Abstract
In agent-based models of human systems where death and birth are represented, changes in population size are the result of the combined effects of mortality and fertility. If stability of population size is desired, these effects must be balanced. This paper investigates how the strength of a mortality-based feedback mechanism for constraining population size affects other demographic outcomes in a nonspatial agent-based model. The strength of the feedback mechanism is adjusted via a single parameter that controls the severity of the mortality penalty imposed when the population size exceeds a set threshold. Holding the values of all other parameters constant, I perform a set of experiments that sweeps through a wide range of values for the parameter and observe the effects on demographic outcomes such as mean household size, mean male age at marriage, mean percentage and intensity of polygynous marriage, mean total fertility, and mean inter-birth interval. Results suggest that the strength of the mortality-based feedback mechanism is positively associated with the range of variability in these outcomes, with the smaller population sizes produced by more severe constraints exhibiting a greater degree of variability in behaviors related to marriage, reproduction, and household size. The range of demographic outcomes remains within that documented in ethnographic cases.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Betzig, L. L. (1986). Despotism and differential reproductive success: A Darwinian view of human history. Chicago: Aldine.
Binford, L. R. (2001). Constructing frames of reference: An analytical method for archaeological theory building using hunter-gatherer and environmental data sets. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Gilbert, N. (2008). Agent-based models. Quantitative applications in the social sciences (p. 153). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Gurven, M., & Kaplan, H. (2007). Longevity among hunter-gatherers: A cross-cultural examination. Population and Development Review, 33, 321–356.
Hewlett, B. S. (1991). Demography and childcare in preindustrial societies. Journal of Anthropological Research, 47, 1–37.
Hill, K., & Hurtado, A. M. (1996). Ache life history: The ecology and demography of a foraging people. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Howell, N. (1979). Demography of the Dobe! Kung. New York: Academic Press.
Keen, I. (2006). Constraints on the development of enduring inequalities in Late Holocene Australia. Current Anthropology, 47, 7–38.
Kelly, R. L. (1995). The foraging spectrum: Diversity in hunter-gatherer lifeways. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Moore, J. H. (2001). Five models of human colonization. American Anthropologist, 103, 395–408.
North, M., Nicholson, J., Collier, T., & Vos, J. R. (2006). Experiences creating three implementations of the repast agent modeling toolkit. ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation, 16(1), 1–25.
Pennington, R. (2001). Hunter-gatherer demography. In C. Panter-Brick, R. H. Layton, & P. Rowley-Conwy (Eds.), Hunter-gatherers: An interdisciplinary perspective (pp. 170–204). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Shaffer, M. L. (1981). Minimum population sizes for species conservation. BioScience, 31(2), 131–134.
White, A. A. (2012). The social networks of early hunter-gatherers in Midcontinental North America. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan.
White, A. A. (2013). Subsistence economics, family size, and the emergence of social complexity in hunter-gatherer systems in Eastern North America. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 32(1), 122–163.
White, A. A. (2014). Mortality, fertility, and the OY ratio in a model hunter-gatherer system. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 154(2), 222–231.
Wobst, H. M. (1975). The demography of finite populations and the origins of the incest taboo. In Population studies in archaeology and biological anthropology: A symposium. Memoirs of the Society for American Archaeology, 30, 75–81.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
White, A.A. (2016). The Sensitivity of Demographic Characteristics to the Strength of the Population Stabilizing Mechanism in a Model Hunter-Gatherer System. In: Brouwer Burg, M., Peeters, H., Lovis, W. (eds) Uncertainty and Sensitivity Analysis in Archaeological Computational Modeling. Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27833-9_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27833-9_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-27831-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-27833-9
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)