Review: J. Rasmus Brandt, Erika Hagelberg, Gro Bjornstad and Sven Ahrens (eds.), LIfe and death in Asia Minor in Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine times: Studies in Arcaheology and Bioarchaeology. Studies in Funerary Archaeology 10. Oxford: Oxbow 2017 ISBN 978-1-78570-359-1

In one of the most important works of historical scholarship of the last century, Peter Laslett gave a chilling sketch of The World We Have Lost. The book built on the recent advances in historical demography and family reconstitution to describe a preindustrial society where the Grim Reaper was omnipotent, with average life expectancies at birth of 20-35 years, high infant mortality, cruelly interrupted marriages, and many orphaned children. It was a fitting antidote to romantic views of a past where everything was somehow comfortably better. For the ancient world, such family reconstitutions were impossible for lack of suitable sources.