Abstract
We apply the Ideal Free Distribution (IFD) and Ideal Despotic Distribution (IDD) models to two Bronze Age (ca. 3100–1050 BCE) mainland Greek regions with different local ecologies and culture histories: Messenia and the Argolid. Using existing settlement data, we show that regions within the same cultural system contemporaneously fit different settlement patterns, reflecting distinct environmental adaptations. Such differences help to understand regional variations in resource access and competition. Although the highest-ranked habitats were settled first in each region, large-scale expansion to lower-ranked habitats occurred more quickly in the Argolid, likely because highly productive agricultural land was limited, resulting in a competitive focus on the Argive Plain. This contrasts with Messenia, where access to agricultural resources is better distributed. Our results demonstrate that applying ideal distribution models at a regional scale provides valuable information about the development of social complexity and the conditions in which it occurs.
![](https://cdn.statically.io/img/media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs10745-022-00324-6/MediaObjects/10745_2022_324_Fig1_HTML.png)
![](https://cdn.statically.io/img/media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs10745-022-00324-6/MediaObjects/10745_2022_324_Fig2_HTML.png)
![](https://cdn.statically.io/img/media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs10745-022-00324-6/MediaObjects/10745_2022_324_Fig3_HTML.png)
![](https://cdn.statically.io/img/media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs10745-022-00324-6/MediaObjects/10745_2022_324_Fig4_HTML.png)
![](https://cdn.statically.io/img/media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs10745-022-00324-6/MediaObjects/10745_2022_324_Fig5_HTML.png)
![](https://cdn.statically.io/img/media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs10745-022-00324-6/MediaObjects/10745_2022_324_Fig6_HTML.png)
![](https://cdn.statically.io/img/media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs10745-022-00324-6/MediaObjects/10745_2022_324_Fig7_HTML.png)
![](https://cdn.statically.io/img/media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs10745-022-00324-6/MediaObjects/10745_2022_324_Fig8_HTML.png)
![](https://cdn.statically.io/img/media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs10745-022-00324-6/MediaObjects/10745_2022_324_Fig9_HTML.png)
Similar content being viewed by others
Data Availability
All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article (and its supplementary information files).
References
American School of Classical Studies in Athens. (2016). Maps, GIS Data, and Archaeological Data for Corinth and Greece. http://www.ascsa.edu.gr/index.php/excavationcorinth/maps-and-gis-data-for-corinth-and-greece
Bell, A. V., & Winterhalder, B. (2014). The population ecology of despotism: Concessions and migration under the ideal despotic distribution. Human Nature, 25, 121–135.
Bennet, J. (1995). Space through time: diachronic perspectives on the spatial organization of the Pylian State. In W.D. Niemeier, & R. Laffineur (Eds.), POLITEIA. Society and State in the Aegean Bronze Age (pp. 587–602). Aegaeum 12. Liège: University of Liège.
Bennet, J. (1998). The Linear B archives and the organization of the kingdom of Nestor. In J. L. Davis (Ed.), Sandy Pylos: An archaeological history from Nestor to Navarino (pp. 111–133). The University of Texas Press.
Bintliff, J. L. (1977). Natural environment and human settlement in prehistoric Greece: based on original fieldwork. BAR Supplementary Series 28. British Archaeological Reports.
Bintliff, J. (2016). The Argos Plain through its ages and my ages. Journal of Greek Archaeology, 1, 33–44.
Casselmann, C., Fuchs, M., Ittameier, D., Maran, J., & Wagner, G. A. (2004). Interdisziplinäre landschaftsarchäologische Forschungen im Becken von Phlious, 1998–2002. Archäologischer Anzeiger, 2004(1), 1–57.
Cherry, J. F., & Davis, J. L. (2001). ‘Under the scepter of Agamemnon:’ the view from the hinterlands of Mycenae. In K. Branigan (Ed.), Urbanism in the Aegean Bronze Age (pp. 141–159). Sheffield Studies in Aegean Archaeology. Sheffield Academic Press.
