Emergence of Stable Societal Coordination in a Minimally Constrained Riverine Environment
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: We present a computational study examining whether stable societal coordination can emerge in the absence of predefined institutions, symbolic systems, or hierarchical organization. The modeled system represents an abstract riverine socio-ecological environment driven by seasonal energy fluxes and resource variability, inspired by early flood-based landscapes. The system evolves under minimal assumptions, incorporating population mobility, ecological feedback, and information persistence without imposing explicit social structures or optimization goals. Across large ensemble runs, the model consistently exhibits the spontaneous emergence of spatially localized, stable coordination centers characterized by low topology variance and sustained causal coherence under stochastic perturbations. Quantitative analysis demonstrates convergence toward a finite attractor regime, with persistent structures arising from environmental regularity and feedback alone. These results suggest that predictable ecological cycles can function as an information substrate capable of supporting early forms of social organization prior to monumentality, formal institutions, or symbolic encoding. The findings contribute to broader discussions on the physical and informational prerequisites for early societal emergence and highlight the role of environmental stability in shaping pre-institutional human coordination.
Author: Slawson, Drew
Language: English
Topic: Complex Systems and Dynamics
Subfield: Statistical and Nonlinear Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7117302159
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