Urbanization in Ancient Tonga: The Tongatapu Low-Density Urban System

Summary

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.

The concept of low-density urbanization has been an important development in recognizing the diversity of past human settlements. However, the key challenge to studying low density urbanization with archaeological data, particularly in tropical zones, has been the difficulty in acquiring past built environment data. The introduction of lidar mapping has proven revolutionary in our understanding of low-density urbanization by capturing the data necessary to understand the core functions of settlements, highlighting the importance of social interactions in generating social and economic growth. In this paper we present an integrated approach that combines lidar survey and archaeological fieldwork with recent developments in settlement scaling and growth theory to understand the built environment of Tongatapu; the location of an archaic state whose influence spread across the southwest Pacific Ocean between the thirteenth and nineteenth centuries AD. Results indicate a long trajectory of settlement growth on Tongatapu with earth mounds constructed in the first millennium AD, and that the processes of urbanization began well before the development of an archaic state. The further use of quantitative approaches will provide new insights into the diversity and sustainability of Pacific societies and our understanding of the low-density urban phenomenon.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Theorizing Prehistoric Large Low-Density Settlements beyond Urbanism and Other Conventional Classificatory Conventions   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38983.0