The emergence of social complexity in human societies is a long-debated topic in archaeology, with competing hypotheses proposed and argued for using archaeological evidence. However, formal testing of these hypotheses is generally lacking. Here, we present and analyse an agent-based model to test the effect of environmental, resource, and social barriers to population movement – collectively known as ‘circumscription’ – on the rate of hierarchy formation. The results show that social circumscription is the largest driver of social complexity by increasing proximity between settlements. Environmental and resource circumscription can negatively impact the emergence of social complexity when the conditions separate the population spatially but can amplify social complexity when the conditions increase proximity between settlements. In providing a detailed test of the assumptions and predictions of circumscription theory, our abstract model provides insight into the conditions that are most likely to result in the emergence of social complexity in the real world.

中文翻译：

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使用基于代理的限制理论模型对社会复杂性演变的正式测试


人类社会中社会复杂性的出现是考古学中一个长期争论的话题，人们提出了相互竞争的假设，并争论使用考古学证据。然而，通常缺乏对这些假设的正式测试。在这里，我们提出并分析了一个基于代理的模型，以测试环境、资源和社会障碍对人口流动的影响——统称为“限制”——对等级形成速度的影响。结果表明，通过增加定居点之间的接近度，社会限制是社会复杂性的最大驱动因素。当条件在空间上将人口分开时，环境和资源限制会对社会复杂性的出现产生负面影响，但当条件增加定居点之间的接近度时，会放大社会复杂性。在对限制理论的假设和预测进行详细测试时，我们的抽象模型提供了对最有可能导致现实世界中出现社会复杂性的条件的见解。