Modelling Archaic forager mobility: a discussion on the application of agent-based models (ABMs) to forager mobility strategies in the North-Eastern Caribbean Archaic period.

Summary

Diverse types of models have been proposed to shed light to Caribbean colonization process as well as general patterns of mobility, exchange and connectivity. These models have hitherto been narrative, theoretical and statistical and their products have widened our understanding of the archaeological record. Agent-based models (ABMs) represent a promising step forward on the modelling approach to Caribbean archaeology by placing attention to the interactions among agents and agents and the environment in order to assess counterintuitive effects in the emergence and self-organization of social structures. This innovative tool brings the opportunity to create a series of dialogic encounters between environmental data, the archaeological record and foraging models based on the ethnography and ethnoarchaeology, thus allowing the possibility to pre-test sets of assumptions with the click of a mouse. Some variations of foraging mobility models will be presented in order to explore the potential of ABMs and to provide new insights into the first humanization of the North-Eastern Caribbean and posterior cultural development throughout the Archaic period.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• New Insights into the Archaic of the circum-Caribbean

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