Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Global Patterns of Early Village Development

  • Chapter
The Neolithic Demographic Transition and its Consequences

Abstract

The discovery of a two-stage Neolithic Demographic Transition (NDT) has major implications for social evolutionary models of early village development. I explore these implications through a comparative study of 36 early village sequences. A strong relationship is evident between the timing of the formation of systems of autonomous villages and the rapid growth phase of the NDT. This relationship can be explained by a conflict model of village growth and fissioning during the NDT. Further, this kind of early village trajectory has a strong correlation with the process of primary state formation, and is therefore of utmost importance for global models of long-term social evolution.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 219.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 279.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 279.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Adler, Michael A. and Richard H. Wilshusen 1990. Large-Scale Integrative Facilities in Tribal Societies: Cross-Cultural and Southwestern US examples. World Archaeology 22(2):133–146.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bacus, Elizabeth. 2004. The Archaeology of the Phillipine Archipelago. In Ian Glover and Peter Bellwood, eds., Southeast Asia: From Prehistory to History, pp. 257–281. RoutledgeCurzon, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bandy, Matthew S. 2004. Fissioning, Scalar Stress, and Social Evolution in Early Village Societies. American Anthropologist 106(2):322–333.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bandy, Matthew S. 2001. Population and History in the Ancient Titicaca Basin. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bandy, Matthew S. 2005. New World Settlement Evidence for a Two-Stage Neolithic Demographic Transition. Current Anthropology 46(S):S109–S115.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bandy, Matthew S. 2006. Early Village Society in the Formative Period of the Southern Lake Titicaca Basin. In William H. Isbell and Helaine Silverman, eds., Andean Archaeology III: North and South, pp. 210–236. Springer, New York.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Bellwood, Peter. 1997. Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago, revised edition. University of Hawai’i Press, Honolulu.

    Google Scholar 

  • Billman, Brian R. 1996. The Evolution of Prehistoric Political Organization in the Moche Valley, Peru. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blake, Michael, Steven A. LeBlanc, and Paul E. Minnis. 1986. Changing Settlement and Population in the Mimbres Valley, SW New Mexico. Journal of Field Archaeology 13(4):439–464.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bocquet-Appel, Jean-Pierre. 2002. Paleoanthropological Traces of a Neolithic Demographic Transition. Current Anthropology 43:637–650.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bocquet-Appel, Jean-Pierre and Stephan Naji. 2006. Testing the Hypothesis of a Worldwide Neolithic Demographic Transition: Corroboration from American Cemeteries. Current Anthropology 47:341–65.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bocquet-Appel, Jean-Pierre, Stephan Naji, and Matthew S. Bandy. In press. Demographic and Health Changes During the Transition to Agriculture in North America. In Jean-Pierre Bocquet-Appel, ed., Recent Advances in Paleodemography: Data Techniques, Patterns. New York: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carneiro, Robert. 1987. Village Splitting as a Function of Population Size. In L. Donald, ed., Themes in Ethnology and Culture History: Essays in Honor of David F. Aberle, pp. 94–124. Folklore Institute. Archana Publications. Meerut, India.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chapman, Robert. 1990. Emerging Complexity: The Later Prehistory of South-East Spain and the West Mediterranean. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ciolek-Torello, Richard. 1998. Sites of the Early Formative Period. In Richard Ciolek-Torello, ed., Early farmers of the Sonoran Desert: Archaeological Investigations at the Houghton Road Site, Tucson, Arizona, pp. 229–256. Technical Series 72. Statistical Research, Inc., Tucson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Craig, Douglas B. 2000. The Demographic Implications of Architectural Change at the Grewe Site. In David E. Doyel, Suzanne K. Fish and Paul R. Fish, eds., The Hohokam Village Revisited, pp. 139–166. Southwestern and Rocky Mountain Division of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

    Google Scholar 

  • Damp, Jonathan E. 1984a. The Architecture of the Early Valdivia Village. American Antiquity 49(3):573–585.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Demoule, Jean-Paul and Catherine Perlés. 1993. The Greek Neolithic: A New Review. Journal of World Prehistory 7(4):355–416.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Drass, Richard. 1998. The Southern Plains Villagers. In W. Raymond Wood, ed., Archaeology of the Great Plains, pp. 415–455. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence.

