Expert answer:Archaeology Questions
Solved by verified expert:Your task is to select one (1) of the following scholarly articles. Read it carefully and then write a report in which you specifically address what the thesis/point of the article is, the kinds of evidence the author(s) presents, and how the author(s) employs the evidence to argue for his or her point. Based on the evidence & arguments presented, do you think that your author made a convincing case? Are there any obvious weaknesses in the evidence presented or the arguments? After reading the article, what additional questions do you have concerning the author’s position? The purpose of this exercise is to gain practice in reading and understanding the kinds of evidence and argument employed by archaeological professionals. The articles are fairly short by disciplinary standards (18-30 pages, typically) and not hyper-technical. It is NOT expected that you will understand all of the references or nuances of the articles. The basic points are quite accessible, however, even to non-specialists. The articles are available on the Blackboard site for this course. Go to the “Content” section, and look in the folder “PDF Articles for Assignment 2.” They are stored in .pdf format, so you will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader program, which is installed on most computers these days or built into browsers; it is available from Adobe.com for free. Some of these cannot be printed out in hard copy form for publishing reasons, but they may easily be read on-line, and you may copy the files to your computers. This should be a report in the range of around 1000-1200 words, typed & double-spaced.Upload a copy of your report to both Turnitin.com and Livetext.com. You may NOT use direct quotes from the articles in this assignment. Express the author’s ideas as you understand them in your own words. Because of that, and because you are responding to a specific article, it is not necessary to use internal documentation to indicate your source. You should make clear in the first paragraph, however, to which article you are responding.Scheidel, W. “The Greek Demographic Expansion: Models and Comparisons” Attached is the selected article.
scheidel_greekdemographicexpansion_2.pdf
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The Greek Demographic Expansion: Models and Comparisons
Author(s): Walter Scheidel
Source: The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 123 (2003), pp. 120-140
Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3246263
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Journal of Hellenic Studies 123 (2003) 120-40
THE GREEKDEMOGRAPHICEXPANSION: MODELSAND COMPARISONS*
bothin the
Abstract:Formuchof the firstmillenniumBC,thenumberof Greeksincreasedconsiderably,
n andBlackSea regions. Thispaperis
of the Mediterranea
p
Aegeancoreandin the expandingperiphery
framework
for the studyof thisprocess. In the first
the firstattemptto establisha coherentquantitative
section,I arguethatdespitethe lackof statisticaldata,it is possibleto identifya plausiblerangeof estimatesof averagelong-termdemographic
growthratesin mainlandGreecefromtheEarlyIronAge to the
rebuttalof the
on this finding,the secondsectionoffersa comprehensive
Classicalperiod. Elaborating
notionof explosivepopulationgrowthin partsof the eighthandseventhcenturiesBC. In the thirdsection, I seek to determinethe probablescale and demographicconsequencesof Greek settlementoverseas.
betweenpopulationgrowthandthe qualityof life concludes
look at the relationship
A briefpreliminary
modelsis meantto contextualizethe demoseries
of
The
resultant
parametric
interlocking
my survey.
andto provide
of pre-modemdemography,
within
wider
ambit
the
of
Greece
ancient
graphicdevelopment
in
this
area.
for
research
future
a conceptualtemplate
1. CONTEXTS, TRENDS, AND ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE
THEsocio-cultural evolution and geographical expansion of Greek civilization went hand in
hand with population growth and demographicchange. From the vantage point of historical
demography,these processes must be viewed in context, as partof developmentsthat spanneda
whole millennium from the late Bronze Age to the Hellenistic period. Upon attaininga new
level of population density, economic output and social complexity by the thirteenth century BC,
Greece subsequentlyappearsto have experienced a substantialdemographiccontractionwith
concurrent losses in production and complexity, conventionally known as the Dark Age.
