Computational modelling provides insight into the Roman economy Understanding past societies is what archaeologists do. At times with only a handful of ceramic fragments, they try to tell the story of a city. Luckily, modelling and computer simulations aid in reconstructing the past, putting the pieces back together. Society © Arthur Simoes, Shutterstock There remain many unanswered questions about the Roman economy. Did Roman traders have access to reliable commercial information from distant parts of the Empire? How important were social networks for structuring the flow of this information? “The Roman Empire offers one of the few historical cases where information about the functioning and performance of the economy can be traced for centuries,” notes Tom Brughmans, project coordinator of the EU-funded SIMREC project. Undertaken with the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, SIMREC succeeded in using computational simulation modelling to explore the impact of economic integration in the Roman Empire. Technology helps simulate the Roman economy According to Brughmans, “understanding how centuries-long economic growth and decline emerges from the day-to-day behaviour of individuals requires new methods and vast amounts of data.” There is a need for computer simulation techniques from complexity economics that represent these kinds of behaviours and allow simulating the Roman economy. Moreover, drawing on the currently more available large digitised open archaeological datasets (ceramics, sculpture, inscriptions) is essential to test under which conditions the theories that these models represent are plausible. A sensitivity analysis was performed for the research team’s model, testing the degree of Roman economic integration. The derived report confirmed that Roman traders needed access to reliable information on supply and demand from markets far away from them (i.e. a higher degree of integration seems plausible). Reconstructing past social networks sheds light on information flow The creation of kinship-based social networks from Palmyra (Roman site in the Syrian desert) constitutes an important original contribution to exploring how archaeological and historical information can be used together to reconstruct past social networks. Studying how information could flow over past social networks also helps. This should inspire more work that combines archaeological material culture evidence and historical written evidence to reconstruct past social networks. The project succeeded in exploring how to obtain empirical evidence on past social networks using inscriptions and material traits of funerary sculpture from Palmyra. Developing open access resources Maintaining the SIMREC project’s website with resources to encourage the use of simulation modelling among Roman archaeologists and historians is important. Computer coding-based techniques are not widely used in this community, so there is a need to assist archaeologists in becoming familiar with these computational methods. During SIMREC, the research team updated its practical tutorials, bibliography, and interactive explorable explanations. An online database was also created to facilitate the collection of highly detailed Roman road data, which can be used as a transport network layer in computational models of the Roman economy. This database is under development for a significant rehaul and, as such, is currently unavailable. However, there is an earlier version describing the aims and approach. Archaeologists should use agent-based simulation modelling more often to represent and test their theories of the long-term functioning of the Roman economy. “We should identify good archaeological evidence for reconstructing past Roman social networks to explore their structure and the extent to which social networks from almost 2 000 years ago differed from present-day social networks,” concludes Brughmans. Keywords SIMREC, Roman economy, past social networks, simulation, modelling, archaeology, economic integration
