Estimating Population

The density of the region’s prehistoric population and any trends in its growth or decline are critical variables in interpreting San Diego prehistory. However, estimating the size of a prehistoric population is difficult under the best of circumstances, and the difficulty is compounded in a region where archaeologically observable residential structures are rare and seasonal transhumance may have been the rule.

The standard demographic baseline is A.D. 1769, when the first Spanish mission was established. If a reliable estimate of the absolute size of native population in 1769 can be made, it can serve as a basis for projecting earlier population levels, using archaeological evidence to assess the relative changes that had occurred. However, substantial discrepancies exist in the estimates for this baseline. The absolute size of contact-period inhabitants has been inferred from various sources, including the estimates of community sizes and numbers that were made by some early travelers, mission records of baptisms and deaths, ethnographic estimates of the sizec and numbers of communities and kinship groups, and the inferred carrying capacity of the region under aboriginal conditions.

Ethnic Group	Source	Basis of Calculation	Estimated Population
Kumeyaay	Kroeber 1925:712	mission baptisms	3,000+
	Hicks 1963:65-66	lineage sizes and numbers; density	5,100 – 5,700
	Luomala 1978:596	carrying capacity	6,000 – 9,000
	Shipek 1986:19	—	16,000 – 19,000
Luiseño	Kroeber 1925:649, 883	—	4,000 – 5,000
	White 1963:117, 119	village sizes and numbers, carrying capacity	10,000
	Hicks 1963:73-74	village and lineage sizes and numbers	7,500 – 8,000
Cupeño	Kroeber 1925:883	—	500
	Strong 1929:190	—	500
	Bean and Smith 1978:588-589	—	500 – 750
Cahuilla	Kroeber 1925:883	—	2,500
	Hicks 1963:70	lineage sizes and numbers	3,600
	Bean 1972	lineage sizes and numbers	5,000 – 10,000

Prehistoric increases or decreases in population relative to this baseline have been inferred on the basis of archaeological indicators including site frequencies, sizes, and occupational continuity or discontinuity; regional frequencies of radiocarbon dates (e.g., Masters and Gallegos 1997:17, 20); and such indirect indicators of population size as paleoclimatic changes, evidence for resource stress in faunal assemblages, and human paleonutrition and health.

Conventional wisdom and some sketchy evidence have supported the assemption that regional populations increased significantly from the Early Holocene to the Middle Holocene, and again from the Middle Holocene to the Late Prehistoric period. On finer time scales, possible decreases in population may have been associated with a decline in lagoonal resources in at least some parts of the region around 1000 B.C., depressed resource levels again during the period of the Medieval Climatic Anomaly (ca. A.D. 800-1350), and the introduction of Old World epidemic diseases during the protohistoric period (ca. A.D. 1520-1769) (e.g., Jones et al. 1999; Masters and Gallegos 1997; Preston 2002).

PROSPECTS

Additional historical studies, using mission records and other sources, may be able to establish more reliable estimates for the absolute size of the region’s population in 1769. Reanalysis of ethnographic evidence concerning community sizes and numbers may also contribute to this effort. Archaeological studies based on such data as the numbers, geographical distributions, sizes, and occupational histories of sites, the relative frequencies of radiocarbon dates, climate change, resource stress, and paleonutrition may be able to evaluate relative population levels during various earlier periods.