The Low-Density Urban Systems of the Classic Period Maya and Izapa: Insights from Settlement Scaling Theory

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Michael E. Smith ◽  
Scott G. Ortman ◽  
José Lobo ◽  
Claire E. Ebert ◽  
Amy E. Thompson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Organization ◽  
Distinct Type ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Urban Systems ◽  
Low Density ◽  
Transport Costs ◽  
Settlement Systems ◽  
Social Mixing ◽  
A Site ◽  
Temporal Rhythm

The peoples of southern Mesoamerica, including the Classic period Maya, are often claimed to exhibit a distinct type of spatial organization relative to contemporary urban systems. Here, we use the settlement scaling framework and properties of settlements recorded in systematic, full-coverage surveys to examine ways in which southern Mesoamerican settlement systems were both similar to and different from contemporary systems. We find that the population-area relationship in these settlements differs greatly from that reported for other agrarian settlement systems, but that more typical patterns emerge when one considers a site epicenter as the relevant social interaction area, and the population administered from a given center as the relevant interacting population. Our results imply that southern Mesoamerican populations mixed socially at a slower temporal rhythm than is typical of contemporary systems. Residential locations reflected the need to balance energetic and transport costs of farming with lower-frequency costs of commuting to central places. Nevertheless, increasing returns in activities such as civic construction were still realized through lower-frequency social mixing. These findings suggest that the primary difference between low-density urbanism and contemporary urban systems lies in the spatial and temporal rhythms of social mixing.

scholarly journals New Approaches in Defining the Structure of Urban Settlement Systems

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cansu Güller ◽  
◽  
Çiğdem Varol ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Organization ◽  
Temporal Structure ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Urban Systems ◽  
Central Place Theory ◽  
Urban Networks ◽  
Settlement Systems ◽  
Place Theory ◽  
Urban Patterns ◽  
Technological Developments

Technological developments such as the extensive use of modern communication tools and increasing infrastructure opportunities have changed the spatial organization forms and daily life practices in cities. Previously, central place theory, which explains hierarchical urban patterns based on the minimum population size-based threshold concept and the maximum distance-based range concept has become incompetent to explain the spatial organization of today's settlements. At this point, in defining the urbanization processes and explaining the spatial organization, the search for new conceptual and methodological approaches has become important. In this study, changing urban systems are evaluated in terms of closeness centrality, attribute centrality, network centrality, and geographical centrality based on space of flows and interpreted by current parameters. It is concluded that in defining the structure and spatial organization of urban systems, the morphological and functional dimensions of urban systems should be evaluated besides the parameters of population, geographical proximity or network relations. In this context, a model proposal has been developed by using current parameters such as density, diversity, mobility, connectivity, spatial-temporal structure, and urban networks.

Spatial organization of rural territories

2021 ◽  
pp. 751-756
Author(s):  
Sevostyanov A.V. Sevostyanov A.V. ◽  
V.A. Sevostyanov ◽  
A.P. Spiridonova
Keyword(s):  
Scale Development ◽  
Rural Population ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Spatial Organization ◽  
Low Density ◽  
Rural Settlements ◽  
Residential Areas ◽  
Complex Development

This article covers the issues raised by the objectives of the "The Program for complex development of rural territories" and its subprogram "Providing rural population with affordable and comfortable housing". The authors substantiate the concept "rural agglomeration" and make the suggestions on how to choose rural settlements and land plots suitable for large-scale development of low-density residential areas.

