A simulated tribe

In the following picture you see how a small tribal community can be modelled. Different clusters can be identified, such as the one with the red node, where the nodes are closely connected. As you can see, some simulated people are well connected with each other, suggesting family ties within the larger community. Hence you can interpret the following figure as a small tribe composed of a number of dense connected families.

A tribal network

With social computational models we can study how one node, such as the red one, can influence the other nodes around it. The big question is what type of influences we want to model. You can imagine that if the red node represents someone carrying a dangerous virus picked up from an animal, the virus can easily spread through the family and wider tribe. However, when the red node represents a new idea or behaviour, it may not be accepted by the majority unless it is a really good idea.