From 18th to 20th March 2026, the 9th Landscape Archaeology Conference (LAC) took place in Bamberg. For the ESTER project, Session 10, “Modelling demography through archaeological data: from theoretical approaches to global case studies,” provided an ideal setting to present our work to a wider audience. Our paper, “Towards Transparent Demographic Modelling: Accounting for Bias and Uncertainty in Archaeological Data,” was presented by Sophie C. Schmidt on Friday, 20 March, as part of this session.
Our talk focused on a challenge shared by all demographic reconstructions: biases in archaeological data. We outlined how ESTER approaches this problem through the development of a bias matrix, designed as a systematic way of making the known unknowns in the archaeological record explicit and of integrating them into the modelling process. Rather than treating preservation issues, research intensity, and chronological uncertainty merely as background limitations, the presentation argued that they should become part of the inferential framework itself.
As the session was organised spatially and our contribution was not centred on a particular regional case study, we were the final presentation of the panel — which proved to be a very fitting position. The paper served as a starting point for a lively discussion on bias scores, the evaluation of different forms of bias, and possible ways of incorporating them into demographic models.
We are very grateful to the session organisers, Michele Abballe, Francesca Chelazzi, Alessio Palmisano, and Dan Lawrence, for creating such a stimulating framework for discussion, and to all participants who stayed until the very end and engaged so positively with our presentation. We were especially pleased that the session offered an opportunity to discuss ESTER’s conceptual foundations with colleagues working on demographic modelling across a wide range of archaeological contexts.