Simulating Prehistoric and Ancient Worlds

Simulating the Human Past for Understanding the Present. A critical review.- Multi-Scale Agent-Based Simulation of Long-Term Dispersal Processes: Towards a Sophisticated Simulation Model of Hominin Dispersal.- An Agent-Based Model of Resource Distribution on Hunter-Gatherer Foraging Strategies: Clumped Habitats Favor Lower Mobility, but Result in Higher Foraging Returns.- Testing Brantingham's Neutral Model: The Effect of Spatial Clustering on Stone Raw Material Procurement.- Population Spread and Cultural Transmission in Neolithic Transitions.- Modelling Routeways in a Landscape of Esker and Bog.- Modelling Cultural Shift: Application to Processes of Language Displacement.- Pathways for Scale and Discipline Reconciliation: Current Sociological Modelling Methodologies to Explore and Reconstitute Human Prehistoric Dynamics.- Simulating Land Use of Prehistoric Wetland Settlements: Did Excessive Resource Use Necessitate a Highly Dynamic Settlement System?.- Revisiting the Dynamics Between two Ancient Japanese Descent Groups: What happened from the Jomon to the Yayoi Periods in Japan.- Cultural and Genetic Transmission in the Jomon-Yayoi Transition Examined in Agent-Based Demographic Simulation.- Economic Sustainability in Relation to Demographic Decline of Celtic Agglomerations in Central Europe - Multiple-Scenario Approach.- Zambeziland: A Canonical Theory and Agent-Based Model of Polity Cycling in the Zambezi Plateau, Southern Africa.- Personalities, Physiology, Institutions and Genetics: Simulating Ancient Societies with Intelligent Virtual Agents.

"It offers a synthesis of agent-based modeling to date, provides multiple well-developed case studies, and contributes to the literature on formal models in archaeology by demonstrating the utility of simulation. ... From Barceló and del Castillo's encyclopedic introduction, to each of the well-developed case studies, this volume adds to a growing field and will be useful for archaeologists and computer scientists interested in prehistory." (Stefani Crabtree, JASSS The Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Vol. 20 (2), March, 2017)