Edinburgh Napier University

  Environmental factors that determine ecological niches, for
example natural boundaries formed by mountains, rivers,
deserts, contribute to the speciation among animals. Similar
factors have been proposed to be important for the emergence
of cultural and technical innovations in human populations in
the pre-state stages of societies. Here we describe a social
simulation aimed to investigate this issue. The simulation uses
two environmental features, mountain ridges and the fertility of
the land. The results show that indeed these environmental
factors matter for the emergence of successful innovative
populations. The defenses provided by mountain ridges
facilitate the emergence of many populations with moderately
successful innovations. The fertile lands are where the
populations with the most successful innovations emerge,
however in most cases these populations can trace their origins
to innovative populations emerging under the defense of
mountain ridges. This simulation study provides experimental
support for the relatively speculative theories about the
importance of environmental factors for the emergence of
cultural and technical innovations.