    Google Scholar 

  • Drennan, Robert D. 1991. Pre-hispanic Chiefdom Trajectories in Mesoamerica, Central America, and Northern South America. In Timothy Earle, ed., Chiefdoms: Power, Economy, and Ideology, pp. 263–287. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Drennan, Robert D. and Christian E. Peterson. 2006. Patterned Variation in Prehistoric Chiefdoms. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103(11):3960–3967.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gilman, Antonio. 2001. Assessing Political Development in Copper and Bronze Age Southeast Spain. In Jonathan Haas, ed., From Leaders to Rulers, pp. 59–84. Kluwer/Plenum, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Higham, Charles. 2002. Early Cultures of Mainland Southeast Asia. Art Media Resources, Chicago.

    Google Scholar 

  • Higham, Charles. 2004. Mainland Southeast Asia from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age. In Ian Glover and Peter Bellwood, eds., Southeast Asia: From Prehistory to History, pp. 41–67. RoutledgeCurzon, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Higueras, Alvaro. 1995. Settlement Development in the Cochabamba Valley: Human-Lands Relationships from the Formative to the Intermediate Period Occupations. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hole, Frank. 2000. Is Size Important? Function and Hierarchy in Neolithic Settlements. In Ian Kuijt, ed., Life in Neolithic Farming Communities, pp. 191–210. Kluwer/Plenum, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Knapp, Bernard. 1988. The History and Cultures of Ancient Western Asia and Egypt. Wadsworth, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kohler, Timothy A. and Matthew J. Root. 2004a. The First Hunter-Farmers on the Pajarito Plateau. In Timothy A. Kohler, ed., Archaeology of Bandelier National Monument: Village Formation on the Pajarito Plateau, New Mexico, pp. 117–172. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kohler, Timothy A. and Matthew J. Root. 2004b. The Late Coalition and Earliest Classic on the Pajarito Plateau. In Timothy A. Kohler, ed., Archaeology of Bandelier National Monument: Village Formation on the Pajarito Plateau, New Mexico, pp. 173–213. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kohler, Timothy A., Sarah Herr, and Matthew J. Root. 2004. The rise and fall of towns on the Pajarito. In Timothy A. Kohler, ed., Archaeology of Bandelier National Monument: Village Formation on the Pajarito Plateau, New Mexico, pp. 215–264. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kowalewski, Steven A., Gary M. Feinman, Laura Finsten, Richard E. Blanton, and Linda M. Nicholas. 1989. Monte Albán’s Hinterland. Pt. 2. Prehispanic settlement patterns in Tlacolula, Etla, and Ocotlan, the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. Memoirs of the Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, 23.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kuijt, Ian. 2000. People and Space in Early Agricultural Villages: Exploring Daily Lives, Community Size, and Architecture in the Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 19:75–102.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kuijt, Ian and Nigel Goring-Morris. 2002. Foraging, Farming, and Social Complexity in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of the Southern Levant: A Review and Synthesis. Journal of World Prehistory 16(4):361–440.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Langebaek Rueda, Carl Henrik. 1993. From Hunters and Gatherers to Muiscas, Campesinos, and Hacendados in the Eastern Highlands of Colombia: Archaeological Survey in the Valles de Fúquene and Susa. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh.

    Google Scholar 

  • Langebaek Rueda, Carl Henrik. 1995. Regional Archaeology in the Muisca Territory: A Study of the Fúquene and Susa Valleys. University of Pittsburgh Memoirs in Latin American Archaeology, No. 9.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lipe, William D. and Mark D. Varien. 1999. Pueblo II (A.D. 900–1100). In William D. Lipe, Mark D. Varien, and Richard H. Wilshusen, eds., Colorado Prehistory: A Context for the Southern Colorado River Basin, pp. 242–301. Eagle: Colorado Council of Professional Archaeologists.

    Google Scholar 

  • Liu, Li. 1996. Settlement Patterns, Chiefdom Variability, and the Development of Early States in North China. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 15:237–288.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marcos, Jorge G. and Adam Michczynski. 1996. Good Dates and Bad Dates in Ecuador: Radiocarbon Samples and Archaeological Excavation: A Commentary Based on the “Valdivia Absolute Chronology.” In Andes: Boletín de la Misión Arqueológica Andina 1: 93–114. Warsaw.

