The model covers most of the European continent and works with small units, such as independent villages. “This is the first time an agent-based model has been applied to this scale for this period in history, pre-state, and pre-empire.

The team tested the two rival theories attempting to explain these dynamics – climate change and social conflict – in computer simulations and compared the results with historical data. The bottom graph shows simulated populations under inter-group conflict and climate variation (in red), compared to population distribution from observed radiocarbon data (in grey), with a good match between the two. In the top graph, simulated populations under climate variation and no inter-group conflict (in red) are compared to population distributions from observed radiocarbon data (in grey). The enigma that researchers have been trying to decipher for years is why Neolithic farmer communities experience periods of rapid growth and decline, encompassing instances of “collapses” where entire regions are abandoned. In an international and interdisciplinary effort, complexity scientist Peter Turchin and his team at CSH might have provided a significant contribution to an enduring archaeological mystery. The research indicates that early farming societies experienced cyclical dynamics from integration to disintegration, with population cycles paralleling violent conflicts, demonstrating that humans and their interactions form complex systems irrespective of their political or economic organization.Ī new study concludes that social fragmentation and aggressive conflicts were instrumental in molding the population dynamics of early farming society during the Neolithic period in Europe. Scientists have used computer simulations to study boom-bust cycles in Neolithic farmer populations, finding that periodic outbreaks of warfare, not climate fluctuations, align with observed data.

Modern combat versus decline