title: Human population dynamics.
abstract: Time-series analysis of parish register series can be used to study human population dynamics at three different levels: (i) The metapopulation of preindustrial rural England. A short wavelength, exogenous oscillation in the burials series of 404 parishes can be detected which, it is suggested, was driven by a cycle of malnutrition associated with wheat prices. (ii) Individual populations, where long-term endogenous oscillations in baptisms and burials of wavelength 30-32 years or 43-44 years can be detected. Their characteristics and causes are explored and elucidated by matrix modelling. (iii) The separate neonatal, post-neonatal, child and adult mortalities in an individual population each show an exogenous short wavelength oscillation and a model is presented to show how these cycles were driven by an oscillation in grain prices and how they interacted. Together, they formed the feedback in a saturated, density-dependent population which was fundamental in controlling the characteristics of the longer wavelength endogenous oscillations in the population dynamics described above.
authors.affiliation: Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, UK.
authors.forename: S R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Duncan
authors.forename: C J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Duncan
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Scott
mesh_terms: D004739:England; D006801:Humans; D010507:Periodicity; D011157:Population Dynamics; D012042:Registries / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012424:Rural Population