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Settlement Archaeology: World-Wide Comparisons Author(s): Roland Fletcher Source: World Archaeology, Vol. 18, No.
1, Perspectives in World Archaeology (Jun., 1986), pp. 59-83 Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/124662 . Accessed: 14/04/2014 15:26
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Settlement
world-wide
Roland Fletcher
archaeology: comparisons
Introduction Site size and settlement sizes K.-C. Chang reviewed the field of Settlement Archaeology in 1968. Nearly twenty years later the amount of data available to archaeologists has increased immensely and we know a great deal more about some of the largest pre-industrial cities in the world. As one of the major topics of archaeological enquiry, with a world-wide relevance and orientation, a further assessment of its value and potential is deserved. This paper considers the relationship between site size and settlement size, presents data on maximum rates of increase in the size of these occupation areas and proposes a model of the behavioural factors which regulate their size and growth. We usually treat site size reports as if they are intercomparable. We refer to relative size very frequently in descriptive statements and in our explanations of culture change. Yet at the same time we incline to doubt the adequacy or accuracy of earlier reports and have doubts about the relationship between site size and settlement size. There is a disjuncture between our attitudes and our pragmatic use of the data. There is some divergence of opinion in archaeology about the relationship between site size and settlement size. The prior premise for the reconstruction of community size from site area must be that site area is a proper referent for settlement space. (Hassan 1982: 63-93). But we also recognise that site formation and post-depositional processes especially destruction, burial and redeposition can have a substantial effect on the visibility of occupation debris (Tolstoy and Fish 1975). Due to the effect of palimpsests, site areas, even when ascribed to one cultural period, do not usually result from one contemporaneous instant. Nor do the structures on them possess contemporaneity on the small scale of ethnographic time. The stock of residence units will tend to be time transgressive (Wilcox et al. 1981: 150-97) and would not all have been present and occupied at one time. Central issues If there is consistency in the shape of the distributions of site sizes from different regions World Archaeology Volume 18 No. 1 Perspectives in world archaeology ? R.K.P. 1986 0043-8243/86/1801-59 $ 1.50/1
60 Roland Fletcher all over the world across time it may be a derivative of taphonomic processes. If a similar consistency of size distributions also occurs for settlements then the pattern of site and settlement sizes may be i an artifact of data collection ii a statistical effect of the random occurrence of aggregates iii a derivative of cultural behaviour by the occupants of the settlement. These alternatives can be very simply assessed. i by checking to see if consistency occurs independently of local environment, the characteristics of the occupation areas and the attitudes of the archaeologists who collected the data. If consistency is present then the pattern is not an artifact of data collection or a taphonomic derivative because there are unlikely to be specific causal factors common to the various regions at different times. ii by checking that consistency occurs in the temporal succession of site size distributions. If there are world-wide consistent rates of change and the various size ranges and rates of change have a simple scaled interrelationship, this suggests that the effect is not merely statistical. A purely statistical effect should be invariant with time and could not therefore generate consistent trajectories of growth and change. Nor is it probable that the same trajectories and rates of change, occurring in different regions at different times, would be a random product. An inter-regional consistency in site and settlement of size distributionsand time pattern should therefore derive from the general characteristics cultural behaviour in the communities which created the sites. On this basis site size would broadly correlate with the size of the settlement which produced the site. Nature of the data The allocation of occupation areas to a period of time produces a statement about a 'through-put' sample (Marcus 1976: 80) and tells us about the probability of sizes occurring over a span of time. It does not directly tell us that such a distribution existed at any one point in time. Even in one region an ethnographic, contemporaneous sample need not have the same size distribution of smaller settlements as a sample of archaeological sites (McIntosh and McIntosh 1980: 407). Sizes of occupation areas from a period of time provide a probability statement about the likelihood of occurrence of settlement or site sizes. Most archaeological reports will tend to refer to relatively recognisable sites. The cases are likely to be biased toward the more substantial and compact sites rather than dispersed, low density occupation areas. In general therefore this discussion is about compact sites and the patterns which are recognisable are a characteristic of distinct, definable occupation areas. This is important when we later consider the more scattered and nebulous aggregates of occupation debris which are produced by low density dispersed residence. Throughout the paper I will refer to the gross distinction between compact and
Settlementarchaeology 61 dispersed occupation areas. The differentiation is usual in the discipline, broadly distinguishing between places like a Mesopotamian tell site or a European 18th century AD town and the scattered occupation of a Classic Maya settlement like Tikal (Haviland 1970) or a low density industrial settlement aggregate like the East Coast megalopolis of the USA (Hall 1971: 178-218). While the difference is not absolute and is not always easy to recognise archaeologically it does none-the-less help to specify two broadly different, alternative residence arrangements. In any region or for any class of occupation area the site sizes at the larger end of the scale will usually be easier to study than smaller ones. The potential sample of small occupation areas is enormous and the data may be both hard to find and time consuming to obtain. We can generally expect larger sites to be easier to see. There also tend to be fewer large occupation areas, reducing the task of data collection and analysis. We may, however, be underestimating the number of large sites in a region. Tolstoy and Fish (1975: 97-8) argue that the two small sites which were reported at Coapexco in the Mexico Basin, are parts of one larger site of 46 ha. The site of Agade illustrates by exception that a very large site will usually be visible. It is unusual because, despite claims to the contrary (Weiss 1975), Agade is currently considered to be the only Imperial capital of the 4th to 1st millenium B.C. in Mesopotamia whose location is still unrecognised. Archaeological, historic and ethnographic data can be used to study the probability of occurrence of particular sizes of compact, relatively large settlements or sites in any period or region. Data presentation A presentation is used which emphasises the larger site sizes and does not purport to provide an exact description of the number of small sites. There should be a high frequency of occurrence of site sizes in the first class interval of the histogram because the mechanics of human behaviour produce a majority of very small occupation areas. Their occurrence is assumed in the presentation, whether or not it is actually reported from the field. A convention is applied that the number of examples in the first class interval exceeds the frequency range on the histograms. No comment will be made about the frequency of these small sites. Parsimonious data collection and analysis is assisted by this policy because attention can be directed to those parts of the distribution where inter-regional and temporal differences are likely to show up more readily. The use of standard class intervals and standard size ranges for the histograms enables cross comparison both for areas of similar size and for those of very different sizes. Visual intercomparability is provided by using size ranges which are varied by a constant multiple (Figs 1-4, 8-10). This allows us to see whether a similar type of distribution is occurring for all ranges of site and settlement size. Sources All the areas used in the analysis are reported site and settlement sizes or have been obtained from published plans. The data come from systematic surveys and grab samples.
