New Issue of Cliodynamics Published!
link to the journal issue Cliodynamics: The Journal of Quantitative History and Cultural Evolution Volume 6, Issue 1, 2015 Articles Modeling Strategic Decisions in the Formation of the Early Neo-Assyrian Empire Baudains, Peter; Zamazalová, Silvie; Altaweel, Mark; Wilson, Alan Agricult
The Circumscription Model of the Egyptian State
In Evolution of the Egyptian State: the ‘Managerial Model’ I looked at one of the functionalist theories of the Egyptian state. The Managerial Model advanced by Fekri Hassan is actually not that different from the now discredited Hydraulic Model of Karl Wittfogel. Both theories posit
The Future Cliodynamics of the Great Divergence (AKA the Rise of the West)
One of the major reasons I enjoy having a blog is the many excellent comments that the readers make on various ideas I float here. Sometimes they make me change my views, sometimes they force me to explain things better, or clarify my own thinking on the subject. All of this happened
Why Become a Farmer?
The previous blog discussed Göbekli Tepe, which achieved a surprisingly high level of social complexity before the adoption of agriculture. In the language of philosophy of science, Göbekli Tepe is an anomaly for the reigning paradigm in theoretical archaeology, which posits that the
Collapse of Complex Societies: Did Drought Kill off the Mayans?
When I wrote my blog about the effect of climate on the rise and demise of complex societies, I had no inkling that there was another paper on this subject in the works. But the latest issue of Science (9.XI.2012) has an article by Douglas Kennett et al., Development and Disintegratio
Who Were the First People to Make Mummies?
Not Egyptians, as one might think. The first mummy makers were Chinchorros, hunter-gatherers who lived about 7,000 years ago in Atacama Desert near the border between modern-day Chile and Peru. The SEF editor Michael Hochberg is a co-author of a multidisciplinary article that explains
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