Nonlinear and Multiscalar Dynamics of Migration

Summary

The quantitative model of diffusion traditionally studied in archaeology uses Gaussian statistics and Brownian motion to envisage a slow wave of advance. It originates from Fisher’s model for the diffusion of advantageous alleles across the landscape, but was then applied in archaeology to the diffusion of agriculture from the Near East into Europe. More recently, Lévy flights, which are random walks with step lengths derived from power-law distributions, have been proposed as models for human movement, especially for foragers. The archaeological signatures for these two dynamical processes—Brownian motion versus Lévy flights—are potentially quite different, making them useful and practical to consider. It seems likely prima facie that both processes are good models for different kinds of prehistoric migrations, and, moreover, in each case tuning the parameters of the model yields different patterns. In this paper, I discuss historical and archaeological evidence for these two different dynamical regimes of migration models and their implications for our interpretations.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21127