Malthusian assumptions, Boserupian response in

models of the transitions to agriculture ∗

Carsten Lemmen
Institut für Küstenforschung, Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, Max-Planck Straße 1,
21501 Geesthacht, Germany ([email protected])
arXiv:1108.2585v2 [q-bio.PE] 24 May 2012

Abstract. In the many transitions from foraging to agropastoralism it is debated whether the
primary drivers are innovations in technology or increases of population. The driver discussion
traditionally separates Malthusian (technology driven) from Boserupian (population driven)
theories. I present a numerical model of the transitions to agriculture and discuss this model
in the light of the population versus technology debate and in Boserup’s analytical frame-
work in development theory. Although my model is based on ecological—Neomalthusian—
principles, the coevolutionary positive feedback relationship between technology and popu-
lation results in a seemingly Boserupian response: innovation is greatest when population
pressure is highest. This outcome is not only visible in the theory-driven reduced model, but
is also present in a corresponding “real world” simulator which was tested against archaeolo-
gical data, demonstrating the relevance and validity of the coevolutionary model. The lesson
to be learned is that not all that acts Boserupian needs Boserup at its core.

1 Transitions to agriculture

The relationship between humans and their environment underwent a radical change during
the last 10,000 years: from mobile and small groups of foraging people to sedentary extens-
ive cultivators and on to high-density intensive agriculture modern society; these transitions
fundamentally turned the formerly predominantly passive human user of the environment into
an active component of the Earth system. The most striking global impact is only visible and
measurable during the last 150 years (Crutzen and Stoermer, 2000; Crutzen, 2002); much
earlier, however, the use of forest resources for metal smelting from early Roman times and
the medieval extensive agricultural system had already changed the landscape (Barker, 2011;
Kaplan et al., 2009); global climate effects of these early extensive cultivation and harvesting
practices are yet under debate (Ruddiman, 2003; Lemmen, 2010; Kaplan et al., 2011; Stocker
et al., 2011).

∗ To appear in: “Society, Nature and History: The Legacy of Ester Boserup”, Springer, Vienna

1
Transitions to agriculture occurred in almost every region of the world, earliest in China
and the Near East over 9000 years ago (Kuijt and Goring-morris, 2002; Londo et al., 2006),
and latest in Australia and Oceania with the arrival of Polynesian and European immigrants
few hundred years ago (Diamond and Bellwood, 2003). While each local transition can be
considered revolutionary, the many diverse mechanisms, environments, and cultural contexts
of each agricultural transition make it difficult to speak of the one ’Neolithic revolution’,
as the transition to farming and herding was termed by V. G. Childe almost a century ago
(Childe, 1925). The transitions from foraging to farming were not only one big step, but may
have consisted of intermediary stages: Bogaard (2005) looks at the transition in terms of the
land use system: she sees first inadvertent cultivation then horticulture then simple and then
advanced agriculture, while Boserup (1965) discriminates these stages by the management
practice ranging from forest, bush and short fallow to annual and multi cropping.
In contemporary hunting-gathering societies much less time has to be devoted to procur-
ing food from hunting and gathering opposed to agriculture and herding (e.g., Sahlins, 1972);
less labor is required for long fallow systems compared to intensive multi-cropping agricul-
ture(Boserup, 1965). So why farm? Different responses from archaeology (Barker, 2011),
demography (Turchin and Nefedov, 2009), historical economy (Weisdorf , 2005), and ecosys-
tem modeling (Wirtz and Lemmen, 2003) call upon processes such as social reorganization,
the value of leisure, changing resources, or coevolutionary thresholds.
The probably simplest relationship was proposed by Malthus (1798, p.11), namely that
more production sustains larger population. With larger population, more production is pos-
sible, thereby constituting a positive feedback loop, which ideally results in ever greater (geo-
metric) growth and productivity. That this is not the case in a world with finite resources was
expressed by Malthus (1798, p. 4) by stating that “Population, when unchecked, increases at
a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance
with numbers will show the immensity of the first power in comparison with the second”.
Malthus identified the need for positive and preventive checks to balance population increase
with the limited capacity of resources.
How does an increase in productivity come about? First and foremost, the input of more
labor increases productivity (Malthus, 1798, p. 11), subject to the constraints of finite re-
sources and diminishing returns. Where Malthus, however, focused on extensive productivity
increase, the intensification component of productivity increase was highlighted by Boserup
(1965). Investments in a more intensive production system would, however, require large addi-
tional labor, and the benefits of such investments were often small. To stimulate an investment
in more intensive agriculture, Boserup requires population pressure.
Both Malthus (1798, 1826) and Boserup (1965, 1981) concentrate on the role of labor (and
later division of labor and social/family organization) and innovations which increase area
productivity (like storage or tools, requiring relatively more labor for harvesting, building,
and tool processing). Both authors neglect the role of labor-independent innovation, or innov-
ations which increase both area and labor productivity; these are innovations in the resources
themselves, such as cultivation of higher-yielding grains or imported high yield varieties, or
their management such as water rights; this distinction may not be unambiguous for all in-
novations, it is used here conceptually. Labor-independent innovation can be stimulated by
diversity and density of a population, both of which are positively related to population size.

