Artifact density and population density in settlement pattern research

Abstract

A common method of estimating population in archaeology is to multiply a settlement area by an occupational density. Empirical studies show that occupational density generally increases with settlement size but estimating occupational density when structural remains are not observable has remained a methodological challenge. Here, we investigate the possibility that occupational density is systematically related to the surface artifact density of archaeological sites. First, we employ settlement scaling theory, a framework tested in a variety of other settings, to derive the expected relationship between artifact density and population density, finding that the rate of per capita pottery consumption is expected to increase in relative terms with settlement population due to an increase in the rate of social interchange involving food. Then, we analyze data from the Chifeng Region of northern China to show that pottery consumption rates, reflected in measured densities of potsherds, do in fact increase with settlement areas in a way that is consistent with this expectation. We use this result to characterize long-term trends in social development in northern China over seven millennia, and to suggest a method that improves the accuracy and precision of demographic reconstructions by incorporating the nonlinear relationship between artifact density and population density in the analysis.