Modeling patterns of wealth disparity in predynastic Upper Egypt

The archaeological record shows that from ca. 4000 BC onwards, Neolithic farming communities in Upper Egypt underwent a process of increasing social complexity. This included a rise in wealth inequality and hierarchy, settlement agglomeration, and the development of complex cultural ideology, all leading eventually to the emergence of a unified territorial state encompassing the whole Nile Valley by ca. 3200-3100 (Wenke, 2009). Most recent work on state formation in predynastic Egypt acknowledges that this transformation occurred as a result of overlapping complex social, economic, geographic factors (Stevenson, 2016). However, scholars still struggle to adequately narrate and understand this process due to limitations of the archaeological record. Many of the traditional explanations by anthropologists to explain the emergence of political structures and rise of social complexity, such as outside invasion, population pressure, or competition over scarce resources, have been rejected by Egyptologists as inapplicable to the circumstances of predynastic Egypt (Savage, 2001). This study reports work in progress on an Agent-Based Model (ABM) that critically explores theories that have recently gained prominence in the study of Egyptian state formation. This study’s ABM focuses on wealth accumulation and loss in a simple agrarian society within an environment that simulates the Upper Egyptian landscape in ca. 4000 BC, when clear evidence of economic inequality amongst Upper Egyptian households can be observed in the archaeological record (Wenke, 2009). The question this ABM explores is how entrenched inequality emerged in the Nile Valley given abundant natural resources were available to sustain the population. Understanding the establishment of permanent, entrenched inequality is crucial for exploring the development of social complexity and hierarchy (Stevenson, 2016). Kemp (2006) compares the emergence of hierarchy and inequality in Neolithic Egypt to a Monopoly-like game. In his analogy, the “players” start with more or less equal standing, operating in an environment of unlimited agricultural potential. They compete by obtaining agricultural surpluses with the “advantage swinging first to one player and then to another” thanks to chance and personal decisions. This process continues until eventually one player gains an unsurmountable self-reinforcing advantage. This study’s ABM replicates Kemp’s conceptual model in computational form. The key research goal is not to prove or disprove Kemp’s theory but rather to clarify the assumptions and characteristics required in order for it to work in the simulated historical environment of Upper Egypt from ca. 4000 BC onwards. The model illustrates the conditions under which wealth disparity may or may not shift from household to household over time, dependent on a number of variables, especially agent personality.