ABSTRACT
We expand the domain of urban allometries by showing that agglomeration effects occur across settlements in a broad range of societies dating prior to the modern era. As part of the Social Reactors Project, we measured agglomeration effects using proxy measures available from the archaeological record, in settings ranging from temporary hunter-gatherer camps to Neolithic farming villages, urban centers of classical antiquity, and pre-Columbian Latin American civilizations. The theoretical framework we have developed, the models we have constructed, and the empirical findings we have published in more than two dozen studies demonstrate that a general explanation for agglomeration effects can be rooted in processes of social mixing in physical space and need not be restricted to the specific details of capitalist or industrial economies.
