Towards a Socio-Ecological Understanding of Agrarian-Based, Low-Density Urbanism in Early Tropical State Formations

Summary

Archaeological examination of the remains of the early tropical states in Central America and Asia have demonstrated that, although they exhibit a unique type of settlement pattern, they do represent large, sophisticated, and undoubtedly "urban" state formations. The unique urban footprint of these tropical states – in which settlement units of varying size and complexity are scattered across the landscape, and agricultural lands and green zones extend up to, and even into epicenters – has come to be referred to as "agrarian-based, low-density urbanism." We are just now beginning to explore, in detail, the nature and significance of this variety of urbanism, with particular emphasis on understanding: 1) Why it seems to characterize many of the earliest state formations to appear in the world’s tropical zones? 2) What it tells us about the nature of socio-economic and socio-political organization in these regions? 3) What specific resiliencies and vulnerabilities are associated with this urban footprint? and, 4) Whether we can use our archaeological knowledge of low-density urbanism in the past to inform some of the contemporary urban re-visioning projects that are currently being initiated in the tropics.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage