Agent-Based Modeling (Other Keyword)
1-12 (12 Records)
Societies that rely on irrigation face challenges arising from the variability and unpredictability of water supply and the physics underlying the flow of water through open channels; they overcome these through structured social interactions and institutions ranging from simple to complex. To better understand these past interactions we combine geoarchaeological studies with flow simulations and Agent Based Modeling. Fieldwork conducted during CRM projects on Hohokam irrigation structures in...
Linking land use patterns to spatial logistics, institutional complexity and terrain constrains in farming-herding interaction. A theory-building Agent-Based approach. (2017)
The relation between the main variants of pre-industrial economic production in arid Eurasia, from nomadic pastoralism to irrigated agriculture, is known to have been unstable, with abundant examples of conflict and shifting patterns of land use right up to contemporary times. We present the latest development of a six-year effort, within the SimulPast project, in experimenting and generating theory that could help explain the different land use patterns. Using Agent-Based simulation models, we...
Local extinctions and regional cultural diversification in time-averaged assemblages (2016)
Modern human behavior, including regional cultural differentiation, has traditionally been characterized as a relatively recent phenomenon despite evidence of modernity before 50,000 years ago from the Paleolithic record of Africa. Researchers interested in how demography might improve our interpretation of the archaeological record have shown that the rate of local group extinctions can affect neutral cultural diversity and the rate at which copy errors accumulate in structured populations....
Modeling Key Socioecological Factors Influencing the Expression of Egalitarianism and Inequality among Foragers (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Behavioral Ecology and Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Understanding what favors egalitarian versus non-egalitarian resource access and patterns of behavior is a long-standing topic of interest, with much research narrowing in on potential social and environmental causes. Past modeling exercises have implemented game theoretic and simulation approaches to explore social patterns that may underlay...
Modeling Polity Growth Among Ancestral Pueblo People in the Northern San Juan (2017)
In this paper we present research on the development of village-spanning polities in the central Mesa Verde region. First, we explore the dynamics of modeling not only households, but also groups of households, and how the interaction between them influences the development of social strategies. Second, we examine how territoriality shapes group development; we allow our agents to track lineage, and for lineages to own land, which, when populations increase, creates conflicts over the most...
Potential Applications for Agent-Based Models in Obsidian Studies (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Advances in Obsidian Studies of the Old and New Worlds" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists have been using agent-based modelling (ABM) to re-create prehistoric social, economic, and political processes, along with prehistoric environments since the first publication of the model commonly known as "Artificial Anasazi." Very few archaeologists have attempted to model prehistoric lithic technology, however,...
Pots, Middlemen, and the "Shopkeeper" Hypothesis in the Hohokam Sedentary Period (2015)
While ceramic analysts now report with some confidence where most Phoenix Basin Hohokam pottery was manufactured and where it was eventually discarded, we simply cannot use those two data points on their own to describe the exchange rules and distribution networks that moved pottery from specialist producers to consumers throughout the region. Agent-based modeling methods provide a powerful toolkit for interpreting complex spatial and distributional patterns in the archaeological record, and for...
Resource Structure, Economic Defendability, and Conflict in Rapa Nui and Rapa Iti, East Polynesia – an agent-based modeling approach (2016)
East Polynesian populations are closely related both culturally and genetically, yet their islands are environmentally diverse. The common ancestry and strong environmental differences make East Polynesia uniquely suited to the study of divergent sociocultural evolution. Following human colonization, populations diverged in subsistence practices, settlement patterns, ritual architecture, intensity of competition, and social organization. Here we explore differences in the intensity of conflict...
The Role of Agent-Based Modeling in Archaeology (2016)
Published applications of Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) in archaeology have tripled within the last five years. However, the scope of the research topics investigated has not increased accordingly. A consensus exists among ABM practitioners, that once generally accepted in archaeology, ABM can make revolutionary advances within the overall research paradigm. Within the archaeological community unresolved concerns center on whether ABMs are sufficiently grounded in empirical data, are aligned with...
Using Agent-Based Modeling to Study Constraints on the Social Learning of Lithic Technology (2018)
Social learning is universally believed to be critical to the hominin adaptation. Yet when this becomes evident in our oldest cultural proxy, lithic artifacts, is hotly debated. Much of the variation in how archaeologists study this question is caused by differing assumptions related to the constraints on the performance, and thus the learning, of the flintknapping process. This paper explores the consequences of the physical constraints within lithic technology on its cultural transmission,...
Watch out for rocks: a GIS and Agent-Based Modeling approach to the rock art of Northwestern Iberia (2015)
Geographic Information Systems and high-resolution cartography (LIDAR), together with Agent-Based Modeling, are used for assessing the traditional view of open-air rock art as an active element in the shaping of the prehistoric landscape. Petroglyphs have been usually thought to play a major role in the configuration of the different significations of the prehistoric landscapes, their location repeatedly analyzed in terms of spatial proximity with paths and resource-rich areas that would have...
Wood foraging in the tree-limited environment of the Cape Floral Region of South Africa (2015)
Wood is an essential resource for hunter-gatherers. It is necessary for cooking fuel, heat, and potentially safety, and hence influences site location choice and group size. Due to a low diversity and abundance of trees, wood may have been a limited resource for early humans in the Cape Floral Region (CFR) of South Africa. Drawing from behavior ecology foraging models, experiments with modern wood foragers were conducted to test this hypothesis. Foragers were observed collecting indigenous wood...