Reconsidering the Ideal Despotic Distribution on Agricultural Frontiers

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

For settlement pattern analysis where territorial exclusion is assumed to be at play, Fretwell and Lucas's 1969 model is still the core explanation for IDD. Rather than focus on population density, it would be more in keeping with formal models of behavioral ecology to analyze the dynamic through marginal analysis. Established groups should defend territory up to the point where the cost of additional resource defense is equal to the potential loss in resources. Incoming groups should nibble at established territories up to the point where costs of aggression are equal to additional resources gained. Differences in marginal costs are essential to generating an IDD: where there is no difference in cost, there is no “despotism”, and only as the difference increases will a strong difference in distribution between the IFD and IDD develop. On agricultural margins, a mixed strategy of foraging/raiding lowers the marginal costs for newcomers. Under these circumstances, the characteristic settlement pattern of the IDD may fail to emerge, even though incumbents would prefer to exclude newcomers. Previous research on Fremont settlement patterns in Utah is reconsidered under this updated model.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37677.0