The history of birth and death

by Kingsley Davis the great influenza pandemic occurred; yet the Indian popu-
lation did not decline in that period. Rather, it grew by

N OBODY KNOWS, or will ever know, the real demo-

graphic history of humanity; but in extremely broad
outhne we know enough to gain perspective on the present
almost one percent.^
Among present-day or recent hunter-gatherers, death
rates are inevitably affected by Western contact, but in
world situation. My estimates for 2,000,000 and 50,000 Nancy HowelTs careful study on the Dobe !Kung, in the
B.C. are based mainly on density data in the ethnographic Kalahari Desert, the survivorship of children born before
and paleontological literature; the rest are borrowed from 1950 indicates a life expectancy of about 30 years."* This
other demographers, notably John D. Durand (see graph). is better than the life expectancy calculated for India in any
Even If the estimates for early population growth are decade from 1872 to 1931, despite the fact that India's
wrong by several orders of magnitude, the fact remains that population grew by 33 percent over the whole period. In-
throughout some 99 percent of hominid existence the long- deed, the IKung figure is not much worse than the life ex-
run growth rate was virtually zero. It was so slow, as the pectancy of 33.8 years for nonwhites in the United States
table indicates, that nearly 9,000 centuries were required in 1900.
to double the population. In human evolution, zero popula- Even the great apes, before contact with civilized man,
tion growth (ZPG) has been the rule, not the exception. apparently had a moderate mortality. The estimated ages
Why, then, did this virtually zero growth prevail so long, of 169 mountain gorillas observed in the wild by George
and why was it recently replaced by explosive growth? If B. Schaller roughly resemble the age distribution of a sta-
we can identify the causes, perhaps the consequences will tionary population with a life expectancy of 27 years.' Jane
be easier to understand. Goodall found no serious injuries among Gombe Reserve
When confronted with humanity's slow beginnings, chimpanzees, and they, like the gorillas, seemed to have
many conclude that a high death rate was responsible: life plenty to eat and showed little concern with predators.
was so short and brutish that, at best, a high fertility could Their deadliest experiences were with strange chimpanzees
only match the mortality. In good times, the death rate fell and the poho virus (presumably caught from humans). The
and the population grew; in bad times the opposite oc- fact that some apes reach advanced old age also suggests
curred. This view is probably correct in attributing fluc- a reasonably low death rate compared to other mammals
tuations in population growth to mortality, but it errs in of similar size.^
assuming that both death rates and birth rates were spec- Ancient humans undoubtedly waged a constant struggle
tacularly high. against death. One approach was to maximize their eco-
nomic production by strengthening the very possession —
UNFORTUNATELY, we cannot say how high death their culturally transmitted technology —that comprised
rates were because we have only indirect evidence, consist- their evolutionary advantage. This achievement, uniquely
ing of age-at-death estimates for fossil skeletons and some human, evolved very slowly over some two million years,
observations of large apes and of present-day hunters and but it was cumulative and had the potential for reducing
gatherers. All of these approaches suffer from methodolo- the death rate, compared to other animals. Additional
gical flaws and are by no means consistent, but I believe methods of combating mortality were care of the sick and
they indicate that hominid ZPG was not a function of an wounded; the use of fire for cooking, warmth, and protec-
extremely high death rate matched by an equally high birth tion; and the development of "medicine," a deliberate effort
rate. to prevent and cure illness.
In a life table based on skeletons of the mesolithic age, All of these approaches were cultural and therefore
G. Acsadi and J. Nemeskeri found a life expeaancy at birth uniquely human. Taken together, they must have had some
of only 21.14 years.' This figure, which indicates a high effect in moderating mortality, but their success was limit-
death rate, has a wide margin of uncertainty since the ed. An economy of hunting and foraging, for instance, only
authors assume a stable age distribution.^ But even if it is skimmed the biomass without adding to it. Beyond a certain
correct it is slightly better than the life expectancy of 20.16 point, then, improving the means to exploit the environ-
years in India between 1911 and 1921. True, in that decade ment led to environmental degradation. The most specta-
Kingsley Davis is a senior research fellow at Stanford University's cular and controversial claim of this kind is that in some
Hoover Institute and Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the regions humans were responsible for the extinction of cer-
University of Southern California in Los Angeles. He is editing tain large fauna on which they depended.'
a volume on nonreplacement fertility in industrial nations and More importantly, the effort to control infections and
writing another book on world population. parasitic conditions, the principal causes of death under

April 1986
20
Two million years of population growth
Population

5 billjon

4 billion

3 billion

2 billion

1 billion

2 million B.C. 500,000 1985

B.C.
Time line is based on altered iogarithmic scale.
Sources; John D. Durand. "The Modern Expansion of World Population," p. 137; extrapolations from Population and Vital Statistics (New York:
Proceedings ot the American Philosophical Society, vol. Ill, June 1967, United Nations, April 1,1985), p. 1; author's estimates.

