The Origins and Distinctions of First Cities from Settlements
Number of pages:
15
ABSTRACT:
This is a 15 page paper discussing the origin and distinction of the first cities from communities. There are certain elements which distinguish a settlement from a city and it is the discovery of these elements during excavations of ancient sites that anthropologists and sociologists can determine the timeline of the development of cities from communities. The size of the center does not seem to relate to whether the inhabitants lived in a city or a community, but rather it is the structure of the center than matters. Cities differentiate from communities in that they have centralized structures which indicate that they had a central political system for organization. Another important aspect of cities is that they are distinct in the consistency of the type and materials used in the architecture which indicates that the same group of people, specialists and artisans, constructed the buildings which would indicate the presence of a division of labor. Socially, theories of the formation of cities range from the need for a centralized religious, political or authoritarian group or the need for the organization of irrigation in regards to the betterment of the agricultural society. Regardless of their structure and their development cities are also known to be more “organic” in that the people who would not always agree socially or religiously still worked as a whole for the necessity of need for the works and labors of others. Communities were considered more naturally “mechanical” as the people worked together as a whole and remained together because of family or kinship ties in addition to having the same beliefs, rituals and symbols.
Bibliography lists 9 sources.
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File: D0_TJcitys1.rtf
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