mortAAR: the analysis of archaeological mortality data in R
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 28/11/2019

Up to now, a simple to use and easily accessible tool for computing archaeological life tables was lacking. Therefore, the Initiative for Statistical Analysis in Archaeology Kiel (ISAAK) has developed „mortAAR“, a set of R functions to generate and analyze life tables deriving from archaeological mortality data. In recent years, physical anthropologists have become very cautious with regard to the life tables of archaeological populations. The reason for this are various difficulties which, in addition to the problem of identifying the correct age-related characteristics, arise in particular from the question of representativeness. We are fully aware of these problems, but would like to demonstrate with the help of several example data sets that it is precisely in the comparison of data with expected mortality patterns that useful information about cultural preferences – e.g., who has to be buried and who not – can be elucidated.

(Christoph Rinne, Martin Hinz, Nils Müller-Scheeße)