62
Roland Fletcher
My concern is whether or not there is any consistency in the available reports. Regions and periods have been selected for which substantial amounts of data are available or because they are required to check on specific issues. For example, regional examples have been chosen to illustrate the distributions both for settlement systems with long term, stable maximum sizes of occupation area such as Europe between the 5th and 1st millennia B.C. and those in which rapid change occurred, as in Europe during the 19th century A.D. The information comes from a diversity of sources and contexts with different environmental factors affecting site visibility, and different kinds of materials and cultural debris marking the extent of the site. The supporting economic systems are varied. Occupied settlements and archaeological sites are used.
Distributions and rates of change Site size distributions We can predict what we should expect from distributions of site area if they somehow correspond to the distribution of settlement sizes and relate to cultural processes more than to processes of site deposition and destruction which are independent of the cultural processes of community life. From the biological sciences it appears that distributions of a 'hollow curve' type (Williams 1964: 3) are to be expected for aggregations of various kinds whether they are colonies of mealy bugs or numbers of individuals per species (Williams 1964) or entity sizes in Eltonian ecological pyramids (Elton 1946; Cousins 1985). Similar distribution forms occur in very different classes of data. From experience we expect that small entities will be numerous and medium sized ones relatively common. There will be few large cases and very large examples will be rare. The likelihood of a system producing large entities or aggregates is low. The general operational constraints of competition (Williams 1964: 1-4), information transmission and energy supply limit their occurrence. Given the small samples available we should not expect a definitive 'hollow curve' for all the distributions. Rather we need to consider the frequency of the site and settlement sizes within the broad classes of medium, large and very large. In the specific regional samples of Fig. 1 the expected pattern is present though there is a gap in the medium
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Settlementarchaeology 63 range sizes in S.W. Asia 10,000-8300 b.c. The smaller end of the medium sized range is well represented in that region and as expected there are fewer large cases, though there are two very large sites. In Fig. 2 the medium range is well represented but the rarer classes of larger site are generally absent. The beginning of the 'hollow curve' is present and is equivalent to the lower medium range for the sites of sedentary communities (Fig. 3). For the sedentary examples similar distributions occur for long term stable regions and for regions where marked settlement size increase was about to occur as in Mesopotamia
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Figure 3 Sedentary communities. Archaeological sites, 10 to 150 ha. Medium <50 ha. Large < 100 ha. Very Large < 150 ha.
64 Roland Fletcher and Mesoamerica. The details of this trajectory will be discussed below (Fig. 5, 6). In Fig. 4 it is again apparent'that while the absolute numbers of settlements may vary, the size distributions are as expected both in Europe where a major, indigenous transformation in maximum settlement size was about to occur and in the Indian subcontinent where externally triggered, substantial size changes were due within a century.
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For the three plotted size range scales the distributions are generally similar in form. Excluding the first class interval most examples are concentrated in the 2nd and 3rd class intervals. Overall there is a marked decrease in frequency from the second to the sixth class interval. A few examples may exceed the sixth class interval but are relatively rare even in a big sample such as the Indian 1881 census. As the sample sizes (n) increase the 'lhollow curve' distribution becomes more apparent. Few sites or settlements exceed either 0.5 ha, 50 ha or 50 sq km on their respective plotted ranges. The broad similarity between different regions and different periods suggests that the consistency is not a derivative of taphonomic processes. No taphonomic process is likely to generate similar sizes of fragmentary sites in different environments and taphonomic processes cannot have affected the ethnographic and recent historic cases. The consistencies cannot be a derivative of either the environment or economic factors or the material composition of sites because these variables differ enormously for the various cases. Resource supply does, however, seem to have some effect on the frequency of the large sizes within the plotted ranges (Fig. 2, 3). The similarities cannot be explained as an artifact of data collection. Number bias or rounding of figures will not suffice since this would tend to produce concentration on particular numbers not a 'less than a given number' effect. Since the figures were collected and reported in Imperial, metric and other units such as dunams no consistency in measurement can explain the distribution pattern. It is unlikely that we are seeing the effect of the prior knowledge of other site sizes. In many cases the various site sizes were collected over long periods of time by different researchers who knew little or nothing about other regions. Some of the plotted measurements come from plans whose areas had not previously been calculated. Only if one could show that researchers were deliberately or tacitly reporting sizes in some relationship with their prior knowledge of available size reports would the effect be due to observer bias.
Settlementarchaeology 65 Given these points we must envisage that cultural factors predominate at this scale of patterning in the data. The 'hollow curve' distribution type occurs for long periods as an apparently stable state or is present just before a major change in settlement size. This suggests that the form may represent a mature state which either stabilises, or is required for transformation toward the same mature distribution form but at a much larger size range. Because we are looking at 'through-put' samples, predictions can be made that site and settlement size growth will also conform to this distribution. More and more small sites should be persistently produced. With an increase in the occurrence of medium sized occupation areas, larger examples should start to appear with very large sites occurring at random. Growth through the lower third of the plotted size range should be relatively rapid but slow down markedly as the fourth class interval is attained. There should be a consistent temporal pattern to the growth of the distributions and to the rate of increase for different sizes of occupation area. This would indicate that the distribution form and the way it changes is a function of some general characteristic of human community behaviour whose effects are expressed on a large time scale. A random statistical process would not be sufficient to explain their presence. Time distribution of site size Size increase has not occurred at either a steady or a constant rate over the past two million years. Long periods of stability in average and maximum site and settlement size have been punctuated by brief periods of marked size increase. This punctuation is imposed upon a general trend toward more rapid size increase as occupation areas become larger. Bigger sites and settlements have tended to grow faster than small ones. If there are any temporal consistencies these should show up in the three great transformations in settlement form and organisation which we conventionally recognise as the development of sedentary communities, the