2
Already Darwin (1859, p. 156) wrote “The more diversified [..], by so much will they be bet-
ter enabled to seize on many and widely diversified places in the polity of nature”. Translated
into the realm of innovativity, Darwin’s “seizing of places”, or niche occupation, would be the
realization of technical and scientific opportunities. As for density as a stimulus of innovation,
it is aggregation which constitutes a motor of technological and cultural change (Smith, 1776;
Boyd and Richerson, 1995)1 .

2 Models of population, production, and innovation

In 1996, E. Boserup reflected on the problems arising from the differences in terminology and
methodology when comparing different models of development theories (Boserup, 1996). She
suggested a common framework to facilitate interdisciplinary cooperation based on six struc-
tures: Environment (E), Population (P), technology, occupational structure, family structure
and culture. In this framework, she then interpreted the major works of Adam Smith, Thomas
Malthus, Max Weber, Karl Marx, David Ricardo, and Neomalthusian thinking, as well as her
own view on different stages of the developmental process.
For many of the theories and models discussed by Boserup in this framework, the partition-
ing in six structures can be simplified by (a) aggregating technology and occupational structure
into a single entity technology (T ), and by (b) aggregating culture and family structure into
a single entity culture (C). Aggregating technology and occupational structure means that I
assume here that changes in technology are equivalent to changes in organization and that the
location of technological change is the occupational sector. By aggregating family structure
and culture I assume that values and social conventions penetrate from the society into the
family and are governed by similar dynamics. The reduced framework then consists of the
four compartments population, environment, technology, and culture (PETC, Figure 1).
In this PETC framework, the one referring to Malthus (1798) involves only population and
environment. Population growth exerts pressure on the environment, and failure to provide
adequate resources from the environment acts as a positive check on population through higher
mortality (Figure 1a). Technology does not play a role in this simplest Malthusian model2 .
Culture in the form of preventive checks—such as birth control—acts on population only in
later versions of his theory (Malthus, 1826). At its core remains “the dependent role he assigns
to population growth” (Marquette, 1997). D. Ricardo (1821) proposed that the incentive to
intensify and develop technologies comes from a stimulus in population pressure. The demand
for more land (E), however, leads to declining marginal benefits of and a negative feedback on
innovation (T ) due to high costs of renting the land (Figure 1b). In Ricardo’s work, population
is independent, and technology and environment are the dependent variables.
Population is also the driving factor in Boserup’s (1965; 1981) works. Of the six trans-
itions considered by Boserup (1996), five can be accommodated within my PETC framework
as a succession of population, environment, technology, and culture: foraging to crop produc-
tion, village development, Eastern hemisphere pastoralism, urbanization, and industrialization

1 Thisdoes not, however, give the reason for a particular choice of one innovation over another (Sober, 1992).
2 Malthus considered the increase of carrying capacity by autonomously occurring inventions (Lee, 1986), how-
ever, this was not discussed by Boserup (1996) in her model intercomparison.

