Posted: June 11th, 2022

What characteristics separate a city from a town or village?2. What can you expect to see of these archaeologically?

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Please answer the three following questions 1. What characteristics separate a city from a town or village?
2. What can you expect to see of these archaeologically?
3. What would you look for in archaeological survey that indicates a city? Each questions answer should be at least 100 words. I also attached a fellow student’s answer, you can take it as a reference but no plagiarism please. And please write a 100 words comment for this student’s answers. So there are two components to this homework, first is to answer the three questions above with 100 words each, and then write a comment for the fellow student with 100 words. Thank you.
Fellow Student A
1. Compared to towns and villages, cities are generally larger and have a greater population (>5,000 people). A centralized political structure is crucial for city development; along with that, we can see social stratification to various extent. To solve the shortage of food due to the increasing population, cities need a group of farmers who devote most of their time to food production, and the total grain output may indeed exceed that of a town or village. That being said, other people can then be religious specialists, craft specialists, or the group of elites who benefit from social stratification. Further, a city may also have military, monuments, roads, temples, irrigation, and writing systems.
2. Among the characteristics of cities, a great number of these can provide evidence for archaeologists. The occupied area can be estimated by the location or distribution of building materials; if remains are well-preserved, this step is really straightforward. Population density can be estimated by the remains of daily supplies or from written records (if available.) Besides, craft products, monuments, and temples are fairly common to appear in archaeological records; but we have to be aware that these are not exclusively produced by sedentary farmers. Taking the site of Nabta Playa as an example, this monument was created by mobile cattle herders.
3. I would look for the scale, population density, and the distribution of buildings or houses. These attributes are easier to detect, and I think they are more directly related to the definition of a city without much bias. Evidence of the level of social stratification requires more written records and archaeological remains such as burial sites and personal belongings. One more aspect could be their crop yield which was written directly at that time. Based on that, we get to estimate further details about their trade activities, population size, and agricultural development.

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