Early Warning Signals of Social Transformation: A Case Study from the US Southwest

Abstract

Recent research in ecology suggests that generic indicators, referred to as early warning signals (EWS), may occur before significant transformations, both critical and non-critical, in complex systems. Up to this point, research on EWS has largely focused on simple models and controlled experiments in ecology and climate science. When humans are considered in these arenas they are invariably seen as external sources of disturbance or management. In this article we explore ways to include societal components of socio-ecological systems directly in EWS analysis. Given the growing archaeological literature on ‘collapses,’ or transformations, in social systems, we investigate whether any early warning signals are apparent in the archaeological records of the build-up to two contemporaneous cases of social transformation in the prehistoric US Southwest, Mesa Verde and Zuni. The social transformations in these two cases differ in scope and severity, thus allowing us to explore the contexts under which warning signals may (or may not) emerge. In both cases our results show increasing variance in settlement size before the transformation, but increasing variance in social institutions only before the critical transformation in Mesa Verde. In the Zuni case, social institutions appear to have managed the process of significant social change. We conclude that variance is of broad relevance in anticipating social change, and the capacity of social institutions to mitigate transformation is critical to consider in EWS research on socio-ecological systems.

Enhancing quantitative approaches for assessing community resilience

“…Despite the challenges presented by insufficient data or the desire for long term temporal studies (Hicks et al, 2016;Nystr€ om and Folke, 2001), some EWSs have been applied to assess aspects of resilience including regime shifts in coupled human and natural systems (e.g. Eason and Cabezas, 2012;Gonzalez-Mejia et al, 2014;Karunanithi et al, 2011;Spielmann et al, 2016;Vance et al, 2017). For example, Spielmann et al (2016) used EWSs for research on the change of human settlement size and social institutions under the impacts of climate change and population relocation in the prehistoric U.S. Southwest from 1050 AD to 1375 AD.…”

“…Eason and Cabezas, 2012;Gonzalez-Mejia et al, 2014;Karunanithi et al, 2011;Spielmann et al, 2016;Vance et al, 2017). For example, Spielmann et al (2016) used EWSs for research on the change of human settlement size and social institutions under the impacts of climate change and population relocation in the prehistoric U.S. Southwest from 1050 AD to 1375 AD. They detected critical slowing down before social transformation and concluded that EWSs are useful for anticipating social change.…”

“…4. "...involves a regime change in which the structures, processes, and identity of a community either evolve into a more desired configuration or developed into a less desirable state (Gunderson, 2010) (Janssen, 2001;Axtell et al, 2002), conceptual frameworks (Cutter et al, 2014); EWSs (Spielmann et al, 2016), economic simulations (Antle et al, 2004) interactions of human communities across city, regional, and national scales (Marcus et al, 2014;Perz et al, 2012), the cross-scale spatial structure of communities (Fig. 2), and the spatially intertwined nature of social and ecological systems make considering spatial aspects of community resilience essential .…”

“…While the literature on ecological resilience is well established, there are a number of open research questions on measuring and operationalizing the approaches that are critical for advancing the application to emerging challenges (e.g., harmful algal blooms). Though there is no consensus on the definition and approaches for assessing community resilience, the concept continues to evolve from a single-state, equilibrium-based definition (e.g., "recovery" from Timmerman, 1981) into a more dynamic, and nonequilibrium-based viewpoint, influenced by research on socialecological systems (e.g., Adger, 2000;Walker et al, 2004;Spielmann et al, 2016). By assessing relatively well-developed methods for quantifying ecological resilience, we identified approaches that can be used to quantify community resilience based on a more holistic view of social-ecological systems.…”

The human experience of social transformation: Insights from comparative archaeology

“…To this end, our research draws on the long time span of the archaeological record to develop a widely applicable understanding of social transformations, an understanding that considers both society-wide processes and people’s lived experiences [25]. In past work, we and our collaborators focused mostly on single instances or areas [19,26,27,17,28,29]. Here, we expand this view, comparing transformations in eight archaeological and historical sequences from two very different areas of the world, the US Southwest and the North Atlantic.…”