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The Coevolution Of Group Size And Leadership: An Agent-Based Public Goods Model For Prehispanic Pueblo Societies

Author

Listed:
  • TIMOTHY A. KOHLER

    (Department of Anthropology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164-4910, USA;
    Santa Fe Institute/Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, USA)

  • DENTON COCKBURN

    (School of Computer Science, University of Windsor, 401 Sunset Avenue, Windsor, ONT N9B-3P4, Canada)

  • PAUL L. HOOPER

    (Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA)

  • R. KYLE BOCINSKY

    (Department of Anthropology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164-4910, USA)

  • ZIAD KOBTI

    (School of Computer Science, University of Windsor, 401 Sunset Avenue, Windsor, ONT N9B-3P4, Canada)

Abstract

We present an agent-based model for voluntaristic processes allowing the emergence of leadership in small-scale societies, parameterized to apply to Pueblo societies of the northern US Southwest between AD 600 and 1300. We embed an evolutionary public-goods game in a spatial simulation of household activities in which agents, representing households, decide where to farm, hunt, and locate their residences. Leaders, through their work in monitoring group members and punishing defectors, can increase the likelihood that group members will cooperate to achieve a favorable outcome in the public-goods game. We show that under certain conditions households prefer to work in a group with a leader who receives a share of the group's productivity, rather than to work in a group with no leader. Simulation produces outcomes that match reasonably well those known for a portion of Southwest Colorado between AD 600 and 900. We suggest that for later periods a model incorporating coercion, or inter-group competition, or both, and one in which tiered hierarchies of leadership can emerge, would increase the goodness-of-fit.

Suggested Citation

  • Timothy A. Kohler & Denton Cockburn & Paul L. Hooper & R. Kyle Bocinsky & Ziad Kobti, 2012. "The Coevolution Of Group Size And Leadership: An Agent-Based Public Goods Model For Prehispanic Pueblo Societies," Advances in Complex Systems (ACS), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 15(01n02), pages 1-29.
    • Handle: RePEc:wsi:acsxxx:v:15:y:2012:i:01n02:n:s0219525911003256
    DOI: 10.1142/S0219525911003256
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    Cited by:

    1. Kohler, Timothy A. & Bocinsky, R. Kyle & Cockburn, Denton & Crabtree, Stefani A. & Varien, Mark D. & Kolm, Kenneth E. & Smith, Schaun & Ortman, Scott G. & Kobti, Ziad, 2012. "Modelling prehispanic Pueblo societies in their ecosystems," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 241(C), pages 30-41.
    2. Peter Revay & Claudio Cioffi-Revilla, 2018. "Survey of evolutionary computation methods in social agent-based modeling studies," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 115-146, January.

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