Following a nadir in the tenth centuryBC, recovery was underwayin the ninth centurybefore
accelerating in the eighth. Raising population numbers and productionsignificantly beyond
Mycenaean levels, demographicand economic growth continued into the late Classical period
before beginning to peter out in the fourthor thirdcenturiesBC.1
In this respect, Greece conformedto the typical cyclical patternof pre-moderngrowth and
development:a growthphase would often begin by regaininggroundlost in a preceding slump
before it producednet growth and eventually stalled in stagnationor depression,followed by a
similar cycle taking off from a higher base than the preceding one and eventually scaling a higher peak.2 Secular growth cycles of this kind are well attested for more than two millennia of
European and Chinese history. In Europe, the growth phase of the Roman period ended in stagnation and decline (c. AD 200-700) followed by slow (c. 700-1000) and then much more rapid
growth (c. 1000-1300), stagnation (c. 1300-1340s), sharp contraction (c. 1340s-1450), recovery
and limited net growth (c. 1450-1600), renewed stagnation (seventeenth century), and further
growth. It was only in the eighteenth century that incipient Modern Economic Growth began to
break the traditional cyclical sequence. Similar sequences are attested for China from the Han
period onwards.3
* I am
greatly indebtedto JonathanHall, Ian Morris,
Robin Osborne and an anonymous reader for detailed
comments on an earlierversion of this paper.
I For a new summary,see Morris (forthcomingb).
Highland populations developed at a different pace,
expanding later and peaking in the Hellenistic and
Romanperiods: see Bintliff(1997b, 1998).
2
Judgingfrom the archaeologicalevidence, the Dark
Age slump appearsto have been more pronouncedthan
many othercyclical depressions. I should note in passing
that development in Crete followed a different chronological pattern.
3 For general surveys of Europeandevelopment, see
McEvedy and Jones (1978); Grigg (1980); Livi-Bacci
(1992). For China, see Chao and Hsieh (1988).
THE GREEKDEMOGRAPHICEXPANSION:MODELSAND COMPARISONS 121
Demographicgrowth has moved at differentspeeds and repeatedlyin differentdirectionsin
the short,medium and long terms. Interannualfluctuationshave been driven by short-livedclimatic, epidemic or political events such as poor weatherconditions, flare-upsof infectious disease and war. While significant in terms of the relative scale of variabilityfrom one year to the
next, these ups and downs tend to be drownedout in broaderaverages.4 At the opposite end of
the spectrum,in the long run as measuredin millennia, populationand productionhave grown
steadily with increasingaggregateknowledge. Althoughthis underlyingtrendlinerateof growth
acceleratedincrementallyover time as a functionof the positive correlationbetween population
size or density and technological progress, it remained extremely low up to the Industrial
Revolution.5
For the historian,it is movementsof the mediumterm,unfoldingover a few centuriesor within conventionallydefined historical’periods’, thathold the most interest. Undulatingpatternsof
growth are the result of a combinationof exogenous and endogenousdeterminantsof expansion
and depression. Populationequilibrateswith resources at a level mediated by technology and
conventionalliving standards. While technology – very broadlydefined as a system of production comprised of productivetechniques and institutionalarrangements- limits economic output and thereforepopulation,populationnumberand densityper se tend to spur technological
change in response to declining marginalproductivity. In consequence, productivecapacity is
progressivelyenhancedby improvementsin the stock of knowledge, enablingfurtherpopulation
growth.6 Priorto the nineteenthcentury,economic progresswas not in the long term dissociated from demographicgrowth beyond marginalimprovementsin conventional living standards
(which are to some extent a by-productof more elaborateproductivetechnologies).7 Thus, population would normallytend to approachthe saturationpoint – i.e. its largestfeasible size – circumscribedby the prevailingsystem of productionand living standards.8
Whetherhistoricalpopulationsever came close to full saturationlevel remainsdoubtful. The
balance of the evidence suggests that technological progress and institutionalchange kept raising the ceiling for demographicgrowth by incrementallyexpandingproductivecapacity. Thus,
‘overpopulation’relative to afixed resourcebase is unlikely ever to have been a genuine historical phenomenonsince even in ‘naturalfertility’ regimes, social conventions will tend to regulate and curbpopulationgrowth in response to economic opportunities.9In reality,contractions
of the resourcebase, not uncontrolledreproduction,were the principalcause of ‘overpopulation’.
