 Hello everyone, so my title here to introduce you is part of my PhD research which is still in progress and It's going to be mostly about polydemographic research The aim of the my doctoral research is to contribute to the understanding of the social organization of the politic hunter-gatherer societies My reasons finds its roots in a paradox Existing polydemographic studies conclude that place-to-scene populations were characterized by a low demographic density and long-term stability The great part of the existing studies are based on the quantification of artifacts settlements as their geographical distribution or frequency and distribution of radiocarbon dates as well as paleo DNA There is a recurrence pointing out to environmental technological and biological constraints together with Actualistic assumptions in order to explain this demographic pattern This association is usually structured within the theoretical frame of Malthusian or Boserian arguments This is population growth depends on the availability of resources or depends on the technological development The first point to consider here is the interrelation between the mode of production and the human reproduction It's as it is not possible to study one without the other In principle place-to-scene hunter-gatherer societies in the best of the case had little control on the reproduction of natural resources Defining inevitably a strong dependence on resources availability If we consider that these populations followed a natural fertility It would seem that mostly mortality rate would have been in charge of Balancing the carrying capacity of the environment with the population's pressure But biochemical analysis do not seem to establish demographic bottlenecks to be a constant We are lacking of archaeological sources to assess demographic and fertility patterns In any book on demography We will define demographic growth rate as a combination of fertility and mortality as well as immigration and emigration movements To some extent we have mortality profiles, but we are missing the fertility profiles There is the possibility to find a source of reference of information and materials for comparison from contemporaneous hunter-fisher-gatherers However, social anthropology is very critical on this aspect in Wilson's words People living today who may be classified as foragers bear witness not only to their own lives But to those of prehistoric foragers as well That is not only That is not only are living people conceived to be fit models for the remote path But that remote path itself is safe to establish the parameters of life of these living people's unquote My methodology is not based on extrapolations or a critical analogies I am interested in finding observable patterns on their socio-economic Organization as is this for example from the Contemporary studies the observed gender division of labor and the the social dissimetry between men and women We also come with several demographic studies also from one temporary hunter-gatherers societies From which we learn that different mortality and also fertility rates exist and such data comes in contradiction with that of the poetic Studies this variability among pre-industrial populations cannot be explained only with technological or environmental factors No, physics or biological law alone can explain the demography nor the labor or production organization as they are Observe and actually when taking these two in combination what emerges is a contradiction in relation as we have mentioned before a Delicate balance between resources and population pressure from a Marxist point of view We understand that any society is constituted historically from the workforce around the labor Labor is the basic social activity that allows the continuity of a group within the main with the main objective to obtain products The society contains social strategies that assure the continuation of a specific society as it includes not only the mechanism of production But also the relation and processes for the subsistence and survival of the group According to this the mode of production of hunter-gatherer societies is characterized by a correspondence between workforce and social relations Natural mortality and migration movements can release demographic pressure But the biological capacity of human reproduction is still too high in the same manner a social organization of labor isn't questionable a Social regulation of human reproduction among poetic societies may be also be considered Reproduction is conditioned by the exposure to fertilization which is for its part conditioned by the relations between sexes Which is socially regulated in any existing human society By controlling the social relations the woman sexuality and fertility it's possible to regulate the fertility outcome of an entire Population the organization of labor would have represented the means through which the social relations and behavior were controlled The difference in the productive in the productive activities according to sex makes possible to relativize the value of the product obtained and By extension the value assigned to the person producing is This is production offers a mechanism by which social inequality is possible and lastly pleasant In other words, we may have here the long-term factor involved in the low demographic density and Long-term demographic stability from the place to see hunter-gatherers and this will be my main research question whether places in hunter-gatherers had social mechanisms or social norms which had an impact on demographic growth and by extension the emergence of social inequality As I mentioned our methodology is based on an interdisciplinary approach all variables and statistical case that we lack in the archaeological context We take from different sources of information including biological studies ethnographic studies and so on By combining all these sources we use a simulation program which simulates demographic processes Geographically we are working with several foraging groups including the co-assali from the northwest coast of North America The Yamuna and Selma from Fireland in South America The Yonu from North Australia the Khoisan from South Africa and the semen from Borneo in Southeast Asia While considering and taking into account ethnographic studies on others such hadza, Ache, Akta and so on The routine we follow is the identification of different social events Social practices social behavior which have an impact on the life course of people