In other instances towns and villages were built in the
absence of preexisting settlements. In such cases, religious
authorities would be consulted in order to ascertain if the
gods found a site acceptable. If so, the boundaries of the town
would be offi cially established, including the pomerium, a rit-
ual boundary within which magistrates could exercise power
and outside of which burials, cremations, and military exer-
cises could take place.
Aside from social and commercial functions, Roman
towns and villages served certain military functions. Th e
towns would protect Roman territory against invaders and of-
fer bases from which military campaigns would be launched;
these were the primary functions of Rome’s fi rst colonial
settlements. Another military function of towns and villages
was to provide a Roman presence in a distant part of Roman
territory. Since many towns were conquered during military
campaigns, the Romans would seek to maintain territory
by populating areas with Romans. Members of the military
might receive land as part of their war booty aft er conquest in
or near newly conquered towns and villages.
As Rome grew during the late republic and the empire, a
greater need for natural resources developed. By establishing
settlements in a given area, local resources could be exploited,
managed, and exported from the towns. Th is was an espe-
cially common practice in North Africa, where the majority of
Rome’s grain supply was grown. Commercial and agricultural
development was managed and expanded from the towns and
villages established throughout Roman territory.THE AMERICAS
BY J. J. GEORGE
Th e establishment of village and town settlements, allowing
people to live sedentary lives, is oft en but not always brought
about by agricultural development. More than 100 species
of edible plants were originally cultivated by Native Ameri-
cans, the most familiar and widespread of which were maize,
which came from Mexico, and potatoes, which were origi-
nally grown in the highlands of Peru. Other cultigens that
were staples for many early communities included sweet po-
tatoes, manioc, several kinds of beans, squash, tomatoes, and
chili peppers. As farmers settled beside their crops, perma-
nent villages were established. Surplus crops could be stored
and traded with other communities; surpluses could also
allow for certain community members to move beyond sub-
sistence tasks and develop as craft smen, merchants, priests,
or ruling elite. Th us, many scholars argue that agriculture
paved the way for social and economic stratifi cation and for
urban advances that laid the foundation for later complex
cities and empires.
However, not all permanent villages developed as ag-
riculture-based entities. For example, early large villages in
regions as diverse as California, the Northwest Coast, and
coastal Peru illustrate that sedentary civilization can develop
in the absence of agriculture. In localities where resource-rich environments off ered dependable food supplies, such as
the salmon available seasonally along the Northwest Coast
and the sardines and anchovies found in coastal Peru, vil-
lages developed and thrived according to nonagrarian initia-
tives. Generally, then, no single pattern defi ned or predicted
the likelihood that a settlement would develop or succeed;
each case was unique and subject to a variety of local fac-
tors. Changes in climate, for instance, could have dramatic
eff ects on local populations, forcing massive resettlements or
even causing the collapse of complex urban or semi-urban
environments, as is thought to have happened when an ex-
tended drought struck the Moche towns in the Moche val-
ley of northern Peru around the sixth century c.e. Similarly,
climate change and associated decreasing yields of wild re-
sources have been suggested as the causes of the collapse of
the Hopewell in North America in the fi rst centuries of the
Common Era.
In the context of ancient civilizations, a village can be
categorized as a settlement of as many as 30 or 40 dwellings
occupying an area of several acres. A village would typically
feature sturdy structures that remained in place and were oc-
cupied for extended periods of time; deep deposits of refuse,
called middens; and some level of community planning. Early
villages oft en had basic social hierarchies ruled by chiefs, as
with similarly defi ned chiefdoms. To w n s, by comparison,
include many of the largest prehistoric communities, which
covered hundreds of acres and featured housing structures
numbering into the hundreds. Characteristic of towns were
deep middens; heavy structures that were rebuilt or strength-
ened over time; dwelling units arranged in defi nite patterns,
oft en in relation to ceremonial units or structures; and forti-
fi cations. All of these characteristics indicate long-term oc-
cupation of single sites.
In North America the ancestors of many peoples who
would later settle into villages and towns were present as
early as 7,000 years ago. While the archaeology suggests
that town-level organization did not happen until aft er 500
c.e., examples of early North American village settlements
are extensive. Such settlements include Hopewell Indian
sites formed in the American Midwest by roughly 300 b.c.e.;
coastal villages formed in British Columbia and southeastern
Alaska, with evidence of plank houses, by 200 b.c.e.; and the
villages of the Adena people, as affi liated with burial mounds
and earthwork, which were formed in Ohio, Kentucky, and
West Virginia between 1000 b.c.e. and 200 c.e.
Village life based on agriculture featuring intensive ir-
rigation appeared quite suddenly in the southwestern United
States around 300 b.c.e., as immigrants from Mexico estab-
lished a Hohokam culture settlement in the Gila River val-
ley at Snaketown, in southern Arizona. Th ese people grew
maize, beans, and squash and watered their crops by means
of extensive canals. Early Hohokam houses were almost
square, measuring 10 to 15 feet per side, and were loosely
grouped together. Th e population of Snaketown is thought
to have been about 100.1094 towns and villages: The Americas0895-1194_Soc&Culturev4(s-z).i1094 1094 10/10/07 2:31:03 PM