Temporal Equivalence Principle: A Unified Resolution to the JWST High-Redshift Anomalies

JWST has revealed a set of high-redshift anomalies that appear disparate in detail but share a common structure: star formation efficiencies exceeding ΛCDM limits and anomalous stellar-to-dynamical mass ratios both appear preferentially in the deepest gravitational potentials, while overmassive black holes in Little Red Dots provide a separate compact-core stress test. This work tests whether that common pattern can arise from a single violation of the isochrony axiom. In the Temporal Equivalence Principle (TEP), a continuously screened two-metric Temporal Topology framework, proper time depends on environment in unscreened halos. Using a Cepheid-calibrated response prior derived from Paper 11's κ_Cep, transferred to the galaxy stellar-population sector through the phenomenological normalization K_gal, applied directly to the potential-linear Γ_t formula (externally calibrated response prior, with no JWST-specific refit), the framework quantitatively accounts for the leading excess under the TEP response mapping. The Little Red Dot branch is retained as an unresolved mass-model sensitivity diagnostic, not as a primary closure result. The strongest current direct test is a kinematic comparison using the JWST-SUSPENSE survey of massive quiescent galaxies at z = 1.2–2.3 (N = 15). A fundamental vulnerability of evaluating TEP photometrically is mass-proxy circularity, as Γ_t depends on the gravitational potential. By employing dynamically measured masses (M_dyn) from stellar velocity dispersions and spectral ages derived from absorption features, the SUSPENSE analysis tests a dynamical-potential predictor and photometric stellar mass side by side. The central comparison shows that Γ_t predicts spectral age more strongly than stellar mass, yielding ρ(Age, Γ_t | z) = +0.752 (p = 1.23 × 10^-3) compared to ρ(Age, M_* | z) = +0.493 (p = 0.062). Under joint control of the competing predictor and redshift, Γ_t retains a residual association with age, ρ(Age, Γ_t | M_*, z) = +0.653 (p = 8.24 × 10^-3), whereas stellar mass contributes no residual signal once Γ_t is controlled, ρ(Age, M_* | Γ_t, z) = +0.055 (p = 0.846). Propagating the published asymmetric uncertainties for all 15 galaxies preserves a positive Γ_t residual in 99.9% of Monte Carlo draws. The direct Steiger predictor-comparison remains non-significant (p = 0.148), so this branch is carried as a direct kinematic test with an explicit small-sample caveat rather than as one of the two primary large-sample lines. This one-sided residual structure supports the interpretation that galaxy evolution scales more closely with gravitational potential depth than with baryonic mass alone, and it materially narrows the photometric circularity objection. The primary large-sample JWST evidence comes from the photometric anomalies that motivated the theory, treated here as two primary empirical lines across three surveys (N = 4,726). A key model-discriminating result is the Uniformity Paradox: dust and accelerated evolution switch on selectively with potential depth (ρ = +0.62 at z > 8). Any standard-physics explanation that adjusts a time-uniform ingredient, such as enhanced AGB yields, would predict dust to become broadly ubiquitous or to follow star formation, rather than tracking gravitational depth. The effective-time coordinate organizes this dust signal better than raw cosmic time, passing a dedicated validation battery with ρ(t_eff, A_V | t_cosmic) = +0.600 (p = 5.0 × 10^-29). Similarly, the mass–sSFR relation at z > 7 shows a strong partial correlation with Γ_t (ρ = -0.49, p = 10^-18). The same mapping also relieves the benchmark stellar-mass-function and cosmic-SFRD excesses. Full CAMB Boltzmann integration remains consistent with Planck constraints (σ_8 within 0.1σ). The combination of the large-sample photometric lines, the direct kinematic comparison, and the structural selectivity of the Uniformity Paradox supports TEP as the most coherent presently available explanation for the early-universe anomalies considered here. Website: https://mlsmawfield.com/tep/jwstCode Availability: https://github.com/matthewsmawfield/TEP-JWST DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19000827 Keywords: Cosmology: early universe – Galaxies: high-redshift – Galaxies: evolution – Gravitation – Temporal Topology – Infrared: galaxies Open Science Statement: This work is a preprint and is open to community review, ideas, and collaboration. All materials required for full reproducibility—including data downloads, analysis scripts, code, and manuscripts—are open-source. Feedback and contributions to further test these results are welcome.