Climate Change, Economies of Scale, and Population Growth in Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherer Societies: A Case Study from Southwestern Wyoming

Summary

Increasing energy consumption returns, or economies of scale, have been illustrated similarly for modern urban societies and ancient complex societies. However, the relationship between underlying scaling relationships and the development and decline of population and social complexity over the long-term are yet to be investigated. This poster addresses their role in hunter-gatherer societies. Using formal mathematical models from macroeconomics, we examine the long-term variability of economies of scale in hunter-gatherer societies from southwest Wyoming throughout the Holocene. We compare means and variances in the scaling relationships between time-series datasets for population growth, social organization, housepits, ground stone, plant and faunal resources. These scaling relationships are then compared to paleoclimate records in order to investigate correlations between different economies of scale over time, population growth, and climate change. In particular, we investigate whether increasing variance in the underlying scaling of proxies for population, subsistence technology and social organization correlates with accelerating climate change and/or precedes major declines in prehistoric population. We develop a theoretical and methodological framework for research on the socio-ecological drivers of tipping points in prehistoric hunter-gatherer populations.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• PAGES (Past Global Changes) PEOPLE 3000 - PalEOclimate and the PeopLing of the Earth   •
• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20845