Journal of Urban Archaeology 7 (2023)

This special issue of Journal of Urban Archaeology is dedicated to settlements, which have been discussed in recent research debates as ‘Anomalous Giants’ or ‘Large Low Occupation Density Settlements’. In contrast to the large, ‘compact’ sites that are generally associated with urban societies, these were places characterized by lower densities not conventionally associated with urban settlements, although they can occur as the foci of seasonally fluctuating populations with periodically higher densities. Yet they are also distinct from the much-discussed pattern of far larger ‘low-density agrarian-based urbanism’. As the contributions here show, examples of such sites can be found in a variety of places and across many millennia. The wide variety of sites discussed in this issue underlines just how complex the data connected to them can be, but also gives insight into the opportunities that can be explored through a variety of approaches, and sheds light not only on how built structures were organized in landscapes, but also on how their populations interacted. Ultimately, this special issue demonstrates that studying these ‘Anomalous Giants’ is essential for a better understanding of urbanism and its characteristics as a pattern of social networks.

List of Illustrations

Aknowledgements

David and Goliath: Giants and Dwarfs in Settlement Archaeology — Editorial
Rubina Raja and Søren M. Sindbæk

Experimenting with Large-Group Aggregation
Nam C. Kim and Patricia A. McAnany

Shijiahe and its Implications for Understanding the Development of Urbanism in Late Neolithic China
Li Tao, Anne P. Underhill, and Shan Siwei

Co Loa: Biography of an Anomalous Place
Nam C. Kim, Hiep H. Trinh, Russell Quick, and Vo Thi Phuong Thuy

Classic Ilé-Ifẹ̀: A Consideration of Scale in the Archaeology of Early Yorùbá Urbanism, AD 1000–1400
Akinwumi Ogundiran

The Conundrum of Great Zimbabwe
Innocent Pikirayi, Federica Sulas, Shadreck Chirikure, Joseph Chikumbirike, and Munyaradzi Elton Sagiya

Place and Time at Trypillia Mega-Sites: Towards a New Synthesis of Analyses and Social Theory
Bisserka Gaydarska, Andrew Millard, Brian Buchanan, and John Chapman

Stonehenge: The Little ‘Big Other’
Mike Parker Pearson

Considering European Iron Age oppida and Comparative Urbanism: The Case of Bibracte and Manching
Tom Moore, Ralf Hoppadietz, Holger Wendling, and Katja Winger

The Sechín Alto Complex in the Pre-Hispanic Central Andes
Henry Tantaleán and Charles Stanish

From Frontier to Centre Place: The Dynamic Trajectory of the Chaco World
Barbara J. Mills

Cahokia as Urban Anomaly
Timothy R. Pauketat, Susan M. Alt, Alleen M. Betzenhauser, Jeffery D. Kruchten, and Erin M. Benson

Anomalous Giants: Form, Operation, Differences, and Outcomes
Kirrily White and Roland Fletcher