initial formation of urban settlements and the Industrial Revolution. All involved substantial increases in site/settlement size. For each we can assess the pattern of antecedent growth and the rates and magnitude of the major size changes. We can first look at changes in regional site size distributions. By looking in each region at the form of the distributions over time we can find out whether there is any consistent increase in the size of occupation areas just before a major size transformation (Fig. 5). The distributions have changed in a very similar way, with a gradual increase in the frequency of occurrence of examples in the medium to large range. Very large examples in any given size range are rare during this stage of growth. The maximum settlement/site sizes successively approached and exceeded approximately 1.5 ha (Fig. 5i), 100 to 150 ha (Fig. 5ii, iv) and about 150 sq km (Fig. 5v). The maximum site/settlement sizes prior to each successive transformation have increased by a multiple of about 100 but cannot be precisely specified. The magnitude of change is not an artifact of data presentation. The archaeological periods used were defined by many different researchers on criteria other than site size. Furthermore we can check whether any size values intermediate to the ones proposed have an equivalent inter-regional consistent status by looking at the maximum rates of
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Settlementarchaeology
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growth during each great transformation to check whether any other site or settlement sizes have been barriers to growth. The specific size trajectories for sites and settlements during the great transformations can be looked at in more detail to compare the sizes from which very rapid growth commenced and the rate at which those increases occurred (Fig. 6). The take-off phase has two stages, an initial rapid growth followed by an abrupt transformation in site/settlement size (Fig. 7). In S.W. Asia (Fig. 6i) the initial growth may perhaps be indicated by Kharaneh IV with an area of 2 ha in the period 14 to 10,000 B.C. (Garrard and Price 1975: 86). The second stage of growth is the only trajectory which is clearly visible on the time scale of Fig. 6i. On Fig. 6ii-iv it commences from about 3 sq km and about 300 sq km on Fig. 6v. These sizes were not, however, limits on growth for settlements on the slower trajectory. China in the Ilth to 3rd centuries B.C. (Chang 1977: 302-50), and the Mesoamerican settlements of Monte Alban (Blanton 1978), Tula (Diehl 1983: 59) and Tenochtitlan-Tlatelolco (Calnek 1972: 108) provide sufficient examples in excess of 5 sq km. After the Industrial Revolution Paris exceeded 600 sq km in the 1970s A.D. (Hall 1971: 59-63). In the second stage the rate of growth for each successive transformation increases by a multiple of about 1000. The approximate maximum rates of growth were 0.5 ha per century during the development of sedentary communities (Fig. 6i), 500 ha (5 sq km) per century for the growth of urban settlements (Fig. 6ii-iv) and 5000 sq km per century (Fig. 6v) during the Industrial Revolution. The trajectories pass through sizes of 5 to 15 ha (Fig. 6i), 5 to 15 sq km (Fig. 6ii-iv) and 500 to 1500 sq km (Fig. 6v). Each major size increase was about 100 times larger than its predecessor. Mesopotamia lacked the second stage rapid 'take-off' which occurred in China, Mesoamerica, Peru. As in the other regions there was an increase to an area of about 4-5 sq km for Uruk, but greater maximum areas were only attained at a relatively slow rate. The maximum extent of Babylon in 430 B.C. was about 10 sq km (Wetzel 1969: Taf. 1) more than 2500 years after the initial growth of Uruk. In Egypt the size of Memphis is uncertain in the Old Kingdom (Kemp 1977: 192-6) but is unlikely to have exceeded 1 to 2 sq km given the size of the tell. Mohenjo Daro and Harappa in the Indus Valley are usually given sizes far less than 1 sq km (Jansen 1979: 299, 301) but may have been a little larger while Mughal (1982: 92) reports that Ganweriwala has an area of 80-90 ha (0.8-0.9 sq km). The two stage 'take-off' trajectory is not deterministically inevitable. The maximum rate of increase in the second stage cannot therefore be an optimum trajectory but must indicate the conformity of settlement growth to an operational parameter of some kind. During the stage of abrupt growth, areas of 10 ha (Fig. 6i), 10 sq km (Fig. 6ii-iv) and 1000 sq km (Fig. 6v) were swiftly attained once the growth began. There is no indication that these size multiples are in any way markers for a limit on settlement growth. These size values are not maxima for long periods of time nor do they mark major alterations in the rate of site/settlement growth. Not only are the maximum take-off trajectories similar, we can also see that the pattern of gradual growth (Fig. 5) which leads up to those spectacular increases is also broadly similar across different regions for different magnitudes of site/settlement size. A statistical explanation will not suffice since the probability of such consistency being
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Settlementarchaeology 69
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random is diminishingly small. As already concluded the relative size of the successive transformations is not an artifact of data collection, number bias and the rounding of figures or a product of data presentation, otherwise all the metric 10 multiples would be 'take-off values and this is clearly not the case. Implications Site areas of 1-1.5 ha, 100-150 ha and about 100 sq km seem to have some significance as indicators of constraints on cultural processes in compact occupation areas. These site and settlement sizes have generally not been exceeded for long periods of time. The maximum size of the great compact pre-industrial cities was about 100 sq km (Fletcher 1981) for nearly a thousand years prior to 1850 A.D. The European prehistoric samples (Fig. 3) indicate that 100 ha was approximately the maximum site size for four millennia. This needs to be checked in other regions. A 1 ha limit can be tentatively proposed for which the European Upper and Middle Palaeolithic would be an ideal test case. Konigsaue (Mania and Toepfer 1973: 58-116), Solutre (Arcelin 1890: 300) and the period components of Solvieux (Gaussen 1980: 58-99) will be critical, with sizes at or
70
Roland Fletcher
near 1 ha. In the Nile Valley the sites do not exceed 1.5 ha in the Terminal and Epi. palaeolithic between 23000 and 8000 b.c. A single Qadan site (Hassan 1982: 88) is over 10 ha in extent but it is deflated. There are taphonomic problems with the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic sites which have maximum areas in excess of the later sites (Hassan 1979: 444-5). In the Azraq region, Garrard and Price (1975: 89-90) report several Lower and Middle Palaeolithic sites of more than 3 ha. Further taphonomic research is needed to find out if the proposed 1-2 ha limit is being masked by deflation and redeposition. The mature distributions appear to be the form which will be attained between each successive size constraint. Each transformation should therefore lead to the eventual formation of a new mature distribution. The rate at which this occurs will be informative about the process involved. Conclusions The three great transformations are apparently related to each other in a relatively simple fashion, expressed in order of magnitude increases of about 100 in the successive sizes of sites and settlements and a factor of about a 1000 increase for the change in the rate of abrupt growth in a major take-off. The degree of consistency suggests that an explanation should be sought in terms of a behavioural process common to all communities. We are recognising a macro-cultural phenomenon rather than the microcultural processes which are the proper concern of history and the social sciences. The archaeological record is essential for this analysis and a new scale of behavioural explanation is required (Bailey 1983: 180-6; Fletcher 1981: 117--21).
