Abstract
Agent-based simulation is used to obtain useful insights regarding genetic and cultural transmission in order to construct a model explaining the prehistoric demographic and cultural dynamics of the transition from the Jomon to Yayoi periods in western Japan. The Jomon–Yayoi transition is an East Asian case of hunter-gatherer to farmer transition in which drastic socio-cultural changes in subsistence, material culture, and settlement structure occurred. A simulation for 500 years shows that cultural skill can spread quickly without much loss in the case of biased transmission, even when the migration rate is very low, and that the spread of cultural skill without significant genetic influence is possible even when cultural transmission is restricted to between relatives. The result gives an inspiration for possible explanatory models of the Jomon–Yayoi transition in which indigenous people play more significant roles in areas remote from the locus of Yayoi cultural origin.
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