Cemetery Demography Lab

Patterns of survival vary depending upon the environment. Age is also an important component for many populations because fecundity and survivorship frequently vary with age. Humans are one species whose fecundity and survivorship are affected by age and the environment. One way that biologists attempt to distinguish patterns in survivorship rates is to use a life tables. Life tables permit them to keep track of how long different parts of the population have lived. A life table can also be used to predict the probability of the survival of an individual at any given time interval (Biological Science).

A cemetery is an excellent place to study human demography. Gravestones are marked with the date of birth and date of death of a deceased person. From this information one can calculate death rates and draw survivorship curves for the “population”. A survivorship curve is a graphical representation of the chance that an individual will survive from birth to any age (Biological Science).

By comparing and contrasting survivorship curves for different time periods, one may look for historical trends in demography over a period of time. Methods

We assumed that all the individuals had similar living situations. According to the data, more individuals died between the ages of 55-65 Based on the demographic data from this lab, multiple conclusions may be drawn. Living conditions were probably far worse in the past. This causes death and birth rates to go down because of disease. Which causes the population size to decrease. There might have also been diseases affecting older people, which could explain why that range of ages had the most individuals dying at that age.

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