Gabriel Wurzer is a computer scientist working on Agent-Based Simulation at Vienna University of Technology, in which field he is publishing, organizing workshops and holding lectures. Through cooperation with the Natural History Museum Vienna, he developed multiple models on prehistoric salt mining in the prehistoric mines of Hallstatt. Apart from Archaeology, he is also active in the field of Architectural planning, especially Hospital Simulation in the context of early design.


Kerstin Kowarik is an archaeologist working at the Natural History Museum Vienna specializing in the European Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. She is currently engaged with several research projects on the prehistoric salt mines of Hallstatt. Her research focuses on provisioning structures, organization of trade and human - environment interaction. She has a special interest in exploring the potential of computer based simulations for archaeological research, economic archaeology and environmental archaeology.


Hans Reschreiter is an archaeologist working at the Natural History Museum Vienna specializing in prehistoric crafts and technology as well as prehistoric mining. He is head of the archaeological excavations in the prehistoric salt mines of Hallstatt (Austria). His research focuses on working processes and mining technology. He has a special interest in prehistoric wood working, experimental archaeology and ethnoarchaeology.

A compilation of leading approaches used by practitioners in the field provides a rapid introduction and informs readers of the state of the art

A focus on "re-usable concepts" makes it a work that will remain up-to date even years after publication, and will thus be preferred to "state of the art snapshots"

Includes developments in archaeological ABM in graphical form

Includes supplementary material: [...]

Introduction.- Explaining the past with ABM: on modeling philosophy.- Modeling archaeology: origins of the artificial Anasazi Project and beyond.- Agent-based simulation in archaeology: a characterization.- Reproducibility.- Geosimulation: modeling spatial processes.- Large simulations and small societies: high performance computing for archaeological simulations.- Mining with agents: modeling prehistoric mining and prehistoric economy.- Modeling settlement rank-size fluctuations.- Understanding the iron age economy: sustainability of agricultural practices under stable population growth.- Simulating Patagonian territoriality in prehistory: space, frontiers and networks among hunter-gatherers.- How did sugarscape become a whole society model?.