The University of Melbourne
FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND PLANNING
705-117
Lecture Notes
CULTURE & HISTORY IN URBAN PLANNING
© 1999 C.M. Gutjahr
PART 1 - PRE-URBAN DEVELOPMENTS
Introduction
Our knowledge of the growth and development of prehistoric settlements is not very precise,
and subject to continuing revision (errors in carbon dating etc.).
Many questions are left unanswered as more research is needed; our major sources of
information come from the work of archaeologists and early writers and explorers who often
relied solely on observation and exaggeration.
Studying this period, one is constantly reminded of the lack of data. Much has been destroyed
or lost forever without a trace; countless cities lie buried under rubble and ruins, sand-dunes
and alluvial sands, while others served as quarries to later generations in search of suitable
building materials.
2
The Setting (Location)
The setting is the Ancient World as it may have appeared to the people of the day, as
Alexander the Great knew it or the Romans. This world was orientated east to west along the
30° of latitude; people to the north and south were hardly a part of this urbanisation process
until the first millenium B.C..
The following separate areas of development can be distinguished:1.
THE CENTRAL AREA
The fertile Crescent : Egypt, Asia Minor, Arabia, Iran
2.
THE WESTERN AREA
The countries constituting the Mediterranean Sea' s coast line.
3.
THE EASTERN AREA
India to China.
Map of Ancient World 2500 - 2000 B.C. showing centres of urbanisation
Time-Scale
Part 1 of the course covers the origin and evolution of human settlements right up to that point
in time when villages and other proto-urban forms emerge as cities i.e. develop urban
characteristics.
The point in time: about 4,000/3,500 B.C. (date constantly revised backwards)
The location : Fertile Crescent, later in other regions.
There are 3 main phases in the (historical) evolution of the first urban civilizations and their
cities. The first two belong to Part 1 (Prehistory/Pre-urban Developments), the third to Part 2 of
the course (The First Urban Cultures).
Phase 1 - PALAEOLITHIC AGE
600,000/500,000 -10,000/8,000 B.C.
3
During this longest of pre-historic ages humankind attained a level of development called
savagery - a food gathering and hunting economy. It was an age of hunters and gatherers,
totally absorbed in the quest for food (lasted into neolithic age) and entirely dependent on the
environment and climate.
Thee earliest of folk societies roamed around in small groups searching for food; they did not
know any form of permanent refuge (home), existence was precarious and the average
human life-span short
The Palaeolithic Age was a long phase in human development; it offered virtually no
opportunities for humans to free themselves from the daily quest for food and survival, let
alone for creating a complex culture.
Professor Childe notes that this gathering economy".... provided the sole course of livelihood
open to human society during nearly 98 per cent of humanity's sojourn on this planet.
Such an economy imposed a limit on population with a direct relationship to the prevailing
climatic and geological conditions".
Low Densities
In France, the Magdalenian culture between 35,000 to 10,000 B.C. (thought exceptionally
favourable in terms of food resources) had a maximum population density of 1 person per
square mile, with the general figure in much of Europe being around 0.1 to 0.2
persons/mile2.
Note: The entire population of the British isles around 2000 B.C. has been put at no more than
20,000 with an increase to a maximum of 40,000 persons during the Bronze Age.
Other examples given by Professor Childe are that. . ."in the whole continent of Australia the
aboriginal population is believed never to have exceeded 200,000 - a density of only 0.03 per
square mile". Whilst on the prairies of North America he quotes Kroeber's estimate that"... the
hunting population would not have exceeded 0.11 (persons) per square mile".
Lack of permanent settlements
There was no permanent physical unit until about 140,000 B.C. when as the last great ice-age
was approaching, men were sufficiently well equipped to evict other denizens and themselves
to find shelter in caves. There we find true homes (Childe, 1950).
The population of hunters and gatherers in the economy of savagery was always exceedingly
sparse and lived in small roving bands which rarely established anything like permanent
villages. Some semi-permanent settlements have been found on the Pacific coast of North
America, comprised 30 or so substantial and durable houses, accommodating groups of
several hundred persons. It has to be realised also, that it is only comparatively recently,
historically speaking, that humans have formed the habit of living in established communities.