primitive conditions, failed because it was mainly magical. use only a fraction of the reproductive potential available
An increase in population density would facilitate conta- to them. "Out of a maximum possible fertility of 20-30
gion, and territorial expansion would trigger warfare with living offspring per female, this reduced to 5-6 or fewer
neighboring bands, as would differences of speech and cus- primarily by prolonged lactation, physiological controls,
tom. These limitations evidently counterbalanced more abstinence and abortion."" Progeny were further curtailed
favorable aspects of the cultural heritage, and gave our by infanticide, especially female infanticide, surprisingly fre-
remote ancestors a normal death rate that was high by to- quent in hunter-gatherer societies.'^
day's standards but not in comparison with other large Glearly, the idea that our remote ancestors had a high,
mammals. biologically determined natural fertility, because they did
not use modern contraception, is wrong. The highest birth
I F I N G E N E R A L the death rate of ancient humans was rates are found not under primitive but under modern cir-
moderate, so was the birth rate. Again, our evidence must cumstances. In the United States, among 94 married Hut-
remain indirect, but it is indicative. The fertility of our terite women, aged 45 to 49 in 1950, a survey found an
closest kin, the apes, is quite modest, relative to that of average of 9.9 births per woman.'' In the Gocos-Keeling
other mammals of comparable size, or even to many agra- Islands in the Indian Ocean, first settled in 1826, women
rian humans today. Jane Goodall found that female chim- had an average of 8.4 births.''* And the United Nations has
panzees give birth "about once every three and a half years."* published data showing an average of 8.34 for Jordanian
In a study of the pygmy chimpanzee only two births were women. Compared to such abundant reproduction, the fer-
recorded in 17 months, yielding a birth rate of 31 per 1,000 tility of ancient humans seems to have been quite moderate.
population per year.^ If we imagine a scale with 10 births per woman at the top
In existing hunting and gathering societies the traditional and one birth per woman at the bottom, our hominid an-
birth rate seems to have been low. Howeli found that 62 cestors would probably fall somewhere near the middle.
IKung women aged 45 years and older had borne only 4.69 Only in comparison to the fertility rates of industrial
offspring apiece. Even this, she says, may have been an countries today does the fertility of ancient humans seem
overstatement, due to a tendency of childless women to to have been substantial. But in both their low level and
leave the area.'" In a survey of population control among their persistence, the rates in today's advanced countries are
hunter-gatherers in general, Brian Hayden found that they unprecedented. Even with the very low mortality which

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

21
characterizes these nations, the birth rates are not sufficient The birth rate, long since regulated by cultural norms,
to replace the population on a steady-state basis. This did not have time to adjust to the new regime, and a period
means, ironically, that ancient and industrial humans re- of population growth began. According to the estimates in
semble each other in one important respect: they both have the graph, the growth ofthe human population during ap-
approximately zero population growth. proximately 12,000 years of agricultural expansion was 4.4
Thus it seems that in paleolithic times the birth rate was percent per century. This was a snail's pace by current stan-
kept as low as possible, that is, as low as the death rate. dards, but it was nine times as fast as the estimated growth
Why? The answer, I think, is that by some two million years during the 40,000 years preceding the agricultural epoch.
ago hominids began exploiting their unique evolutionary Increased population growth was not, however, a perma-
niche —reliance on culture rather than instinct. To do this, nent attribute of agriculture. It was rather a transitional
they had to invest more and more in the prolonged care phenomenon, a feature of the spread of agriculture around
and training of offspring. The offspring themselves evolved the world, which had already been anticipated by the global
toward greater helplessness. They had to be fed, carried, dispersion of hunting and gathering peoples. The popula-
and protected, not for a week or two but for years. A tion growth would eventually have righted itself, and it did
mother with two infants was severely handicapped in forag- in many worn-out farming areas. But as long as agriculture
ing and in traveling with the band. Present-day hunter- was penetrating into new regions, the world's population
gatherers frequently give as the reason for sexual abstinence, increased. In this regard, it is interesting that, according
infanticide, or abortion the danger to an older child if to the table, the world's population grew only a little faster
another comes too soon. in the second than in the first part of the agricultural era.
In sum, the lack of hominid population growth during
the two million years preceding agriculture did not result A L O N E , T H E agricultural revolution might have
from a death rate so high that the capacity to reproduce spun itself out and ceased to trigger population growth.
could just barely match it. It resulted, rather, from a death But the new mdustrial age burst on the scene before the
rate moderate enough to be easily matched by human fecun- spread of agriculture was complete. It thus postponed a
dity. By restricting the number of offspring, hominids could return to ZPG and instead exacerbated the population im-
invest more in each one. balance created by agriculture.
The first apparent effect of industrialism was to reduce
U NTIL THE ADVENT of industrialism two centuries the death rate. It did this, in net terms, by multiplying the
ago, humanity's greatest technological triumph was the output of goods and services, including agricultural pro-
domestication of plants and animals. This domestication, duction, and by finally developing an effective medical tech-
an innovation which arose independently in several different nology. In only a moment of history, people controlled their
regions, had two noteworthy features: it allowed many more mortality as they had never dreamed of before. The later
people to subsist on a given amount of territory, and it came a country entered the industrial transition, the faster its
very quickly. "Slightly more than 10,000 years ago, virtually mortality fell. In 25 years Mexico added 15 years to its life-
all men lived on wild foods. By 2,000 years ago the over- expectancy at birth —a gain that had taken 40 years in the
whelming majority of people lived by farming. In the four- United States. In fact, medical technology became so ad-
million-year history of Homo sapiens, the spread of agri- vanced and so cheap that it could be introduced into agra-
culture was accomplished in about 8,000 years."'-'' With rian countries and bring down death rates well ahead of
agriculture, the improvement in production was so great economic development.
and so rapid that it provided better nutrition, which in turn Under industrialism there are, of course, feedback me-
enhanced fecundity and depressed mortality. chanisms tending to slow gains in longevity—war, drugs,
alcohol, smog, new diseases. But these are weak in face of
the continued drive to save lives. Consequently, the burden
Average rates of world popula- of restoring a balance now rests on the fertility side.
In the first stages of industrial transition, fertility is large-
tion growth per century ly governed by the mores of agricultural societies. This, with
low mortality, gives rise to a population explosion. But
again, as in the case of agriculture, this growth is transi-
Percent growth Centuries to tional. In fact, as we have seen, fertility has fallen so low
Period per century double at that rate in most of the industrial societies that, if continued, it will
eventually fail to replace the population. The cause of this
2,000,000-50,000 B.C. .0079 8,774 low fertility is, in principle, the same as it was in hunting-
50,000-10,000 B.C. .4015 140 gathering times. The peopie of today's advanced nations
10,000-1 A. D. 4.1793 17
1-1750A.D. 5.6964 have pushed to the limit the basic principle of human so-
12
1750-1985 A.D. 116.1868 0.6 ciety—reliance on a division of labor based on acquired
skills. The destiny of the child, and hence the parent, lies
Rates are extrapolated from data in graph. in training and education. In an industrial society the de-

