Stigmergy in Comparative Settlement Choice and Palaeoenvironment Simulation

TL;DR

This study explores how early settlers might have chosen settlement locations in response to environmental challenges, using an interactive simulation to analyze decision patterns and the influence of stigmergy.

Contribution

It introduces a novel interactive tabletop simulation to investigate settlement decision-making and the role of stigmergy in spatial clustering during environmental adaptation.

Findings

Settlements tended to cluster near previous structures, indicating stigmergic behavior.

Participants' decisions improved over time, leading to higher scores.

The simulation provided insights into ancient settlement patterns and decision strategies.

Abstract

Decisions on settlement location in the face of climate change and coastal inundation may have resulted in success, survival or even catastrophic failure for early settlers in many parts of the world. In this study we investigate various questions related to how individuals respond to a palaeoenvironmental simulation, on an interactive tabletop device where participants have the opportunity to build a settlement on a coastal landscape, balancing safety and access to resources, including sea and terrestrial foodstuffs, whilst taking into consideration the threat of rising sea levels. The results of the study were analysed to consider whether decisions on settlement were predicated to be near to locations where previous structures were located, stigmergically, and whether later settler choice would fare better, and score higher, as time progressed. The proximity of settlements was investigated and the reasons for clustering were considered. The interactive simulation was exhibited to thousands of visitors at the 2012 Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition at the Europes Lost World exhibit. 347 participants contributed to the simulation, providing a sufficiently large sample of data for analysis.