Communication networks and dispersal patterns in human evolution: A simple simulation model

Abstract

Abstract Glynn Isaac's ‘home base’ model of hominid social systems was, in part, the reflection of a more general focus among palaeoanthropologists in the 1970s on the importance of the sexual division of labour in human evolution. Here, I suggest that the sexual division of roles may in fact be consequent to the pattern of sex‐biased dispersal and philopatry, and that dispersal patterns underlie the spatial patterning of artefact traditions in the Lower Palaeolithic record. A simple simulation model is presented which has been used to explore the consequences of dispersal patterns for spatial aspects of cultural traditions. The results of the experiments are summarized and discussed.