Interpreting the Past through Agent-Based Modeling and GIS

The past decade has seen archaeology taking an increasingly high interest in agent-based modeling (ABM). ABM’s emerging popularity is due to its ability to model individuals and societies, readily incorporate any geospatial data available, and encompass uncertainty inherent in archaeological theories or findings. Indeed, the unpredictability of interaction patterns within a simulated agent society, along with the strong possibility of emergent behavior, can help researchers gain new insights into existing theories; or even come up with completely novel explanations and paradigms regarding the ancient societies being studied. Agent-based modeling is thus a potentially powerful tool, which can be used to assess the plausibility of alternative hypotheses regarding ancient civilizations, their social organization, and social and environmental processes which might have existed. The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview on ABM and corresponding methodologies, and present examples of recent work that has applied geospatial agent-based models in archaeology.