Urban Network Resilience and Fragility

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Regional Settlement Networks Analysis: A Global Comparison" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Residential densities within the settlements of sedentary communities vary between about 1,000 p/ha and less than 10 p/ha. Some regional settlement networks consist predominantly of settlements with compact, high-density residence patterns while others are dominated by settlements with dispersed, low-density residence patterns. Compact settlement networks display substantial resilience. While individual settlements may fail the networks continue. By contrast, networks of settlements with dispersed occupation patterns tend to fragment after the demise of the major settlements. New networks form away from the former metropolitan heartland regions as can be seen following the ninth-century CE demise of the Classic Maya network and the fourteenth- to fifteenth-century CE demise of Angkorian empire network. The resilience of compact urban settlement networks has appeared to be normal and unproblematic. But now as the very different futures of networks of dispersed settlements are known the differing network outcomes require explanation. Once compact urbanism is present in a region its networks generally appear to be permanent. But what of the Harappan network? Conversely, the overlap of the Preclassic to the Classic Maya dispersed urban network may be of great significance for dispersed settlement networks. There are some implications for the future of present-day urban networks.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• Regional Settlement Networks Analysis: A Global Comparison

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 30931