Abstract

Urbanism is often defined and researched in terms of social and spatial hierarchies, or, alternatively, as an aspect of markets for commercial exchange. A third, and more inclusive, frame for the archaeological study of urbanism is that of networks. Interaction networks in the past involved not merely the exchange of commodities but complex chains production, including the operation of means of transport, such as caravans or sailing ships. It incorporated sophisticated technology, a large workforce, complex transactions and capital accumulation. Early towns were thus not simply centres of exchange: they were places, which produced movement. As such, they were vital nodes of production networks, which reached into outlands and catalysed change across regions. This lecture explores how the development of urbanism can be studied as a network phenomenon. This is not merely a question of tracing movement and interaction but of defining their scale, impact and dynamics. These may be explored using comparative and quantitative methods, but often the decisive syntheses are obtained by the addition of contextual and qualitative observations. A crucial point concerns the organisation of emporia, through which interaction was focused within the “small world”, creating information flows and personal contexts much denser than would be intuitively presumed for such geographically far-flung connections.