April 1986
22
mands of class mobility, formal schooling, city residence,
fashionable living, and parental employment all make a
child a major investment. Couples are willing to invest in
one or two children, but seldom in three or more.
The reduction of fertility to meet extremely low mortality
Reac/ier service
has costs as well as advantages, one of which is well known
— an unavoidable and totally unprecedented aging of the
population. Another is less discussed but more staggering.
It is the fact that non replacement fertility characterizes only
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1. G. Acsadi and J. Nemeskeri, History of Human Life Span and Mor-
tality (Budapest: Akademiai Kiado, 1970).
2. S. Ryan Johansson and S. Horowitz, "Life Expectancy and Age at
Death in Skeletal Populations," unpublished manuscript (tirca 1985).
?>. Kingsley Davis, The Population of India and Pakistan (Princeton,
Renew SL4 bscnpHon
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1951), pp. 27, 240. Indicate the term of your subscription and attach your magazine label below.
4. Nancy Howell, The Demography of the Dobe .'Kung (New York:
n I year $22.50 D 2 years $41.00 0 3 years $59.00
Academic Press, 1979), pp. 79-87.
For orders outside the United States add $7,00 per year for postage.
5. George B. Schaller, "The Behavior of the Mountain Gorilla," in lrven
DeVore, ed.. Primate Behavior: field Studies of Monkeys and Apes (New
York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965), p. 336. enclose a check for D Please bill me.
6. lane van I.awick GtKidall, In the Shadow oj Man (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin Co., 1971), p. 433.
7. Paul S. Martin, "The Discovery of America," Science (March 1973),
pp. 969-74; Richard G. Klein, "Mammalian Extinctions and Stone Age
People in Africa," in Paul S. Martin and Richard C. Klein, eds.. Quater-
nary Extinctions: A Prehistoric Revolution (Tucson, Arizona: University Attach label here.
of Arizona Press, 1984), pp. 553-73.
8. Jane Goodall, hi the Shadow, p. 12.
9. Michael P. Ghigliere, Chimpanzees of the Kibali Forest (New York:
C(tlumbia University Press, 1984), p. 61.
10. Nancy Howell, The Demography, p. 123.
IL Brian Hayden, "Population Control among Hunter/Gatherers," in
\l/orld Archeology, vol. 4 (Oct. 1972), p. 209.
12. Glenn Hausfater and Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, eds.. Infanticide: Com-
parative and Evolutionary Perspectives IV (New York: Aldine Publishing,
1984).
13. Joseph W. Eaton and Albert J. Mayer, Man's Capacity to Repro- Send to: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
duce: The Demography of a Unique Population {Glencoe, III.: Free Press, Subscription Department
1954), p. 20. 5801 South Kenwood Avenue
14. T.E. Smith, "The Cocos-Keeling Islands: A Demographic Labora- Chicago. Illinois 60637
tory," in Population Studies, vol. 14 (Nov. 1960), pp. 94-130.
15. Mark N. Cohen, The Food Crisis in Prehistory (New Haven, Conn.:
Yale University Press, 1977), p. 5.

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

23