| Sumario: | At what age did humans die in the past? To estimate age at death in ancient populations for which no civil records exist, skeletons are often the only information source. Bones and teeth provide indications of the stage of growth or ageing reached by individuals at the moment of their death,but they cannot be used to estimate age with certainty.Skeletons of individuals whose age at death is known, and for whom these biologicalparametershave been measured, provide a reference population for constructing statistical models to estimate the age distribution at death of persons whose skeletons have been uncovered. But these individuals are not necessarily representative of the general population to which they belonged: skeletal conservation depends on burial conditions and the circumstances of death. One way to resolve this problem is to work on homogeneous groups, such as the convent of nuns whose data a represented here as an illustrative example. How can statistical inferences be drawn from these data? Henri CAUSSINUS and Daniel COURGEAU first describe the methods generally used in paleodemography and demonstrate their limits. They then propose a new method, based on the principle of Bayesian inference, and compare it with standard methods to demonstrate its greater accuracy and flexibility. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
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