Note: the Hadza tribe in north-west central Tanzania is among the last hunter-gatherer tribes
today.
4
Artist's impression of neolithic village of Aichbühl on the Federnsee ,
Württemberg, Germany
Phase 2 - Neolithic Age
10,000/8,000 B.C. - 3,500/3,300 B.C.
Humans began to exercise some measure of control over the supply of food by the systematic
cultivation of certain forms of wild plants (ancestral to our wheat and barley), and by the
domestication of animals.
This important step forward introduces a new stage of human existence, termed barbarism
(by Morgan) which is distinguishable from the earlier, more primitive, stage of savagery.
"The escape from the impasse of savagery was an economic and scientific revolution that
made the participants active partners with nature instead of parasites on nature". - Gordon
Childe
The two most decisive epochs in the history of humankind were:
1.
the discovery of a new source of energy from the steam engine
i.e. Industrial Revolution
2.
the' Neolithic Revolution' according to Gordon Childe the change from the
nomadic life of food-gathering and hunting to the sedentary existence of cultivation
and cattle-raising.
Note:
The median of several estimates of the ultimate size of the hunting-and-gathering cultures that
preceded the introduction of agriculture is 8,000,000. (thus rate of growth during human's first
990,000 years [about 99% of their history] was exceedingly small) i.e. growth rate .015 per
1,000. Growth accelerates with introduction of agriculture.
Theories of the origins of agriculture
Gordon Childe's theory of the 'Neolithic Revolution', one of the best known early theories of
the origins of agriculture, suggests that post-Pleistocene desiccation led to the concentration
5
of humans, plants, and animals at oases. This concentration may have promoted
experiments with cultivation and the sort of symbiosis between humans and animals implied in
the word domestication.
Gordon Childe's model hinges on evidence of a drastic desiccation at the time agriculture
began. There is now serious doubt about it while some critics (Bender 1975) do not accept
that such environmental determinism could ever be a sufficient explanation.
While Childe's theory may no longer have wide acceptance there are still some who say there
is evidence for parts of it. Legge says that in the archaeological record of the Levant it is
possible to observe a period of rapid adoption of agriculture and the and the beginning of
settlements at tell sites. This occurred at a time of increasing dryness (Legge, 1977).
Jane Jacobs' (1969) theory of agricultural origins is significant in that it is quite the opposite to
that of Childe. Jacobs believes not only that cities preceded the development of agriculture,
but that agriculture was developed in cities and from there it slowly spread to rural areas.
According to Jacobs surges in agricultural production have always followed the growth of cities
in history, not preceded it.
Jacobs' theory depends very much upon the notion that cities were possible before the
development of agriculture (for which Childe sees no evidence) and also that agriculture was a
major technological breakthrough.
A more plausible theory of the development of agriculture is that of Cohen (1977) who
believes that agriculture was developed as a response to population growth and pressure, and
that although hunting and gathering is an extremely successful mode of adaptation for small
human groups, it is not well adapted to the support of large or dense populations.
Cohen suggests that the development of agriculture was an adjustment humans were forced
to make in response to their own increasing numbers; that it is an accumulation of techniques
used to increase the range or density of growth of particular resources. Not ignorance but
lack of need prevented some groups of people becoming agriculturalists (Cohen, ch 1, 1977).
While agriculture, according to Cohen, is neither easier than hunting and gathering, nor the
provider of a higher quality, more palatable, or more secure food base, its principal advantage
is that it allows higher population densities to be supported.
Human controI of the Environment
Whatever the precise origins of agriculture, early folk societies made important intellectual
associations of ideas between natural phenomena which lead them to experiment with
agriculture and the domestication of animals; a chain reaction continuing into modern times.
As stock breeding and the cultivation of plants became established, human dependence on
the external environment diminished. Important things followed automatically from this
fundamental change from a nomadic to a sedentary existence.
1
as humans engage in agriculture they become more settled in order to tend and
protect their property and produce; a permanent residence i.e. village becomes
inevitable.