    Google Scholar 

  • Massey, Sarah. 1986. Sociopolitical Change in the Upper Ica Valley, BC 400 to 400 AD: Regional States on the South Coastof Peru. Unpublished ph.d. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles.

    Google Scholar 

  • McAndrews, Timothy. 2005. Wankarani settlement systems in evolutionary perspective: A study in early village-based society and long-term cultural evolution in the south-central Andean Altiplano. University of Pittsburgh Memoirs in Latin American Archaeology, No. 15.

    Google Scholar 

  • McIntosh, Jane R. 2002. A Peaceful Realm: The Rise and Fall of the Indus Civilization. Westview Press, Boulder.

    Google Scholar 

  • Milisauskas, Sarunas. 2002. Early Neolithic, the First Farmers in Europe. In Sarunas Milisauskas, ed., European Prehistory: A Survey, pp. 143–192. Kluwer/Plenum, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Milisauskas, Sarunas and Janusz Kruk. 1993. Archaeological Excavations in Neolithic and Bronze Age Sites in Southeastern Poland. In Peter Bogucki, ed., Case Studies in European Prehistory, pp. 63–94. CRC Press, Boca Raton, Fl.

    Google Scholar 

  • Milisauskas, Sarunas and Janusz Kruk. 2002. Middle Neolithic: Continuity, diversity, innovations, and greater complexity. In Sarunas Milisauskas, ed., European Prehistory: A Survey, pp. 193–246. Kluwer/Plenum, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mohammed-Ali, Abbas S. A. 1987. ????_title_????. In Angela E. Close, ed., Prehistory of Arid North Africa: Essays in Honor of Fred Wendorf, pp. 123–136. Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nguyen, Khac Su., Pham M. Huyen, and Tong T. Tin. 2004. Northern Vietnam from the neolithic to the han Period. In Ian Glover and Peter Bellwood, eds., Southeast Asia: From Prehistory to History, pp. 177–208. RoutledgeCurzon, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parsons, Jeffrey R. 1974. The Development of Prehistoric Complex Society: A Regional Perspective from the Valley of Mexico. Journal of Field Archaeology 1:81–108.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pearson, Richard and Anne Underhill. 1987. The Chinese Neolithic: Recent Trends in Research. American Anthropologist 89(4):807–822.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Peregrine, Peter N. 2004. Cross-Cultural Approaches in Archaeology: Comparative Ethnology, Comparative Archaeology, and Archaeoethnology. Journal of Archaeological Research 12(3):281–309.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Perlés, Catherine. 2001. The Early Neolithic in Greece. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Phillipson, David W. 2005. African Archaeology. Third edition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Possehl, Gregory L. 2002. The Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective. Altamira Press, Walnut Creek.

    Google Scholar 

  • Price, T. Douglas and Anne B. Gebauer. 1992. The Final Frontier: Foragers to Farmers in Southern Scandinavia. In A. Gebauer and T. D. Price, eds, Transitions to Agriculture in Prehistory, pp. 97–116. Monographs in World Prehistory 4. Prehistory Press, Madison.

    Google Scholar 

  • Santley, Robert S. and Philip J. Arnold III. 1996. Prehispanic Settlement Patterns in the Tuxtla Mountains, Southern Veracruz, Mexico. Journal of Field Archaeology 23(2):225–249.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwarz, Frederik A. and J. Scott Raymond. 1996. Formative Settlement Patterns in the Valdivia Valley, SW Coastal Ecuador. Journal of Field Archaeology 23(2):205–224.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shelach, Gideon. 2000. The Earliest Neolithic Cultures of Northeast China: Recent Discoveries and New Perspectives on the Beginning of Agriculture. Journal of World Prehistory, Vol. 14(4):363–413.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shih (Shi), Xing-bang. 1992. The Discovery of the Pre-Yangshao Culture and its Significance. In M. C. Aikens and S. N Rhee, (eds.), Pacific Northeast Asia in Prehistory: Hunter Fisher Gatherers, Farmers and Sociopolitical Elites, Washington State University Press, Pullman, pp. 125 132.

