Cross the streams. multiproxy approaches to demography and population dynamics

In the last decades, approaches dealing with demographic assessments based on archaeological data have experienced enormous popularity. One reason for this is certainly that almost all aspects of past societies, which are archaeologically interesting, are re- lated to the question of the size of these societies. A variety of different methods have developed in this course. These include the number of sites per time period and relative site density, size of sites, density of artefacts, 14C data, paleoanthropological or paleo- botanical methods as well as oral and written history. While most investigations rely on only one of the methods, linking of different proxies is the only way to check their validity and to calibrate the proxies because of the lack of ground truth. What knowledge can be gained from combining different methods? Which approaches have proven their worth, and which ones confirm each other? Have we developed methods of correlating the individual proxies with each other that go beyond observing correlation or forming mean values? How can we correlate proxies with different temporal resolution? In this introductory paper we will give a short introduction to the session and present a brief overview of recent developments in approaches to demography and population dynamics.In the last decades, approaches dealing with demographic assessments based on archaeological data have experienced enormous popularity. One reason for this is certainly that almost all aspects of past societies, which are archaeologically interesting, are re- lated to the question of the size of these societies. A variety of different methods have developed in this course. These include the number of sites per time period and relative site density, size of sites, density of artefacts, 14C data, paleoanthropological or paleo- botanical methods as well as oral and written history. While most investigations rely on only one of the methods, linking of different proxies is the only way to check their validity and to calibrate the proxies because of the lack of ground truth. What knowledge can be gained from combining different methods? Which approaches have proven their worth, and which ones confirm each other? Have we developed methods of correlating the individual proxies with each other that go beyond observing correlation or forming mean values? How can we correlate proxies with different temporal resolution? In this introductory paper we will give a short introduction to the session and present a brief overview of recent developments in approaches to demography and population dynamics