The Village Ecodynamics Project: Modeling the Deep Pueblo Past

For the past decade members of the Village Ecodynamics Project (VEP) have been building simulation models that generate Pueblo households which interact with annually changing virtual natural and social environments in Southwest Colorado between A.D. 600, when archaeologists see population growth, and A.D. 1300, by which time large portions of the Pueblo range were depopulated. These models serve several general purposes: (1) they create expectations for subsistence and settlement practices with which the real record can be meaningfully compared; (2) they allow us to make inferences about processes that are poorly visible in the archaeological record, such as small-scale exchange practices, which are effectively modeled in our simulation; (3) they yield estimates of carrying capacity under varying parameter combinations; and (4) they allow us to make local tests of general theory, such as the role of optimization of location in the settlement systems of these farmers. The VEP is also elucidating local questions of culture history, for example, why villages emerged when and where they did, and why our study area was depopulated around A.D. 1280. In this talk we review our achievements to date and discuss our directions for development over the next three years.