Adapting to Population Growth: The Evolutionary Alternative to Malthus

Kristinsson, Axel; Júlíusson, Árni Daníel

doi:10.21237/c7clio7130171

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 80 publications

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“…For instance, the Boserup model assumes but does not explain population growth, and it does not describe the mechanisms by which increasing population density spurs intensification or innovation. Supporting evidence has been mixed (compare Kristinsson and Júlíusson 2016;Pacheco-Cobos et al 2015), although to be fair, no more mixed than that for the Malthusian approach. Nonetheless, Boserup is critical because her analysis gives redress to factors neglected in Malthus, especially to the potential for innovations that escape the confining arithmetic increase that Malthus allowed for agricultural productivity.…”

Section: Demography Population and Environment Since Malthusmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Contemporary accounts synthesizing Malthus and Boserup commonly take a narrative form. For instance, Kristinsson and Júlíusson (2016) argue that with increasing cultural complexity, human societies become more readily adaptable. As a result they concurrently undergo a shift from Malthusian to Boserupian regimes of population response.…”

Section: Better Integrating Boserup Into Our Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Handbook of Evolutionary Research in Archaeology

Prentiss¹

2019

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Section: Demography Population and Environment Since Malthusmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Better Integrating Boserup Into Our Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Handbook of Evolutionary Research in Archaeology

Prentiss¹

2019

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“…More detailed reconstruction of past populations show not only periods of rapid growth, but also long periods of limited growth, stagnation, and even substantial and prolonged population declines, both in prehistory (Shennan et al 2013;Zimmermann, Scharl, and Schmidt 2020;Bird et al 2020;Kim, Lee, and Crema 2021) and history (Turchin and Nefedov 2009;Lima and Berryman 2011). The ecological and social feedback mechanisms that might have contributed to such outcomes have been intensively studied and heavily debated (Wood 1998;Coombes and Barber 2005;Kristinsson and Júlíusson 2016). For historical, large-scale polities (i.e., states and empires), the importance of population growth and decline as both driving forces and outcomes from complex social and political processes has been well appreciated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Landscape of Fear: Indirect effects of conflict can account for large-scale population declines in non-state societies

Kondor¹,

Bennett²,

Gronenborn³

et al. 2023

Preprint

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The impact of inter-group conflict (warfare) on large-scale population declines has long been debated, especially for prehistoric or non-state societies. In this work, we consider that beyond direct battle casualties, which are typically limited, conflicts can also create a “landscape of fear” in which many non-combatants near theaters of conflict abandon their homes and migrate away. This migration has two impacts: It causes population decline in the abandoned regions and increased population density in better protected areas that are targeted by refugees. This higher density, in turn, can place additional stress on local supplies, potentially leading to reduced fertility and increased mortality due to malnutrition and disease. Using both an analytic and agent-based model we investigate the impact of these interactions on population dynamics of small-scale societies. We demonstrate that these indirect effects of conflict are sufficient, even in the absence of combatant casualties, to produce substantial, long-term population boom-and-bust patterns. In particular, our agent-based model is able to account for the large-scale spatial and temporal boom-and-bust patterns observed in radiocarbon data from mid-Holocene Europe. We also demonstrate that greater availability of defensible locations, by acting to protect and maintain the supply of combatants, increases the permanence of the landscape of fear and likelihood of endemic warfare.

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Demography, Environment, and Human Behavior

Puleston

Winterhalder

2019

Handbook of Evolutionary Research in Archaeology

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Adapting to Population Growth: The Evolutionary Alternative to Malthus

Cited by 4 publications

References 80 publications

Handbook of Evolutionary Research in Archaeology

Handbook of Evolutionary Research in Archaeology

Landscape of Fear: Indirect effects of conflict can account for large-scale population declines in non-state societies

Demography, Environment, and Human Behavior

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