Reviewing Urbanization and Deurbanization at Teotihuacan

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Urbanization is a global phenomenon with regional and temporal variations. By 2050, over two-thirds of the world’s population will live in cities. Nevertheless, there is also the opposite process - deurbanization and the emergence of abandoned urban areas. The ancient city of Teotihuacan offers us a research framework to understand both processes because we can trace urban early development and planning but also analyze collapse, abandonment, and ruralization. The primary aim of this contribution is to explore the possibility of discussing and comparing similarities and dissimilarities between both processes in order to explore common patterns. First, we are going to review the formation period of Teotihuacan settlement (1-250 CE) through the analysis of the architectural and material culture that has been recorded in dispersed literature (rescue excavations and archaeological projects). Additionally, we are going to explore the city’s decomposition after 550 CE. Thus, reviewing urbanization and deurbanization at Teotihuacan will give us hints into how these processes imprint the archaeological record and how comparable they are.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37337.0