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How has childhood mortality changed, and what do historical estimates miss?

Records of births and deaths, burial evidence, and later statistical systems offer different windows on childhood survival. Their estimates cannot be compared casually if one counts deaths before age five and another before fifteen. Historical progress becomes more meaningful when the population, age cutoff, and uncertainty remain visible.

3–7 min

Questions you could explore

  • Which two estimates could be compared on the same basis?
  • Whose lives might be missing from the surviving records?

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