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Modelling Settlement Rank-Size Fluctuations

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Agent-based Modeling and Simulation in Archaeology

Part of the book series: Advances in Geographic Information Science ((AGIS))

Abstract

This chapter proposes a model of long-term changes in human settlement pattern to identify possible generative processes behind empirically observed fluctuations in their rank-size pattern. The model assumes that per-capita fitness is a combination of the beneficial effect derived from the presence of other individuals in the same group and the finite amount of resource available locally. The former can lead to a positive frequency dependence, whereby an increase in the group size determines an increase in fitness; the latter can have detrimental effects once a group exceeds a certain size and the energetic demand becomes larger than what is available. Given that: (1) individuals have the possibility to modify their condition through group fission and fusion; and (2) the amount of resource is unlikely to be constant over space and time; we can expect fluctuations in the settlement pattern as a function of a non-linear relationship between size and fitness, as well as internally or externally induced variations in the amount of available resources. The simulation model will examine these scenarios and identify how different variables can induce different types of long-term equilibria in settlement systems.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The parameters defining reproduction (ρ), death (ω 1 and ω 2), cooperation (b), and threshold of evidence (c) can be all aggregated into different types of relationship between key group sizes and net-growth rate. Crema (2013b) showed that the dynamics were significantly different only when the net-growth rate was extremely low and equivalent to zero at the equilibrium group size (i.e. the value of g satisfying the conditions ϕ(g) = ϕ(1) and g > 1). The parameter values chosen for this chapter determines a net growth rate which remains positive above this size.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the editors for inviting me to contribute to this volume and for providing me rapid feedback during all the editorial process. I am extremely grateful to Andrew Bevan and Mark Lake for discussions and constructive critiques on virtually every aspect of the manuscript and to the two anonymous reviewers for providing valuable comments. This research was funded by a UCL Graduate School Research Scholarship and the AHRC Centre for the Evolution of Cultural Diversity, and acknowledges the use of the UCL Legion High Performance Computing Facility (Legion@UCL) and associated support services.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University College London, London, UK

    Enrico R. Crema

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  1. Enrico R. Crema
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Correspondence to Enrico R. Crema .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Digital Architecture and Planning (E259.1), Institute of Architectural Sciences, Vienna, Wien, Austria

    Gabriel Wurzer

  2. Prehistory, Natural History Museum Vienna, Vienna, Wien, Austria

    Kerstin Kowarik

  3. Prehistory, Natural History Museum Vienna, Vienna, Wien, Austria

    Hans Reschreiter

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Crema, E.R. (2015). Modelling Settlement Rank-Size Fluctuations. In: Wurzer, G., Kowarik, K., Reschreiter, H. (eds) Agent-based Modeling and Simulation in Archaeology. Advances in Geographic Information Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00008-4_8

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