The Archaeology of Urban Landscapes

Abstract

Urban centers have inner and outer landscapes whose physical remains can be read as the materialization of social, political, economic, and ritual interactions. Inner landscapes are manifested in architecture and spatial organizations that configure relationships on the basis of economic status, ethnicity, occupation, age grade, and gender within the city. Outer landscapes are composed of the hinterlands on which urban centers depend for resources, including agricultural products and in-migrating laborers who seek economic and social opportunities. Urban-based elites reach deep into the countryside not only as a matter of political control, but also for investment of centralized resources into infrastructure such as canals, roads, and territorial borders. The monumental and household configurations of cities, expressed both at the heart of urban centers and in their countrysides, enable a distinct phenomenology of interaction mapped into daily experiences.

Ecology in an anthropogenic biosphere

“…Over time, as societies scaled up, the populations of some central places became the first cities, increasing in density, wealth, inequality, social organization, cultural accumulation, and importance in focusing and guiding subsistence exchange processes across regions (von Thu¨nen and Schumacher-Zarchlin 1875, Christaller 1933, Stewart 1947, Redman 1999, M. E. Smith 2004, Barbier 2010, Therborn 2011, Verburg et al 2011, Rivers et al 2013, Ortman et al 2014, M. L. Smith 2014, Ortman et al 2015. The density of cities in itself provides advantages through the economies of scale, increasing opportunities for wealth creation, cultural innovation, and social connectivity, while at the same time increasing demands for energy to sustain this concentration of resources and increasing potential for disease (Redman 1999, Bettencourt 2013, Ortman et al 2014.…”

“…The density of cities in itself provides advantages through the economies of scale, increasing opportunities for wealth creation, cultural innovation, and social connectivity, while at the same time increasing demands for energy to sustain this concentration of resources and increasing potential for disease (Redman 1999, Bettencourt 2013, Ortman et al 2014. As the opportunities provided by cities increase with scale, they ultimately begin to restructure the distribution of human populations, attracting rural immigrants in contemporary processes of urbanization that have shifted populations from countryside to city (Lambin et al 2001, Smith 2014. The sustained upscaling of societies is therefore associated with an enhancement of social centrality in structuring and concentrating the forces of sociocultural niche construction within landscapes and across regions and globally through the telecoupling of resource demand and migration (Grimm et al 2008, Bruckner et al 2012, Seto et al 2012.…”

From Rural to Urban: Archaeological Research in the Periphery of Huari, Ayacucho Valley, Peru

“…More importantly is that, following this interaction, the ceramics produced in the Ayacucho Valley became more sophisticated, colourful ( [39], 38) and better finished. Simultaneously, the Nasca ceramics show clear loss of sophistication 4 . As noted, there are suggestions indicating that some south coast residents perhaps migrated toward the Ayacucho Valley.…”

“…By their nature, urban centers are large and house populations in the thousands ( [2], 527-528; [3], 11; [4], 310-311), most of whom are nonkin related and whose main activity is distant from agriculture. Instead, urban centers are occupied by bureaucrats specialized in a variety of activities that include state administration, merchants, and craft specialists, in addition to military and religious personnel.…”

“…Additional important features of urban centers are that their residents are class divided and have different ethnic backgrounds. Ever since their initial establishment, cities continue thriving as an ever growing number of families arrive within their confines [4][5][6][7][8]. Archaeological research has shown that, in the distant past, cities arose for the first time only in a few regions ( [9], 400; [10]), western central South America being one of them [11][12][13].…”