    Google Scholar 

  • Steel, Louise. 2004. Cyprus before history: From the earliest settlers to the end of the Bronze Age. Duckworth, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Toom, Dennis L. 1992. Early Village Formation in the Middle Missouri Subarea of the Plains. In Dale E. Croes, Rebecca A. Hawkins, and Barry L. Isaac, eds., Long-Term Subsistence Change in Prehistoric North America, pp. 131–191. Research in Economic Anthropology, Supplement 6. JAI Press, Greenwich, CN.

    Google Scholar 

  • van Andel, Tjeerd H. and Curtis N. Runnels. 1995. The Earliest Farmers in Europe. Antiquity 69: 481–500.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wallace, Henry D. 2003a. Prelude. In Henry D. Wallace, ed., Roots of Sedentism: Archaeological Excavations at Valencia Vieja, a Founding Village in the Tucson Basin of Southern Arizona, pp. 1–24. Anthropological Papers 29. Center for Desert Archaeology, Tucson. Read pp. 21–23.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wallace, Henry D. 2003b. The Development and Structure of an Ancient Desert Village. In Henry D. Wallace, ed., Roots of Sedentism: Archaeological Excavations at Valencia Vieja, a Founding Village in the Tucson Basin of Southern Arizona, pp. 323–370. Anthropological Papers 29. Center for Desert Archaeology, Tucson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wallace, Henry D. and Michael W. Lindeman. 2003. Valencia Vieja and the Origins of the Hohokam Culture. In Henry D. Wallace, ed., Roots of Sedentism: Archaeological Excavations at Valencia Vieja, a Founding Village in the Tucson Basin of Southern Arizona, pp. 371–406. Anthropological Papers 29. Center for Desert Archaeology, Tucson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Warrick, Gary. 1990. A Population History of the Huron–Petun, A.D. 900–1650; Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, McGill University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Warrick, Gary. 2000. The Precontact Iroquoian Occupation of Southern Ontario. Journal of World Prehistory 14(4):415–466.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Warrick, Gary. 2006. Comment on “Testing the Hypothesis of a Worldwide Neolithic Demographic Transition,”. In J. P. Bocquet-Appel and S. Naji, eds., Current Anthropology 47:355.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilshusen, Richard H. 1999a. Basketmaker III (A.D. 500–700). In William D. Lipe, Mark D. Varien, and Richard H. Wilshusen, eds., Colorado Prehistory: A Context for the Southern Colorado River Basin, pp. 166–195. Eagle: Colorado Council of Professional Archaeologists.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilshusen, Richard H. 1999b. Pueblo I (A.D. 750–900). In William D. Lipe, Mark D. Varien, and Richard H. Wilshusen, eds., Colorado Prehistory: A Context for the Southern Colorado River Basin, pp. 196–241. Eagle: Colorado Council of Professional Archaeologists.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilshusen, Richard H. and Scott Ortman. 1999. Rethinking the Pueblo I Period in the Northern Southwest: Aggregation, Migration, and Cultural Diversity. Kiva 64:369–399.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wright, Henry T. 1977. Recent Research on the Origins of the State. Annual Review of Anthropology 6:379–397.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yan, Wenming (1999). Neolithic settlements in China: Latest finds and research, Journal of East Asian Archaeology 1(14): 131 147.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zeidler, James A. 2003. Formative Period Chronology for the Coast and Western Lowlands of Ecuador. In Scott Raymond and Richard Burger, eds., Archaeology of Formative Ecuador, pp. 487–527. Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. SWCA Environmental Consultants, Broomfield, CO, USA

    Matthew Bandy

Authors
  1. Matthew Bandy
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), UPR2147, 44 rue de L’Amiral Mouchez, 75014 Paris, France

    Jean-Pierre Bocquet-Appel

  2. Department of Anthropology Peabody Museum, Harvard University, 11 Divinity, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA

    Ofer Bar-Yosef

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2008 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Bandy, M. (2008). Global Patterns of Early Village Development. In: Bocquet-Appel, JP., Bar-Yosef, O. (eds) The Neolithic Demographic Transition and its Consequences. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8539-0_13

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation