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Settlement scaling and increasing returns in an ancient society
Scott G Ortman1, Andrew H F Cabaniss2, Jennie O Sturm3
1Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309-0233, USA. ; Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Road, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA.
Science Advances
|November 25, 2015
Summary
Increasing returns to scale, where outputs grow faster than population, were found in ancient settlements. This suggests network effects driving urban growth are historical, not modern phenomena.
Area of Science:
- Archaeological Science
- Urban Studies
- Socioeconomic History
Background:
- Modern cities exhibit increasing returns to scale, where socioeconomic outputs grow disproportionately faster than population size.
- Theoretical work attributes this to spatial network effects inherent in human social networks, suggesting it's not exclusive to contemporary urban environments.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the presence and extent of increasing returns to scale in archaeological settlement data.
- To test the hypothesis that historical settlements exhibit scaling properties consistent with modern urban theory.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of pre-Hispanic Basin of Mexico archaeological settlement data.
- Examination of quantitative relationships between population size and settled area.
- Analysis of monument construction patterns and house sizes.
Main Results:
- Estimated scaling parameters and residual statistics support increasing returns to scale in various socioeconomic productions.
- Findings align with settlement scaling theory's predictions for historical human settlements.
Conclusions:
- Increasing returns to scale were characteristic of pre-Hispanic settlements, indicating deep historical roots.
- The study demonstrates that increasing returns do not necessitate modern political or economic structures, challenging conventional urban development theories.
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