Simulation Captures Evolution of Ancient Complex Societies

[rhoenix]

I thought Frigid might appreciate this.

The question of how human societies evolve from small groups to the huge, anonymous and complex societies of today has been answered mathematically, accurately matching the historical record on the emergence of complex states in the ancient world.

Intense warfare is the evolutionary driver of large complex societies, according to new research from a trans-disciplinary team at the University of Connecticut, the University of Exeter in England, and the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS). The study appears this week as an open-access article in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study's cultural evolutionary model predicts where and when the largest-scale complex societies arose in human history.

Simulated within a realistic landscape of the Afro-Eurasian landmass during 1,500 BCE to 1,500 CE, the mathematical model was tested against the historical record. During the time period, horse-related military innovations, such as chariots and cavalry, dominated warfare within Afro-Eurasia. Geography also mattered, as nomads living in the Eurasian Steppe influenced nearby agrarian societies, thereby spreading intense forms of offensive warfare out from the steppe belt.

The study focuses on the interaction of ecology and geography as well as the spread of military innovations and predicts that selection for ultra-social institutions that allow for cooperation in huge groups of genetically unrelated individuals and large-scale complex states, is greater where warfare is more intense.

While existing theories on why there is so much variation in the ability of different human populations to construct viable states are usually formulated verbally, by contrast, the authors' work leads to sharply defined quantitative predictions, which can be tested empirically.

The model-predicted spread of large-scale societies was very similar to the observed one; the model was able to explain two-thirds of the variation in determining the rise of large-scale societies.

"What's so exciting about this area of research is that instead of just telling stories or describing what occurred, we can now explain general historical patterns with quantitative accuracy. Explaining historical events helps us better understand the present, and ultimately may help us predict the future," said the study's co-author Sergey Gavrilets, NIMBioS director for scientific activities.

[Lys]

Now all we need to do if expand and refine these mathematical models to apply to diverse areas of human behaviour, then give them sufficient predictive qualities such that they can be projected into the future, and we shall have psychohistory!

[Batman]

I think that's a tad on the optimistic side. If memory serves one of the reasons psychohistory worked as well as it did was it could be applied to a technologically essentially stagnant society, without having to worry about the massive social impact radically new technologies (or even radically more efficient iterations of existing technology) might have.
As someone whose first PC ran MS DOS 5.0 and Win 3.1 and whose current PC, despite being hopelessly more powerful is probably not even on par with modern tablets, I think we can safely assume one thing the current excuse for a world we live in is not technologically stagnant.

[frigidmagi]

Intense warfare was the driver in some places. In other places (Egypt) warfare wouldn't have been as big a drive. Let me expand. Egypt is a narrow flood plain protected by harsh desert on both sides. It is hard (but not impossible!) to invade. As a result, it was the need to organize labor to effectively farm that drove civilization. One of the results of this was the centralization of ownership. Bluntly after Egypt was unified in the murky prehistory, all the land was owned by the King. Taxes were paid in produce and goods which he used to feed people. The Inca's had a similar system where the royal family was in charge of distributing goods.

By the time you get chariots and cavalry you already have a fairly organized civilization in some places. Hell in ancient Sumeria horse riding was looked down upon (it was recommended that kings ride mules or donkeys instead as that was more dignified). Still the computer model is right in this regard, the steppe tribes had no problems riding horses and their urban counterparts had to adapt or die. In fact those barbarians ended up driving alot of things, we abandoned togas and took up trousers because that's what barbarian cavalrymen wore for example (I am simplifying a little there).

[Batman]

How exactly is riding a mule or donkey more dignified than riding a horse? It apparently was else you wouldn't have brought it up, but that clashes rather severely with the setup I'm used to-that being mules and donkeys being the beasts of burden for the common folk while horses are for the gentry.

[frigidmagi]

How exactly is riding a mule or donkey more dignified than riding a horse? It apparently was else you wouldn't have brought it up, but that clashes rather severely with the setup I'm used to-that being mules and donkeys being the beasts of burden for the common folk while horses are for the gentry.

Because things change and the set up you're thinking of is only a thousand years old. What I'm talking about literally dates to the very dawn of recorded history. This is some Sargon level shit Bats.

Look the first people who really got a handle on horses were nomads, and those horses were small scrubby things. Not the large imposing monsters of today. Donkeys were domesticated first, because they're easier to feed are less fragile and frankly? Slower.

So the first image of horseriders to ancient humanity was a band of scruffy nomads on scruffy ponies coming out to steal your food and women. Nomadic Barbarians are never dignified. Add in that the king is the representative of his city, and thus a representative of civilization and all of it's works not the representative of some barely human, dirty, ignorant, mouth breathing raiders who can't even fight fair.

See how that works?

Now the horse was co-opted by the city dwellers fairly quickly all things considered because well... People who used horses won wars. People who win wars tend to be the ones who decide what's dignified and what's acceptable. Mainly because the people who disagreed with them are planted in ditches.