Палеоантропологични данни за демографските процеси в българските земи през римската епоха
Palaeoanthropological data about the demographic processes in the Bulgarian lands during the Roman period

Summary/Abstract: Palaeodemographic analysis is applied for seeking the connection between the principal biological processes, such as birth rate and mortality, and the specific features of the social development in the present-day Bulgarian lands during the Roman period. The tendencies in the demographic processes are traced on the basis of the age-sex structure of the person buried in the necropolises of the large centres in the Roman provinces of Moesia and Thrace: Abritus, Augustina Trajana and Jajlata. The demographic pattern is completed by the study of population groups from the towns of Plovdiv, Varna, Devnja and Armira. The demographic analysis covers the bone remains of a total of 800 individuals, distributed in 5-year age groups. A so-called "mortality table" with eight demographic parameters is worked out for each of the groups investigated. Three of these parameters proved to have the highest informative value, namely: the parameter of "forthcoming life" (ex), "relative occurrence of lethality" (dx) and "probability of dying" (qx)- The latter parameter is an indicator of age-specific mortality. The data resulting from the analysis show that the average lifetime of women was below the average level for the three groups tested, being by 5,0 to 7,16 years lower as compared with that of men. Infant mortality is studied in details and comparisons are made with other populations from the antiquity and the Middle Ages. The re-results of the analysis, characterizing the demographic situation in the present-day Bulgarian lands during the Roman period, are also compared with the data of Acsadi and Nemeskery about Ancient Rome, calculated on the basis of epigraphic monuments. The comparison shows that the demographic parameters of the population in these lands during the Roman period were closest to those of the free Romans. The results of the study reflect the demographic development of the population in the Roman provinces of Moesia and Thrace, and they are actually a stage in the demographic history of the Bulgarian people.

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