Urbanism (Other Keyword)
76-100 (251 Records)
This is an abstract from the "New Work in Medieval Archaeology, Part 1: Landscapes, Food, and Health" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Provisioning played a critical role in the establishment of early medieval towns in northwestern Europe from the eighth through the tenth centuries CE. Zooarchaeology can reveal how the inhabitants of early medieval towns obtained meat and other animal products. Recent zooarchaeological research has revealed how the...
Formal Open Space and its Relationship to Governance in Premodern Cities (2016)
Formally defined open spaces in cities give people a designated forum for interaction and impact how common people perceive each other and their authority. There is a critical lack of understanding of the origin of these spaces in the earliest cities and their social contexts. I will examine a sample of premodern cities, including archaeologically and historically documented examples, to clarify why formal open spaces exist, both in ancient cities and modern ones. This project stems from...
Formal Open Space at Teotihuacan (2017)
The lack of large plazas at Teotihuacan has led archaeologists to claim that Teotihuacan was a city with very little public open space. There are, however, many smaller assembly areas distributed around the city. The Teotihuacan Mapping Project identified a large number of "plazas" in the city but the criteria were subjective and the data were never analyzed. I have filtered these data by applying a more formal definition of plaza than the initial field criteria used by the Mapping Project....
Formative Period Mesoamerican Cities and Low Density Urbanism (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Theorizing Prehistoric Large Low-Density Settlements beyond Urbanism and Other Conventional Classificatory Conventions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mesoamerica is one of only a handful of places in the ancient world where first-generation cities developed independently, and the lowland Maya cities of the Classic period are frequently cited as prime examples of low-density urbanism. Scholars now recognize that the...
Formative Urbanism in the Andean Lake Titicaca Basin (2016)
Archaeologists tend to apply the term ‘formative’ to phases of emergent complexity in a given world region. I critically engage the concept by honing in on what I term incipient urbanism as a core dimension of formative complexity. I draw on comparative data from across the Americas to situate formative complexity and incipient urbanism in the Andean Lake Titicaca basin. Archaeologists working in the region have known for years that by at least 800 BC, the region was home to multiple...
From compass to LiDAR: 40 years of mapping the Tarascan cities of the Malpaís of Zacapu, Northwestern Mexico. (2017)
Since their discovery in the late XIXth century, the large prehispanic urban settlements located close to the modern town of Zacapu (State of Michoacán, Mexico) have confronted the archaeologists to a great challenge: mapping, and understanding 200 hectares of dense and well preserved urban features founded on the Malpaís of Zacapu (a complex formed by ancient lava flows). Interpreted as premises of the Tarascan State (occupation 1250-1450 AD), these cities constitute an unprecedented regional...
From Liburnian to Ottoman: Unraveling Settlement History at Nadin-Gradina, Croatia (2017)
Ancient cityscapes with long occupational histories have great potential for reconstructing changes in social structure, spatial planning, political governance, identity, economy, environment, and climate. Recovering such information, however, poses many challenges, both human and financial. Archaeological deposits are often deeply buried and palimpsestic, representing a complex mixture of processes including collapse, partial abandonment, repurposing, and reoccupation. Yet, anthropological...
Geoarchaeology of Terraces and Building XVI at Kalavasos-Ayios Dhimitrios, Cyprus: Evidence for Site Formation and Settlement Activity (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Geoarchaeological research conducted in 2019-2020 as part of the Kalavasos and Maroni Built Environments (KAMBE) project focused on collecting multiscalar and high-resolution geoarchaeological data from the Late Bronze Age city of Kalavasos-Ayios Dhimitrios in south-central Cyprus. The aim of the geoarchaeological project is to determine the uses of space in...
Geophysical Studies in the Archaeological Site of Chicoloapan, Estado de Mexico (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Central Mexico after Teotihuacan: Everyday Life and the (Re)Making of Epiclassic Communities" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper we present integrated archaeological and prospection data from Chicoloapan, in the Estado de Mexico, generated by drone aerial photo, topographic survey, electric, magnetic, and georadar techniques. These data result from three years of research by the Proyecto Arqueológico...
GIS Analysis of Domestic Structures at the Late Moche Site of Galindo (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The site of Galindo was a major center of the Southern Moche Region during the Late Moche Period (600–900 A.D.) During this period, the Moche Valley center appears to have undergone socio-political change, resulting in a new monumental style. In order to investigate possible changes in the domestic sectors, a series of spatial analyses were completed on the...
GIS Analysis of the Road Network at the Postclassic Purépecha Site of Angamuco, Mexico (2018)
The growing adoption of LiDAR for archaeological analysis makes determining how ancient peoples modified, interacted and moved through the landscape more practical. Initial analysis of the LiDAR produced imagery covering the Postclassic (1000-1520 CE) Purépecha site of Angamuco, located in the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin of Michoacán, Mexico showed a highly urbanized multi-nucleated settlement sprawled across 26km2 of an ancient lava flow, with a complex urban structure. Here I discuss the results from...
Good Living in Hard Times: De-Urbanization and Personal Wealth in Nineteenth Century New Market, Maryland (2018)
New Market is a small community in Frederick County, Maryland, whose origins and early nineteenth century economic peak are tied to travel and trade, on the National Turnpike. Following the development of the B&O railroad during the mid-nineteenth century, use of the turnpike declined, subsequently shrinking the town’s economy. Excavations sponsored by the Maryland State Highways Administration have recovered datasets from two properties in New Market. Identified components include a late...