2
access to an improved diet means more people can be supported on same area
of land (population increase)
•
the production of a surplus encourages the development of something
larger than the family i.e. a social organization
3
humans are forced into communal co-operation: clearing, harvesting, defence
against others, thus
• foundations of a social order are laid
• increased leisure and opportunities lead to stratification and specialization
within framework of village Iife
4
social life needed rules, rudiments of laws
5
specialists are needed e.g. chieftains, rulers to guarantee continuation of laws,
6
priests who see to delicate relation with mother nature and interpret human's
struggle with an alien nature; hence religion
6
trade begins as the surplus is used to obtain tools and exotic goods.
The Neolithic Village
The neolithic agricultural revolution transformed the economy into one with an increasingly
food producing basis enabling the social unit to expand, if only marginally so, to that of the
clan, with the physical unit being the village. Such early villages would have to be shifted every
20 years unless crops were watered by irrigation.
Favourable conditions for the agricultural revolution first occurred 5,000 to 4,500 B.C. south
and east of the Mediterranean in the river valleys and on the broad alluvial plains and
watersheds of the Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia, the Nile in Egypt, the Indus and
Ganges in India, and, somewhat later, in the Yellow River (Hwang Ho) basin of China.
The earliest, permanently inhabited village settlements of the food producers, then, appeared
around 5000 B.C. in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia and Iran.
(This figure is constantly revised backwards - the earliest villages are now believed to have
existed around 8,000/7,000 B.C. ?)
Reconstruction of housing section of Çatal Hüyük, south Anatolia, Turkey, level VI B6,000-5,900
B.C.
7
0
5m
Plan of excavations of agglomeration houses
Catal Hüyük, Anatolia
!961/62 excavations of area E , Level VI
ca. 6500 B.C.
8
Walled village settlement of Hacilar, south-west Anatolia, level IIA
ca. 5,400 B.C.
ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF FIRST CITIES (from village cultures)
Pre-conditions needed for the earliest cities to emerge
1. Technological advances beyond the folk-society level (agriculture etc.)
2. Soclal Organisation
A special type of social organisation by means of which the agricultural surplus produced by
technological advance could be collected, stored and distributed.
The same apparatus could also organise the labour force needed for large-scale construction
such as public buildings city walls, and irrigation systems.
A social organisation of this kind requires a variety of full-time specialists directed by a ruling
elite. Such an elite is few in numbers but must command sufficient political power - reinforced
by an ideology usually religious in character - to ensure that the peasantry periodically
relinquishes a substantial part of the agricultural yield in order to support specialist city
dwellers.
3. The existence of a form of writing
Without it one cannot keep permanent records nor develop natural sciences.
Gideon Sjoberg's (1966) definition of the term city as "....community of substantial size and
population density that shelters a variety of non-agricultural specialists, including a literate
elite" reflects the importance of writing.
The role of literacy cannot be overemphasized as an ingredient of urban life. Even though
writing systems took centuries to evolve their presence or absence serves as a convenient
means for distinguishing between genuinely urban communities, and others that in spite of
their large size and dense population must be considered quasi-urban or non-urban.
Once a community acquires the technological advance we call writing, a major transformation
occurs in its social order; a written tradition as opposed to an oral one allows the creation of
more complex administrative and legal systems and a more vigorous system of thought. Its
existence thus implies the emergence of a number of significant specialisation within the
social order.
4. a favourable environment
An environment which provides not only fertile soil but also a water supply adequate for
agriculture and urban consumption, is an essential precondition for the emergence of cities.
9
Throughout the 4th millenium B.C. and ,possibly well before, all these technological
requirements for the urban revolution were met (by discovery or invention). Cities began to
evolve during the millenium in the broad, alluvial, mid-latitude river valleys where all the
necessary pre-conditions existed.
Plan Reconstruction of the Village of Aichbühl
(Town Planning Review, Vol.XXI, No. 1, April 1950. p.5)
What distinguishes a city from a village?
V. Gordon Childe, renown archaeologist, (in his article ‘The Urban Revolution’ in Town
Planning Review, April 1950. pp. 3-17), lists 10 rather abstract criteria of urbanization, all
deducible from archaeological data, which distinguish even these earliest cities from any older
or contemporary villages:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Size
Social structure (specialists)
Concentration of social surplus
Existence of monumental public buildings
Presence of a ‘ruling class’
Existence of a system of writing and numeral notation
Development of exact and predictive sciences: Arithmetic,
Geometry, Astronomy.
