Abstract
The debate on the causes of conflict in human societies has deep roots. In particular, the extent of conflict in hunter-gatherer groups remains unclear. Some authors suggest that large-scale violence only arose with the spreading of agriculture and the building of complex societies. To shed light on this issue, we developed a model based on operatorial techniques simulating population-resource dynamics within a two-dimensional lattice, with humans and natural resources interacting in each cell of the lattice. The model outcomes under different conditions were compared with recently available demographic data for prehistoric South America. Only under conditions that include migration among cells and conflict was the model able to consistently reproduce the empirical data at a continental scale. We argue that the interplay between resource competition, migration, and conflict drove the population dynamics of South America after the colonization phase and before the introduction of agriculture. The relation between population and resources indeed emerged as a key factor leading to migration and conflict once the carrying capacity of the environment has been reached.
Highlights
The debate on the causes of conflict in human societies has deep philosophical roots [1], with recent works even proposing it as one of the keys to understand human evolution [2]
In order to shed light on this issue, we developed a model based on operatorial techniques which simulates population-resource dynamics in a pre-agricultural context at the continental scale
Our research focuses on the pre-agriculture period and on the second phase, when the carrying capacity was reached: a condition which is simulated in our model
Summary
The debate on the causes of conflict in human societies has deep philosophical roots [1], with recent works even proposing it as one of the keys to understand human evolution [2]. The actual extent of the conflict in small hunter-gatherer groups remains unclear [3], with some authors suggesting that large-scale warfare and mass-killing only arose with the spreading of agriculture and the building of complex societies, as before resources were too sparse to make their conquest or defense meaningful [3,4,5,6]. Evidence supporting this view points out to the fact that, at least in some regions, the Neolithic revolution was accompanied by “unprecedented levels” of violence [7]. A new growth phase occurred, due to the rising of agriculture which allowed to sustain a larger population [13, 14]
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