ABSTRACT

Human populations distribute themselves across landscapes in clearly patterned ways, but accurate and theoretically informed predictions and explanations of that patterning in the archaeological record can prove difficult. Recently, archaeologists have begun applying a unifying theoretical framework derived from population and behavioural ecology to understand human population distribution and movement: the ideal distribution model (IDM). The three variants of this IDM - the ideal free distribution, the ideal free distribution with an Allee effect, and the ideal despotic distribution - are capable of generating testable hypotheses concerning the colonisation of landscapes, the spatial distribution of populations, cooperation and competition, social hierarchy and inequality, and the impacts of subsistence on settlement patterns. Their success in addressing such wide-ranging research questions demonstrates that IDMs are not only helpful for analysing settlement patterns in relation to environmental factors, but for better understanding the social forces that impact population distribution, as well. There seem to be no geographic or temporal bounds to the utility of IDMs, and we look forward to the application of these models in ever more diverse settings.

摘要

人类人口以清晰的模式分布在景观中，但在考古记录中对这种模式的准确和理论上的预测和解释可能很困难。最近，考古学家开始应用从人口和行为生态学衍生的统一理论框架来理解人口分布和运动：理想分布模型（IDM）。该 IDM 的三个变体——理想的自由分布、具有 Allee 效应的理想自由分布和理想的专制分布——能够产生关于景观殖民化、人口空间分布、合作与竞争、社会等级和不平等，以及生计对定居模式的影响。他们在解决如此广泛的研究问题方面取得的成功表明，IDM 不仅有助于分析与环境因素相关的定居模式，而且还有助于更好地了解影响人口分布的社会力量。IDM 的效用似乎没有地理或时间限制，我们期待这些模型在更加多样化的环境中应用。