Intra-urban Density and Spatial Variation at Ancient Teotihuacan

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Teotihuacan: Multidisciplinary Research on Mesoamerica's Classic Metropolis" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The architectural map produced by René Millon’s Teotihuacan Mapping Project allows a fine-grained investigation of two features poorly understood for ancient cities. First, we use a kernel density analysis of residential structures to assess the differential population densities of the city. We find that there is considerable variation in local densities within the urban area, which also allows us to estimate the overall boundary of the site. Second, we quantify the way population density declines with distance from the center of the city. The rate of density decline with distance at Teotihuacan matches the decline rate in many contemporary cities. The explanation postulated by urban economists for density decline today (a balancing of rents and transportation costs) is not appropriate for early cities, because they lacked a real estate market. We therefore propose a more fundamental explanation for density decline, based on spatial patterning and minimization of effort, that applies to both modern and ancient cities. Our study provides insights into a variety of issues, including urban sprawl, internal demographic variation, and spatial inequality.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• Teotihuacan: Multidisciplinary Research on Mesoamerica's Classic Metropolis

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32481