We have a simulated land (see data for the map) called Rabbithole. We know from archaeological evidence that two distinct populations live in Rabbithole. One of them, the rabbit skinners, had a hunter-gatherer economy, while the other one, the poppy chewers, relied primarily on farming for their survival.

What archaeologists know about Rabbithole is that poppy chewers dispersed in this region and eventually led to the demise of the rabbit skinners culture. However, what they do not know is how exactly did this happen. Did the rabbit skinners promote the expansion of the poppy chewers by adopting their culture and subsistence economy? How was their growth rate compared to that of the poppy chewers? Did perhaps a conflict between the two populations led to the extinction and disappearance of the rabbit skinners?

Unfortunately, the acidic soils of Rabbithole do not provide an optimal context for the preservation of human remains. To date, very few human remains of poppy chewers have been recovered,but their level of preservation does not allow us to extract their DNA. Interestingly, some of these remains show evidence of violence, but the lack of remains from rabbit skinners does not allow us to determine whether these are episodic signs of violence, or evidence of systematic warfare either within poppy chewers communities or between poppy chewers and rabbit skinners.

But, why don't you watch Pop and Rab show you a bit about their cultural transmission processes!?

Our main goal is to reconstruct the relationship between the rabbit skinners and the poppy chewers, and the process that led to the transition to a farming economy in Rabbithole. In order to achieve this primary objective, we propose the following research questions:

RQ1. What was the relationship between the two groups? Was it peaceful or hostile?

RQ2. What was the population trajectory of each group?

RQ3. What was the rate of dispersal of poppy chewers?

You can try to answer one, two or all of them, or you can even propose questions of your own! The key is assessing how our methods work within a known environment!

This is where you can actually get your data, and this is how it works:

The dots you can see in the map are the currently known sites; by clicking on ‘bibliographic data’ you can download all the data that we have at the moment and by clicking on 'Maps' you will download a zip which contains a map and the paleoenvironmental model developed by Dr. Stones and Dr. Pants (basically another map with fitness values). You may have to work out your data a little bit, but that's just real life, isn't it?? This information will be the same for every participant.

However, you can also do your own surveys to complement your dataset! By clicking on the map you will see below the number of the patch you are surveying. You can select up to five more patches/grid squares for your own survey. Once you have decided which five additional patches you want to survey on, you can click on the survey button, which will open a google form. Fill it up with the required information and we will privately send the additional data to you.

Once one user (e-mail) has required five patches, we won’t send another five, so think well which ones you want to ask for. We advise to play a little bit with the common data before asking any additional patches. If different users from the same university/research group require the additional data, we will require confirmation that you are not working on the project together.

And we are on!!! Start downloading your data! But think well which additional patches you want,since you only have one shot!