8.
Artistic expression
9.
Trade - importation of raw materials
10.
Specialist craftsmen belong politically and economically to
the city.
THREE BASIC HUMAN NEEDS UNDERLYING THE EVOLUTION OF
CITIES
The first cities, just as the earlier villages and proto-urban forms which preceded them, are a
response to three fundamental human needs to come together:
• 1.
Need for spiritual orientation in an alien world.
• 2.
Protection against threats to life and property.
10
• 3.
Social and Economic needs.
Comments on the Social Needs
"The rise of cities was pre-eminently a social process, an expression of change in man's
interaction with his fellows rather than his interaction with his environment. for this reason it
marks not only a turning point but also a branching point in the history of the human species" Robert Adams.
Fundamental to this observation is the division of Humankind into groups or classes from the
earliest times: into Peasants, Artisans, Merchants, Priests, Soldiers. All have different and
specialized interests and functions in urban settlements, and all are involved in the evolution of
the city in its many and varied forms.
Political and social development lead to further (sub)groups:
the suppressed classes, the persecuted classes, the slaves, the subjects, the convicts, the
freed person, the freeholder, the leaseholder.
The needs of the ruling classes such as the cost of making war, supporting a royal household,
clergy, building cities, canals, roads, are met by the hard labour of all kinds of workers whose
share in things was strictly limited and defined. Hence the many social revolutions which have
always accompanied the history of cities.
Cities manifest themselves in a variety of urban forms (reflecting function) which can be traced
back to pre-urban origins.
It is possible to distinguish settlement patterns based on any one or any combination of these
needs: spiritual, protective, social and economic, the latter two being the most dominant.
All the pre-urban and proto-urban settlement types of prehistoric times reach into historic,
urban times. One is, therefore, confronted by a variety of settlement types/forms right from
the beginning of recorded urban history.
The development of settlements from prehistoric days to the first urban cultures shows:
1.
a chronological order of urban forms in which old ones are not done away with, but
supplemented.
2.
the existence of the military, clergy, merchants, craftsmen 1 since earl times.
3.
the spatial formation of pre-urban forms as either: village, market, place of refuge,
garrison town.
4.
the urban forms resulting from these: holy city, resident city, capital city or seat of the
court.
All early urban forms mentioned are substantiated and can be found in the old as well as the
new world. The urban development in various countries took place at different periods of time.
The PROCESS OF URBANIZATION
There is disagreement as to:
(a)
the precise centres of origin of cities
(b)
the character of the earliest cities
(c)
their dating
Two principal views on urban origins:
P.R.Sarkar (1967) Human Society, Part 2, a leading Indian scholar, refers to the social
classes of laborers, warriors, intellectuals and acquisitors as being part of the law of social
cycles which accompanies human cultures.
1
11
1.
Independent, more or less simultaneous emergence.
2.
Diffusion of urban characteristics from fertile crescent to other
regions. This view suggests that as one moves away (i.e.
eastward and westward) from the Fertile Crescent, the
emergence of urban forms takes place at a later point in time.
12
EXAMPLES
The development of pre-historic settlements in various regions of the ancient world.
NORTH EAST AFRICA
B.C.
(a)
EGYPT
6000-5000
Temporary settlements of Nomads in Upper Nile Valley.
5000-4400
Pre-village cultures.
4400-3950
Developed village culture and proto-urban forms of settled population
around 4000 B.C. in Nile delta, which had been growth centre for some
time.
3950-3500
Growth of small towns based on earlier villages in Nile Delta and on Upper
Nile. e.g. NAGADE, HIERAKONPOLIS. These represent genuine urban
forms, i.e. include merchants, craftsmen and agricultural hinterland.
Some authorities maintain that we can observe, in Nile delta, the formation
of first, independent and spontaneous urban settlements of artisans and
merchants. Their form evolved from villages or were newly founded.
3500-3200
Pre-dynastic Era:
Small towns struggle for autonomy against kings and feudal lords. Small
towns gain considerable strength.
3200
Union into Old Empire.
3100
Earliest cities date from this time.
