Generating Hypotheses on Prehistoric Cultural Transformation with Agent-Based Evolutionary Simulation

摘要

We propose an agent-based evolutionary simulation analogous to a genetic algorithm for generating hypotheses on prehistoric cultural transformation. As an application case study, we examine the mechanism of change in the composition of structural remains at the Jomon to Yayoi period sites in Western Japan. The simulations generate hypotheses that the major changes from the middle to the late Jomon periods and from the final Jomon period to the early Yayoi period may have been caused by different mechanisms. The latter could be interpreted as a continuous mechanism, such as inter-settlement exchanges, while the former could be interpreted as a non-continuous mechanism.