Urban Settlements: The Process of Urbanization in Archaeological Settlements

Description

Editor: Tringham, Ruth  (1940-)

Publisher: Warner Modular Publications (Andover, MA)

Pub Date: 1973

Binding: Paperback

Condition: Fair.  Binding tight.  No folds.  One approx. 1/8″ triangular chip on front cover recto edge.  Upper corner at spine head bumped (dropped), extends through entire volume.  Previous owner’s signature on upper edge inside front cover.  Pencil marks on Table of Contents page.  Edge and corner wear.

Notes:  Print on Demand volume.  Collection of conference papers (7).  authors include Robert McC. Adams, Brian Blouet, David Grove, Gregory Johnson, M.G. Smith, Bruce Trigger, and Paul Wheatley.   “…the change from ‘non-urban’ to ‘urban’ does involve a quantitative change in the degree of complexity of all aspects of life: ‘ a difference in the degree of social complexity, so that a multitude of ‘communities’ can exist in one settlement; a difference in the degree of political complexity, so that one settlement can dominate a network of other settlements, not necessarily by any physical compulsion but by the centralization of all kinds of activities; a difference in the degree of economic complexity, so that the inhabitants of the urban settlement need no longer be self-sufficient but may be fed and supported by the surrounding network of settlements; thus their immediate exploitation area cannot support them  and yet they do not need to move their settlement to support themselves from starvation; and a difference in the degree of technological complexity so that centralized organization of activity, producers, power and the exploitation of resources from various ecological zones makes available form of machinery which would otherwise be impossible.'”  (From the Editor’s Introduction)