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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Kinship And The Self-Organization Of Exchange In Small-Scale Societies, James R. Allison
Kinship And The Self-Organization Of Exchange In Small-Scale Societies, James R. Allison
Faculty Publications
Circulation of material goods is common in small-scale societies. Even where exchange is not coordinated above the level of the household, goods produced in one area are consistently conveyed to distant settlements. Numerous ethnographic studies demonstrate that exchange transactions are common among kin, and that the circulation of goods in small-scale societies is structured by kinship ties. From an individual’s point of view, the number of kinfolk available to exchange with and where they live strongly affect access to nonlocal goods. This paper explores the interrelationships among kin networks, settlement organization, and exchange using agent-based modeling, ethnographic studies, and archaeological …
Agent-Based Modelling Of The Relationships Among Kinship, Residence, And Exchange, James R. Allison
Agent-Based Modelling Of The Relationships Among Kinship, Residence, And Exchange, James R. Allison
Faculty Publications
In the North American Southwest, archaeological research has documented ceramic exchange networks in which spatially proximate households in consumer communities have greatly varying amounts of imported pottery. This paper uses agent-based modelling to gain insight into the processes responsible for these distributions. The agent-based model used here tracks kinship ties among agents representing individuals who give birth, marry, co-reside with spouses, and exchange things in a virtual landscape filled with small settlements of up to a few hundred individuals. Exchange of goods in the model flows through the kinship networks. The results suggest that the differential distribution of goods among …