Urbanization and Spatial Organization in Southern France and North-Eastern Spain during the Iron Age

This chapter examines the process of urbanization in north-east Spain and southern France during the Iron Age. The findings reveal that the French Midi is an intermediate zone where the process of urbanization develops later than in the central Mediterranean, but earlier than in Celtic Europe. The results also indicate that it was the Greek commercial demand that influenced the organization of a network of exchange which resulted in the network of settlements that occurred at the end of the sixth century BC.

Urban Foundations? Colonial Settlement and Urbanization in the Western Mediterranean

This chapter examines the relation between urbanization and colonial settlement in the western Mediterranean and evaluates whether the Mediterranean should be considered an urban region. It investigates the interconnection between urbanization and colonialism and analyses archaeological evidence for early colonial settlement, focusing on Greek colonization in South Italy and Sicily and the Phoenician presence on the Tyrrhenian islands and the Spanish south-east coast. The findings indicate that the urban fabric of many colonial foundations does not necessarily have to be understood in urban terms.

Urbanization in Etruria

This chapter examines the process of urbanization in Etruria. There is general agreement that, in Etruria, urbanization was well under way by the end of the seventh century BC. During this period Tarquinia already showed two of the defining criteria of urban settlement: centralized authority; and state, or public cult. The chapter describes the population figures in Etruria given that urbanization depends on population densities.

Statics and Dynamics: Ancient Mediterranean Urbanism

This chapter examines the dynamics and statics of urbanism in ancient Mediterranean. It suggests that it is in the world of dynamics that much of the distinctiveness of Mediterranean urbanism in the first half of the first millennium is to be found. The chapter also argues that it is the social, economic, and political institutions of the unstable clustered communities of the region that made the urbanism of this period distinctive.

Mainake: the Legend and the New Archaeological Evidence

This chapter re-examines the location of the legendary city of Mainake. The main source of information about Mainake is the fourth-century poem Ora Maritima and the older anonymous text concerning a periplous. These sources contradict the findings of archaeological studies. This chapter suggests that if it is to be accepted that Mainake was ancient Malaka, and geo-archaeological evidence taken into consideration, then there would be two stages in the socio-political and urban formation of one and the same city. The earliest or colonial stage would be situated on the islet of Villar, while the other on the mainland, in the cover of Malaga.

The Early Iron Age Urban Forms of Cyprus

This chapter examines the local conditions, traditions, and forms of urban settlement in Cyprus during the Iron Age. It explains that almost to the very end of the Middle Bronze Age, Cyprus had remained a closed rural society, though it was by then completely surrounded by Mediterranean urban states and it was only by 1100 BC that new social and economic structures started to dictate the establishment and development of new population and power centers. The archaeological evidence of 800–600 BC stands testimony to the culmination of a long process of social evolution and urbanization.

Urban Sprawl: What is Urbanization and Why does it Matter?

This chapter explains the importance of studying urbanization in the Mediterranean region. Urbanization has become a somewhat unfashionable topic among archaeologists and this may be because it has become bound up with questions of state formation. This chapter highlights the need to analyse urban settlements in the way that sanctuaries and cemeteries have come to be analysed, and argues that attempts to understand what is going on in the Mediterranean in the early Iron Age are doomed unless the importance of the town as a unit of analysis is reinserted and the variable forms of town as a unit are examined.

Village to City: Staples and Luxuries? Exchange Networks and Urbanization

This chapter examines the role of commodities and their movements to the complex processes of change and urbanization in the Greek world. It suggests that economies of urban centers emerged out of, and came to reside in, the consumption of goods driven by fashion, as many people in fluid political and social settings use goods to display their political aims and construct social ambitions. Thus, the increasing numbers of communities that might seriously be called urban by the sixth century could be considered, in the most literal sense, as consumer cities.

Early Urbanization between 800 and 600 BC in the Pontine Region (South Lazio), the Salento Isthmus (Apulia), and the Sibaritide (Northern Calabria)

This chapter compares the development of early urbanization between 800 and 600 BC in three Italian regions. These are the Pontine region in Central Italy, the Salento Isthmus in South Puglia, and the Sibaritide in the northern part of Calabria. The chapter analyses the long-term landscape and settlement dynamics in these regions and suggests that the dimensions of sites and the resulting site hierarchy serve in all cases to reveal processes of proto-urbanization and therefore changes in the complexity of society.

The Beginnings of Urbanization in Rome

This chapter examines the urbanization process in Rome based on archaeological evidence. Archaeological attention has been refocused on Rome because the question of the reliability of our sources for early Rome has been reopened and because recent and ancient sources have been found to cohere to a surprising degree. The chapter suggests that the curiae are interestingly urban in their interests and functions, and in the way they participate in conscious and unconscious dialectics across the whole urban landscape. It also discusses the distinction between proto-urban and urban.