(b)
ETHIOPIA and the SUDAN
Traces of pre-urban civilization (art forms, stones) found between Red Sea
and Great Lakes to south; but one cannot determine a definite pre or
protourban development as in Egypt. Arabia and Southern Asia may have
influenced.
3000-2000
Village cultures exist until this period, when feudal settlements of invading
dynasties occur.
Birth of city preceded here, as elsewhere, by 'Priest town' or holy town and
ruler's settlement.
(c)
MAROCCO, TUNISIA, ALGERIA, LIBYA
No cities until colonization by Phoenicians
Nature unfavourable for urban cultures
Nomadic tribes (Hamites) build
places of refuge
fortified settlements such as QASR and KSUR
Early forms of these settlements can still be seen today.
MESOPOTAMIA
Population forced to limit cultivation to fertile river strips. High turnover of tribes pushing each
other out of fertile areas. Exact location of first villages unknown(?).
B.C.
(a)
ASSYRIA
HASSUNA, JARMO, Tell HALAF - regarded as the earliest settled places
in agricultural Mesopotamia. Huts, tent, eventually villages.
13
Tells remain at those sites today.
Cross-section through a Tell
- an artificial mound of debris usually covering the ruins of an ancient city
HASSUNA
west of Tigris at merger of two rivers.
furnishes in several layers the history of its development into
village.
from 5000
from 4000
1a.
1b.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Early Stone Age Pre-village (begin of Agriculture)
Archaic Layers Proto-Village
Proto-Village
Standard Layers
Village-like
Copper Era
New Village
(Trade and Commerce)
Reconstruction of courtyard house, HASSUNA, level IV
(b)
Region of River Delta
4400
Emergence of a new tribe of people.
Region grows in importance (changes in excavated layers suggest break in
history at that time).
4000
Population settled in the following new villages:
TELL EL OBEID
TEPE GAWRA
- priest classes and sanctuaries present
- development continues to 2300 through 19
different and consecutive periods of
construction.
14
Walls of a house, TEPE GAWRA
ERIDU
LAGASH
- villages or places of cult
building materials: clay tiles + reeds.
- houses freely positioned and constituted of
independent elements.
15
URUK (WARKA)
settled since 4000
3800 to 3500 and after is period of evolution into city.
Second bottom layer (II) reveals writing, development of crafts and new
building forms.
A common culture called 'obeid' connected all these places, which slowly
took on urban forms.
This village culture lasted 300-400 years until ca. 3900.
B.C.
(c)
4000
SUSA
in the plain at foot of Persian high plateau.
situated on small hill. Its ruins created a tell which served as
building site for later generations.
1a.
village: stone implements/ceramics
1b.
village
1c.
transition of village to city, completed 3000.
from 3600
ELAM REGION
First cities in Mesopotamia evolve soon after 3500 B.C.
Plan of Abada, east of Baghdad, level II
ca. 4,500-4,000 B.C.
THE LEVANT
16
Situated along the overland connection between Asia and Africa and influenced from both
directions but early finds also show individual development.
Urban development simultaneous with that of neighbouring regions.
Permanent village cultures well-established by 5,000/4,700 B.C.
(a)
4700
PALESTINE
JERICHO
fully settled village; one of the oldest, permanent agricultural sites
excavated.
4000-3500
Network of scattered villages which grow into small towns.
3500-2000
Period of small town culture evolving as markets and power centres
out of villages and nomadic settlements.
(b)
LEBANON (PHOENICIA)
BYBLOS
provides a good cross-section through prehistoric developments.
4500
3800
3500
3200
Layer 1 Village of farmers and fishermen
Layer 2 Village; paved streets
Layer 3 trade and crafts flourish
Layer 4 residential town without palace or temple but with
proper harbour fortified by strong wall
Layer 5 city, palace and temple
Layer 6 city, palace and temple
2900
2700
(c)
4800
SYRIA
First permanent village-like settlements
HAMA M
4700
L
K
-
UGARIT (Ras Shamra)
V
IV
4300
to
4000
2800
4400
2900
JUDEIDEH XIV (14 layers)
These Neolithic settlements complete their urban evolution around 3500 B.C. They contain
Neolithic layers similar to those of SAMOS, TROY, KISH, HISSAR.
