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Large Simulations and Small Societies: High Performance Computing for Archaeological Simulations

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Agent-based Modeling and Simulation in Archaeology

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

Abstract

A current trend of Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) is the constant increase in computing resources used by the simulations. The complexity of the behaviors being explored forces this tendency, as ABMs are computationally expensive pieces of code. Different solutions are being developed to exploit the power of High-Performance Computing (HPC) to solve this bottleneck, and allow for the execution of large scale realistic simulations. These problems seem unrelated to the type of models being developed in archaeological research, focused on small-scale societies, but some of the issues of the discipline are related to this constraint on computing resources. This chapter explores the benefits and issues created by the introduction of High-Performance Computing in archaeological ABMs. It discusses the problems of distributing a model in different computers, as well as potential solutions and pitfalls provided by these systems. The text shows how HPC can contributed no only to an improvement on performance, but also in the task of solving methodological issues that are currently being debated by the community.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A different approach is seen in Long et al. (2011), where agents are grouped based on the network of interactions.

  2. 2.

    For example two agents modifying at the same time the same cell of a given raster map.

  3. 3.

    This would be the cost for the majority of archaeological ABMs.

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Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Jose María Cela, Miguel Ramírez and two anonymous reviewers for their suggestions and comments on the topic and the preliminary versions of the text. The author is part of the SimulPast Project (CSD2010-00034) funded by the CONSOLIDER-INGENIO2010 program of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Barcelona, Spain

    Xavier Rubio-Campillo

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  1. Xavier Rubio-Campillo
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Correspondence to Xavier Rubio-Campillo .

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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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Rubio-Campillo, X. (2015). Large Simulations and Small Societies: High Performance Computing for Archaeological Simulations. 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_6

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