The workshop is organized by Peter Turchin & Dániel Kondor. It will take place on November 23–24, 2022 at the Complexity Science Hub Vienna.
About:
The main goal of the workshop is to critically assess the available evidence on population booms and busts in the Neolithic period. While such patterns have been reported in several recent studies in several regions, we have so far found it hard to assess the global prevalence of them. This way, we are hoping to gather experts on Neolithic archaeology and demography with a wide-ranging knowledge of available evidence.
We are specifically interested in (1) comparing evidence on different spatial scales (local, regional, continental); (2) working on a global scope, and comparing world-wide patterns with that of Europe (which has been the focus of our work so far); and (3) going beyond radiocarbon dates (i.e. SPDs and similar methods) and gathering evidence that is based on archaeological methods, assessing their consistency with radiocarbon-based proxies.
The main output of the workshop would be a review paper that systematically considers evidence from a wide range of regions and assesses the presence and significance of boom and bust patterns. Ideally, our results would inform the field on whether such patterns are a generic phenomenon, motivating further research on this topic.