A Formal Theory of Politogenesis: Towards an Agent Simulation of Social Complexity Origins

Abstract

Agent-based social simulation models are beginning to make significant contributions to scientific understanding of origins of human social complexity (politogenesis). However, social theory remains unclear about the prerequisites of social complexity origins; about things people must have known before the simplest societies could self-organize. In addition, there is a paucity of formal theories of politogenesis. I present a formal mathematical theory of social complexity focused on the phase of human history preceding its initial emergence in selected world regions ca. 10,000 years ago (early Holocene epoch). The formalism uses probability theory and analysis to derive a set of basic, testable results. The main prediction of the theory supports the rare nature of initial social complexity, consistent with observation. Further geospatial applications of the theory predict expected locations for politogenesis, based on prior, causal, theoretically predicted potentials.

Keywords: social complexity, origin of chiefdoms, formal modeling