Modeling Demic and Cultural Diffusion: An Introduction
Authored by Marco Madella, Joaquim Fort, Enrico R Crema
Date Published: 2015
Sponsors:
Catalan Institute for Advanced Studies (ICREA)
Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO)
Platforms:
No platforms listed
Model Documentation:
Other Narrative
Mathematical description
Model Code URLs:
Model code not found
Abstract
Identifying the processes by which human cultures spread across
diffferent populations is one of the most topical objectives shared
among diffferent fields of study. Seminal works have analyzed a variety
of data and attempted to determine whether empirically observed patterns
are the result of demic and/or cultural difffusion. This special issue
collects articles exploring several themes (from modes of cultural
transmission to drivers of dispersal mechanisms) and contexts (from the
Neolithic in Europe to the spread of computer programming languages), which offfer new insights that will augment the theoretical and
empirical basis for the study of demic and cultural difffusion. In this
introduction we outline the state of art in the modeling of these
processes, briefly discuss the pros and cons of two of the most commonly
used frameworks (equation-based models and agent-based models), and
summarize the significance of each article in this special issue.
Tags
Simulation
Diversity
language competition
transmission
Spread
Europe
Neolithic transition
Genetic-evidence
Hominin
dispersal
East