This paper introduces an experimental and exploratory approach, combining game theory and Genetic Algorithms to create a model to simulate evolutionary economic learning. The objective of this paper is to document the implementation of a genetic algorithm as a simulator for economic learning, then analyze how strategic behavior affects the evolution towards optimal outcomes, departing from different starting points and potentially transforming conflict into harmonious scenarios. For this purpose, the introduced construct aimed at allowing for the evaluation of different strategy selection methods and game types. 144 unique 2x2 games, and three distinct strategy selection rules: Nash equilibrium, Hurwicz rule and a Random selection method were used in this study. The particularity of this paper is that rather than changing the strategies themselves or player-specific features, the introduced genetic algorithm changes the games based on the player payoffs. The outcome indicated optimal player scenarios for both The Nash equilibrium and Hurwicz rules strategies, the first being the best performing strategy. The random selection method fails to converge to optimal values in most of the populations, acting as a control feature and reinforcing that strategic behavior is necessary for the evolutionary learning process. We documented also two additional observations. First, the games are often transformed in such a way that agents can coordinate their strategies to achieve a stable optimal equilibrium. And second, we observed the mutation of the populations of games into sets of fewer (repeating) isomorphic games featuring strong characteristics of previous games.

AncientS-ABM is an agent-based model for simulating and evaluating the potential social organization of an artificial past society, configured by available archaeological data. Unlike most existing agent-based models used in archaeology, our ABM framework includes completely autonomous, utility-based agents. It also incorporates different social organization paradigms, different decision-making processes, and also different cultivation technologies used in ancient societies. Equipped with such paradigms, the model allows us to explore the transition from a simple to a more complex society by focusing on the historical social dynamics; and to assess the influence of social organization on agents’ population growth, agent community numbers, sizes and distribution.

AncientS-ABM also blends ideas from evolutionary game theory with multi-agent systems’ self-organization. We model the evolution of social behaviours in a population of strategically interacting agents in repeated games where they exchange resources (utility) with others. The results of the games contribute to both the continuous re-organization of the social structure, and the progressive adoption of the most successful agent strategies. Agent population is not fixed, but fluctuates over time, while agents in stage games also receive non-static payoffs, in contrast to most games studied in the literature. To tackle this, we defined a novel formulation of the evolutionary dynamics via assessing agents’ rather than strategies’ fitness.

As a case study, we employ AncientS-ABM to evaluate the impact of the implemented social organization paradigms on an artificial Bronze Age “Minoan” society, located at different geographical parts of the island of Crete, Greece. Model parameter choices are based on archaeological evidence and studies, but are not biased towards any specific assumption. Results over a number of different simulation scenarios demonstrate better sustainability for settlements consisting of and adopting a socio-economic organization model based on self-organization, where a “heterarchical” social structure emerges. Results also demonstrate that successful agent societies adopt an evolutionary approach where cooperation is an emergent strategic behaviour. In simulation scenarios where the natural disaster module was enabled, we observe noticeable changes in the settlements’ distribution, relating to significantly higher migration rates immediately after the modeled Theran eruption. In addition, the initially cooperative behaviour is transformed to a non-cooperative one, thus providing support for archaeological theories suggesting that the volcanic eruption led to a clear breakdown of the Minoan socio-economic system.

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Signaling chains are a special case of Lewis’ signaling games on networks. In a signaling chain, a sender tries to send a single unit of information to a receiver through a chain of players that do not share a common signaling system.

Agents co-operate or defect towards other agents in a prisoner’s dilemma, with strategy choice depending on whether agents share tags or are kin in different social structures.

This is an implementation of an agent based model for the evolution of ethnocentrism. While based off a model published by Hammond and Axelrod (2006), the code has been modified to allow for a more fine-grained analysis of evolutionary dynamics.