ABSTRACT
In the ancient world, cities had very close relationships with their landscapes, but rarely were they entirely dependent on them and equally rarely did landscapes, or more accurately ‘environmental systems’, determine the long-term fortunes of cities. The nature of the landscape not only placed physical constraints upon traffic moving north and south, but it also separated societies, as can be inferred for example by the numbers and range of Iron Age settlements in eastern Dumfriesshire compared with their absence in Cumbria. Wales can legitimately be claimed as a frontier land; although no formal border existed with England, there was a broad swathe of land extending south from the Dee to the Severn estuary known as ‘the Marches’, a term adopted and used from the thirteenth century on. An important factor underlying the process of urbanization is the ability of local communities to administer their territories.
