@article {Froese2014Teotihuacan,
	title = {Can Government Be Self-Organized? A Mathematical Model of the Collective Social Organization of Ancient {Teotihuacan}, Central {Mexico}},
	journal = {PLoS ONE},
	volume = {9},
	number = {10},
	year = {2014},
	month = {10},
	pages = {e109966},
	publisher = {Public Library of Science},
	abstract = {<p>Teotihuacan was the first urban civilization of Mesoamerica and one of the largest of the ancient world. Following a tradition in archaeology to equate social complexity with centralized hierarchy, it is widely believed that the city{\textquoteright}s origin and growth was controlled by a lineage of powerful individuals. However, much data is indicative of a government of co-rulers, and artistic traditions expressed an egalitarian ideology. Yet this alternative keeps being marginalized because the problems of collective action make it difficult to conceive how such a coalition could have functioned in principle. We therefore devised a mathematical model of the city{\textquoteright}s hypothetical network of representatives as a formal proof of concept that widespread cooperation was realizable in a fully distributed manner. In the model, decisions become self-organized into globally optimal configurations even though local representatives behave and modify their relations in a rational and selfish manner. This self-optimization crucially depends on occasional communal interruptions of normal activity, and it is impeded when sections of the network are too independent. We relate these insights to theories about community-wide rituals at Teotihuacan and the city{\textquoteright}s eventual disintegration.</p>
},
	doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0109966},
	url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371\%2Fjournal.pone.0109966},
	author = {Froese, Tom and Gershenson, Carlos and Manzanilla, Linda R.}
}