Codding, B. F., & Bird, D. W. (2015). Behavioral ecology and the future of archaeological science. Journal of Archaeological Science, 56, 9–20.
Codding, B. F., & Jones, T. L. (2013). Environmental productivity predicts migration, demographic, and linguistic patterns in prehistoric California. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 110(36), 14569–14573.
Codding, B. F., Parker, A. K., & Jones, T. L. (2019). Territorial behavior among western North American foragers: Allee effects, within group cooperation, and between group conflict. Quaternary International, 518, 31–40.
Collins-Elliott, S. A., & Jazwa, C. S. (2020). Dynamic modeling of the effects of site placement on environmental suitability: a theoretical example from northwest Morocco. Environmental Archaeology https://doi.org/10.1080/14614103.2020.1763020
Consoli, R. (2019). Mycenaean Atlas Project. Internet Edition: http://helladic.info/index.php
Cosmopoulos, M. B. (2019). State formation in Greece: Iklaina and the unification of Mycenaean Pylos. American Journal of Archaeology, 123(3), 349–380.
Culleton, B. J. (2012). Human ecology, agricultural intensification and landscape transformation at the ancient Maya polity of Uxbenká, southern Belize. PhD dissertation. Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon, Eugene.
Dabney, M. K., & Wright, J. C., (1990). Mortuary customs, palatial society and state formation in the Aegean Area: A comparative study. In R. Hägg, & G. Nordquist (Eds.), Celebrations of death and divinity in the Bronze Age Argolid: proceedings of the 6th international symposium at the Swedish Institute at Athens, 11–13 June, 1988 (pp. 45–53). Skrifter Utgivna av Svenska Institutet i Athen, 4° vol. 40. Swedish Institute at Athens.
Davis, J. L., Alcock, S. E., Bennet, J., Lolos, Y., & Shelmerdine, C. (1997). The Pylos regional archaeological project, part I: Overview and the archaeological survey. Hesperia, 66(3), 391–494.
Dickinson, O. T. P. K. (1977). The Origins of Mycenaean Civilization. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology Vol. XLIX. Paul Åströms Förlag.
DiNapoli, R. J., Morrison, A. E., Lipo, C. P., Hunt, T. L., & Lane, B. G. (2018). East Polynesian islands as models of cultural divergence: The case of Rapa Nui and Rapa Iti. The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, 13, 206–223.
Eder, B., & Jung, R. (2015). Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno: The Mycenaean Palace System. In Weilhartner, J., & Ruppenstein, F. (Eds.), Tradition and Innovation in the Mycenaean Palatial Polities. Proceedings of an International Symposium held at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, 1–2 March, 2013. Austrian Academy of Sciences.
Feuer, B. (2011). Being Mycenaean: A view from the periphery. American Journal of Archaeology, 115(4), 507–536.
Foley, A. (1988). The Argolid 800–600 BC. An archaeological survey together with an index of sites from the Neolithic to the Roman period. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology Vol. LXXX. Paul Åströms Förlag.
Fretwell, S. D., & Lucas, H. L., Jr. (1969). On territorial behavior and other factors influencing habitat distribution in birds I. theoretical development. Acta Biotheoretica, 19, 16–36.
Frödin, O., & Persson, A. W. (1938) Asine: results of the Swedish excavations 1922–1930. Generalstabens Litografiska Anstalts Förlag.
Galaty, M. L., Parkinson, W. A., Pullen, D. J., & Seifried, R. (2014). Mycenaean-scapes: Geography, political economy, and the eastern Mediterranean world-system. Aegaeum, 37, 449–459.
Harvey, D. C. (2019).Habitat distribution, settlement systems, and territorial maintenance in the southern Sierra Nevada, California. PhD dissertation. Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada, Reno.
