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Patchiness and Prosociality: An Agent-Based Model of Plio/Pleistocene Hominid Food Sharing

  • Conference paper
Multi-Agent and Multi-Agent-Based Simulation (MABS 2004)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 3415))

Abstract

Anthropologists have yet to adequately investigate the evolution of food sharing despite its prevalence among contemporary human societies. As an initial step toward rectifying this lapse, I present preliminary population-genetic results generated by an agent-based model of Plio/Pleistocene hominid food sharing. SHARE explores the dynamics of a unique conceptual model that treats fragmented closed habitat patches as the loci of hominid social evolution and investigates the altruistic behavior of food sharing using multilevel selection theory. Data collected from artificial societies of hominid foragers demonstrate that specific levels of ecological patchiness facilitate the evolution of food sharing due to the fitness benefits bestowed upon subsistence–related trait groups.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, 85721, USA

    L. S. Premo

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  1. L. S. Premo
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Systems and Software Engineering, School of Engineering, Blekinge Institute of Technology, 372 25, Ronneby, Sweden

    Paul Davidsson

  2. School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

    Brian Logan

  3. Tokyo Institute of Technology, 152-8550, tokyo, Japan

    Keiki Takadama

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© 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Premo, L.S. (2005). Patchiness and Prosociality: An Agent-Based Model of Plio/Pleistocene Hominid Food Sharing. In: Davidsson, P., Logan, B., Takadama, K. (eds) Multi-Agent and Multi-Agent-Based Simulation. MABS 2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 3415. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-32243-6_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-32243-6_17

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-25262-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-32243-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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