Session: #1109

Content:

The last development of Mesolithic groups and the arrival of Neolithic newcomers triggered major changes in evolutionary population dynamics in the entire Mediterranean region, originating domino effects on cultural and socioecological trajectories at macro- and microlevel scales. The focus on narrative studies based on cultural sequences has been surpassed thanks to new structural epistemological perspectives that embrace systemic and agency approaches. This turning point reflects how human societies can be understood as complex systems that evolve in non-linear ways, changing by adapting to the effects of exogenous and endogenous causes. The great importance of pointing to high-resolution archaeological records based on accurate stratigraphic data and radiometric frameworks, that allow approaches at the scale of human events, and also the challenging interest of thinking on a population level, are fundamental in this new paradigm to approximate social relationship consequences considering local and regional dynamics.
In this session, we adopt this view to embrace papers that take into account approaches aimed to highlight evolutionary trajectories in socio-ecological and cultural trends in Mesolithic and Neolithic Mediterranean societies, including regional or microregional views in diachronic perspectives. Research based on modelling the dynamics of culture change and socioecological trajectories (e. g. statistical modelling, morphometrics, approximate Bayesian methods, phylogenetics, social network analysis, etc.) are welcome. Our goal consists of promoting the debate concerning questions like (1) how cultures split, merge, and take form, (2) what kinds of exogenous and/or endogenous factors could explain cycles of stability and changes, and (3) how can we examine cultural traditions in terms of "core" or "packages" systems.

Session: #1109

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