Explanation and issues Interaction and communication: a methodological uniformitarian model The equivalence of the trajectories and the consistent changes of magnitude for each major size transformation indicate that the same basic processes are involved, which need to be expressed in the same terms for all the ranges of site/settlement size. From a more detailed assessment of the urban changes of the Industrial Revolution (Fletcher 1981: 112-17) I have suggested that interaction and communication play a crucial role in constraining settlement size and are an ethological fundamental of community life. The proposed general model is that the successive transformations are contingent on the constraints inherent in any assemblage of material entities which is used to manage interaction and communication within a settlement (op cit.: 116-20). The mature distribution form is therefore an index of the degree of communication/interaction difficulty associated with a given assemblage in settlements of different sizes. The distributions are not a direct referent for community size because they represent a 'through-put' sample not a sample on an ethnographic timescale. Nor is there a close or precise world-wide correlation between settlement size and community size (op cit.: 120-1). The range of variation is considerable even for compact settlements.
Settlementarchaeology 71 Different assemblages should be prerequisites for each of the major transformations from one mature distribution state to another. The rates of growth and the range of site/settlement sizes between each successive transformation would be an indicator of the degree to which a new assemblage offers potential for change. The major size changes should be interrelated by a simple scaling of magnitude. New interaction/communication assemblage will be preferentially selected in large compact settlements where they provide a way of coping with the magnitude of the problems generated by the use of the previous system (op cit.: 116-17). Economic change cannot be the primary explanation for the start of the great transformations. Although the supply of resources will affect the size of the community which can be supported this is not sufficient to explain the consistencies in sites and settlement size, because there is no tight correlation between settlement size and community size. According to this model economic change may be necessary for sustained growth but not as the trigger for the initial stage of take-off. These considerations should be distinguished in any enquiry about settlement growth.
Proposed distributions and trajectoriesfor compact occupation areas There appear to be at least three mature site settlement size distributions. Each mature state is characterised by a range within which most of the sizes occur and by an estimated, persistent, maximum size. The latter can only be approximations. There are very few large examples in each mature distribution. For instance in the Old World in the 5000 years from the early urban transformation in Mesopotamia to the Industrial Revolution there were probably about twenty compact settlements which approached sizes of 100 sq km. Sedentary communities use the entire range of possible sizes and residential densities (op. cit.: 100). Mobile and semi-mobile communities predominantly use the ranges up to 1 ha and up to 100 ha. The latter, especially in the larger settlements can apparently only operate at relatively low residential densities (op. cit.: 108). The North American Plains Indians and the Mongols have produced rare examples of settlements larger than 100 ha in extent but at very low residential densities, for instance, Sitting Bull's camp by the Little Big Horn in 1876 A.D. (Graham 1953) and Batu Khan's encampment by the Volga in the 13th century A.D. (Rockhill 1900: 121). According to the proposed model the persistence and stability of the mature distributions should be contingent upon the material devices which manage interaction and communication within the settlement and upon the resource supply system which sustains the growth of the community. Each mature distribution and its size range should correlate with a class of interaction/communication assemblage and a major category of economic system. Dispersed occupation areas Dispersed or low density occupation sites do not appear to be subject to these size constraints and trajectories. Tikal, for example, was substantially in excess of 100 sq km
72
Roland Fletcher
in the Late Classic (Haviland 1970: 186) yet it had the same class of interaction/communication system as any other pre-Industrial city. How this might conform to the model has yet to be precisely specified. Even though dispersed and low density occupation can produce site size distributions with a very long positive skew the bulk of a distribution still conforms to the expected pattern as is indicated by the Hohokam sites of the South West U.S.A. (Fig. 8). f HOHOKAM
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Figure8 Distributionfor the sizes of dispersedsites. 10-300 ha.
Site and settlement size change The model does not require that all distributions with sufficiently large samples from large regions will always display the expected frequency curve. It does however specify that if the expected pattern is absent for a long period then other major factors must be operating whose effects should be apparent from the archaeological record. The N.W. Coast Indian sites and settlements of North America, for instance, do not display a mature distribution above I ha. There are numerous settlements which exceed that size (McDonald 1983) but very few in excess of 10 ha. Is this a sample effect, an equivalent of the earliest distributions presented in Fig. 5, or an environmental effect? If the mature distribution indicates .he inertia of a system, we should still find the majority of the sample in the first four class intervals between 0 and 1 ha, 0 and 100 ha and so on, during part of a rapid size change. A long positive skew can develop as in Mesopotamia in the 3rd-7th centuries A.D. and in the Mexico Basin around Texcoco in the Aztec period (Fig. 9). Increasingly large sites appear with only an alteration in the size range of the distributions. We can expect considerable interaction and communication inertia. A new system will tend to percolate rather slowly and partially through the settlement hierarchy. Growth also occurs by the generation of very large, low density settlements as in Europe from the 5th century B.C. to the 1st century A.D. The oppida in excess of 100 to 150 ha appear to be only sparsely occupied (Collis 1975), though Manching at 600 ha currently looks like an exception (Kramer and Schubert 1970). Prediction of other size limits on settlement growth If it is justifiable to identify three mature maximum site or settlement sizes we can predict
Settlementarchaeology 73
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size for well established urban communities.
10-300 ha.
Mehoolgialisue Th-eltoshpbtwe....ie n etlmntsz from their size relationship that there may have been a limit at about 100 sq m prior to Sieszedsriuinswl::o:ntrrginlcossenyo::aean:eatv:anei the appearance of recognisable hominid occupation sites about 2 to 3 million years ago. seteetae.crepnswthtesz.fth.ieae. .ihi eeaesadteei should also be another limit near 10,000 sq km ahead of our contemporary There rdnacinteocrecofstemnsie. .....,weae wretatmn prcse _itr h orsodnebtenst n eteetae.Teacaooia for our view of future urban Industrial cities. This has
implications growth.
Methodological
issues
The relationship between site size and settlement size Site size distributions will show inter-regional consistency of shape and relative range if settlement area corresponds with the size of the site area which it generates and there is redundancy in the occurrence of settlement sizes. However, we are aware that many processes distort the correspondence between site and settlement area. The archaeological signature of a settlement must therefore relate to a gross characteristic of its size such as the ALS (Absolute Limit of Scatter) definition suggested by Yellen (1977: 103-31). A 'built-area' definition is regionally restricted and in many cases is not an appropriate statement about settlement form. There are many settlements which include large portions of open space within a defined residential area as is common among the Amazonian Indians such as the Yanamamo (Chagnon 1974). In the Yoruba towns of West Africa (Mabongunje 1962) large open spaces lie between the built area and the
outer walls of the settlement.