Hengl, T., Mendes de Jesus, J., Heuvelink, G. B. M., Ruiperez Gonzalez, M., Kilibarda, M., Blagotic, A., Shangguan, W., Wright, M. N., Geng, X., Bauer-Marschalinger, B., Guevara, M. A., Vargas, R., MacMillan, R. A., Batjes, N. H., Leenaars, J. G. B., Ribeiro, E., Wheeler, I., Mantel, S., & Kempen, B. (2017). SoilGrids250m: Global gridded soil information based machine learning. PLoS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0169748
Hope Simpson, R. (2014). Mycenaean Messenia and the kingdom of Pylos. Prehistory Monographs 45. Philadelphia: INSTAP Academic Press.
ISRIC. (2019). ISRIC world soil information. https://www.isric.org/explore/soilgrids
Jazwa, C. S., & Collins-Elliott, S. A. (2021). An ecological model of settlement expansion in northwestern Morocco. Quaternary International. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2020.12.037
Jazwa, C. S., & Jazwa, K. A. (2017). Settlement ecology in Bronze Age Messenia. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 45, 157–169.
Jazwa, C. S., Kennett, D. J., & Winterhalder, B. (2013). The Ideal Free Distribution and Settlment History at Old Ranch Canyon, Santa Rosa Island. In C. S. Jazwa & J. E. Perry (Eds.), California’s Channel Islands: The Archaeology of Human-Environment Interactions (pp. 75–96). University of Utah Press.
Jazwa, C. S., Kennett, D. J., & Winterhalder, B. (2016). A test of ideal free distribution predictions using targeted survey and excavation on California’s northern Channel Islands. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 23, 1242–1284.
Jazwa, C. S., Kennett, D. J., Winterhalder, B., & Joslin, T. L. (2019). Territoriality and the rise of despotic social organization on western Santa Rosa Island, California. Quaternary International, 518, 41–56.
Karagiorga, T. G. (1971). Ακοβίτικα. Αρχαιλογικον Δελτιον, 26, 126–129.
Kelder, J. (2010). The kingdom of Mycenae : a great kingdom in the late Bronze Age Aegean. CDL Press.
Kennett, D. J., & Winterhalder, B. (Eds.). (2006). Behavioral ecology and the transition to agriculture. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Kennett, D. J., & Winterhalder, B. (2008). Demographic expansion, despotism and the colonisation of east and south Polynesia. In G. Clark, F. Leach, & S. O’Connor (Eds.), Islands of inquiry: Colonisation, seafaring and the archaeology of maritime landscapes (Terra Australis, 29) (pp. 87–96). ANU E Press.
Kilian, K. (1986). The circular building at Tiryns. In R. Hägg and D. Konsola (Eds.), Early Helladic architecture and urbanization. Proceedings of a seminar held at the Swedish Institute in Athens, June 8, 1985 (pp. 65–71). Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology Vol. LXXVI. Paul Åströms Förlag.
Knitter, D., Günther, G., Hamer, W. B., Keßler, T., Seguin, J., & Unkel, I. (2019). Land use patterns and climate change—a modeled scenario of the Late Bronze Age in Southern Greece. Environmental Research Letters, 14, 125003.
Leppard, T. (2019). Social complexity and social inequality in the prehistoric Mediterranean. Current Anthropology, 60(3), 283–308.
Malaperdas, G., & Zacharias, N. (2018). A geospatial analysis of Mycenaean habitation sites using a geocumulative versus habitation approach. Journal of Geoscience and Environmental Protection, 6, 111–131.
Maran, J. (2006). Mycenaean citadels as performative space. In J. Maran, C. Juwig, H. Schwengel, & U. Thaler (Eds.), Constructing Power. Architecture, Ideology, and Social Practice (pp. 75–88). Geschichte: Forschung und Wissenschaft 19. LIT Verlag.
McDonald, W. A., & Rapp, G. R. (1972). The Minnesota Messenia Expedition. University of Minnesota Press.
Mu, Q., Zhao, M., & Running, S. W. (2011). Improvements to a MODIS global terrestrial evapotranspiration algorithm. Remote Sensing of Environment, 115(8), 1781–1800.
