Journal article
THE COEVOLUTION OF GROUP SIZE AND LEADERSHIP: AN AGENT-BASED PUBLIC GOODS MODEL FOR PREHISPANIC PUEBLO SOCIETIES
Advances in complex systems, Vol.15(1n02), p.1150007
03/2012
Abstract
We present an agent-based model for voluntaristic processes allowing the emergence of leadership in small-scale societies, parameterized to apply to Pueblo societies of the northern US Southwest between AD 600 and 1300. We embed an evolutionary public-goods game in a spatial simulation of household activities in which agents, representing households, decide where to farm, hunt, and locate their residences. Leaders, through their work in monitoring group members and punishing defectors, can increase the likelihood that group members will cooperate to achieve a favorable outcome in the public-goods game. We show that under certain conditions households prefer to work in a group with a leader who receives a share of the group's productivity, rather than to work in a group with no leader. Simulation produces outcomes that match reasonably well those known for a portion of Southwest Colorado between AD 600 and 900. We suggest that for later periods a model incorporating coercion, or inter-group competition, or both, and one in which tiered hierarchies of leadership can emerge, would increase the goodness-of-fit.
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Details
- Title
- THE COEVOLUTION OF GROUP SIZE AND LEADERSHIP: AN AGENT-BASED PUBLIC GOODS MODEL FOR PREHISPANIC PUEBLO SOCIETIES
- Creators
- TIMOTHY A Kohler - Washington State University, Anthropology, Department ofDENTON Cockburn - School of Computer Science, University of Windsor, 401 Sunset Avenue, Windsor, ONT N9B-3P4, CanadaPAUL L Hooper - Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USAR. KYLE Bocinsky - Department of Anthropology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164-4910, USAZIAD Kobti - School of Computer Science, University of Windsor, 401 Sunset Avenue, Windsor, ONT N9B-3P4, Canada
- Publication Details
- Advances in complex systems, Vol.15(1n02), p.1150007
- Academic Unit
- Anthropology, Department of
- Identifiers
- 99900590462601842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article