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Dynamic Trajectories, Adaptive Cycles, and Complexity in Culture Change

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Abstract

Trends in interdisciplinary research over the last two decades have opened new perspectives and pushed forward our understanding of how complex social systems function. This study explores several theories of social change that have emerged from increasingly interdisciplinary perspectives in combination with complexity theory. Resilience theory and related concepts of adaptive cycles and panarchy are now being applied extensively to the study of a variety of human social systems. However, there is still the need to further explore the implications of how human systems differ from the ecologies of other species. A case study drawn from early polity formation in Inner Asia is used to assess the effectiveness of differing approaches. Certain theoretical gaps are described and a series of concepts within a theory of dynamic trajectories are proposed that focus on high-level patterns of social change. The basic elements of the theory include dynamics of the scope and scale of polities, the probability space in which change occurs, and the strands or bundles of social and cultural characteristics that represent the substance of trajectory. As the trajectory patterns manifest, they envelop constraints and opportunities influencing future patterns. Agent-based models are used to illustrate aspects of the dynamic trajectory theory, especially economic decision-making within specific landscapes and control hierarchies in the context of competing polities. Rather than repeating cycles, the results reveal reorganization modes highlighting the significance of continuity and opportunity in social change.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the US National Science Foundation, Human and Social Dynamics initiative, under the project titled, Agent-Based Dynamics of Social Complexity: Modeling Adaptive Behavior and Long-Term Change in Inner Asia (BCS-0527471). The research described here was first presented at a workshop sponsored by the US National Science Foundation and France’s L’Agence Nationale de la Rechereche, Reims, France. Numerous colleagues made fundamental contributions to this research, including Kelly Lindberg, Meghan Mulkerin, Jai Alterman, Claudio Cioffi-Revilla, Paula DePriest, William Fitzhugh, Sarah Flores, Bruno Frohlich, William Honeychurch, Sean Luke, Maciej Latek, and Lotte Govaerts. Marcia Bakry, Lotte Govaerts, and Maciej Latek expertly drafted the figures. I also want to offer a special thanks to the Mongolian Academy of Sciences and the Director of the Institute of Archaeology, Damdinsüren Tseveendorj and archaeologists Chunag Amartuvshin, Erdenebat Ulambayar, Altangerel Inkhter, and Bayarsaikhan for their continued support.

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  1. National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, 10th Street and Constitution Avenue, Washington, DC, 20560, USA

    J. Daniel Rogers

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Correspondence to J. Daniel Rogers.

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This study was funded by the US National Science Foundation (BCS-0527471).

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Rogers, J.D. Dynamic Trajectories, Adaptive Cycles, and Complexity in Culture Change. J Archaeol Method Theory 24, 1326–1355 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-017-9314-6

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