Agent-Based Modeling in Tairona Chiefdoms of the Río Frío Basin, Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia (c. AD 100 to 1600) [Under Review]

This repository contains the code and the spatial data for a spatially explicit household agent-based model of Tairona settlement dynamics in a tropical mountain landscape. It asks whether regional settlement geometry can distinguish among bottom-up, mixed, and top-down organizational scenarios. The model couples household production, movement, fission, cooperation, taxation, soil degradation and recovery, and cumulative landscape investment on a 25 m operational landscape nested within 250 m analysis zones. Simulated trajectories run from AD 100 to 1600 and are compared with the recorded settlement record through pattern-oriented validation, factorial experiments under three ecological forcing regimes, and global parameter screening. The protocol is applied to three chronological periods in the Río Frío basin, Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, namely Neguanje (AD 100–700), Buritaca (AD 700–1000), and Tairona (AD 1000–1600).