At most, latent ‘overpopulation’might arguablybe diagnosed in cases in which populationdensities close to currentsaturationlevels rendereda communityperilously exposed even to minor
and temporaryresourcedeficits.10
Majordemographiccontractionsare commonly induced by partlyor fully exogenous forces
such as communicabledisease and climatic change. Warfareand other forms of violent unrest
and disruptionsof institutionalframeworksmay contributesignificantly beyond the local level
only if they occur with unusualintensity;the Mongol expansion is a popularexample. By contrast,economic conditionshave little direct impacton mortality. Recent studies of early modern
Europehave shown thatalthough(or in fact because)real wages and populationsize are inversely
Galloway (1988) is the most comprehensivesurvey.
For the link between population and progress, see
Kremer(1993); Simon (1986) 61-79; (2000).
6 Boserup (1965) and (1981) are the classic statements on the relationship between population pressure
and development. On the ubiquityof declining marginal
productivityin this context, see Wood (1998) 105-6.
7 For secular changes in living standards with
advances in technology, cf. Lee (1986b) 98-100.
8 See Wood
(1998) 109-10 for a formal demonstra4
5
tion that stable equilibriaare only possible at saturation
point; cf also Lee (1986a).
9 E.g. Mason (1997) 447-8; Lee and Wang (1999).
Cf. also Schofield (1989) for the nexus between marriage
rates and real incomes.
10To be of any use at all, this diagnosis must be very
restrictively applied: otherwise, since substantial segments of all agrariansocieties were vulnerableto intermittentharvestfailures, every pre-modem society would
have to be defined as ‘overpopulated’.
122
WALTERSCHEIDEL
correlated,it was exogenous mortalitychange ratherthan a fall in real incomes thatcaused population loss.11 Thus, it appearsthat phases of stagnationor recession may largely be attributed
to forces that are not entirely exogenous merely in so far as they are boosted by factors such as
high populationdensity (which expedites epidemics) or low elasticity in respondingto resource
scarcity(which exacerbatesclimatic deterioration),even thoughwar can be a less clear-cutcase.
laionGreek
DarkAge depression.
to enterthe discussion about the causes of the
This is not the place
Suffice it to say thatwhile epidemics were accountablefor the most dramaticdemographiccontractionsor collapses (such as the plague pandemicsof the sixth/seventhand fourteenth/fifteenth
centuriesAD, not to mention smallpox and measles in the post-ColumbianAmericas), climatic
change and political turmoilcan likewise be linked to substantialpopulationlosses.’2 Whatmatters here is that in the DarkAge, populationdensity must have droppedbelow sustainablelevels
as determinedby existing productivetechnology. On theoreticalgrounds,one would expect a
system of productionto regress (in terms of total output)togetherwith falling populationdensity: the extent to which this happenedin Greece (involving shifts between cerealicultureand pastoralism) is still debated.13In any case, recovery from a recession would be easier to achieve
thannet growth. The loss of existing practicalknowledge need not have been total (unlike in the
case of reconditeskills such as scribal literacy), and thanksto Greek contacts with more developed regions in this period could easily have been mitigatedeven if it indeed occurred.14 As a
result,the low level of DarkAge developmentmust have been unstableand populationwas destined to rebound.5 From a demographicperspective,the fact of recovery once the factors that
were responsiblefor the contractionhad waned is neithersurprisingnor in need of explanation.
Rather,it is the scale and the durationof the ensuing expansionthat merits attention.