Detection of a global aquatic invasive amphibian, Xenopus laevis, using environmental DNA

2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Secondi ◽  
Tony Dejean ◽  
Alice Valentini ◽  
Benjamin Audebaud ◽  
Claude Miaud
Keyword(s):  
Invasive Species ◽  
Xenopus Laevis ◽  
Dna Amplification ◽  
Control Program ◽  
Environmental Dna ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Low Density ◽  
African Species ◽  
A Site ◽  
And Control

Detection is crucial in the study and control of invasive species but it may be limited by methodological issues. In amphibians, classical survey techniques exhibit variable detection probability depending on species and are often constrained by climatic conditions often requiring several site visits. Furthermore, detection may be reduced at low density because probability capture (passive traps), or activity (acoustic surveys) drop. Such limits may impair the study of invasive species because low density is typical of the onset of colonisation on a site. In the last few years, environmental DNA (eDNA) methods have proved their ability to detect the presence of aquatic species. We developed here an eDNA method to detectXenopus laevisin ponds. This austral African species is now present worldwide because of its use in biology and as a pet. Populations have settled and expanded on several continents so that it is now considered as one of the major invasive amphibians in the World. We detected the presence ofX. laevisat density as low as 1 ind/100 m2and found a positive relationship between density in ponds and rate of DNA amplification. Results show that eDNA can be successfully applied to survey invasive populations ofX. laeviseven at low density in order to confirm suspected cases of introduction, delimit the expansion of a colonized range, or monitor the efficiency of a control program.

The Politics of Classic-Period Ritual Interaction

1993 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Francis Zeitlin
Keyword(s):  
Classic Period ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Social Differentiation ◽  
Sociopolitical Complexity ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Social Competition ◽  
Settlement Systems ◽  
Regional Centers ◽  
Stone Sculpture ◽  
Coastal Lowlands

AbstractThe Classic period along the Oaxaca Coast was a time of population growth and increased sociopolitical complexity, as marked by the prominence of hierarchical settlement systems, large regional centers, and the proliferation of monumental artworks. An iconographic examination of standing stone sculpture from six archaeological sites between the Rio Verde and the Río de los Perros indicates that these later Classic societies were concerned with the same religious themes that prevailed at that time throughout the Peripheral Coastal Lowlands: the Underworld death and rebirth of the celestial deities in mythical events reenacted in the ritual ballgame. With no single dominant power dictating cult orthodoxy, independent political leaders interpreted these rituals freely. As permanent public expressions of the polity's stature, the sculptures and the religious message they encoded appear to have both enhanced a leader's prestige in intergroup social competition and helped foster internal social differentiation.

Formation of a Complex Polity on the Eastern Periphery of the Maya Lowlands

2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith M. Prufer ◽  
Holley Moyes ◽  
Brendan J. Culleton ◽  
Andrew Kindon ◽  
Douglas J. Kennett
Keyword(s):  
Classic Period ◽  
Maya Lowlands ◽  
Agricultural Communities ◽  
Farming Community ◽  
Central Tenet ◽  
Group A ◽  
Eastern Periphery ◽  
Early Classic Period ◽  
Site Chronology ◽  
A Site

AbstractThis paper pursues the application of a central tenet of the dual-processual framework, the corporate/network continuum, to the development of Uxbenká, a small monument-bearing polity in the southern Maya Lowlands. During its growth, Uxbenká underwent a transformation from a small farming community to a complex polity with many of the trappings of elite authority that characterizes Classic Maya centers. It was one of the earliest complex polities to develop on the southeastern periphery of the Maya lowlands during the Early Classic period (A.D. 300—600). The polity was founded upon earlier agricultural communities that are now known to extend back to at least A.D. 100. Starting after A.D. 200 the location of the original agricultural village (Group A) was leveled and reorganized to form a public monument garden and the center of political authority throughout much of the Classic period (A.D. 400—800). In this article we present radiocarbon ages from well-defined stratigraphic contexts to establish a site chronology. Based on these data we suggest that by A.D. 450 Uxbenká was the center of a regional political system connected to some of the larger polities in the Maya world (e.g., Tikal). We argue that at this time Uxbenká underwent a significant change from a polity organized by a corporate inclusionary form of ruler-ship to a more networked one marked by exclusionary authority vested in elites who privileged their ancestral relations and network interactions across the geopolitical landscape.

