The effect of spatial bottleneck on human eco-cultural range expansion
Kumata, R.; Kadowaki, S.; Wakano, J. Y.
Show abstract
The spatial spread of humans and culture is shaped by feedback between demography and cultural accumulation, as captured by the eco-cultural range expansion model. Yet, the effect of the geographical boundaries on this process remains poorly understood. Here, we extend the model to a two dimensional space where two large habitats are connected by a narrow corridor (spatial bottleneck) with reflecting boundaries. We find that a wave of ecological invasion is unaffected by the bottleneck, whereas a cultural wave can be blocked by sufficiently narrow corridors. The maximum bottleneck width that prevents propagation depends on the domain shape, and it converges to the threshold value when the habitat to be invaded gets larger. Our results align with mathematical results on a bistable reaction-diffusion equation, particularly mean curvature flow, based on which we provide an approximate formula of the threshold bottleneck width. Applied to the Middle- Upper Paleolithic transition, the findings suggest that while the spread of modern humans was robust to spatial bottlenecks, the expansion of advanced Upper Paleolithic culture could be delayed or halted by narrow corridors. Archaeological records point to potential cases where such geographic bottlenecks constrained cultural dispersal.
Matching journals
The top 6 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.
Similar papers in this journal
Similar papers in this journal
- On the onset of multicellular invasive behavior in hierarchical lineage: the role of inhibitory feedback and local fluctuations 96%
- Homogenization of a Reaction Diffusion Equation can Explain Influenza A Virus Load Data 96%
- Continuum descriptions of spatial spreading for heterogeneous cell populations: theory and experiment 96%
Similar papers in this journal
"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.