From Demography to Spatial-Networks

Abstract

Research about the demography and mobility of hunter-gatherer groups has important implications for the evolution and history of humankind. It not only helps in understanding the movement and dispersion of people, but also the transmission of culture, genes, and diseases.
Both demography and mobility of hunter-gatherers are impacted by their individual social networks. Likewise, these social networks are constituted by demography and mobility.
Existing mobility models used in hunter-gatherer studies often neglect this socially constituted mobility in favor of resource-oriented mobility. Demographic simulations can account for social relations (kinship), but often don’t have a spatial reference. A complete picture, however, needs a combined approach.
This study aims at integrating demographic and spatial data: A first step is the replication of a simulation of a specific case of hunter-gatherer demography called AMBUSH. In a second step, the simulation will use the kinship links generated by the demographic processes as providing options for the movements of individuals and families.

Resources

• Poster-E3-from-demography-to-spatial-networks.pdf

Bibliography

Henn, S. (2019): From Demography to Spatial-Networks. University of Cologne, SFB 806