Full Description
As part of the SFI series, this book presents the most up-to-date research in the study of human and primate societies, presenting recent advances in software and algorithms for modelling societies. It also addresses case studies that have applied agent-based modelling approaches in archaeology, cultural anthropology, primatology, and sociology. Many things set this book apart from any other on modelling in the social sciences, including the emphasis on small-scale societies and the attempts to maximize realism in the modelling efforts applied to social problems and questions. It is an ideal book for professionals in archaeology or cultural anthropology as well as a valuable tool for those studying primatology or computer science.
Contents
Preface; 1. Putting Social Sciences Together Again: An Introduction to the Volume; 2. Nonlinear and Synthetic Models for Primate Societies; 3. The Evolution of Cooperation in an Ecological Context: An Agent-Based Model; 4. Evolution of Inference; 5. Trajectories to Complexity in Artificial Societies: Rationality, Belief, and Emotions; 6. MAGICAL Computer Simulation of Mesolithic Foraging; 7. Be There Then: A Modeling Approach to Settlement Determinants and Spatial Efficiency among Late Ancestral Pueblo Populations of the Mesa Verde Region, US Southwest; 8. Understanding Anasazi Culture Change through Agent-Based Modeling; 9. Anti-Chaos, Common Property, and the Emergence of Cooperation; 10. The Political Impact of Marriage in a Virtual Polynesian Society; 11. The Impact of Raiding on Settlement Patterns in the Northern Valley of Oaxaca: An Approach Using Decision Trees; 12. The Fractal House of Pharaoh: Ancient Egypt as a Complex Adaptive System, a Trial Formation; 13. Modeling Sociality: The View from Europe; 14. Agent-Based Modeling of Small-Scale Societies: State of the Art and Future Prospects
