years before a new one is rebuilt - not always at exactly the same place. (Tell mounds are infrequent and more comon in the area now HUngary) The average long hut being used by 4/5 adults - childhood deaths below 12 years prevalant.
  
  Hamlet settlements about 65 adults, Hill fort and supporting surrounds 1200/ 2500 adults. In Europe, isolated farmsteads (Iron Age) were more frequent than supposed earlier.
  
  I'll give my source if you want.
  
  My own opinion is that land usage is all very well as a marker but we should not underestimate the early use of the natural environment, including hunted animals, fishing, wild fowl and uncultivated vegetation. Even in my lifetime I have known rural folk cull a great deal from their surrounds. Domesticated livestock and tilled land would have been a luxury for many.
  
  I expect to be shot out of the sky for that one.
  
  Regards, P.
  
  

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  Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Thursday, 24th July 2008

  The population information on the Roman Empire is sketchy, but I have looked into this and I reckon that the Empire's population might have been as high as 150 million (but only half that at the end of the Empire).
  
  The link provided by RainbowFfffffolly is a good one but it should be noted that the figures represent adult males only. The census was done for one main reason - to establish how many people could vote in the popular assembly, which would only have consisted of adult males. To get the actual free population you would have to multiply by 4 or so, and the census figure of 7 million in 47 ad implies 28 million Romans. Since the great majority would have been living in Italy, and there would have been slaves and freedmen too, that means a population across Italy of say 25 million - quite a large figure for the ancient world. That is about 250 a square mile, and if that were the same throughout the empire, that gives a figure of well over 300 million. But of course large areas were not as developed as Italy.
  
  Of the cities of first rank, Rome itself had at least a million inhabitants - we know this from the figures of how much grain was transported to it from Egypt. Athens, Alexandria and Carthage are attested to have had populations of around half a million. These were the very largest cities, but certain records indicate that there were many what I would call second-rank cities of impressive size. Galen mentions that Pergamum had 180,000 people. An inscription on the gravestone of an official states that he did a census of the eastern city of Apamea and came up with a figure of 118,000 (if I remember rightly).
  
  There are numerous examples of what I call third-rank cities. I would include in this Pompeii, one of dozens of similar places in Campania, its population within its walls was about 20,000. From the extensive records that have come to us from Egypt, the populations of certain cities, such as Hermiopolis, seem to have been around the 20,000 mark. Pliny the elder lists the populations of some cities in Spain, most again around 20,000.
  
  Josephus (in Jewish War) states that the populatioin of Egypt 'as census records prove' was 7.5 million, excluding Alexandria. The population of Israel also numbered millions (the Biblical book of Numbers actually gives population figures (adult males only) for the state, hundreds of years previously).
  
  For Britain I have seen estimates of between 500,000 and 5 million. The higher figure was extrapolated after a painstaking survey was done in ares of Notts to find every scrap of evidence of Roman remains, and the remains indicated high population density.

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  Posted by priscilla (U1793779) on Thursday, 24th July 2008

  I found that very interesting, thanks, fascinating..... I still have trouble with your board name, though!lol
  
  The figures mentioned have a feel right factor - and written in stone in the sense that all that stone building fronted large populations cf cinemas built in growing towns 1920 -1935 in UK is somewhat comparable to arenas and theatres in the Roman Empire; as ever, my simplistic view, of course.
  
  Regards, P.

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