Theorising Urban Agglomeration in Predynastic Upper Egypt using Agent Based Modeling
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 2018-10-08

The archaeological record shows that from the period of ca. 4000 BC to 3500 BC, neolithic farming communities in Upper Egypt underwent a process of settlement agglomeration, leading to a system of multiple large urban centers surrounded by smaller satellite communities with increasing social complexity and inequality; so-called ‘proto-states’. Out of these ‘proto-states’ a unified territorial state under dynastic rule encompassing the whole Nile Valley in Egypt eventually emerged by ca. 3100 BC. Exactly how and why the dynastic state emerged in Egypt when it did has been a subject of great debate amongst scholars for generations.
Recently, several scholars have set aside the search for a grand unified explanation for Egyptian state formation, acknowledging that the transformation from a system of relatively egalitarian farming communities to a large centralised territorial state with pronounced social hierarchy was the result of overlapping complex social, economic, geographic factors. However, archaeologists still struggle to adequately narrate and understand this process. This paper will present what Agent Based Modeling—a type of computational simulation—can contribute to the discussion. While ABM has shown increased popularity amongst anthropologists, archaeologists, and historians in recent years in the study of emergent social-level phenomena, it is still relatively underused as a methodological tool by archaeologists. However, ABM potentially offers one of the most robust means of testing hypotheses about social and urban social change in the distant past against the empirical data.
This paper will introduce some of the prevailing theories/models concerning the aggregation of villages and rise of polities in early predynastic Upper Egypt and show how ABM can be used to critically evaluate and refine these models. This will be done with reference to other case studies where ABM has successfully been used to model the emergence of social complexity and polity fusion/fission.

Author: Nitschke, Jessica - University of Cape Town (Presenting author)