Modelling massacres. The agent-based modelling of catastrophic events using skeletal data from archaeological excavations.

This article describes the agent-based modelling of catastrophic events using skeletal data from archaeological excavations with special regard to massacres and inter-personal violence. It is well-known, that the age and sex distributions of massacre sites and normal cemeteries formed over an extended period of use show drastic differences (Margerison & Knüsel 2002). Living populations and cemetery populations have different distributions of the average ages of the individuals living in the group/ interred in the cemetery. However, the problems of correctly ageing skeletal human remains and mixed contexts, in which both attritional and catastrophic influences can be found, require an analytical tool which allows researchers to try out and play through different scenarios. The Population & Cemetery Simulator (PCS) allows researchers to model massacres. The Neolithic massacre of Talheim and a possible Late Neolithic war grave in central Iberia are presented as examples.