The Growth Trajectories of Mesoamerican Cities (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The growth trajectory of a city through time is responsive to both internal and external forces. The shapes of such trajectories provide information about a variety of social, political, and economic processes that operated in the past. We present and analyze data from both well-excavated cities and regional settlement surveys in Mesoamerica. The patterns we...
Habitar en el Irechequa Tzintzuntzani: Resultados preliminares del análisis lidar (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Ways to Do, Ways to Inhabit, Ways to Interact: An Archaeological View of Communities and Daily Life" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Como parte del proyecto “Prospección Arqueológica de Tzintzuntzan, Antigua Ciudad de Michoacán”, se analizó el paisaje norte de la cuenca del lago de Pátzcuaro para identificar la extensión de las modificaciones hechas en las laderas de los cerros, mediante la construcción de terrazas. A...
The Hamtramck Historic Spatial Archaeology Project: Integrating Archaeological Collections into Historical Spatial Data Infrastructures (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Hamtramck Historic Spatial Archaeology Project, launched in 2021, is an active digital, web-based public collaborative deep mapping project for the city of Hamtramck, an industrialized city completely surrounded by Detroit. The primary focus of the project is to create and launch a digital, web-based, publicly accessible deep map linking information...
Heartland of Cities: Surveys of Ancient Settlement and Land Use On the Central Floodplain at the Euphrates (1980)
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Hierakonpolis: A Case Study for an Early, Large Low-Occupation-Density Settlement from Egypt (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Theorizing Prehistoric Large Low-Density Settlements beyond Urbanism and Other Conventional Classificatory Conventions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Much attention has been drawn to the discovery of unusually large agglomerations, so-called “anomalous giants,” that appeared out of nothing at different times and in many parts of the world, suddenly and without any signs for a noticeable long-term trend that would...
High-Density Urban Living at Middle Bronze Age Kurd Qaburstan, Iraq (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In Upper Mesopotamia the Middle Bronze Age (2000 – 1600 B.C.E.) marked the regrowth of cities following the decline or collapse of cities at the end of the Early Bronze Age. Researchers question the degree of continuity in urban space across these periods and some have suggested that Middle Bronze Age cities were "hollow," containing relatively small built-up...
How to Describe Mongol Period Urbanism on the Mongolian Plateau (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology of Medieval Eurasian Steppe Urbanism" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The paper will introduce and discuss a set of themes deemed crucial for the understanding of settlement practices on the Mongolian plateau during the time of the Mongol Empire. The past 20 years witnessed a burgeoning of research endeavors regarding Mongol period settlement sites. Mongolian, Japanese, Russian, German, and US...
A Hunter-Gatherer-Fisher Urban Landscape in Prince Harbor, British, Columbia? (2016)
Urbanism is almost exclusively associated with agriculture, although hunter-gatherers sometimes have seasonal aggregations numbering in the thousands. This paper considers the evidence for an urban-like settlement on the northern Northwest Coast. By AD 1787, the villages of nine tribes of the Northern Tsimshian were concentrated a small area in Prince Rupert Harbour (PRH), British Columbia and had been so for centuries. Prior to ca. 1500 cal BP the Northern Tsimshian lived in villages of varying...
Hunting and Husbandry at the Ancient Mexican City, Teotihuacan (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Cultivating Cities: Perspectives from the New and Old Worlds on Wild Foods, Agriculture, and Urban Subsistence Economies" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mesoamerica is a unique example of a center of urban development that thrived in the absence of large domesticated animals. And, while turkeys and dogs have a long history of domestic production in Mesoamerica, at the metropolis of Teotihuacan, we lack clear evidence...
Impressions of an Early Urban Landscape: Interpreting a Bronze Age Ceramic Motif from ‘Amlah, Oman (2016)
This paper explores one prominent material correlate of an interconnected ancient Near Eastern world: a category of ceramic vessels termed incised greywares. Archaeological excavations have revealed a significant corpus of incised greyware vessels from across the mid-third millennium BC Near East; they are found in contexts as diverse as the ancient city of Susa to small, communal tombs across the Omani peninsula. The primary focus of this paper lies in investigating an assemblage of this...
Inequality, Urban Longevity, and Commoner Households at the Ancient Maya City of Aventura, Belize (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological studies of urbanism frequently seek to assess the factors which enable some cities to persist over the long-term while others fail after a few generations. This paper continues this line of inquiry by drawing on anthropological scholarship on inequality to examine the relationship between socioeconomic inequality and urban longevity. The paper...
An Inhabitant’s Perspective of Material Urban Structure at Chunchucmil (2018)
Maya urban archaeology is progressively addressing how to ‘people the past’, using data exploration techniques. The Chunchucmil map (Hutson and Magnoni 2017) offers an exemplary spatial data resource. Chunchucmil features here as a testing ground for showcasing the interpretive research advances enabled by Boundary Line Type (BLT) Mapping. BLT Mapping resulted from establishing a common frame of reference to make radical comparisons between Maya and contemporary urban patterns. The anticipation...
An Integrated Heavy-Lift Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and Remote Sensing Platform (2018)
We describe an integrated heavy-lift unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and remote sensing platform used to map archaeological features under the forest canopy in the northern Yucatán. We collaborated with Mobile Recon Systems Inc. to construct a UAV-based aerial mapping system that can be used to create high-resolution maps and 3D models of archaeological ruins, excavations, caves, and cenotes for small to medium-sized areas of the forested environment. The system integrates Light Detection and...