Müller, K. (1930). Tiryns III. Die architektur der burg und des palastes. B. Filser.
New, M., Hulme, M., & Jones, P. (1999). Representing twentieth-century space-time climate variability. Part I: development of a 1961–90 mean monthly terrestrial climatology. Journal of Climate 12(3), 829–856.
Nilsson, M. (2004). A civilization in the making: a contextual study of Early Bronze Age corridor buildings in the Aegean. PhD dissertation, Department of Classical Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Göteborg, Sweden.
Nordquist. G. C. (1987). A Middle Helladic village. Asine in the Argolid. Boreas 16. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis.
Prufer, K. M., Thompson, A. E., Meredith, C. R., Culleton, B. J., Jordan, J. M., Ebert, C. E., Winterhalder, B., & Kennett, D. J. (2017). The Classic Period Maya transition from an ideal free to an ideal despotic settlement system at the polity of Uxbenká. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 45, 53–68.
Pullen, D. J. (1985). Social organization in Early Bronze Age Greece: A multi-dimensional approach. PhD dissertation. Program in Classical Archaeology, Indiana University, Bloomington.
Pullen, D.J. (1986). A ‘House of Tiles’ at Zygouries? The function of monumental Early Helladic architecture. In R. Hägg and D. Konsola (Eds.), Early Helladic architecture and urbanization: proceedings of a seminar held at the Swedish Institute in Athens, June 8, 1985 (pp. 79–84). Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 76. Paul Åströms Förlag.
Pullen, D. J. (1994). A lead seal from Tsoungiza, ancient Nemea, and Early Bronze Age Aegean sealing systems. American Journal of Archaeology, 98(1), 35–52.
Pullen, D. J. (2008). The early Bronze age in Greece. In C. W. Shelmerdine (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to the Aegean Bronze Age (pp. 19–46). Cambridge University Press.
Pullen, D. J. (2011). Nemea Valley Archaeological Project I. The Early Bronze Age village on Tsoungiza Hill. American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
Ramankutty, N., Foley, J. A., Norman, J., & McSweeney, K. (2002). The global distribution of cultivable lands: Current patterns and sensitivity to possible climate change. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 11(5), 377–392.
Rambach, J. (2016). Early Helladic Romanos/Messenia: filling a well. In E. Alram-Stern, F. Blakolmer, S. Deger-Jalkotzy, R. Laffineur, & J. Weilhartner (Eds.) Metaphysis. Ritual, myth and symbolism in the Aegean Bronze Age. Proceedings of the 15th International Aegean Conference, Vienna, Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology (pp. 567–570). University of Vienna: Aegean and Anatolia Department, Austrian Academy of Sciences and Institute of Classical Archaeology.
Running, S. W. (2012). Mod17a3. http://www.ntsg.umt.edu/MOD17/
Rutter, J. B. (2017). The temporal slicing and dicing of Minyan Culture: A proposal for a tripartite division of a lengthier Greek Middle Bronze Age and the issue of nomadism at its beginning. In C. Wiersma & S. Voutaski (Eds.), Social Change in Aegean Prehistory (pp. 16–31). Oxbow Books.
Shaw, J. W. (2007). Sequencing the EH II ‘corridor houses.’ Annual of the British School at Athens, 102, 137–151.
Shelmerdine, C. W. (1997). Review of Aegean prehistory VI: The Palatial Bronze Age of the southern and central Greek mainland. American Journal of Archaeology, 101(3), 537–585.
Shelmerdine, C. W. (2006). Mycenaean palatial administration. In S. Deger-Jalkotzy & I.S. Lemos (Eds.), Ancient Greece: from the Mycenaean palaces to the age of Homer (pp. 73–86). Edinburgh Leventis Studies 3. Edinburgh University Press.
The Stoa Consortium. (2019). Pleiades. Internet Edition: https://pleiades.stoa.org/home
Shennan, S. (2018). The First Farmers in Europe: An Evolutionary Perspective. Cambridge University Press.
