[Aztlan] Amazon "city" clusters

[Michael Smith]

I haven't seen the Scientific American paper yet, but my reactions to
the earlier paper in Science are at:

http://publishingarchaeology.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-do-we-mean-by-urb
an-comments-on.html

I think the causes of promoting comparative urbanism, and gaining an
appreciation for archaeological data by non-archaeologists, are harmed
by calling what are pretty clearly non-urban sites "urban." I expand on
this in the blog post. A portion is:

"If we accept any interesting-looking ancient settlement system as an
urban system, then that concept becomes so enlarged that is ceases to be
useful. Many societies in the American Southwest, or Neolithic societies
in the Old World, could be described as multi centric networked
settlement patterns. These are fascinating settlement systems, but there
is no reason to call them "urban." Societies can be interesting and
important without being urban."

Mike

Dr. Michael E. Smith
Professor of Anthropology
School of Human Evolution & Social Change
Arizona State University
www.public.asu.edu/~mesmith9/
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