Not to scale? Maya civilizations show strange correlation

August 21, 2018 by Jenna Marshall, Santa Fe Institute



Researchers who study urban areas have long observed a connection between size and proximity—namely, that cities become more dense as they gain in population. The more people live in a place, the closer together they live and work.

This closeness is important: It likely accelerates learning and facilitates the sharing of ideas. It's readily demonstrated by data on civilizations separated by time and space, from pre-conquest Central Mexico to Medieval European cities to present-day metropolises.

But some societies buck the trend. Archaeologists have found evidence of "low-density urbanism" around the globe, including Maya sites in Mesoamerica. These populous areas didn't undergo a density increase as their numbers swelled; in some cases, they followed an inverse correlation.

"The existing data we have for Maya society shows the opposite pattern," says anthropologist and SFI External Professor Scott Ortman (University of Colorado-Boulder). As the Maya population rose, the city spread out, and the density fell. People didn't live closer together; they spread out.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-08-scale-maya-civilizations-strange.html#jCp