One major base of historical analysis is the statistical evidence which can be gained from inscriptions of sepulchral monuments as well as from parish regis-ters and church-accounts. The relevant data yield information on life expectancy of the male and female population, on child mortality, seasonal death-rates and sometimes on diseases or puerperal fever. During our fieldwork in India we investigated a bulk of inscriptions. How-ever, it is only a small part of the entire data that can be presented here. In spite of the comparatively low number, the figures leave a very good impression of the inequality of male and female life expectancy. While most European women in India died at an age of 20-30 years, the majority of men died one or two dec-ades later. Also child mortality was much higher among female than male chil-dren. However, it was the women, who had a better chance to become 80 years and older. The relation between rainy season and death-rate is less obvious, but it can be said that people more likely died during the humid months. An analysis of church accounts shows that expenses for funerals signifi-cantly rose during the end of the 18 and the beginning of the 19th century which corresponds to the adoption of classicistic sepulchral architecture as in the case of Danish Tranquebar. Several problems still remain unsolved: at first the question, if the evidence from the tombstones is characteristic for the entire European population in India, because not everyone got a tombstone on the cemetery, particularly prior to mid-18th-century. Secondly, we are planning to investigate statistical changes during the longue durée. However, everything points towards the fact, that life expec-tancy was slightly higher during the first half of the 18th century, that it de-creased after the 1750s, to rise again during the 19th century. Finally the data from 16th-century Portuguese cemeteries have to be taken into account.
Seasonality of Death
