A paleodemographic assessment of mortality and fertility rates during the second demographic transition in rural central Indiana.

Objectives: Since its inception, skeletally based paleodemographic research has emphasized the utility of biocultural models for interpreting the dynamic relationship between the sociocultural and ecological forces accompanying demographic transitions and shaping populations' health and well-being. While the demographic transition associated with the Neolithic Revolution has been a common focus in bioarcheology, the present study analyzes human skeletal remains from a large 19th century cemetery in central Indiana to examine population dynamics during the second demographic transition, a period generally characterized by decreasing fertility rates and improvements in life expectancy. This study demonstrates the potential to methodologically identify regional variations in the timing and interactions between broad-scale socioeconomic changes and technological advancements that characterized the time period through observed changes in survivorship and fertility based on age-at-death distributions.