Using Agent-Based Models to Explore How Behavior Affects Archaeological Networks

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Applications of Network Analysis" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Archaeologists use a wide variety of material culture and methods to construct and analyze networks. Just how these networks relate to past behavior is an open question, as we lack information on the relationship between behavior and material culture in the past. We do not have adequate datasets of people interacting with people alongside corresponding records of the objects involved in the interaction at the scale and duration used in most archaeological networks. One potential solution to this problem is to use computer simulations. Agent-based models allow us to provide virtual agents with simple instructions and then observe the emergent results. Our simulations allow the agents to interact, learn, move around, make and trade objects. The result is a network of people-to-people interaction and an archaeological record of discarded artifacts that can be used to create material culture networks as typically done by archaeologists. Since each type of social interaction is tracked, this approach allows us to correlate specific behaviors with specific patterns in different types of material culture networks. Learning, trading, visiting, and communal hunting behaviors all provide varying levels of correlation with the material culture networks.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Archaeological Applications of Network Analysis   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38526.0