A network for simulating pre-colonial migration in the Americas

Autor: Kaiping, Gereon
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
DOI: 10.25436/e21598
Popis: Because history is inaccessible to experimentation, agent-based and other simulations are a main source to explore theories about pre-historical humanity. Continent-scale migrations are of great interest in this context. With advances in computing and GIS, tracking entire populations migrating across continents become accessible in simulation. In this paper, I present a network representing North and South America for such tasks. The nodes roughly follow a hexagonal grid and represent small territories around a focal point. They are annotated with the carrying capacity for hunter-gatherers per ecoregion in the vicinity. The edge weights represent the travel times between the focal points on foot or by boat. I validate the network by comparing its predicted optimal path between Nashville, TN and Natchez, MI with the route of the historical Natchez Trace.
Databáze: OpenAIRE