Violence and Revenge in Egalitarian Societies

Discrete agent simulation was used to investigate the role of violence and revenge in model egalitarian societies. A population of 100 agents inhabited a landscape of 20x20 squares containing five sources of food. Agents moved about the landscape in search of food, shared, stole, mated, produced offspring, and ultimately died of old age. Violence and revenge reduced the survival probability of the population and, for surviving populations, replaced hunger as the second leading cause of death after old age. Excluding large segments of the population from violence and revenge significantly improved survival rates. Tolerance to transgressions reduced the number of agents killed in revenge attacks. Higher population density increased the number of revenge deaths but also increased the survival rate of the total population. Decreasing the food supply for a fixed initial population resulted in more deaths due to violence and revenge. Flight from known aggressors enhanced the survival of the total population, at the expense of social cohesion. When killing had a positive social value the survival rate of the total population increased as the number of revenge killings decreased. These results are discussed in the context of ethnographic observations of a number of egalitarian societies.

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