Brief communication: estimates of some demographic parameters in a Neolithic rock-cut chamber (approximately 2000 BC)...

Two new techniques-one anthropological, which estimates the mean age at death for adult skeletons, the other demographic, which gives main survivorship curve parameters-are used on a sample of skeletons (N approximately 170) discovered in a Neolithic rock-cut chamber (Loisy-en-Brie, France). The iterative technique for aging used a stochastic sampled F matrix derived from the trabecular involution of the femoral head observed in the reference collection of Coimbra (Portugal; N = 421). The results, obtained from techniques and data, independent of each other, are strongly consistent. Overall, they give a life expectancy at birth of about 25-28 years and the probability of death at 1 and 5 years, respectively, of about .271-.249 and .429-.380.