The open spaces of a settlement contain a variety of service localities and should be included in the description of settlement size. The older portions of a settlement may deteriorate but should not necessarily be excluded from its total size because they may
74 Roland Fletcher still be a functioning part of the settlement. From the 10th century A.D. Cairo consisted of the new settlement of al-Kahira and an older town to the south called al-Fustat (Encyclopaedia of Islam 1965: 957-9). By the 12th century A.D. much of Fusta.t had fallen into ruins but was still partially occupied. Prostitutes and thieves are said to have lived there and industrial production continued (Steward 1969: 84-8). In Inuit settlements, such as Gamble on St. Lawrence Island, food caches may be located on the older parts of the midden away from the residential area and the dog lines (Collins 1937). One part of the total midden area of Gamble is called Seklowghyaget meaning 'Many Caches' (Collins 1937: 33). Just as buildings go through a use gradient (David 1971) so likewise does settlement space. Artifacts which are period diagnostic may enable us to recognise the shifting zones of occupation as a Selevac (Tringham et al. 1980) or Huari (Isbell 1984) but this does not mean that other parts of the site were not still in use. A substantial portion of any assemblage, such as the coarse pottery, is non-diagnostic. Some of the site usages like storage may also have no clear chronological markers associated with them. The implication of the consistent pattern of site sizes is that the activities of a community may spread across its older scatter of occupation debris. If this is the case then there is a substantial field of enquiry to be pursued. Absolute Limits of Scatter need to be studied to produce an inter-cultural definition of settlement limits which includes the nimbus of debris and activity areas associated with the built area of a settlement. Sit size seems to relate to this broader definition of settlement area. Sample effects We must be wary of extrapolating from local regions and small samples about site hierarchies. The overall system has to be considered, as Paynter (1982: 231-7) points out in his study of the early Colonial towns of Connecticut and the World system of which they were part. The smaller the region the less likely it is that the larger end of the standard distribution will be seen. Conversely those small regions in which the large cases occur should have severely skewed distributions. More sophisticated comparison will now require scale equivalence in the assessment of the sample regions. In isolated local small regions that have only been recently occupied the site size distributions should tend to be immature. How the distributions develop will be informative about the constraints which operate in site size growth. The Pacific Islands may provide a test for the relationship between regional area and the probability of a mature distribution being able to form. We need to note that there is a complex relationship between region size and sample size in the occurrence of the expected distribution form and that a large number of cases in the first class interval are of no specific relevance to whether or not the rest of the distribution will be as expected. Taphonomy Taphonomic studies enable us to guard against a casual acceptance that any marked differences from the expected pattern are a cultural effect and to exercise caution when considering specific sites. From the record of prehistoric sites along the N.S.W. coast in
Settlementarchaeology 75 Australia it is clear that in the region around Sydney, medium sized sites in the 0 to 1 ha range are under-represented (Fig. 10). We cannot assume that this portion of the settlement hierarchy never developed. A mundane explanation is that these sites were destroyed during the expansion of Sydney in the 19th and early 20th century A.D. before they could be recorded.
f
50...
SOUTH COAST
SYDNEY REGION
.
NORTH COAST
0.5
1.5 Ha
0.5
1.5 Ha
0.5
1.5 Ha
for mobile communities.N.S.W. Australia.0.1 to 1.5 ha. Figure10 Site size distributions In urban sites redeposition has to be considered as a serious problem. McGuire Gibson notes that a 90 ha Hajji Mohammed site might be identified in Nippur (1981: 200). But it results from the use of Hajji Mohammed occupation debris to make bricks in the Seleucid and Parthian periods. This process requires far more attention because it will be common in any settlement which is occupied for a long time and in which building materials are taken from borrow pits within the previous occupation area. Taphonomic research is needed to define on a world-wide intercomparable basis the degree of uncertainty which we must accept when referring to site size as a referent for settlement size. Instead of using taphonomy to try and reconstitute particular settlements at an ethnographic level of detail we should seek to make general statements about the degree of detail that is possible, appropriate and necessary for different kinds of settlement studies at different scales of space and time. Having identified that a very large scale pattern is recognisable the effort will clearly be worthwhile. Policy recommendations All site sizes should, whenever possible, be reported individually rather than in classes. When data have to be reported in classes we should try, if possible, to institute three conventions. All class intervals should be metric and any distribution should be presented using one class interval only. The few values which fall outside the graph should be listed. A convention which specifies the ranges, class intervals and frequency scales to be used on the histograms would enable us to see very promptly whether or not site/settlement size distributions conform to either local or world-wide patterns. The format must avoid the tendency to visually affirm any proposed size constraints on settlement growth merely because they are succinct. Otherwise we will be telling ourselves about a convenient rather than a relevant consistency in site size distributions. There is a remote though serious possibility that the proposed behavioural trajectories and size constraints might be artifacts of data collection. A historical study and a
76 Roland Fletcher statistical analysis of the sequence in which the data were first obtained and published are needed. This paper has been primarily concerned with the characteristics of readily recognisable sites and settlements. But these concentrations of occupation are also part of much larger, more amorphous site complexes whose limits are not so easy to specify. As Chang describes for the Shang urban centres, Cheng Chou can be seen as the core of an urban region covering 25 sq km (1980: 272-3). This can be perceived as the same class of entity, though with a different time depth, as the Palaeolithic site complexes studied by Isaac et al. (1981), Foley (1981). Attention should now be directed to the definition of these more diffuse localities since it is crucial for the debate about maximum reported site sizes as used on Fig. 6.
