Estimating Aboriginal American Population

Abstract

Social scientists often consider population size as an independent variable of major importance. The author analyzes, therefore, methodological reasons why most prior estimates of aboriginal American population imply small scale preconquest societies and concludes that the population was far larger than has been thought. The range of previous estimation is so great as to indicate that some methods or data must have been faulty. Skeptical anthropologists and historians have regarded historic population figures reported by contemporary observers as larger than reality. Ethnohistorical estimations based on careful cross-checking of direct and indirect sources of population data demonstrate that contemporary observers underreported the true magnitude of native American populations. Estimates obtained by projecting backward through time population data from modern Indian census counts are seriously defective, as are past applications of the the dead reckoning mode of estimation. Ethnohistorical methods are less deficient. Cross-checking sources serves to increase the accuracy of estimation, and informant knowledge is evaluated in terms of opportunities for accurate observation and especially for accurate memory, since it is more difficult to retain quantitative than qualitative data. Additive reconstruction of Indian population from historical records is handicapped because the geographic spread of literate Europeans lagged behind the diffusion of new disease agents which decimate…