Stylistic change as a self-organized critical phenomenon: An archaeological study in complexity

Archaeologists can learn from models of evolution as a self- organized crit ical phenomenon. Self-organized critical systems are large, interactive sys tems that organized into a critical state where minor events can trigger ch ain reactions. Such systems demonstrate power-law distributions in the size of changes, or 'avalanches', that occur. The theory of self-organized crit icality is important in that it implies that the evolution of complex syste ms may be driven more by interactions between agents than by external event s of natural selection. Stylistic changes may be examples of avalanches of interconnected events. Evidence for self-organized criticality is shown for stylistic evolution in historical pottery styles from New York State and i s used to evaluate the nature of a prehistoric pottery typology from the So uthwest.