Future research If the proposed consistencies do relate to the behaviour of the communities which produced the occupation areas the uniformitarian model offers a rigorous basis for research. By looking concurrently at different ranges of settlement size from different regions and contexts we are obliged to ask consistent questions about all the classes of data. This prevents a preoccupation with the specifics of each class but is time consuming and difficult to achieve. The model provides an analytic framework and allows implications about one range of settlement/site sizes to be potentially applicable to others. New discoveries and anomalies can trigger appropriate cross checking in diverse contexts. This facilitates intercomparability both of consistently expectable features and startlingly unexpected ones. It also provides a large scale, behavioural model complementary to the more detailed, specifically social studies of complexity (van de Leeuw 1981) and scalar stress (Johnson 1982). The simplistic size limits and rates of change of the current model need sophisticated statistical analysis to convert them into a form which would be more consistent with the real uncertainties in settlement dynamics. We should expect that the proposed constraints are a crude expression of the probability of settlements attaining and sustaining such sizes. The 100 ha limit is not a specification that compact settlements cannot exceed that size unless they have particular characteristics. Rather it states that the probability of a settlement doing so is very small. In a large sample such a case is more likely to turn up. If it did we would learn something about the degree of difficulty involved in the process of settlement size transformation. The model has been presented using only a small fraction of all the settlements which have ever existed. It stringently defines a restricted number of possible growth patterns. The model is therefore a strong inference and is potentially refutable by the myriad new examples of settlement size distributions which we can study. It is also apparent that the model when examined in more detail will specify particular connections between settlement growth, the nature of the material aspects of interaction and communication and the economic foundations of community life. The details of the explanation are highly subject to potential refutation.
Settlementarchaeology 77 Conclusions Readily recognisable large scale consistencies in site size and growth can be related to the mechanics of settlement growth and change by an explanatory model of interaction and communication in human communities and the relationship between economic change and sustained settlement growth. When considered on the large scale, archaeological data about settlement size has been collected consistently all over the world and can be used for analyses of regional intercomparability. In essence archaeologists have been good at their job for many decades. Future site surveys will be of immense value, enabling us to gauge the rate and nature of changes in settlement size on a world-wide basis. Archaeologists have striven to achieve equivalence with the scale of explanation and the detail of ethnographic reports. However interpretation on that small scale, using the terminologies of the social sciences, is not a precondition for the study of long term, large scale behavioural processes. A uniformitarian model has been suggested which does not depend upon the usual explanatory categories of the social sciences but is complementary to them. If the model is tenable its implications may be of some consequence for our understanding of future settlement growth. 18.xii. 85 Department of Anthropology, University of Sydney, N.S. W.
Acknowledgments My thanks to Ben Cullen, Phillip Edwards, Judith Fethney, Julian Holland, Bobbietja Oakley, Nola Robertson and Pamela Watson for data collection. My special appreciation to Anne Jones for her help with data collection and the management of the Settlement Register, and to Kathryn Ericson for draughting work. The large amounts of data needs for this analysis could not have been collected without the goodwill of the Departments of Anthropology at Berkeley and Harvard and the Department of Archaeology in Cambridge. My special thanks to the Librarian and staff of the Tozzer Library in Harvard, and to the staff of the Fisher Library, University of Sydney and to the Cultural Resources Division, National Parks and Wildlife Service, N.S.W. The research has been funded by the Australian Research Grant Scheme since 1985. References Adams, R. McC. 1981. Heartlandof Cities.Universityof ChicagoPress. Arcelin,A. 1980. Les nouvellesfouillesde Solutr6(Pr&s Macon,Sa6ne-et-Loire). L'Anthropologie 1: 295. Aurenche, O. 1981a. Essai de d6mographiearch6ologique.L'exemple des villages du proche orient ancien. Paleorient7(1): 93-106.
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Roland Fletcher
Aurenche, 0. 1981b. R6partition chronologique et spatiale de quelques traits architecturaux du proche orient ancien. In Prehistoire du Levant (eds J. Cauvin and P. Sanlaville) Colloques internationaux du CNRS 598, pp. 503-12. Bailey, G. N. 1983. Concepts of Time in Quaternary Prehistory. Annual Review of Anthropology 12: 165-92. Blanton, R. E. 1978. Monte Albdn: Settlement pattern at the ancient Zapotec capital. New York: Academic Press. Blanton, R. E., Kowalewski, S., Feinman, G. and Appel, J. 1982. Monte Alban's hinterland, Part I: The prehistoric settlement patterns of the central and southern parts of the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. K. V. Flannery and R. E. Blanton (Gen. eds) Prehistory and Human Ecology of the Valley of Oaxaca, Vol. 7. Memoirs 15. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan. Calnek, E. E. 1972. Settlement pattern and chinampa agriculture at Tenochtitlan. American Antiquity 37: 104-15. Chagnon, N. 1974. Studying the Yanamamo. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Chang, K.-C. 1968. Settlement Archaeology. Palo Alto: National Press Books. Chang, K.-C. 1977. The Archaeology of Ancient China, 3rd edition. New Haven: Yale University Press. Chang, K.-C. 1980. Shang Civilization. New Haven: Yale University Press. Chapman, J. 1981. The Vinca Culture of South-East Europe. Studies in chronology, economy and society. Oxford: BAR International Series 117 (ii). Collins, H. B. Jr. 1937. Archaeology of St Lawrence Island, Alaska. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 96.1. Collis, J. 1975. Defended sites of the Late La Tene in Central and Western Europe. Oxford: BAR Supplementary Series 2. Cousins, S. 1985. Ecologists build pyramids again. New Scientist 4 July: 50-4. David, N. 1971. The Fulani compound and the archaeologist. World Archaeology 3: 111-31. Diehl, R. A. 1983. Tula. The Toltec capital of Ancient Mexico. London: Thames and Hudson. Eberhard, W. 1967. Settlement and Social Change in Asia. Hong Kong University Press. Elton, C. 1946. Competition and the structure of ecological communities. Journal of Animal Ecology 15: 54-68. Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition. 1965. Entry on al Fustdt. Vol. II: 957-9. Leiden: Brill. Flannery, K. V. (ed.) 1976. The Early Mesoamerican Village. New York: Academic Press. Flannery, K. V. and Marcus, J. (eds) 1983. The Cloud People. Divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilisations. New York: Academic Press. Fletcher, R. J. 1981. People and Space: a material behaviour approach. In Pattern of the Past. Studies in Honour of David Clarke (eds I. Hodder, G. Isaac and N. Hammond). Cambridge University Press, pp. 97-128. Foley, R. 1981. Off-site archaeology: an alternative approach for the short sited. In Pattern of the Past. Studies in Honour of David Clarke (eds I. Hodder, G. Isaac and N. Hammond). Cambridge University Press, pp. 157-84. Garrard, A. N. and Stanley Price, N. P. 1975. A survey of prehistoric sites in the Azraq desert
