ABSTRACT
This chapter explains some brief examples of the complex regional patterns associated with early Mesoamerican villages and discusses the site typologies used, and the ways in which the various types of sites are thought to have been integrated. Settlement expands symmetrically in all directions at the same rate, producing a pattern too uniform to match any known Formative Mesoamerican case. The chapter examines the evolution of two kinds of settlement patterns characteristic of Formative Mesoamerica. One is the growth of linear patterns of villages along correspondingly linear river systems. The other is the growth of dispersed patterns of villages, with a site hierarchy and detectable regularity in spacing between sites of certain tiers. The chapter describes the question of how one gets at the system behind the pattern, at the set of rules that shape random processes into a highly structured network of inter-related settlements.
