How many people in a 250 year old Graveyard?

[Rabelais]

Just trying to get a sense of how many people would be buried in a 250 year old graveyard if the population of the town was approximately 150.

I'm thinking somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 or so, but it seems a little high to me.

any ideas?

 

[Hunter In Darkness]

you know someone gonna know a lot better then me but depending on size both now and in the past i would guess 3 to4 times the population of your town easy if its the only one because u have outlaying homes and travlers and such but thats my guess

 

[Psimancer]

If you look at it in terms of average age at death (which is going to be race dependant), and the population growth during these generations, you should be able to calculate the graveyard population.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Just trying to get a sense of how many people would be buried in a 250 year old graveyard if the population of the town was approximately 150.

I'm thinking somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 or so, but it seems a little high to me.

any ideas?

500 could be an ok number. It depends on a few things though.

How old are people when they start having children. The later it is the lower the number.

How many children does an average family have. The more children per family the higher the number.

What is the history of the town? Was it originally much bigger than 150 people and a war or sicknesses wiped out a large percentage of the population?

In the end though you how important is it to know how many people are in the graveyard? If the realistic accuracy of the number doesn't matter too much just come up with a number that you're happy with and go with that.

Olaf the Stout

EDIT: Race is another big factor. If the town is made up of race that live longer and have a greater amount of time between generations (like elves for example) then the number will be lower.

 

[reanjr]

Assuming the town has been of 150 people for a while (due to emmigration or death) I'd say 500 is pretty reasonable. On the other hand, it might be a bit high if the people have grown to 150 over the generations.

If you go back in the day, people used to have perhaps 4 children who grew up to reproduce, or a population increase of 200% every generation.

Split the 150 into groups:
Children or those who have not yet married
Adults in their child bearing years
Eldery who no longer are bearing children

The children from this generation came from current adults bearing children who in turn came from the elderly, each one having half as many people as the previous generation. This gives you about 20 elderly, 40 adults, and 80 children (140, close enough).

Obviously this leads to no people alot more recently than 250 years, which is why I presume that the town has something else keeping its population in line. So if the town has a constant of 150 people, say half leaving by emmigration, the other half dying, thats 75 people every three generations (using the three age groups from before) or 25 people per generation dying.

A generation is approx 20 years. 250/20=12.5.
12.5 generations * 25 people/generation = 312.5 people.

If you had less emmigration and more disease and war, this would be higher. More emmigration, this number might be lower.

 

[erucsbo]

depends a lot on whether the town is growing in size, has suffered major catastrophies etc.
Assuming the 150 is equally spread between 3 generations and generations are approximately 30 years apart, population has been zero growth and the graveyard was started around about the time that the first generation of people who were raising families started to die then you would had between 7-8 generations die (assuming death around 50-60 year mark on average) which gives about 350-400 graves.
If it is a frontier town where people may have died and the bodies never been recovered then adjust the number down.
If the town has grown from being founded, then adjust the figure down.
If it is near a larger city/town then adjust the number down as people may have been buried back in the larger town/city.
Increase the number of graves for babies/children, and mothers of young children who might have died in childbirth - especially older mothers, men killed in war/accident (15-25) and adjust for any perculiarities.
Roughly based on the above - 250 graves

• 30 babies and children under 2 years old
• 10 children between 2 and 15
• 10 females between 15 and 25
• 40 males between 15 and 25
• 50 females between 25 and 50
• 50 males between 25 and 50
• 45 females over 50
• 15 males over 50

These will be fairly evenly spread with more baby and male (15-25) deaths occurring earlier in the period - plus baby deaths often tend to be grouped (cold winters, diseases, etc).

All of the above is total conjecture on my part, but may be of some use to you. If not then just ignore it.

 

[AuraSeer]

It also depends on the size of the graveyard. If space is limited, as in a churchyard in the middle of town, eventually the place will fill up. The townsfolk will then either being a new graveyard elsewhere, or will have to start reusing graves-- moving the unearthed skeletons to a charnel house or ossuary.

 

[JustKim]

Just trying to get a sense of how many people would be buried in a 250 year old graveyard if the population of the town was approximately 150.

I'm thinking somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 or so, but it seems a little high to me.

any ideas?

That number is very high. Assuming an earthlike rate of growth, with no great catastrophe that shrank the village to its current number and enough access to magical or unusual resources to maintain our modern standards of living (where venerable age is possible), there would only be about 150 people in that graveyard after 250 years. That is primarily because 250 years ago, there were only 10 people in the village.

If you were to simulate a realistic dark ages living situation where most children die before they reach adulthood and adults don't live past their prime, you still wouldn't have 500 people in the graveyard. You would have about 30 people in the graveyard and the village would be 200 years dead.

The combined size and age of the village is simply not very realistic.

 

[Tetsubo]

I've visited graveyards in that age range that had as few as a dozen graves. It really depends on how big you want it to be. Are there multiple faiths? Each might have their own cemetary...

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

The easiest way to figure this is to decide on a average age, and whether the population of the village has changed over time. If you assume the village has always been around 150, and people have a lifespen of 50 years, then 3 people would die in any given year, and there could be as many as 750 bodies in the graveyard. Its very likely that only a percentage of the total dead would make it into the graveyard (people die in the wild, while at war, while just out of town, etc) so 500 seems a very reasonable number to me.