Experimenting with threshold effects in a multi-resource hunter-gatherer agent-based model

Conferences CoMSES 2017
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Presenter: Colin Wren

Part of the Panel on Simulation in Archaeology

Models:

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Note that the model provided is a precursor of the model presented in this presentation.

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Very interesting model. I actually had to convert it to NetLogo 6.0.2 by renaming “agents” to “guys” because it wasn’t accepting agents as a breed. :stuck_out_tongue:

One of the things that I notice is that the placement of camps is random and stays the same throughout the simulation. How important do you think camp placement is for the outcome? What if camps were placed based on some predicted gains from nearby landscape features? What if agents decide to move camps once they find shellfish near the coast, thus making the trips shorter? Are these options to consider? I am unfamiliar with what is known about these inhabitants at the time, so just pure curiosity.

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Yes, I had to do the same when I upgraded to Netlogo 6 :roll_eyes:.

If you mean the initial placement of camps, then yes it is random. However, on the first tick the camps begin targeting specific resources based on their net caloric return (if “Spatial-foresight” is selected in the GUI). For the initial random placement, it won’t have a dramatic affect on the outcome as the camps are quite mobile and travel across the landscape quickly. For the moment the camps are all equal size and foragers can’t move between them. It is an interesting thought to consider if larger camps could be supported near the coast, but the effect of this versus simply having more camps near the coast is not that large I think.

Thanks for your interest!

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