Abstract
One of the hallmarks of human agglomeration is an increase in the division of labour, but the exact nature of this relationship has been debated among anthropologists, sociologists, economists, and historians and archaeologists. Over the last decade, researchers investigating contemporary urban systems have suggested a novel explanation for the links between the numbers of inhabitants in settlements and many of their most important characteristics, which is grounded in a view of settlements as social networks embedded in built environments. One of the remarkable aspects of this approach is that it is not based on the specific conditions of the modern world (such as capitalism or industrialization), which raises the issue of whether the relationships observed in contemporary urban systems can also be detected in pre-modern urban or even non-urban systems. Here, we present a general model for the relationship between the population and functional diversity of settlements, where the latter is viewed as an indicator of the division of labour. We then explore the applicability of this model to pre-modern contexts, focusing on cities in the Roman Empire, using estimates of their numbers of inhabitants, numbers of documented professional associations, and numbers of recorded inscriptions to develop an index of functional diversity. Our results are consistent with theoretical expectations, adding further support to the view that urban systems in both contemporary and pre-modern contexts reflect a common set of generative processes.
Highlights
Researchers investigating contemporary urban systems have developed an integrated approach to the study of settlements, ‘settlement scaling theory’, which is grounded in a view of settlements as social networks embedded in built environments [1 –4]
We present a general model for the relationship between the population size and functional diversity of individual settlements within an urban system
This analysis emphasizes the effects of city size for the division of labour, it should be emphasized that Roman cities did not exist in isolation but were linked to wider systems, hierarchies and networks
Summary
Researchers investigating contemporary urban systems have developed an integrated approach to the study of settlements, ‘settlement scaling theory’, which is grounded in a view of settlements as social networks embedded in built environments [1 –4]. The formal models that underlie settlement scaling theory can account for the attributes of contemporary urban systems, the mechanisms animating these models are very general and are not tailored to the specific conditions of the modern world or restricted to settlements of a certain size. A number of studies using historical and archaeological data from a variety of pre-modern contexts have found evidence for several of the patterns outlined above, including the densification effect, intensified use of infrastructure, and increasing returns to scale [12 –15] This includes cities in the Roman Empire, where we have demonstrated that there is a relationship between the inhabited areas and densities of settlements that can be used to improve on estimates of their numbers of inhabitants [16]. Our results add further support to the view that throughout history human settlement systems have shared a common set of fundamental generative social processes which have led to consistent empirical patterns in their aggregate properties
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