CITA01: Cities and Urbanization I - The Origins

Vocabulary flashcards covering the etymology of cities, census urban classifications, archaeological theories of the Urban Revolution, and key ancient settlements from Week 2 of CITA01.

Civitas

A Latin concept derived from civis ("citizen" or "fellow-citizen"); for the ancient Romans, it signified a city defined primarily by its people and their legal status rather than simply by physical walls or buildings.

Urbs

A Latin root noun meaning "city," "walled town," or specifically "Rome," thought to be related to Proto-Indo-European roots denoting "to encircle" or "enclose."

Urbanus

A Latin adjective meaning "of or belonging to a city."

Urban Area (Statistics Canada 1971 Definition)

A classification standard established in $1971$ defining places as urban if they have more than $1,000$ inhabitants and a minimum population density of $400\text{ people/km}^2$.

Population Centre

The term adopted by Statistics Canada to replace "urban area," categorizing settlements into small, medium, and large size classes to reflect a rural-urban continuum rather than a strict dichotomy.

Small Population Centre

A Statistics Canada classification designating an urban settlement with an inhabitant population between $1,000$ and $29,999$.

Medium Population Centre

A Statistics Canada classification designating an urban settlement with an inhabitant population between $30,000$ and $99,999$.

Large Urban Population Centre

A Statistics Canada classification designating an urban settlement with an inhabitant population of $100,000$ or greater.

V. Gordon Childe

A prominent 20th-century archaeologist ($1892$-$1957$) who developed a materialist theory of urban origins analyzing means of production, resources, and social relations, authoring "The Urban Revolution" ($1950$).

Cultural Group / Culture (Childe, 1929)

Defined in The Danube in Prehistory as a constantly recurring complex of associated traits—including pots, implements, ornaments, burial rites, and house forms—serving as the material expression of "a people."

Four Stages of Human Development (Childe, 1936)

The sequential evolutionary stages proposed by Gordon Childe in Man Makes Himself: Paleolithic, Neolithic, Urban, and Industrial.

Neolithic Revolution

A pivotal transformation beginning around $8000\text{ BCE}$ that transitioned human societies from hunting-and-gathering to agriculture, involving the domestication of plants and animals, division of labour, and more complex social structures.

Three Elements of Social Change

The foundational societal shifts enabling early urban life: the social division of labour, hierarchical power structures, and the production of an agricultural surplus.

Jericho

An early settlement emerging around $9,000\text{ BCE}$, characterized by a relatively small population, houses of sun-dried brick, a surrounding wall, a large trench, and a built environment showing an early division of labour.

Çatal Hüyük (Architectural Layout)

The largest and best-preserved Neolithic settlement ($7,500\text{ BCE}$ in present-day Turkey), structured as an unbroken cluster of domestic mudbrick houses accessed via rooftops, devoid of streets or obvious public buildings.

Childe's 10 Criteria of the Urban Revolution

The archaeological traits of early cities: large size/high density, specialized division of labour, agricultural surplus, monumental public architecture, a ruling class, writing systems, predictive sciences, advanced arts and crafts, long-distance trade, and state-level political organization.

The Fertile Crescent

A crescent-shaped geographic region spanning the Nile valley, the Levant (Palestine/Phoenicia), and Mesopotamia, where favorable ecological conditions fostered the earliest agriculture and city-states.

Mesopotamia (Urban Development)

The region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers where large cities arose around $4,000\text{ BCE}$, defined by monumental architecture, dominant ruling elites (religious, political, and military), and city-states governing rural hinterlands.

City of Ur

An ancient Sumerian city-state in southern Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) characterized by extensive urban walls, dense residential fabric, and monumental temple complexes including a ziggurat.

Moenjo Daro (Mohenjo Daro)

A major urban archaeological center of the Indus Valley Civilization situated in modern Pakistan, known for its baked-brick architecture, orthogonal layout, and large communal brick structures.

Kingsley Davis

An American sociologist and demographer ($1908$-$1997$) who authored "The Urbanization of the Human Population" ($1967$), analyzing the macro-demographic causes and dynamics of global urbanization.