Theoretical Background

12.2.1 Agent-Based Models in Archaeology

In the scope of archaeological research, agent-based models represent useful tool for testing of hypotheses and building theories through comparison of archaeo­logical evidence with outputs of computational simulations.

Application of the agent-based modelling contributed significantly to the explo­ration and interpretation of key archaeological questions and topics such as subsistence strategies of hunters and gatherers (Lake 2000; del Castillo and Barcelo 2013), spreading of neolitic agriculture to Europe (Conolly et al. 2008; Shennan 2007; van der Vaart et al. 2006), human impact on landscape and natural environment (Axtell et al. 2002; Wainwright 2008; Barton et al. 2010) and socio-economic factors influencing the development and/or collapse of complex societies. Iconic and frequently replicated project was Artificial Anasazi—model of disappearance of Anasazi culture in south-western America (Axtell et al. 2002; Janssen 2009). Other projects were focused e.g. on exploration of political and social structures in ancient Mesopotamia (Altaweel 2007, 2008), where different stress scenarios were applied (e.g. long term dry weather, economic crisis, demographic decline etc.) with the aim to test the resistance and sustainability of society with the given level of social complexity.

Quite often results that were achieved by social simulation and agent-based modelling can challenge traditional theories of economic production, labor input and sustainability of preindustrial society and offer new research directions and archaeological questions. Among these projects, we have to mention also Mesa Verde project which studies the development of population at American middle-west (Kohler and Varien 2012).

As well as in the area of social simulations in general, archaeological compu­tational models are abstract: they work with the idea of past instead of the past itself, and generate data that optionally become source of new hypotheses. Therefore models can serve as behavioral laboratories for experimental ethno-archaeology (Premo 2010). By abstraction we mean the model often operates with artificial variables that have no real equivalents (e.g. attractiveness of the site, potential of the landscape, intensity of interactions) and that cannot be sufficiently and indisputably grounded in empirical data.

12.2.2 Small-Scale Agricultural Production in Late Iron

Age

The agricultural economy could be explained partially as a response to environmental conditions and climate. The economic development then can be seen as an adaptive system to the balance of the ecological factor. However, neither the economy nor society is determined solely by the limits of the environment (Erdkamp 2005); social and political factors also play an indispensable role. Therefore, an analysis of the subsistence strategies during the late Iron Age is as much a social and political study as it is an economic one. As such it can eventually help to understand the dynamics of the development in the second half of the 1st century BC.

The whole Iron Age world despite its technological innovations, specialization and economic contacts, or its level of complexity, was still principally a world of the common farmer. The organization of food production and its redistribution is an essential factor for understanding the complexity of the society and for determining its limits. Every type of society has a characteristic way of the flow of resources and commodities through it, and the organization of transforming these resources to products (Fuller and Stevens 2009). The major aspect in the food production is the significance of agriculture as the primary source of subsistence and organization of potential surplus production.

When a certain level of complexity within a society is achieved, and seasonal tasks somewhere allow engaging in non-agricultural activities and at the same time a regular supply of necessary foodstuffs from elsewhere is provided, regional dif­ferences (in terms of specialization) occur (Klir 2010). Such aspects and their mechanisms in the Iron Age are still being discussed. A traditional argument in these discussions concerning the level of complexity in the late Iron Age society is that the central places were set in their environments as so called “total consumers” (Salac 2006). That generally means that they were too specialized and hence engaged in other activities, so they were not capable of producing any foodstuffs. This fact should have eventually contributed decisively to the collapse of the Iron Age society in the 1st century BC. Some of these settlements surely had to over­come or accept some environmental constrains (imposed for example by higher altitude) or were forced to adapt their subsistence practices (e.g. develop an alter­native approach to the exploitation of land). There are several proofs providing support to the notion that the food production was an inseparable part of the oppidum's life. The evidence is in fact abundant: numerous livestock, agricultural tools, storage facilities, botanical and pollen analyses etc.

In the models of social complexity population dynamics and exploitation of natural resources play an important role from which wide range of social phe­nomena have been explained (Bayliss-Smith 1978). According to historic sources, exceeding the appropriate carrying capacity was not a rare occasion in history (Schreg 2011) even in societies with developed market networks. Intensification of the production led to innovations in the agriculture on one hand but also to a more rapid depletion of the land resources especially where their extent was limited on the other. This prompted behavior, which could have led to more profound social change at the end of the Iron Age in central Europe. Our aim was to test these premises in the socio-cultural milieu of the central European oppida.

12.3