MODELING BOUNDARIES BETWEEN CONVERGING FRONTS IN PREHISTORY

Fabio Silva and James Steele ()
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Fabio Silva: AHRC Centre for the Evolution of Cultural Diversity, Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31-34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY, United Kingdom
James Steele: AHRC Centre for the Evolution of Cultural Diversity, Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31-34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY, United Kingdom;

Advances in Complex Systems (ACS), 2012, vol. 15, issue 01n02, 1-21

Abstract: We introduce a modeling framework that can be applied to cases of multiple converging fronts during episodes of population expansion and innovation diffusion, referring to two prehistoric case studies known archaeologically (the spread of pottery-making in Europe, and the spread of farming in southern Africa). We model front propagation using Fast Marching methods, drawing on the analogy with crystallization processes to build compoundly-weighted Voronoi diagrams of a spatially partitioned surface in which the zones of influence of each competing spreading process are determined by their respective front initiation times and propagation rates. We analyze the phase space for the general two-source case, and illustrate the potential of this approach by modeling the evolving interface for the archaeological case studies.

Keywords: Fisher-KPP; human dispersals; Voronoi diagram; fast marching method; early pottery; Neolithic transition; African early iron age (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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DOI: 10.1142/S0219525911003293

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