Cave cities, Cappadocia, Turkey

Cappadocia, Turkey - famous for its underground cities—

most notable: Derinkuyu.
Had 7 underground levels and population in thousands
Not a small city and it was not a series of small cave
homes either
Had markets, shops, schools, workshops etc.
These were perhaps hiding places for Christians avoiding
persecution from the Roman Empire
Other cave cities in Cappadocia: Goreme, Zelve,
Kayamakli, Derinkuyu
Neolithic settlement of Skara Brae in Scotland called “the doughnut holes” Existed during 3180-2500 BCE
A cluster of ten half-buried
stone-built houses, linked by
low, narrow, covered
passageways
Houses consist of a single large
room and a number of stone-
built furnishings, including beds,
closets, dressers, seats etc.
A sophisticated sewer
system connected the houses,
each with a primitive toilet
Sunk into mounds of
middens (pre-existing
prehistoric domestic waste) for
stability & insulation
One house was divided into small
cubicles - possibly a tool-
making workshop (bone
needles or flint axes). Stand-
alone structure without
midden, above ground with
walls over 2 metres (6.6 ft) thick
and a "porch" protecting the
entrance.
 A SUBTERRANEAN HOUSE

A TYPICAL PIT (SEMI-SUBTERRANEAN) HOUSE

KHIROKITIA, CYPRUS
CIRCULAR & RECTILINEAR PATTERNS OF URBAN PLANNING

BAGHDAD, IRAQ, 767-912 BCE DHOLAVIRA, INDIA, 2600-1700 BCE

 CIRCULAR PATTERNS OF URBAN PLANNING
Advanced civilization at ARKAIM in Chelyabinsk, Russia
Ancient Arkaim not only had a city, but also a
temple and an astronomic observatory.
Arkaim was equipped with a storm sewage
system that could avoid floods.
The people were also protected against fires:
timber floor and houses had fireproof coating
The well branched out into two underground
trenches: one was directed to the oven and the
other one ended in the food storage. The
trenches were used to supply chilly air to the
oven and to the food storage. The cool air from
the trenches was also creating a very powerful
traction force in the Aryan oven, which made it
possible to smelt bronze there.
The central square in Arkaim was the only object
of square shape in the town. Judging upon traces
of bonfires that were placed in a specific order on
the square, the place was used as a site for
certain rituals. Arkaim was built according to a
previously projected plan as a single complicated
complex, which also had an acute orientation on
astronomic objects.
 HUMAN SETTLEMENTS: DEFINITION
A concentration of people in a given geographic area who support themselves on a permanent basis
from the economic activities of that area (Gallion & Eisner, 1986).
Settlements are shaped in response to natural factors such as climate and geography (Register, 2006).
Cities are large urban centers with numerous urban functions; whereas towns are smaller urban
centers with fewer urban functions. This definition classifies more settlements as urban than the common
demographic definition of urban areas as large, dense, socially heterogeneous settlements (M. E. Smith, 2007).
The village is the ancestor of a city and an outcome of agricultural revolution and formal cohabitation in
geographically fixed settlement in Neolithic times when there is no distinction between urban and rural. Despite the
lack of size and complexity of the city, the village exhibits its essential features such as the encircling mound or
palisade, permanent shelters, storage pits and bins, with refuse dumps and burial grounds (Mumford, 1937).
However, any settlement which had a few streets and a public building or two is not a city. The rise of towns and
cities required, in addition to highly favorable agricultural conditions, a form of social organization in which certain
strata could appropriate for themselves part of the produce grown by the cultivators (Davis, 1955).
No international consensus on the criteria to identify when a settlement is urban. Variations in definition by various
nations has been summarised by the United Nations Population Division (2014). In most countries the minimum
population of urban areas ranges from 1,000 to 5,000. Extremes include Sweden where a built-up area with at
least 200 households, with gaps of no more than 200 metres between them; and Mali, where the censuses up to
1987 used a cut-off of 5,000, the 1998 census used a cut-off of 30,000 and the 2009 census used a cut-off of
40,000. The minimum population for an agglomeration to qualify as urban is 200 in Denmark, 2,000 in France, and
10,000 in Greece. With improvement in the resolution and availability of remote sensing, the applicability of a
standard demographic definition will be increasingly easy (Mcgranahan & Satterthwaite, 2014).
 AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION AND THE EMERGENCE OF
“GEOGRAPHICALLY FIXED SETTLEMENTS”
 The relatively stable environment of the Holocene - the current interglacial period that began about 10,000
years ago stimulated humans to begin working on their natural environment instead of just exploiting.
 By 6000 BCE, man had learnt how to grow crops, to tame domestic animals, to make pots, and to weave
garments
 The first steps towards urbanization were made when human beings moved out of caves into shelters they
constructed of branches and leaves.
 The birth of cities is connected to agricultural revolution in the Neolithic age as a result of the innovations in
agriculture, which saw the emergence of “geographically fixed settlements” approximately 12,000 years ago in
areas where there was an adequate and perennial source of water and fertile soil, delivered by annual floods.
 Certain inventions during 6000 and 4000 BCE, such as the plough and wheeled cart, the sailboat, metallurgy,
irrigation, and domestication of new plants, collectively facilitated an exhaustive and increasingly productive use
of land and resources. When this enriched technology was utilized in some regions endowed with favourable
climate, fertile alluvial soil, regular source of water, and a flat landform, it generated surplus and the ability to
preserve food that rendered some people free to engage in other pursuits and supported concentration in one
place of people who do not grow their own food.
 The evolution of towns and the process of urbanization, involves certain relationships between the unit of the
town and the unit of the peasant society supporting it, and that a primary requisite is surplus food production.
 HUMAN SETTLEMENTS AND ENVIRONMENT
Cities suck resources and emit wastes - represent enormous ecological burdens
cause environmental catastrophes, marginalize, & diminish the quality of life of the poor
centres of disease, social unrest and insecurity
have risk from industrial hazards, natural disasters, and impact of climate change

According to a news report by Reuters, researchers at Israel's Hebrew University by

analyzing flints at an archaeological site on the bank of the river Jordan, discovered that
humans knew how to make fire 790,000 years ago. There was a continued, controlled use
of fire through many civilizations and that they were not dependent on natural fires.
The earliest cities depended on several factors-a favourable ecological base, cross-cultural
contacts in goods and ideas, advanced technology relating mainly to food-production and
metallurgy, social organization, specialized skills, a power structure with the control of the
city by elite. Cities decline due to malfunctioning of these either jointly or individually on a
massive scale.
Human society has always come up with solutions towards the problems created by cities.