https://github.com/nevrome/popgen.styletrans.saa2019
Presentation for SAA2019
https://github.com/nevrome/popgen.styletrans.saa2019
archaeology cpp cultural-evolution r rmarkdown social-simulation
Last synced: about 1 month ago
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Presentation for SAA2019
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/nevrome/popgen.styletrans.saa2019
- Owner: nevrome
- Created: 2019-03-10T09:57:07.000Z (over 7 years ago)
- Default Branch: master
- Last Pushed: 2019-04-12T04:11:11.000Z (about 7 years ago)
- Last Synced: 2025-07-06T04:38:16.329Z (12 months ago)
- Topics: archaeology, cpp, cultural-evolution, r, rmarkdown, social-simulation
- Language: TeX
- Homepage:
- Size: 8.02 MB
- Stars: 4
- Watchers: 3
- Forks: 0
- Open Issues: 0
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
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README
# A Population Graph based Style Transmission model
This paper was prepared for the [SAA2019](https://documents.saa.org/container/docs/default-source/doc-annualmeeting/final-program/2019-final-program/final-program-2019-with-covers.pdf?sfvrsn=d7632e2b_2) conference in Albuquerque, NM, USA. The relevant session [*Practical Approaches to Identifying Evolutionary Processes in the Archaeological Record*](https://ccs18.bsc.es/) by [Ben Marwick](http://faculty.washington.edu/bmarwick/) took place on 12/04/2019.
## Abstract
The now classic Neiman (1995) is a baseline for many influential applications of Cultural Transmission to explore Stylistic Variability in archaeology. It and many of its successors represent social interaction and generational development in a deliberately simplified way to facilitate the exploration of parameters and algebraic analysis. While justified, this omits both the theoretical trajectories of information transmission elaborated by Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman (1981) as well as the insights archaeologists have gained through social network analysis.
This paper explores an alternative, agent-based simulation framework that attempts to be more flexible: a diachronic population graph is established as a landscape, in which ideas as entities with individual agency seek expansion -- the meme's eye view. The social network can be constructed to represent archaeological knowledge concerning population size development, the degree of intra- and intergroup exchange or spatial or cultural patterns of interaction. Ideas may be long-term static or evolving over time, selectively neutral or functionally different, distributed randomly or according to real world examples.
Population graph generation and idea expansion simulation are implemented in R and C++ and accessible with an R interface -- but computationally expensive. The presentation will elaborate on the concept and show an example application.
***
Neiman, F. D. (1995). Stylistic Variation in Evolutionary Perspective: Inferences from Decorative Diversity and Interassemblage Distance in Illinois Woodland Ceramic Assemblages. American Antiquity, 60(1), 7–36. https://doi.org/10.2307/282074
Cavalli-Sforza, L. L., & Feldman, M. W. (1981). Cultural transmission and evolution: a quantitative approach. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press.