The Limits of Settlement Growth
The Limits of Settlement Growth
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GBPIn this study Roland Fletcher argues that the built environment becomes a constraint on the long-term development of a settlement. It is costly to move settlements, or to demolish and rebuild from scratch, so the initial layout and buildings, and the forms of communication that result, may come to shackle further development and also to place constraints on social and political change. Using this theoretical framework, Dr Fletcher reviews worldwide settlement growth over the past 15,000 years, and concludes with a major discussion of the great transformations of human settlements - from mobile to sedentary, sedentary to urban, and urban to industrial. This book is an ambitious contribution to archaeological theory, and the questions it raises also have implications for the future of urban settlement.
- Explanatory overview of 15,000 years of settlement growth
- Develops a theoretical infrastructure
- Fully illustrated
Reviews & endorsements
'I found the book stimulating and thought provoking. I recommend it to anyone interested in settlement size, growth, sedentism and change throughout time … the book is well worth the effort and time, and other readers will find other topics of interest in this complex but fascinating book.' American Antiquity
'… this book is important; it is Big Picture archaeology at its best and a provocative and stimulating proposal worthy of consideration.' American Anthropologist
Product details
July 2007Paperback
9780521038102
304 pages
243 × 168 × 17 mm
0.491kg
6 b/w illus. 3 tables
Available
Table of Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Summary
- Part I. Theoretical Context: The Role of the Material as Behaviour:
- 1. Archaeology, settlement growth and the material component of human behaviour
- 2. The material as behaviour
- 3. A hierarchy of social explanation: locating the material
- Part II. The Limits of Settlement Growth: Behavioural Stress and the Material Management of Community Life:
- 4. The behavioural parameters of interaction and communication
- 5. Settlement growth trajectories
- 6. Settlement growth transitions and the role of the material
- Part III. Implications: Transformations and Constraints of Community Life:
- 7. The development of sedentism
- 8. The development of agrarian and industrial urbanism
- 9. Future urban growth
- Technical notes
- References
- Index.
