An Agent-Based Disaster Model: Marginality, Decision-Making, and Novel Resource Exploitation during ENSO Flooding Events in Chicama, Peru

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Ecological disasters are often argued to be forces of large-scale societal change, including the primary causes of major cultural collapses. This concept is reevaluated in light of the recent 2016-2017 El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which provides an opportunity to examine the ways in which this event affects the landscape. Through integration of remote sensing, historical, and archaeological survey data in the Chicama Valley of northern Peru, we investigate a first iteration agent-based agroecosystem simulation as a method of testing how social actors managed resources during disasters associated with warm (El Niño) ENSO phases. Of particular interest are inland water sources and ephemeral vegetation, resources that may be less important during times of plenty but act as invaluable buffers during environmental disasters and also serve as proxies for crop cycles. ABM techniques allow us to define ecological constraints and decision-making criteria of agents, to explore how past communities would have adapted to unforeseen scenarios such as flooding of rivers and canals. Using these methods, we suggest survival strategies that may have allowed social groups to exploit diverse resources and develop novel subsistence strategies, adapt to new circumstances, and avoid destruction.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23983