Norms in H-F-G Societies: Grounds for Agent-based Social Simulation

The use of agent-directed simulation in archaeology has a relatively long tradition. However, these simulations have been always oriented mainly to study spatial processes and resource management and systematically ignore an essential aspect of any society: the use of social and institutional norms as a mechanism to regulate the behaviour of the individuals. In this paper we propose a norm-centric simulation (in contrast to the traditional resource-centric simulation) where the normative system is both the core of the simulation and the subject of study. Our final goal is to set the foundations of a rather general model of social behaviour in a hunter-fisher-gatherer (HFG) society without political institutions but with strict social norms.