Investigating Spatial Organization of Early Urban Life

The University Of Central Florida Board Of Trustees, Orlando FL

Investigators

Abstract

Dominant interpretations of the development of early examples of urbanism have centered the motivations of powerful elites in the creation and manipulation of cities, largely ignoring the agentive potential of everyday people or a possible middle class. This perspective contrasts with recent scholarship suggesting that urbanism results from a complex interplay of top-down and bottom-up processes. To address this imbalance, this project investigates how the actions of non-elite individuals aggregate to shape cities through activities like private economic enterprise. Such findings are broadly relevant to resolving open questions about how cities are formed, sustained, and eventually fail. Within the described framework, the team investigates an early walled city. The research has the potential to reveal temporal or geographical variability among urbanisms in the heartland of cities by providing a holistic view. The initiative integrates researchers from various national and international universities with resident specialists and students from the site's region. The collaboration affords early career scholars with the datasets needed for doctoral research and professional advancement. Furthermore, the team empowers heritage professionals and students in the region by providing training in the latest digital and scientific methods in archaeology, thereby improving scientific infrastructure and increasing capacity for future research. Project data is shared online through Open Context and archived through the University of Central Florida Library. To evaluate the role that everyday people played in the development of ancient cities, the researchers rigorously evaluate patterns of wealth, health, and diet in the archaeological record. Intensive surveys and excavations of residential districts investigate economic patterning and social stratification. Targeted studies clarify the presence or absence of large-scale, centralized storage and production, towards understanding the extent to which elites intervened in the organization of labor and wealth production. The initiative complements field research with additional scientific studies (bioarchaeological, stable isotope, and compositional analyses) to assess how people of all socio-economic levels expressed decision-making through commercial and consumer activities. Laboratory studies transform the detritus of everyday life—pottery, bone, carbonized plant remains, and small artifacts—into datasets capable of answering the project’s research questions about social differences and economic organization. Finally, a geophysics team will complete a large map of the city using magnetometry, a non-destructive technique that reveals subsurface architecture, generating a snapshot of the city’s civic districts, neighborhoods, streets, and walls. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.