From paths to blocks: New measures for street patterns

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 256-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Barthelemy
Keyword(s):  
Betweenness Centrality ◽  
Spatial Organization ◽  
Shortest Paths ◽  
Urban Systems ◽  
Conditional Probability Distribution ◽  
Planar Network ◽  
Formation And Evolution ◽  
Straight Lines ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Planar Networks

The street network is an important aspect of cities and contains crucial information about their organization and evolution. Characterizing and comparing various street networks could then be helpful for a better understanding of the mechanisms governing the formation and evolution of these systems. Their characterization is however not easy: there are no simple tools to classify planar networks and most of the measures developed for complex networks are not useful when space is relevant. Here, we describe recent efforts in this direction and new methods adapted to spatial networks. We will first discuss measures based on the structure of shortest paths, among which the betweenness centrality. In particular for time-evolving road networks, we will show that the spatial distribution of the betweenness centrality is able to reveal the impact of important structural transformations. Shortest paths are however not the only relevant ones. In particular, they can be very different from those with the smallest number of turns—the simplest paths. The statistical comparison of the lengths of the shortest and simplest paths provides a nontrivial and nonlocal information about the spatial organization of planar graphs. We define the simplicity index as the average ratio of these lengths and the simplicity profile characterizes the simplicity at different scales. Measuring these quantities on artificial (roads, highways, railways) and natural networks (leaves, insect wings) show that there are fundamental differences—probably related to their different function—in the organization of urban and biological systems: there is a clear hierarchy of the lengths of straight lines in biological cases, but they are randomly distributed in urban systems. The paths are however not enough to fully characterize the spatial pattern of planar networks such as streets and roads. Another promising direction is to analyze the statistics of blocks of the planar network. More precisely, we can use the conditional probability distribution of the shape factor of blocks with a given area, and define what could constitute the fingerprint of a city. These fingerprints can then serve as a basis for a classification of cities based on their street patterns. This method applied on more than 130 cities in the world leads to four broad families of cities characterized by different abundances of blocks of a certain area and shape. This classification will be helpful for identifying dominant mechanisms governing the formation and evolution of street patterns.

Spatial organization of low-density lipoproteins of the human aorta (a fluorescent probe study)

1983 ◽  
Vol 96 (4) ◽  
pp. 1392-1394 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. E. Dobretsov ◽  
M. M. Spirin ◽  
A. S. Kuznetsov ◽  
A. V. Popov
Keyword(s):  
Fluorescent Probe ◽  
Spatial Organization ◽  
Low Density Lipoproteins ◽  
Human Aorta ◽  
Low Density

scholarly journals Scenarios for development of the settlement systems of Siberia and Russian Far East until 2030

POPULATION ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 105-122
Author(s):  
Maxim Fomin ◽  
Timur Miriazov
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Organization ◽  
Russian Far East ◽  
Far East ◽  
Qualitative Change ◽  
State Regulation ◽  
Settlement System ◽  
Settlement Systems ◽  
The Far East ◽  
Territorial Organization ◽  
Dynamics Of Population

The subject of the study is the settlement systems of the Siberian and the Far East Federal Districts. This article considers the settlement system not only in the context of the spatial organization of society and the territorial organization of productive forces, but also as a derivative of the economic model of the State. Data on the dynamics of population size and density, migration indicators for the subjects of macroregions are presented, and regional types of settlement systems are structured. The importance of a qualitative change in the system of population placement in Siberia and the Far East for creating an internationally competitive network of settlements is emphasized. Within the frame of the main prospects for transformation of the Russian settlement system and its ordering there are considered perspective scenarios: "Priority" (active State regulation of settlement), "Progressive" (free self-organization of settlement) and "Inertial" (mixed transformation of settlement systems). In view of this, the typology of the "second" and "third" cities in the Siberian and Far East regions is given as a complex basis for spatial or supporting frameworks of settlement systems.

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