Application Deadline: June 1st, 2018.
Location: Aix-Marseille University (Aix en Provence)
Duration: the fellowship is attributed for 2 years but the second year is conditioned by positive evaluation of the results after 1 year. Commencement in in September 2018
Employer: Aix-Marseille Université (“Laboratoire d’Excellence” Labex OT-Med, France)
Salary: 2000 to 2300€/month net (depending on experience). A bonus of 200€/month is attributed for the second year.
Contact person: Joël Guiot, guiot (at) cerege.fr
Position description
We are looking for a candidate for a post doctoral fellowship who will be part of a project (RDMed) devoted to analysing the adaptation of past societies and economies to their changing environment particularly with reference to the Mediterranean and North African areas. The candidate would be expected to collaborate in the development of models to explain how societies arrive at their collective “decisions” to change their activities, particularly those, which are directly related to the environment such as agriculture, using agent-based computational modelling (ABM). Ideally, we would like someone who also has some background in archaeology and who is familiar with the treatment of archaeological evidence. The type of approach which is of particular interest of us is that employed by Axtell in analysing the population growth and subsequent collapse of the Kenta Anastasia in the Long House Valley in the West of the U.S.A (REF at bottom of page). The succesful candidate will start from developments already done by D. Contreras on the NetLogo plaftform.
Position environment
RDMed is essentially an interdisciplinary project, involving, climatologists, archaeologists, economists, paleo-ecologists and agronomists. It is based on a consortium of about 30 scientists coming from french universities (Aix-Marseille, Nice, Strasbourg, Toulouse) and non french universities (Maryland, Yale, School of Human Evolutions and Social Change in Tucson). It is funded by the Initiative of Excellence AMIDEX (3-yr project RDMed).
Main participants: J. Guiot (paleoclimatology), A. Kirman (economics), A. Bondeau (agronomy), D. Contreras (archeology, modelling), D. Isoardi (archeology), L. Bernard (archeology, databases), S. van der Leeuw (archeology, modeling), K. Walsh (archeology), Nobuyuki Hanaki (economics, ABM).
Required competences
- Strong interest in modelling (landscapes, socioecosystems)
- Computer programming on NetLogo platform (or equivalent), R plateform
- Experience with archaeological data
- Geographical databases
- Open mind to the disciplines involved
REF: Axtell, R. L., Epstein, J. M., Dean, J. S., Gumerman, G. J., Swedlund, A. C., Harburger, J., et al. (2002). Population growth and collapse in a multiagent model of the Kayenta Anasazi in Long House Valley. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 99, 7275–9. doi:10.1073/pnas.092080799.