Resource Structure, Economic Defendability, and Conflict in Rapa Nui and Rapa Iti, East Polynesia – an agent-based modeling approach

Summary

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 on two marginal East Polynesian islands – Rapa Iti and Rapa Nui – where conflict and territoriality varied dramatically. We argue that a human behavioral ecology ‘economic defendability’ model (EDM) explains these differences. EDM predicts degrees of territoriality will emerge in ecological settings where resources are both dense and predictable. We test these predictions using an agent-based model incorporating archaeological data on the location and productivity of subsistence resources examining the explanatory expectations of the EDM.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Model Environments: Human Ecodynamics on Islands

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