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Life expectancy at birth

Time Span 30 yrs 35 yrs 40 yrs
m

m

1,000 yrs 4,500 5,250 6,000
m

700 yrs 6,429 7,500 8,571
■

500 yrs 9,000 10,500 12,000

250 yrs 18,000 21,000 24,000
■

Table 1 The average population size required to produce 150,000 dead persons in a given time
period and with given life expectancy. m

m
ie
number of people living outside the settlements it clarify some of these problems. Additionally, the
may be suggested that the number of burial completion of the skeletal analysis should give a
mounds is not sufficient to explain the known size clearer understanding of the island's carrying in
of the settlement pattern. Or, put in another way, capacity i.e. the number of people the island can n
we would expect a much smaller number of people support.
to have lived on Bahrain during this period. The
\
data, does however, suggest one important factor; The ongoing excavations at Hamad Town and m
it is not necessary to explain the large number of Ali will add important data to the existing data. A
burial mounds by ‘importing’ the dead from sur­ development of the pottery chronology and a
rounding geographical areas. The size of the clearer identification of the time period in which i.
island, the number of people it can support, is the burial mounds have been constructed, will i *
assumed to be such that it may be necessary to look hopefully, verify some of the tentative ideas and
for more burials in order to explain the known, results presented here.
settlement patterns. The finds of below-ground Preliminary surveys in the Eastern province of
and contemporay burial complexes at Saar Saudi Arabia have proved the presence of burial
(Ibrahim 1983 and Muhgal 1983) may support this mounds in this area. Contemporary burials may be
. 1
explanation. found on Failaka Island in Kuwait, thus supporting
Future excavations to verify the extent of third the local development of the cemetery on Bahrain
millennium B.C. settlements, will hopefully, Island. f

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