A Life-Cycle Model of Human Social Groups Produces a U-Shaped Distribution in Group Size.

ABSTRACT: One of the central puzzles in the study of sociocultural evolution is how and why transitions from small-scale human groups to large-scale, hierarchically more complex ones occurred. Here we develop a spatially explicit agent-based model as a first step towards understanding the ecological dynamics of small and large-scale human groups. By analogy with the interactions between single-celled and multicellular organisms, we build a theory of group lifecycles as an emergent property of single cell demographic and expansion behaviours. We find that once the transition from small-scale to large-scale groups occurs, a few large-scale groups continue expanding while small-scale groups gradually become scarcer, and large-scale groups become larger in size and fewer in number over time. Demographic

SUBMITTER: Salali GD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4575040 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature