THE COEVOLUTION OF GROUP SIZE AND LEADERSHIP: AN AGENT-BASED PUBLIC GOODS MODEL FOR PREHISPANIC PUEBLO SOCIETIES

Timothy A. Kohler, Denton Cockburn, Paul L. Hooper, R. Kyle Bocinsky and Ziad Kobti
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Timothy A. Kohler: Department of Anthropology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164-4910, 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

Advances in Complex Systems (ACS), 2012, vol. 15, issue 01n02, 1-29

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.

Keywords: Public-goods games; agent-based simulation; spatial simulation; emergence of leadership; Neolithic societies; Pueblo society; Southwestern archaeology; southwestern Colorado (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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DOI: 10.1142/S0219525911003256

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