The foundation of larger and more permanent communities, and the cooperative nature of this process of sedentism, was one of the most consequential transitions in human history. Decades of archaeological research across the globe now indicate clearly that this process was not necessarily tied to a greater reliance on domesticated resources, nor was it generally linked to a cessation of individual or household mobility. For this reason, the process of establishing larger and denser networks of social interaction was not necessarily unidirectional, irreversible, nor driven strictly by resource availability. The process was highly social and the long-term sustainability of these denser social aggregations and networks co-occurred with the advent of new institutions and affiliations that often served to solidify the expanded interpersonal ties engendered by novel and more populated social contexts. Yet, consequentially, the institutions, modes of leadership, affiliations, and behaviors associated with settling down were markedly variable across time and space, with variance often tied to the hereditability, concentration, and distribution of the resources that sustained and financed these communities and their institutional components. Resources and power were distributed to different degrees and were often situational. Here, we highlight and endeavor to account for variability in the tempo and timing of this process, as well as the diverse paths that were taken in this key transformational episode in which the modes and scale of human cooperation often were reconfigured.