Owing to the lack of quantifiabledata from earlierperiods, growthrates can only be derived
from final populationsize. Recent estimates for the total populationof mainlandGreece south
of Thessaly and Epirusincludingthe Sporadesand Cyclades in the Classical period converge on
approximately2 million.l6 Given that slaves are includedin this tally, not all of these individuals would descend from early IronAge Greeks, and 2 million can be no more than a convenient
(and somewhat generous) target figure for computationalpurposes. In any case, it should be
noted thata reasonablyhigheror lower figurewould have little impacton the calculationof longterm growthrates.
Although the scale of long-term growth in mainland Greece cannot be determined with
precision, it is easy to show that any even remotely credible estimate inevitably falls within a
relatively narrowband of probability. If the populationgrew at an average annualrate of 0.2%
for 600 years from the tenth to the fourthcenturiesBC and reached2 million at the end of that
period, it would have numberedsome 600,000 at the beginning. (Here and in the following, different numberscould be substitutedat the same ratio.) At 0.3% per year, the initial population
“1Lee (1986b). For furtherfindings, see Tsouhoulas
(1992); Reher and Osona (2000). A comparablelinkage
of exogenous mortalityshock, demographiccontraction
and rising real wages can alreadybe discernedin Roman
Egypt from the 160s to the 260s AD: Scheidel (2002).
12
E.g. McNeill (1977) (epidemics);Galloway(1986)
(climate);Chu and Lee (1994) (dynasticcrises in China).
See Walloe(1999) for the theorythatbubonicplaguemay
have been responsible for the post-Mycenaeancontraction.
13 See Tandy(1997) 38-42 for a recent survey, argufor
ing
significant regression;but note the scepticism in
Cherry (1988) 26-30. For the general principle, see
Boserup (1965) 62-3.
14 Cf Osbome (1996a) 24-8.
15On stable andunstableequilibria,see Wood (1998)
110, 113;cf: also Lee (1986a).
16Corvisierand Suder(2000) 32-4. Thessaly,Epirus
and Macedonia are thought to have been inhabited by
another 1 to 1.5 million (34). While these figures may
seem modest by modem standards,it should be borne in
mindthatat thattime, Egypt,endowedwith vastly superior
naturalresources,probablysupportednot more than4 or 5
millionpeople,and thatthe populationof theAchaemenid
empiremay have peakedat around25 million (for bounding estimates, see McEvedy and Jones (1978) 125 (low)
and Aperghis(2001) 73-7 (high)). The size of the population of Ionia is obscure:see Cook (1982) 218 for some
estimates.
THE GREEKDEMOGRAPHICEXPANSION:MODELSAND COMPARISONS 123
standsat 330,000, and at 0.4%, it is as low as 180,000, requiringit to increaseelevenfoldbetween
the tenth and the fourthcenturies BC. At 0.5%, it shrinksto a mere 100,000, very roughly at
Neolithic levels, and higher growth rates would leave Dark Age Greece virtually uninhabited.
