The Population of Mexico from origins to revolution

Table 1. Mean age at death
at selected ages:

Mesoamerican precontact populations and others
at various economic-technological levels
mean age at death in years

	Birth (age 0) (e₀)	Age 15 (e₁₅)	Age 50 (e₅₀)
Tlatilco, 2930-3250 BP^a	32	37	54
La Ventanilla, 350-950^a	36	40	54
Cholula, 850-1560^a	29	35	54
Copán rural, 700-1000^a	25	44	60
Copán urban, 700-1000^a	36	41	57
Teotihuacán, early classic^b	24	42	58
Teotihuacán, late classic^b	16	34	66
Teotihuacán, 1580-1620^b	13	28	52
Cholula, 1325-1520^c	25	34	51
North American Indians^d	22	35	55
Hunter-gatherers^d	22	37	63
Primitive agriculturalists^d	26	45	68
Model life table, South level 1^e	20	49	65
Mexico, 1939-41^f	40	58	70

Sources: ^aHealth and Nutrition in the Western Hemisphere Database, October 12, 1995;
^bStorey Life and Death, pp. 184-5;
^cHayward, Demographic study, pp. 221-2 (Table 7.5);
^dJohansson, "Demographic History," p. 136;
^eCoale and Demeny, Regional Model Life Tables, p. 384;
^fCamposortega Cruz, Análisis, p. 321. Note: Calculations are based on conventional paleodemographic assumptions: skeletal remains are a random sample of deaths for the population studied; the population is closed (migration is nil) and static (crude birth and death rates are equal; therefore the rate of population change is zero). Under these conditions, the mean age at death from age x is equivalent to life expectancy at that age.
Recently paleodemographers have begun to accept the fact that fertility, not mortality, is the principal determinant of the age structure of a population, and hence, of the age structure of deaths (Johansson and Horowitz 1986). The practical significance of this change in thinking is nil. As long as the assumption of a static system is retained, whether one first computes fertility and then derives mortality or the reverse has no practical effect. Both approaches yield the same answer. Problems of bias remain (see also note 19).

Table 1. Mean age at deathat selected ages:

Mesoamerican precontact populations and others at various economic-technological levels mean age at death in years

Table 1. Mean age at death
at selected ages:

Mesoamerican precontact populations and others
at various economic-technological levels
mean age at death in years