Sutherland, W. J. (1996). From individual behaviour to population ecology. Oxford University Press.
Valmin, N. (1938). The Swedish Messenia Expedition. Acta Regiae Societatis Humaniorum Litterarum Lundensis 16. C.W.K. Gleerup.
Voutsaki, S. (2010). From the kinship economy to the palatial economy: The Argolid in the 2nd millennium BC. In D. Pullen (Ed.), Political Economies in the Aegean Bronze Age (pp. 86–111). Oxbow Books.
Weiberg, E. (2007). Thinking the Bronze Age: life and death in Early Helladic Greece. Boreas 29. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis.
Weiberg, E., & Finné, M. (2013). Mind or matter? People-environment interactions and the demise of Early Helladic II society. American Journal of Archaeology, 117(2), 1–31.
Weiberg, E., Hughes, R. E., Finné, M., Bonnier, A., & Kaplan, J. O. (2019). Mediterranean land use systems from prehistory to antiquity: A case study from Peloponnese (Greece). Journal of Land Use Science, 14(1), 1–20.
Wells, B. (Ed.). (1996). The Berbati-Limnes Archaeological Survey 1988–1990. Acta Instituti Atheniensis Regni Sueciae Series in 4°, 44. Stockholm: Paul Åströms Förlag.
Wiencke, M. H. (2000). Lerna IV. The architecture, stratification, and pottery of Lerna III. The American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
Wiersma, C. W. (2020). House (centric) societies on the prehistoric Greek mainland. Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 39(2), 141–158.
Wiersma, C., & Voutsaki, S. (2017). Introduction: Social change in Aegean prehistory. In C. Wiersma & S. Voutsaki (Eds.), Social change in Aegean prehistory (pp. vi–xx). Oxbow Books.
Winterhalder, B. (2002). Models. In J. P. Hart & J. E. Terrell (Eds.), Darwin and Archaeology: A Handbook of Key Concepts (pp. 201–223). Bergin and Garvey.
Winterhalder, B., Kennett, D. J., Grote, M. N., & Bartruff, J. (2010). Ideal free settlement on California’s northern Channel Islands. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 29, 469–490.
Winterhalder, B., & Smith, E. A. (2000). Analyzing adaptive strategies: Human behavioral ecology at twenty-five. Evolutionary Anthropology, 9, 51–72.
Worsham, R., Lindblom, M., & Zikidi, C. (2018). Preliminary report of the Malthi Archaeological Project, 2015–2016. Opuscula. Annual of the Swedish Institutes at Athens and Rome, II, 7–28.
Wright, J. C. (1987). Death and power at Mycenae: changing symbols in mortuary practice. In R. Laffineur (Ed.), Thanatos: les coutumes funéraires en Égée à l’âge du bronze: actes du colloque de Liège (21–23 avril 1986) (pp. 171–184). Aegaeum 1. University of Liège.
Wright, J. C. (2006). The formation of the Mycenaean palace. In S. Deger-Jalkotzy and I.S. Lemos (Eds.), Ancient Greece: from the Mycenaean palaces to the age of Homer (pp. 7–52). Edinburgh Leventis Studies 3. Edinburgh University Press.
Yaworsky, P. M., & Codding, B. F. (2018). The ideal distribution of farmers: Explaining the Euro-American settlement of Utah. American Antiquity, 83(1), 75–90.
Acknowledgements
Duke University’s Faculty Research Grant partially supported this research. We would like to thank Brian Codding and Peter Yaworsky for advice on obtaining environmental data and making suitability calculations. We also appreciate the helpful comments of Daniel Bates, Ludomir Lozny, and three anonymous reviewers on this manuscript.
Funding
Partial financial support was received from Duke University (KAJ).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Informed Consent
This research does not involve human participants.
Conflict of Interest
The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary Information
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Jazwa, C.S., Jazwa, K.A. Resource Competition and Settlement Distribution in Bronze Age Greece. Hum Ecol 50, 399–418 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-022-00324-6
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-022-00324-6