Therefore,it is unlikely thatthe mean long-termgrowth rate deviated significantlyfrom a range
of between perhaps0.25 and 0.45% per year.17
Thereare two ways of puttingthis estimateinto perspective. First,we must allow for the fact
that not all of this increase representednet growth, since part of it merely helped regain late
BronzeAge levels. Assuming thatMycenaeanGreece did not supportmore than0.5-0.7 million
inhabitants,an increaseto 2 million between the thirteenthand the fourthcenturiesBC translates
to an average long-termgrowthrate of somewhere around0. 15?0.02%per year.18Again, wildly differentassumptionsare hardlyfeasible, and the proposedvalue is compatiblewith laterestimates. Between AD 200 and 1800, annuallong-termgrowth in Europeand China amountedto
0.1%, a rate which in both cases accommodatedmultiple demographiccontractions.19
Comparisonwith growth rates in otherpre-modernpopulationsrecoveringfrom demographic depressions provides additionalcontext. FromAD 1000 to 1340, the Europeanpopulation
increasedby about 0.25-0.3% per year, and at 0.3% fromAD 1500 to 1600 following the Black
Death. Smaller regions could diverge from the overall trend: England and France may have
grown by 0.4-0.5% a year betweenAD 1100and 1340.20 These datatally well with the estimate
for ancient Greece, althoughit deserves notice that in the lattercase, expansion appearsto have
been a more prolonged process covering up to six centuries, and may well have outpaced
Europeandemographicgrowth from, say, AD 700 to 1300. All in all, both a trendlinegrowth
rate between the late Bronze Age and the late Classical period of around0.15% and a recovery
and expansion rate of between 0.3 and 0.45% from the tenth to the fourth centuries BC seem
credible in the light of comparativeevidence. Although these figures are only approximations,
I must emphasizethatdue to theirlogical implicationsfor overall growth,substantiallydivergent
rates (of, say, 0.05 or 0.25% from the thirteenthto the fourth centuries BC, or of 0.1 or 0.6%
from the tenth to the fourth)are simply not possible.
The results of what may be the most detailedattemptto reconstructpopulationgrowth in one
region of ancient Greece are broadly consistent with these estimates. In the southernArgolid,
populationis assumed to have increasedtenfold from the eighth to the fourthcenturiesBC, at a
mean annual rate of about 0.45-0.5%. As immigrationis thought to have contributedto this
development, the naturalgrowth rate would have been somewhat lower and within the bounds
of my general estimate. Overall increase from the Mycenaeanto the Classical periods is put at
0.2% per year, slightly higher than predicted. Needless to say, the marginof errorin these calculations is considerable,especially for the more distant periods, and some degree of regional
variationmust have occurred.21
More importantly,averagegrowth rateswould vary over time. In principle,we might expect
them to have been lower close to the beginning and the end of the growthphase than in the middle.22 Yet it is equally possible that this phase was brokenup into secondarygrowth cycles (cf
below, FIG.2). For example, at an overall growth average of 0.4% per year from 1000 to
17McEvedy and Jones (1978) 110 reckonwith 1 million people within the modem borders of Greece
c. 1250 BC, which can only be a guess. If this figure is
anywherenearcorrect,a DarkAge populationof 600,000
might be too close to Mycenaeanlevels to justify a longterm growth rate of as low as 0.2%. Note, however, that
survey data may conceivably exaggerate the scale of
Dark Age depopulation: cf. Bintliff, Howard and
Snodgrass(1999) 159.
18 See above, n. 17. For what they are worth, the calculations undertakenby Bintliff (1985) suggest that the
population of Boeotia in the Classical period was 4.5
times as large as in the Bronze Age. The implied mean
long-termgrowth rate is 0. 18%per year.
19Scheidel (forthcoming).
20 Livi-Bacci (1992) 31 (Europe); Grigg (1980) 53
(England,France).
21 Jameson,Runnels and van Andel (1994) 562-3.
22 Cf Sallares(1991) 91, and below,
Fig. 3.
124
WALTERSCHEIDEL
400 BC, the Greek population could have increased by 0.3% per year from 1000 to 800 and from
700 to 500, and by 0.6% from 800 to 700 and from 500 to 400, and achieved the same final size
as if it had grown at a steady rate of 0.4% throughoutthat period.23 Again, the flexibility of
growth patternsmay have been considerablebut must not be overrated:annualrates of 1%, if
they were realisticat all, could not have been attainedfor more thana few generationsduringthe
period in question. Thus, if we were to substitutea rate of 1% for the 0.6% rate posited in the
above scheme, overall growth between 1000 and 400 BC would more than double, implying a
DarkAge populationof 85,000. Alleged annualgrowthrates of 2, 3 or 4% that have repeatedly
been mooted in the literature (see below, section 2) entail even more seri …
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