Several deep layers have been excavated in each case; these settlements are certainly as old
as those of Egypt and Mesopotamia.
17
IRAN
Two areas developed settlements:
i. Northern - foot of Elbrus Mountains eastwards
ii. Southern - eastward to Indus Valley
SIALK, HISSAR, RANA-GHUNDAI, BAKUN
Lowest layers excavated date to 5th millennium B.C.
Urban (city) forms evolve from 3500 or earlier.
Iran has large number of village cultures in the valleys which never became cities.
SIALK
I
Period of
emerging
city
from
about 3500 B.C.
II
III
IV
sub-layer
sub-layer
sub-layer
sub-layer
1 lowest
2-4
1-5
1-3
• reed huts: hunters, fishers
• house from formed clay bricks
• on a hill
• new village forms, 800m south of II
sub-layer
sub-layer
sub-layer
4
6
7
• 3800 B.C. metals used potters wheel
• weaving
• last phase; destroyed and burned
• after 3000 new settlement which
becomes suburb to SUSA
Beehive houses built of stone ca. 4000 B.C.
Mesopotamia
18
Principal references are shown in bold.
Adams, Robert M. (1960) 'The Origins of Cities', Scientific American, Reprint 606, San
Francisco; W.H. Freeman and Co., September.
Bender, B. (1975) Farming in Prehistory: From hunter-gatherer to food producer, Baker John,
London, U.K.
Childe, V. Gordon, (1950) 'The Urban Revolution', Town Planning Review, Vol. XXI, No.
1. April pp. 3-17.
Childe, V. Gordon, (1960) What Happened in History, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books.
Clark, Grahame, (1969) World Prehistory: A New Outline, Cambridge University Press. 2nd
Edition.
Cohen, M.N. (1977) The food crisis in pre-history, Yale University Press, New Haven,
USA.
Daniel, Glyn, (1971) The First Civilisations, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books.
Fagan, B.M. (1992) People of the Earth, Harper Collins, USA.
Hawkes, J. (ed.) (1975) Atlas of Ancient Archaeology, Heinemann, London.
Hawkes, J. & Woolley, Sir L. (1963) Prehistory and the Beginnings of Civilisation, George Allen
& Unwin.
Higgs, E.S. and Jarman, M.R. (1972) “The origins of animal and plant husbandry” Chapter 1 in
Papers in Economic Prehistory, Ed. Higgs, Cambridge University Press, London, UK.
Hodges, Henry, (1970) Technology in the Ancient World, Allen Lane Press, Penguin Books.
Jacobs, J., (1969) The Economy of Cities, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1972
Chapter 1, 'Cities First-Rural Development Later'.
Kostof, S. (1985) A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals, Oxford Unviersity
Press, Chap. 2 and 3.
Legge, A.J. (1977) “The origins of agriculture in the Near East”, chapter 4 in Hunters,
gatherers, and the first farmers beyond Europe, Ed. Megaw, Leicester University Press,
London, UK.
Mellaart, J. (1975) The Neolithic of the Near East, Thames and Hudson, London, UK.
Morris, A.E.J., (1972) History of Urban Form, London, George Godwin, pp. 1-7.
Mumford, L., (1966) The City in History, Harmondsworth, Penguin
Books, Chapter 1.
Nylander, Carl, (1971) The Deep Well, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books.
Perkins, D. and Daly, P. (1974)) “The beginnings of food production in the Near East”
chapter 3 in The Old World, Ed. Stigler, Thames and Hudson, London, UK.
19
Sjoberg, Gideon. (1965) 'The Origin and Evolution of Cities', Cities, pp. 25-39, A
Scientific American Book, (New York, Albert Knopf) or Cities: Their Origin, Growth,
and Human Impact, (1973) readings from Scientific American, Freeman.
Sjoberg, G., (1966) The Pre-Industrial City, Past and Present, The Free Press of Glencoe,
Chapters 2 and 3.
Stigler, R. (1974) “The later Neolithic in the Near East and the rise of civilisation” chapter 4 in
The Old World, Ed. Stigler, Thames and Hudson, London, UK.
Ucko, P.J., Tringham, R. & Dimbleby, G.W. (eds) (1972) Man, Settlement and Urbanism, G.
Duckworth, London.