3
(Figure 1c)3 . In all these transitions, population growth leads to pressure felt from the limited
environmental resources, which in turn stimulates technological and organizational change,
and later results in cultural changes evident in cults, social hierarchies, women’s status, and
status symbols. Within this group of five transitions, her model of village development, in
addition, has a direct population–technology link, and allows for a feedback of the land re-
sources on occupational structure (dotted lines in Figure 1c). Furthermore, her model of the
foraging to farming transition includes a feedback from culture to organizational structure (not
shown).

3 A combined model and ‘real’ world application

I suggest here a different model of population development taking the foraging to farming
transition as an example (Figure 1d). This model is a reduced form of the Global Land Use and
technological Evolution Simulator (GLUES, described below), which has been operationally
applied to a number of problems in archaeology and climate research (Kaplan et al., 2011;
Lemmen, 2010; Lemmen and Wirtz, 2012; Lemmen et al., 2011). The reduced model shares the
functional characteristics of the full model, but it is not spatially explicit and the biogeographic
and climate background is regarded as constant (see Appendix for equations).
In terms of the PETC framework, the dynamics between population, environment, techno-
logy and culture is the following (Figure 1d, cmp. Boserup 1996, p. 509).

1. P→ T→ P Population growth stimulates innovation by aggregation and diversity. In-

novations in, e.g., health care increase population;

2. P→ E → P Population growth uses ever more land for hunting and exerts pressure on
the game stock, higher population densities damage the environment, and food shortage
leads to reduced fertility (preventive check) or higher mortality (positive check). The
rising capacity of the environment supports higher population;

3. T→ E More intensive foraging or farming strategies damage the environment, while

efficiency gains lead to higher capacity of the environment;

4. T→ C Adoption of novel technologies induces changes in social structure where spe-

cialists and leaders or cults emerge;

5. C→ P Family and social structure change reproduction rates.

Richerson and Boyd (1998) claim that basically all models which are rooted in ecology are
Neomalthusian in essence, i.e., they can be characterized by a P→ T → E loop in Boserup’s
(1996) framework. This loop can be detected in my model, as well; in fact, historically it
developed from ecosystem models of tree stands or algal communities(Wirtz and Eckhardt,
1996). Unlike many other models, however, GLUES is based on coevolutionary dynamics of
technologies and population, and as such has no a priori information on whether there is a
3 Thesixth transition—Western European fertility decline—follows a different path as a succession of techno-
logy, environment, culture, and last population; it is not considered here.

4
a) Thomas Malthus b) David Ricardo

c) Ester Boserup d) this paper

P = Population T = Technological level and occupational structure

E = Environment C = Culture and family structure

Figure 1: Four compartment framework for the interrelationship between population, environ-
ment, technology, and culture. Four economic theories are contrasted: the essays on
the principles of population by T. Malthus (1798, 1826) (panel a, dotted line indic-
ates the revised essay including culture change); D. Ricardo (1821)’s principles of
economy (panel b); E. Boserup (1965, 1981)’s theories for five transitions explained
in Boserup (1996) (panel c, 1981 refinements shown as dotted lines); and the eco-
logical model proposed in this chapter. The framework is a simplification of the six
compartment framework originally proposed by Boserup (1996).

5
(Malthusian) “invention-pull view of population history” (Lee, 1986, p. 98), or whether popu-
lation is the (Boserupian) driver of development4 . Applications of GLUES show that there is
an emergent emancipation of population development from the environment with increasing
population and innovation (Lemmen and Wirtz, 2010, 2012; Lemmen et al., 2011).
GLUES mathematically resolves the dynamics of population density and three population-
averaged characteristic sociocultural traits: technology TA , share of agropastoral activities C,
and economic diversity TB . These are defined for preindustrial societies as follows:

1. Technology TA is a trait which describes the efficiency of food procurement—related to

both foraging and farming—and improvements in health care. In particular, technology
as a model describes the availability of tools, weapons, and transport or storage facilities.
It aggregates over various relevant characteristics of early societies and also represents
social aspects related to work organization and knowledge management. It quantifies
improved efficiency of subsistence, which is often connected to social and technological
modifications that run in parallel. An example is the technical and societal skill of
writing as a means for cultural storage and administration, with the latter acting as a
organizational lubricant for food procurement and its optimal allocation in space and
among social groups. TA is labour dependent.