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National Park, in Eastern Jordan. Annual of the Department of Antiquities (Jordan). XX: 83-90. Gaussen, J. 1980. Le pal6olithique sup6rieur de plein air en P6rigord. (Industries et structures d'habitat) Secteur Mussidan - Saint-Astier Moyenne Vallee de L'Isle. Gallia Prehistoire XIV Supplement. Paris: CNRS. Gibson, McG. 1981. Current research at Nippur: ecological, anthropological and documentary interplay. In L'Archeologie de L'Iraq: perspectives et limites de l'interpretationanthropologique des documents. Colloques internationaux du CNRS 580, pp. 193-205. Graham, W. A. 1953. The Custer Myth. A source book of Custeriana. Harrisburg: The Stackpole Company. Hall, P. 1971. (2nd edition) World Cities. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Harke, H. G. H. 1979. Settlement Types and Settlement Patterns in the West Hallstat Province. An evaluation of the evidence from excavated sites. Oxford: BAR International series 57. Haviland, W. A. 1970. Tikal, Guatemala and Mesoamerican urbanism. World Archaeology 2: 186-98. Hassan, F. A. 1979. Prehistoric settlements along the Main Nile. In The Sahara and the Nile (eds M. A. J. Williams and H. Faure). Rotterdam: Balkema. pp. 421-50. Hassan, F. A. 1982. Demographic Archaeology. New York: Academic Press. Hogg, A. H. A. 1979. British Hillforts. An index. Occasional paper of the Hill-fort study group 1. Oxford: BAR British Series 62. India. Office of the Registrar General. 1883. Census 1881. Statistics of Population. Vol. II. Calcutta: Government Printing India. Isaac, G., Harris, J. W. K. and Marshall, F. 1981. Small is informative: The application of the study of mini-sites and least effort criteria in the interpretation of the early Pleistocene archaeological record at Koobi Fora, Kenya. In Las Industrias Mas Antiguas (eds J. D. Clark and G. L. Isaac). Union International de Ciencias Prehistorias y Protohistorias. X Congresso. Comision VI, pp. 101-19. Isbell, W. H. 1984. Huari urban prehistory. In Current Archaeological Projects in the Central Andes. Some approaches and results (ed. A. Kendall) Oxford: BAR International Series 210, pp. 95-131 and in Proceedings of the 44th International Congress of Americanists. (Gen. ed. N. Hammond). Manchester 1982. Jansen, M. 1979. Architektur in der Harappakultur. Eine kritische Betrachtung zum umbauten Raum im Industal des 3.-2. Jahrtausends. Veroffenlichungen des Seminars fur Orientalische Kunstgeschichte an der Universitat Bonn. Reihe B. Antiquitates Orientales Band 2. Bonn: Rudolf Habelt Verlag GmbH. Johnson, G. A. 1982. Organizational structure and scalar stress. In Theory and Explanation in Archaeology (eds C. Renfrew et al.) London: Academic Press, pp. 389-421. Keatinge, R. W. 1977. Religious forms and secular functions: the expansion of state bureaucracies as reflected in prehistoric architecture on the Peruvian North Coast. Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences 293: 229-45. Kemp, B. J. 1977. The early development of towns in Egypt. Antiquity LI: 185-200. Kenyon, K. M. 1981. Excavations at Jericho. Volume Three. The architecture and stratigraphy of the tell (ed. T. A. Holland). London: British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem. Kramer, W. and Schubert, F. 1970. Die Ausgrabungen in Manching 1955-61. Band 1. Einfiihrung und Fundstellenibersicht. Weisbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag GMBM.
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Lechevallier, M. 1978. Abu Ghosh et Beisamoun. M6moires et Travaux du Centre de Recherche Prehistorique Francaise de Jerusalem 2. Mabongunje, A. L. 1962. Yoruba Towns. Ibadan University Press. Macdonald. G. F. 1983. Haida Monumental Art. Villages of the Queen Charlotte Islands. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. McBride, H. W. Formative ceramics and prehistoric settlement patterns in the Cuauhtitlan region, Mexico. Doctoral Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms. McIntosh, S. K. and McIntosh, R. J. 1980. Prehistoric Investigations in the Region of Jenne, Mali. Oxford: BAR International Series 89, and Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 2. Mania, D. and Toepfer, V. 1973. Konigsaue. Gleider Okologie und mittel-paliiolithischeFunde der Letzen Eiszeit. Veroffentlichungen des Landesmuseum fur Vorgeschichte in Halle. Band 26. Berlin: VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften. Marcus, J. 1976. The size of the early Mesoamerican village. In The Early Mesoamerican Village (ed. K. V. Flannery). New York: Academic Press, pp. 79-90. Mellaart, J. 1975. The Neolithic of the Near East. London: Thames & Hudson. Mellaart, J. 1979. Egyptian and Near Eastern Chronology. A dilemma? Antiquity LIII: 6-18. Millon, R., Drewitt, B. and Cowgill, G. 1973. Urbanisation at Teotihuacan, Mexico. Austin: University of Texas Press. Moore, A. 1979. A pre-Neolithic farmer's village on the Euphrates. Scientific American, August: 50-8. Moseley, M. E. and Day, K. E. (eds) 1982. Chan Chan: Andean Desert City. A School of American Research Book. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Mughal, M. R. 1982. Recent archaeological research in the Cholistan Desert. In Harappan Civilisation: A Contemporary Perspective (ed. G. L. Possehl) New Delhi: Oxford and IBH Publishing Corp., pp. 85-96. Parsons, J. R. 1968. An estimate of the size and population for Middle Horizon Tiahuanaco. Amnerican Antiquity. 33: 243-5. Parsons, J. R., Kintigh, K. W. and Gregg, S. A. 1983. Archaeological settlementpattern data from the Chalco, Xochimilco, Ixtapalapa, Texcoco and Zumpango regions, Mexico. Research Report in Anthropology Contrib. 9. Technical Reports 14. Ann Arbor: Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan. Paynter, R. 1982. Models of Spatial Inequality. New York: Academic Press. Rockhill, W. W. 1900. The Journey of William of Rubruck to the Eastern Parts of the World 1253--55 as narrated by himself. London: Hakluyt Society. Rollefson, G. 0. 1983. Ritual and ceremony at Neolithic Ain Ghazal (Jordan). Paleorient 9(2): 29-38. Sanders, W. T., West, M., Fletcher, C. and Marino, J. 1975. The Formative period occupation of the Valley. The Teotihuacan Valley project, final report. Vol. 2. Occasional Papers in Anthropology 10. Department of Anthropology, The Pennsylvania State University. Sanders, W. T., Parsons, R. J. and Santley, R. S. 1979. The Basin of Mexico. Ecological processes in the Evolution of a Civilisation. New York: Academic Press.
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Shimada, I. 1978. Economy of a prehistoric urban context: commodity and labor flow at Moche V Pampa Grande, Peru. American Antiquity 43: 569-92. Stewart, D. 1969. Great Cairo. London: I-art-Davis. Tolstoy, P. and Fish, S. K. 1975. Surface and subsurface evidence for community size at Coapexco, Mexico. Journal of Field Archaeology 2: 97-104. Tringham, R., Krstic, D., Kaiser, T. and Voytek, B. 1980. The early agricultural site of Selevac, Yugoslavia. Archaeology 33(2): 24-32. Upham, S. and Rice, G. 1980. Up the canal without a pattern: modelling Hohokam interaction and exchange. In CurrentIssues in Hohokam Prehistory (eds D. Doyel and F. Plog). Arizona State University. Anthropological Research Papers 23, pp. 78-105. van de Leeuw, S. E. (ed.) 1981. Archaeological Approaches to the Study of Complexity. CINGULA VI. Albert Egges Van Giffen Instituut voor Prae-en Protohistoire. Universiteit van Amsterdam. Varner, D. M. 1974. Prehispanic Settlement Patterns in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. Doctoral dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona. Ann Arbor: Xerox University Microfilms. Weiss, H. 1975. Kish, Akkad and Agade. Journal of the American Oriental Society. 95: 434-53. Wetzel, F. 1969. Die Stadtmauern von Babylon. Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft Ausgrabungen in Babylon, 4. Wheatley, P. 1970. Archaeology and the Chinese City. World Archaeology 2: 159--85. Wilcox, D. R., McGuire, T. R., and Sternberg, C. 1981. Snaketown Revisited. Cultural Resource management Division, Arizona State Museum. University of Arizona Archaeological Series 155. Williams, C. B. 1964. Patterns in the Balance of Nature and Related Problems of Quantitative Ecology. London: Academic Press. Yellen, J. E. 1977. Archaeological Approaches to the Present. Models for reconstructing the Past. New York: Academic Press.
