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The access to the contents of this doctoral thesis it is limited to the acceptance of the use conditions set by the following Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/?lang=en SOCIAL NORMS AS STRATEGY OF REGULATION OF REPRODUCTION AMONG HUNTING-FISHING-GATHERING SOCIETIES An experimental approach using a multi-agent based simulation system Dissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades der Philosophie (Dr. phil.) vorgelegt der Philosophischen Fakultät I Sozialwissenschaften und historische Kulturwissenschaften der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg und Facultat de Lletres i Filosofia Departament de Prehistòria de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona von Frau Juana Maria Olives Pons geb. am 04.04.1991 in Maó Doctoral thesis __________________ Departament de Prehistòria de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Prähistorische Archäologie und Archäologie des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit von Martin-Luther Universität Halle-Wittenberg SOCIAL NORMS AS STRATEGY OF REGULATION OF REPRODUCTION AMONG HUNTING-FISHING-GATHERING SOCIETIES AN EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH USING A MULTI-AGENT BASED SIMULATION SYSTEM Juana Maria Olives Pons Prof. Dr. François Bertemes Prof. Dr. Jordi Estévez Escalera 2019 Table of Contents Zusammenfassung ............................................................................................................................. i Resum .............................................................................................................................................. xi Summary ........................................................................................................................................ xx Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................... xxix Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 1 1.- Demography and Palaeodemography ....................................................................................... 25 The social nature of population .................................................................................................. 26 Hunter-Fisher-Gatherers in Eurasia ............................................................................................ 31 Palaeodemographic studies of hunter-fisher-gatherers ............................................................... 36 2.- Middle Range Theory ............................................................................................................... 39 Contemporary hunter-fisher-gatherers: demographic studies .................................................... 40 Biological and social regulation of the human reproduction ...................................................... 43 An inherent contradiction: the paradox and the search for an integrated explanation ............... 52 What is a social norm? ................................................................................................................ 54 3.- Methodology ............................................................................................................................. 59 The hypothesis of a controlled fertility ....................................................................................... 60 Archaeology, History, and Ethnography: combining disciplines ............................................... 64 Multi-Agent based Simulation System ....................................................................................... 68 An artificial community .......................................................................................................... 74 The biology ............................................................................................................................. 80 Capsules .................................................................................................................................. 82 Norms ...................................................................................................................................... 83 4.- Comparative study: the populations in southern Africa............................................................ 88 The Ethnographic Atlas by George P. Murdock ........................................................................ 89 Simple and complex hunter-fisher-gatherers .............................................................................. 92 The selection of the Khoisan peoples: advantages and disadvantages ....................................... 94 History of the inhabitants of southern Africa ........................................................................... 101 5.- Ethnoarchaeology and Ethnohistory: the populations in southern Africa .............................. 111 Ethnoarchaeological research: state of the art .......................................................................... 112 Ethnohistorical sources: their reliability and validity ............................................................... 115 Exploring the ethnohistorical sources ....................................................................................... 119 6.- Materials ................................................................................................................................. 131 The patterns of the life course of men and women ................................................................... 132 Social Norms among Khoisan: the pastoralists ........................................................................ 137 Rites of passage ..................................................................................................................... 137 Age at marriage ..................................................................................................................... 138 Marriage ................................................................................................................................ 139 Child birth intervals .............................................................................................................. 140 Social Norms among Khoisan: the foragers ............................................................................. 142 Rites of passage ..................................................................................................................... 142 Age at marriage ..................................................................................................................... 143 Marriage ................................................................................................................................ 144 Child birth intervals .............................................................................................................. 146 Patterns of the social norms ...................................................................................................... 148 7.- Simulation and modelling ....................................................................................................... 150 Creating a population ................................................................................................................ 151 Artificial community I .......................................................................................................... 152 Artificial community II ......................................................................................................... 159 Defining the agents: biological and social variables ................................................................ 164 Incorporating the social norms into the system ........................................................................ 168 8.- Results of the simulations experiments ................................................................................... 171 Simulations: without social norms ........................................................................................... 172 Simulating hunter-fisher-gatherers ........................................................................................... 181 Simulations: preparation and individual assessment of social norms ................................... 182 Simulations: less restrictive social norms ............................................................................. 201 Simulations: most restrictive social norms ........................................................................... 204 Simulating pastoralists .............................................................................................................. 208 Simulations: less restrictive norms ....................................................................................... 210 Simulations: most restrictive norms ...................................................................................... 216 Results and implications ........................................................................................................... 222 Conclusions .................................................................................................................................