so the census chroniclers, being part of the communities they were surveying, just went with a hunch? that half the population that was here last time we did th

so the census chroniclers, being part of the communities they were surveying, just went with a hunch? that half the population that was here last time we did this whole census thing is probably just hiding, and we're not sure where they are, so we just won't count them, or make a note of the (weird) fact that every second person just is playing hide-and-seek reallllllly well, and i guess we didn't invent ollyollyoxenfree yet, so we'll just not count them, and not note that on all of our records. at all. gee that's weird, we won't mention that it's just people hiding. is that a more reasonable explanation than 50% of everyone dying? really?