Notes on sources for figures All data used in this paper are on file in the Settlement Register, Department of Anthropology, University of Sydney. Recent calibrated, chronological surveys are used wherever possible or the chronology from the primary source of the site size data. All 'n' values refer to the number of cases on the histogram larger than the first class interval. Fig. 1 S.W. ASIA 10,000 to 8300 b.c. (Aurenche 1981a: 505) Grab sample from published sources, includes Natufian sites. Excludes Kharaneh IV, 2 ha. n = 16 NILE VALLEY Terminal Palaeolithic 23,000 to 9500 b.c. (Hassan 1982: 87-8) Qadan 10 ha and Isnan 1.5 ha sites excluded. n = 12 Fig. 2 CALIFORNIA (Californian Indians) 1st mill. A.D.
to approximately 19th century A.D.
82
Roland Fletcher
Unpublished survey data collected by Sherbourne Cook and held in the Bancroft Library U.C, Berkeley. n = 15 ARCTIC NORTH AMERICA (Eskimo/Inuit) 1st to 19th century A.D. Grab sample from published sources. n = 15 Fig. 3 MESOPOTAMIA Late Uruk 3750-3400 B.C. (Mellaart 1979). Primarily Adams :1981:95-116, 338-345 and grab samples from published sources. n = 13 BASIN OF MEXICO Late Formative 650-200 B.C. (Parsons et al. 1983: 4) Mc Bride 1974: 388, Sanders et al. 1975: 294-317, Sanders et al. 1979: 52, and Parsons et al. 1983. Sites in Guadalupe Hills from above and Flannery 1976: 80-2. Excludes Teotihuacan locality 175 ha. Cuicuilco possibly 200 ha but uncertain. n = 31 VIN(A sites 5th-4th Millennium B.C. (Chapman 1981: 190-1, 271). n = 21. WEST HALLSTATT sites 1200-450 B.C. (Harke 1979: 26:1-5, 266-9). n = 10 UK IRON AGE hillforts circa 4th century B.C. to 1st century A.D. (Hogg 1979: 52-231). n = 91 IARAPPAN sites 2900-2000 B.C. (Jansen 1979: Abb. 16, 298-306). Report of 3.48 sq km for Kerasi excluded. n = 17 NB Mesopotamia and Basin of Mexico data from systematic surveys. Others are grab samples of published data. Fig. 4 EUROPE 1800-1850 A.D. Grab sample from published sources. There may be more settlements of 10 to 20 sq km. n = 22 INDIAN SUB-CONTINENT 1881 A.D. Indian Census 1881 A.D. Published 1883. n - 64 Fig. 5 S.W. ASIA 17,000-8300 b.c. (Chronology and sources as Fig. 1). Grab sample from published sources 17-14,000 n = 2; 14-10,000 n = 2; 10-8300 n = 16 MESOPOTAMIA Early Ubaid to Late Uruk approximately 5000-3400 B.C. (Chronology as Fig. 3) Adams (1981) and grab sample from published sources. Early Ubaid n - 1; Early Uruk n = 4; Late Uruk n = 13 MEXICO BASIN Early to Late Formative 1500-200 B.C. (Chronology and sources as Fig. 3). Early Formative n = 2; Middle Formative n = 11; Late Formative n = 33 OAXACA Late San Jos6 to Monte Alban I Early (Chronology after Flannery and Marcus 1983: 364-65) Etla arm, Central and Southern part of Valley. San Jose to Early Monte Alban I (Varner 1974: 165-6, Blanton et al. 1982: 33-62, 355, Flannery and Marcus 1983. Late San Jos6 phase 10 n = 1; Rosario (and Guadalupe) phase n = 1, Monte Alban I Early n NB Monte Alban presented schematically as 1 sq km at the end of MAI Early. EUROPE 1600 to 1850 A.D. Grab sample from published sources. 1600-1700 A.D. n - 6; 1700-1800 A.D. n 10; 1800-1850 A.D. n = 22 Fig. 6 Uses maximum reported site sizes and digitised site and settlement areas from published plans. S. 1W. ASIA (Chronology as Fig. 1 and from site size sources) Jericho PPNA (Kenyon 1981: Plans) Abu Hureyra PPNB (Moore 1979: 50, 55, 58 and various sources) Ain Ghazal (Rollefson 1983: 29) Beisamon (Lechevallier 1978: 129) Tell Aswad, Tell Assouad, (Aurenche 1981a: 94) NB Catal Hiiyuik approx. 13 ha circa 6000 B.C. (Mellaart 1975: 98) CHINA (Site dates and chronology after Chang 1977: 37 and Chang 1980: 354) Shang site of Cheng Chou (Chang 1980: 272-83) Chou sites of Hao and Feng, Lin-Tzu, Hsia-Tu, and An-yi. (Chang 1977: 302-27) (Eberhard 1967: 48) (Wheatley 1970: 171). Extra-mural scattered occupation loci not included. NB Hao and Feng (W Chou) plotted separately and as an combined area. MESOAMERICA (Chronology as Figs. 3, 5) Teotihuacan (Millon et al. 1973: Figs. 2, 3, 4, 7, 13)
83
Monte Alban (Blanton 1978: 35, 44, 58) (Flannery and Marcus 1983: 74, 87, 128, 188) PERU (Chronology after Moseley and Day 1982: 8 and Isbell 1984: 96) Mochica sites of Moche, Pampa Grande IV and Galindo (Moseley and Day 1982: 264, 289, 323). Papers by Bawden, S. G. Pozorski and Topic) Pampa Grande (Shimada 1978: 570) Huari. Maximum estimates from Isbell 1984: 97. Chan Chan. (Moseley and Day 1982: 67-86 and various papers) (Keatinge 1977: 231) NB Tiahuanaco approx 3-4 sq km circa 700 A.D. (Parsons 1968: 243) Pucara and Apurlec left out. Size uncertain relative to period. EUROPE London and Paris. Grab samples from numerous published sources (see Fletcher 1981: 122-4) Fig. 8 HOHOKAM 300-1300 A.D. (Upham S. and Rice G. 1980: Appendix 1) Excludes sites of 990, 994
ha. n = 63
NB On p. 88 they remark that the way the data were collected precludes an assessment of reliability! Fig. 9 TEXCOCO Aztec, 1150-1520 A.D. (Parsons et al. 1983: 100-5) Excludes sites of 400, 450, 840 ha
n = 46
MESOPOTAMIA Sasanian circa 230-630 A.D. (Adams 1981: 233) n = 58 Fig. 10 NEW SOUTH WALES (AUSTRALIA) Aboriginal and Prehistoric sites. Primarily from the last two thousand years. Data held in the National Parks and Wild Life Services of New South Wales Site Register. There are maximum reported sizes for some low density sites over 1 ha with a few as large as 50-100 ha. North Coast n = 49; Sydney Region n = 33; South Coast n = 120 NB Possible number bias for 1 ha on South Coast
Abstract Fletcher, Roland Settlement archaeology: world-wide comparisons Site sizes have been reported by archaeologists all over the world in the past 150 years. Now that numerous site size reports are becoming available from contract work and surveys for cultural resource management as well as from regional research programmes we need seriously to consider whether there really is sufficient intercomparability for this mass of data to be generally useful. Despite assumptions about inter-regional inconsistencies in data collection there appears to be a world-wide consistency in the way site size has been identified. Consistent patterns of site size distribution and rates of change are recognisable. Site size appears to be adequate as a gross referent of settlement size. A behavioural model of the interaction and communication constraints on community life provides an explanation of the large scale processes of settlement growth.

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Settlement Archaeology: World-Wide Comparisons Author(s): Roland Fletcher Source: World Archaeology, Vol. 18, No.

sites? 0.1 to 1.5 ha. Medium

10 to 150 ha. Medium

sq km. Very Large < 150 sq km.

.... ....... ............ ...:::::::::::::

... . . . . . FqT T--I

0.5 ha per century A

6i 6ii 6iii 6iv

PPNA Shang Monte Alban Mochica

PPNB Chou Teotihuacan Huari and Chan Chan

Figure8 Distributionfor the sizes of dispersedsites. 10-300 ha.

etleXCOCO sizeeletalsedubncomuiis0-a o 0 qmpirt enalmta bu

size for well established urban communities.

outer walls of the settlement.

to approximately 19th century A.D.

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