2. A second model variable C represents the share of farming and herding activities, en-
compassing both animal husbandry and plant cultivation. It describes the allocation of
energy, time, or manpower to agropastoralism with respect to the total food sector.

3. Economic diversity TB resolves the number of different agropastoral economies avail-

able to a regional population. This trait is in the full model closely tied to regional
vegetation resources and climate constraints; in this reduced model, it denotes a labour-
independent technology. A larger economic diversity offering different niches for agri-
cultural or pastoral practices enhances the reliability of subsistence and the efficacy in
exploiting heterogeneous landscapes.

The temporal change of each of these characteristic traits follows the direction of increased
benefit for success (i.e. growth) of its associated population (Appendix equation 2); this
concept had been derived for genetic traits in the works of Fisher (1930), and was recently
more stringently formulated by Metz and colleagues (Metz et al., 1992; Kisdi and Geritz,
2010) as adaptive dynamics (AD). In AD, the population averaged value of a trait changes at
a rate which is proportional to the gradient of the fitness function evaluated at the mean trait
value. The AD approach was extended to functional traits of ecological communities (Wirtz
and Eckhardt, 1996; Merico et al., 2009), and was first applied to cultural traits of human
communities by Wirtz and Lemmen (2003).
The adaptive coevolution of the food production system {TA , TB ,C} and population P (Ap-
pendix equations 1–4), which is at the heart of this model’s implementation, had also been
found empirically by Boserup (1981, p. 15): “The close relationship which exists today
between population density and food production system is the result of two long-existing
4 See also Simon (1993) for a detailed discussion.

6
a) PET trajectories b) Innovativity vs. pressure

Figure 2: Trajectories of population P, environment E, and technologies TA , TB (panel a) and

phase diagram of innovation rate versus population pressure (panel b) from a simu-
lation with a simplified version of the Global Land Use and technological Evolution
Simulator. The trajectories describe the temporal evolution of population density,
capacity denoted as environment, a labour dependent technology TA , and a labour-
independent technology TB . Numbers identify the different stages of development
in the both diagrams. In the phase diagram b), the innovation rate, derived as the
cumulative change in TA + TB , is shown in relation to population pressure, calculated
as 1 − E + P.

processes of adaptation. On the one hand, population density has adapted to the natural condi-
tions for food production []; on the other hand, food supply systems have adapted to changes
in population density.”

4 Innovation in the transition to agriculture

The outcome of the coevolutionary model simulation with the reduced GLUES is shown in
Figure 2. I divided both the trajectories (temporal evolution of state variables, panel a) and the
the phase space (panel b) into six stages, which I discuss below.

1. Growth phase: Starting from a Malthusian perspective, and looking only at population
and environment (quantified here as the ecosystem capacity, i.e. the ratio of birth over
mortality terms in the growth rate equation 3), population grows towards its capacity
with diminishing returns as P approaches E; this first phase spans only a short period of
time but covers a large area in phase space;

2. Persistent innovation in technology TA and associated investments in tool making and

administration allow sustained slow growth of population P and alleviates the built-up

