The Emergent Fool

Evolutionary Game Theory and Archaeology

Posted by plektix in Cooperation, Evolution, Games, Society on January 5th, 2010 | View Comments

As a mathematical evolutionary theorist, I use abstract methods to investigate how the structure of an evolutionary process determines whether social behaviors like cooperation can be successful. So I was excited to learn over the holidays (from David Carballo, archaeologist and family friend of my partner) that archaeologists are pursuing the same question from an entirely different angle.

As far as I can understand it, there is a new field of research looking at whether evolutionary game theory (EGT) can help explain major societal shifts. One article looks at the sudden appearance of communal architecture projects in Andes mountain societies (in the second and third millenia B.C.E.) that previously had few permanent buildings. These new constructions appear to be built for use by the entire community, and their construction clearly required large-scale cooperation. Using a combination of EGT and historical arguments, the authors posit that the labor for these projects was not coerced. Rather, the chiefs of these societies were able to mobilize cooperation by enforcing norms of fairness and justice. In their words:

Cooperation does not magically emerge. However, when the appropriate conditions are met, cooperation becomes the adaptive choice of people assessing the costs and benefits of participating in specialized versus nonspecialized labor, loss of autonomy, gain in material wealth and nonmaterial benefits, and degree to which the production and redistribution process is “fair.”

While all cooperative systems are vulnerable to “free-riders”, who attempt to receive benefits without contributing, the authors argue that the combined mechanisms of punishment and group selection (see this post) were sufficient to overcome this difficulty.

I’m excited to see this field taking off in so many different directions, and I’m looking forward to see what new intersections develop!

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Alex Golubev

could we say that population density first leads to specialization, due to higher payoff relative to not specializing. which then leads to cooperation almost by default you’re married to the buyers of your strengths and sellers of your weaknesses. I think it helps to think of family roles as well as as Chi-merica. China doesn’t have an upper hand on us just as much as we don’t have an upper hand on them. it’s a game of further and further specialization and cooperation with self-fulfilling bursts of trust and distrust affecting the speed.
plektix

I’m no expert on these matters, but it seems that giving years of your life to build a communal structure is a whole other level of cooperation than the bartering of goods and services. It’s the difference between an equal exchange and a large-scale common investment. There’s also no free-rider problem in bartering.
Alex Golubev

selling goods and services of lesser quality than advertised is a free rider problem with barter. I can grow an apple and get what i put into it or i can grow wheat and trade it for something that looks like an apple, but is filled with water and 0 nutrition. Devoting your life to growing apples, raising a child with Tiger, or making iPhone only aps can result in a lifetime of regret as well. In this sense, trust in continued existence of an economy (ie putting all your marbles that there will be a market for your apples) is just as much of an investment in an emergent agency as is communal living and elder/government.

like we discussed, population density leads to higher rate of idea exchange and learning and i believe this is key to understanding human evolution. Is there any stuff out there on intellectual property game theory? obviously you want to exchange trade secrets but stay one moment ahead.
http://twitter.com/davidmbaptiste David Baptiste

Helpful article, thanks. I've switched over to bartering recently for most of anything I can get without having to shell out cash. There are a couple sites out thereto use, to connect with people who are looking to barter trade/swap items or even services (carpentry work for auto work, etc). One of the sites I use is Baarter – http://baarter.com