Agent-Based Modeling and its Application to Prehispanic Settlement Ecodynamics in the Central Mesa Verde Region : Testing Optimality in Site Location in the Archaeological Record.

Timothy Kohler (1)

1 Department of Anthropology

I briefly review agent-based modelling from the perspective of the history of its development in archaeology and its current and possible future roles in our discipline. I then give a more in-depth look at the uses to which we have put agent-based modelling in our NSF Biocomplexity-funded “Village Ecodynamics Project”, which include generation of null models for settlement; investigation of the effects of specific processes that are inherently hard to see in the archaeological record (such as exchange) for the effects they may have on other things that are slightly easier to see (such as degree of mobility); and making inferences about changes in salient factors conditioning site location from goodness of fit metrics on parameter sweeps.

Mots clés: Agent-based Modelling; Ecodynamics; Optimality; Settlement Systems; US Southwest

Domaines: Archéologie et Préhistoire; Géographie

Timothy Kohler. Agent-Based Modeling and its Application to Prehispanic Settlement Ecodynamics in the Central Mesa Verde Region : Testing Optimality in Site Location in the Archaeological Record.. Archaedyn
7 millennia of territorial dynamics
Settlement pattern, production and trades from Neolithic to Middle Ages, Jun 2008, Dijon, France. ⟨halshs-00416038⟩