7
population pressure; in contrast to the growth phase, the phase space coverage is very
small while the temporal extent of this phase is large;
3. Transition phase: rapid innovation in a labour-independent technology TB (e.g. domest-
ication successes) leads to
4. Pressure relief, but induces also a change in culture (not shown);
5. Equilibration: Innovation slows but has led to a wider gap between P and E because of
the investments made in manufacturing and organization during the transition: accord-
ingly, population pressure increases more slowly and up to a lower value than in the
growth phase (1.).
6. Persistent innovation: corresponds to phase (2.) and is again characterized by persistent
innovation in technology TA and a slow population pressure relief.
What can be learned about the relationship between population pressure and innovativity
from Figure 2? (i) Innovation is greatest at high population pressure. (ii) In this model there
is always innovation, at no time is technology change negative. (iii) The relationship between
innovativity and population pressure changes profoundly during the foraging-farming trans-
ition; three different regimes can be identified: (i) a positive relationship where acceleration of
innovation corresponds to population pressure increases (phases 1., 2., 6.), (ii) a negative rela-
tionship with pressure relief during accelerating innovation (phase 3., 4.), and (iii) a negative
relationship with deceleration of innovativity at increasing pressure (phase 5.).
A superficial analysis would find that population pressure is the motor of innovation in this
example: population increase seemingly precedes the stepwise technological change (Fig-
ure 2a). Only a detailed look at the phase space (Figure 2b)—especially at the transition
phases 2. and 3.—shows that innovativity decelerates at very high population pressure and
that the largest innovation occurs slightly below the highest population pressure. In fact, the
driver in the transition depicted here is not population, but technology5 . Only the different co-
evolutionary time scales of population growth (fast) and innovation (slow) yield the seemingly
Boserupian, i.e., population driven, response.
The same mathematical model—plus spatial and biogeographic aspects—has been used to
successfully simulate the many transitions to agriculture in Neolithic Europe (Lemmen et al.,
2011), with good agreement with the radiocarbon record. Also there, the transitions appear
Boserupian with critical innovations occurring at high population pressure. If the numerical
analysis had not been available (and proved that this is in fact technology driven), such as it is
in the discretely sampled data from observations of technological change, one would have to
have come to the erroneous conclusion that this type of innovation was population driven.

5 Conclusion

I presented a reduced version of the Global Land Use and technological Evolution Simu-
lator, a numerical model which is capable of realistically simulating regional foraging-farming
5 There would be no evolution of T without P due to the coevolutionary definition of the system. The dynamics
of T , however, leads the dynamics of P at the foraging farming transition.

8
transitions worldwide. The simulated—and possibly also observed—transitions are seemingly
Boserupian, i.e., population driven: innovation is greatest when population pressure is high.
Analytical examination of the model, however, shows that technological change is the driver,
and that in the context of a simplified version of Boserup’s (1996) framework in development
theory the model should be classified as Neomalthusian. I thus demonstrated that Boserupian
appearance may be based on Malthusian assumptions; I caution not to infer too quickly a
Boserupian mechanism for an observed real world system when its dynamics appears to be
population pressure driven.

Appendix: the reduced GLUES model

A coevolutionary system of population P and characteristic traits X ∈ {TA , TB ,C} is defined

by the evolution equations
dP
= P·r (1)
dt
dX ∂r
= δX · , (2)
dt ∂X
where r denotes the specific growth rate of population P, and the δX are variability measures
for each X. Growth rate r is defined as
√
r = µ · (1 − ωTA ) · (1 − γ TA P) · SI − ρ · TA−1 · P, (3)

with coefficients µ, ρ, ω, γ. In this formulation, the positive term including food production
SI is modulated by√ labour loss for administration (−ωTA ) and by overexploitation of the
environment (−γ TA P). Food production depends on the cultural system C and available
technologies as follows:
p
SI = (1 −C) · (TA ) +C · TA · TB , (4)
where the left summand denotes foraging activities and the right summand agropastoral prac-
tice.
To produce the results for Figure 2, I assumed the following parameter values: µ = ρ =
0.004, ω = 0.04, γ = 0.12, δTA = 0.025, δTB = 0.9; a variable δC = C · (1 − C); and initial
values for P0 = 0.01, TA,0 = 1.0, TB,0 = 0.8, and C0 = 0.04.

Acknowledgments. This study was partly funded by the German National Science Found-
ation (DFG priority project 1266 Interdynamik) and by the PACES program of the Helmholtz
Gemeinschaft. The paper received great stimulus from discussions during the Ester Boserup
Conference 2010—A Centennial Tribute: Long-term trajectories in population, gender rela-
tions, land use, and the environment, November 15–17, 2010 in Vienna, Austria. I received
helpful comments from two anonymous reviewers. GLUES is free and open source software
and can be obtained from http://glues.sourceforge.net/.

9
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