• Proportions
  between land use classes
• Stability
• Distributions
  of land use classes
• Centralization
  (decision-making)
• Specialization
  (lifestyles)

• Intensification
  (labor, resources)
• Development
  (productivity, institutions, craftsmanship)
• Wealth
  accumulation and distribution
• Resilience

Separate niches

Interaction is independent of land use

Overlapping niches

Stakeholders must cooperate or compete for land use

Farming

Herding

• Limited area
• Constant pressure to expand land use classes
• Alternancy between competitive and non-competitive periods
• Competitive situations resolved asymmetrically:
  herding stakeholders cannot retain the land while herds are away

• Strong bimodality
• Bias towards specialized farming economies

• Group dynamics
• Pairing
• Group management
• Pasture tenure

• Group dynamics:
  
  • Herding and farming can coexist in the same group
  • cooperation within, competition between
  • size x effectiveness = competitive strength
  • changing group allegiance

• Pairing:
  farming and herding may perform better by being affiliated to the same group

• Group management:
  group leadership presses individual stakeholders to collectively pursue a farming/herding ratio

• Pasture tenure:
  open versus restrictive.
  Restrictive access means that pastoral land is owned at the group level.

• Land use competition
  + open access =
  bias towards farming
• Group competition =
  larger groups
• Pairing has the smaller effect
• Management add to diversity, assuming group target is arbitrary
• Restrictive access greatly cancels the asymmetry caused by herding mobility

Single-class groups
farming groups or herding groups

• Spatial logistics
• Alliance dynamics
• Pasture tenure → Territorial marks

• Spatial logistics:
  Spatial relationships are relevant for most processes in the model.
  Effects following a general gradient function:

• Spatial logistics:
  
  • Group centres: reference points for all stakeholders in a group
  • Farming centres are fixed; herding centres adapt to group's land use
  • Farming centres move only when losing their central patch

• Alliance dynamics:
  
  • Emerging hierarchical structures
  • Production and tribute
  • Governance influence
  • Affinity
  • Alliance formation

• Alliance dynamics:
  
  • Emerging hierarchical structures
    Groups form alliances, which in turn can also form alliances (complex structures).
    Alliances centre is placed in the centre of the most influent group.
    Aliances traits depend on the traits of members and their respective wealth.

• Alliance dynamics:
  
  • Production and tribute
    Patches produce goods that sent to its group centre.
    Groups and alliances can accumulate wealth and send tribute to their alliance.
    Groups and alliances vary in "egoism", i.e. a value defining their tendency to keep their wealth.

• Alliance dynamics:
  
  • Governance influence
    The influence of groups or alliances over members depends on weath and distance to centre.
    Alliance influence also depends on the number of members.
    

• Alliance dynamics:
  
  • Affinity
    Groups have memory of their affinity to other groups.
    Affinity is improved when inside an alliance, decreases with competitive situations, and recovers neutrality with time.
    

• Alliance dynamics:
  
  • Alliance formation
    Autonomous groups and alliances with enough wealth choose among all possible alliances considering mutual influence and affinity.
    

• Territorial marks:
  Pasture tenure is revisited, given its importance in NMC.
  Gradient variation between Open and restrictive access.
  Herding groups signal their territory by modifying the landscape in and around their centre (territorial mark).
  Every time the centre moves, a new mark is placed.
  The mark effect decreases with distance and decay.

• Bias towards farming is even clearer, presumably because of spatial relations
• Territorial marking (signal) has a milder effect compared to 'restrictive access' (social norm)
• Social complexity, as defined in the model (alliance dynamics), has virtually no effect on the diversity of land use patterns.

• Distibution of farming centres is important:
  increased probability of big oasis if farming centres position is not constrained
• Marginalisation of herding groups:
  Herding Centre mobility cause them to be 'pushed' more easily

• Farming predominance linked to centralisation
• ... while herding predominance is associated with more and
  more autonomous groups/alliances

$$Autonomy index = {{numAutonomousEntities * numGroups} \over maxNumGroups^2}$$

$$Land use centralization index =$$
$${bigAutonomousEntityTerritory \over {(countAutonomousEntities * meanAutonomousEntityTerritory)}}$$