This volume comprises the proceedings of the 9th IEMA (Institute for European and Mediterranean Archaeology) Conference at SUNY Buffalo in 2016. The contributions are arranged around the theme of population aggregation and early urbanization, with the goal of comparative examinations of these phenomena across a diverse range of case studies. In his introduction, Attila Gyucha poses three questions that frame the volume's contributions: (1) What factors and integrative mechanisms brought large populations together? (2) What social practices and institutions facilitated the development and sustainability of these sites? (3) What were the impacts of permanent nucleation for sociocultural development? As contemporary society becomes more and more urbanized, he notes, archaeology is poised to offer a unique long-term perspective on what brings people to cities, what keeps them there, and what cities must offer their residents to function sustainably.
Gyucha's introduction to the volume offers a suitably thorough intellectual background to the study of population aggregation, and it justifies selection of the book's three thematic sections: “Coming Together,” “Pathways to Sustainability,” and “Transformative Effects.”
The first section, “Coming Together,” asks what causes people to aggregate. Although multiple push-pull factors are often involved, and shifts in subsistence practices or the immigration of different groups are often implicated, the common denominator across most instances of aggregation is an increase in interactions and a decrease in their cost. This is, of course, both a driving factor and beneficial outcome of aggregation (see Michael E. Smith's introductory contribution on “energized crowding”). An emphasis on the interplay between increasing population density and broader sociopolitical factors in determining the timing and nature of aggregation is common across many of the contributions (John M. O'Shea and Amy Nicodemus on the Maros River Basin; Manuel Fernández-Götz on Iron Age Central Europe; John E. Kelly on Cahokia and the American Bottom). In contrast, Bradley A. Ault and Robin Osborne's contributions on Greek urbanism highlight almost opportunistic moves to manage a stratified population and ensure personal subsistence security.
The second section, “Pathways to Sustainability,” asks what it is that compels (or entices) people to remain aggregated. Part of this process is the development of shared identity among residents, to the extent that they feel a sense of permanent belonging; another important factor is the management of social structures that facilitate the tenable cohabitation of people in high densities. In contrast to more traditional views, Gyucha and contributors emphasize the nonlinear, context-specific development of various forms of social organization. The four chapters illustrate that the correlation between increasing social complexity and population aggregation is loose at best, and that driving factors for nucleation may be entirely unrelated. Here, Bisserka Gaydarska presents Trypillia megasites (Ukraine) as gradually formalized centers for essential interactions within a wider cultural network. In contrast, Daniel J. Pullen offers an example of deliberate construction of an urban community on the Saronic Gulf where no others existed. Exploring communal belonging in an urban space from another angle, both Laura K. Harrison and A. Nejat Bilgen (Seyitömer Höyük) and Alan Kaiser (Pompeii) argue for how architecture and built space facilitated specific types of social interaction and community interrelations.
The third section, “Transformative Effects,” asks, What is the interplay between aggregation and changes taking place at a societal level (or beyond it)? Pál Raczy details the complex structural changes in spatial and community organization in the Neolithic Carpathian Basin, whereas Jennifer Birch demonstrates that aggregation in northeastern North America did not necessarily correlate with specific changes in social organization. Inés Sastre and Brais Currás weigh in on debates over urbanization in northwestern Iberia and the role played by the Roman Empire in its development, and Susan C. Ryan addresses the nuanced ways in which kiva architecture and accoutrements reflect the nature of communal identities in different social contexts in the American Southwest.
The book's subdivisions of sections are effective, and the contributors have generally stuck to the appropriate themes. If read together, the various chapters offer much to consider by way of future questions in this same vein of research. Notably, however, neither Gyucha nor other contributors offer any form of concluding remarks that draw out specific results of the comparison supposedly undertaken in the book. This is a challenging task without the geographic and temporal breadth represented here, but even a set of honed questions and future directions would have been constructive.
The breadth of the volume's contributions make it a welcome alternative to regional studies on this topic, although the contributions are limited to Central and Western Europe and North America. Notably, several chapters offer a solid overview of scholarship on aggregation in their specific regions or periods, and so the book serves as a nice introduction for other specialists or students. It is a valuable contribution for anyone interested in these thematic questions and an excellent starting point for forays into new comparanda.