specifically to their exposure to fertilization The general pattern is as follows usually we find sex segregation at an early age Rites or ceremonies of passage for the transition into adulthood which initiates the individuals to be eligible for a union or marriage Therefore with in within the frame of the union starts the exposure to sexual intercourse and by extension then to conception After the formation of a union we find different possibilities on the one hand either the man or wife passes away On the other hand the union may be dissolved None of these two situations leave the surviving or the separate individuals out of the reproduction engine as they can Remedy and okay, they can remarry another spouse after a certain period of time Another possibility which follows a union is the formation of additional unions. This is found in a polygamous merit system Finally within the social frames of unions the probability of conception will depend on several social and biological variables In the case of an effective pregnancy a birth delivery as The birth delivery is we return to the starting point of the map also conditioned by social norms as is the case of infanticide As I mentioned before we work with a multi-agent based system Program which is developed by a colleague from Girona, Adria Villa Moreno The program simulates demographic scenarios and the different social and biological constraints taken from the different sources. I mentioned before Basically we have different input files which contain the different biological Context or laws we could mention the virtual community with the old individuals which are going to take part in the simulation in Capsules we have other biological laws which weight a bit of the Biological environment and finally the social norms we have collected from the sources this simulation program Works in what we could call steps So we ask the program how many steps we want to simulate and every step equals to a year So if we ask the simulation program to develop 300 steps That would mean we were going to get a DN a process of 300 years of demographic process at the end of the simulation We obtained different output files from where we can analyze the demographic process The different files are free start files extended start files parish book for Depending on use then we have different information which we can then work on with the xxl The stats file will look this way. Basically. It's a resume a detailed resume of the entire simulation We have all information of every step and so afterwards we can simulate different demographic Aspects as its growth growth rate for teacher rate multi-tiered and so on The extended sets is a detailed resume of the resultant virtual community. That's the one Resultant of the simulation and again, we can also simulate it model the specific details of the society we obtain and Finally the parish book is basically again a resume with some concrete Aspects of the individuals they have been through as this birth Marriage and murder or death As It's a multi-agent program each individual can act differently In each simulation as there is an environment which can develop differently That is why we need to simulate the same environment in different occasions just to see the variability within the same social context The program is still under development, but we have some interesting preliminary results here what you can observe is growth rate from almost three from three hundred years of demographic process this Specific context did not have any social normal is just biological rules such as maturation age life expectancy and basic birth spacing and what you can see is a cyclic Graph in which every 30 years the population decreases and then rapidly increases At the point where we incorporate some social norms as I mentioned before from the life course of individuals We have a better greater variability within the different scenarios as you can see in the screen For example the two at the bottom the light blue and gray They had the more restrictive Social rules which implied then this result of a low growth demographic growth rate Finally a very another interesting Detailed two point is what seems to be a magic fertility number independently of the simulations we have developed until now most of the women after productive lifespan they have Have at least eight children Another thing would be how many of those will survive Infantial mortality, but still it's very interesting this this number Another thing interesting is as I mentioned before this variability what you have here is different scenarios with different social norms on the one hand at the point where For example, the case D is the more relaxed scenario and then you have this large variability of the different results of the about 30 repetitions of the simulation while compared to the case E F and G which are shorter the variability is shorter As a result of the more restrictive social rules and then you can see also the tendency as you incorporate another social rule Which could be polygamous marriages or infanticide So this is a bit the effect resulting on the simulations of the different groups we have test until now As I mentioned before is still ongoing my research, but we do have some preliminary conclusions we can remark We have seen that as comparing enographical and historical resources Sources social norms affecting population growth are easily identified and after we tested them they happen a positive effect The specific social economic organization leads to a social inequality between men and women as I mentioned before due to their own specific social organization social economic organization Finally from the experiments we have until now in with our simulation program Population cycles emerge when there are no social norms applied While variability occurs at the point when we incorporate them and then within this different social scenarios The more or less restrictive they are the more or less variable the results happen to become and finally the relevance of this research is then Explaining the relevance of an ideological and a Mechanism which has to be developed in a in this historical context in order to keep these populations with stable demographic growth to not putting to risk the Development of the and continuity of the societies finally I want to also Thank to all the people and institutions behind my Doctoral research without which it would not be possible to have conducted all my research. Thank you for your attention