Evolution of Human Settlement

Earth estimated to be formed about 4 billion years ago.

Homo Sapiens (the one existing species of man) believe to date from about
500,000 B. C.
• Man as Nomad and Cave Dweller (Up to 10,000 B. C.)
• Towards Settled Habitation (Up to 10,000 B. C. - 5,000 B. C.)
– Man learned to practice cultivation.
– Choose fertile lands and where water was available in plenty
– Settlements then consisted of groups of houses built by the side of agricultural
fields, a shrine and a burial ground.
• The Common Habitat and Onset of Civilization
– Inhabitants organized as a community under a recognized leader
• Shifting Cultivation
• Food Surplus
• Beginning of permanent settlement
– Compact settlement since agriculture could support up to 35 persons per sq. km
as compared to 15 persons per sq. km applicable to hunting and food gathering
societies
• Favorable Locations for Settlements
– Favorable environment for human existence and survival
– Climate not very harsh
– Epidemics not frequent
– Land fertile
– Good quality of water available in plenty
– River Valleys as popular places for settled habitation
First settlements in the river valleys of India, China, Egypt, and areas known as
the Fertile Crescent (modern Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Israel)
– Took care to locate on higher ground for better drainage, protection from
floods and reasons of security
• Division of Labour
• Barter System
– Initially practiced within the community
– Later as river and land routes developed for transportation, goods began to be
exchanged across communities
• Trading
– Traders emerged as a new class of people, trading as a new occupation and
market place as the new physical component of settlements.
• Social Stratification
• Physical Structuring
– The chieftain built for himself a castle which towered over
the other buildings, more so because it was built at the
highest point in the village
– The community was divided between the rich and the poor
and the two social classes occupied different sections of the
settlements
– The rich became concerned about their life and property.
Built a wall around their castle and thus created fortified
castle.
• The Walled Settlements
– This effectively curbed physical spread of settlements
– People living outside moved in
– The density of population began to rise
• New Community Structuring
– Subjugation of Peasants
– Chieftain was supported in his exploitative pursuits by a
large number of military and army officers, governors,
viziers, tax-gatherers, and soldiers
• Role of the Priests and New Physical Structuring
– The shrine moved within the precincts of the citadel
– Priests were begun to be identified with the Chieftain
– He elevated himself to the status of the king – one who
commanded a territory recognized as his kingdom
– The castle grew into a fort and the shrine into a temple
• Labour Specialisation
– Under the centralised command of the king, many large scale
constructions such as protective walls, moats, forts and temples,
network of irrigation channels, cisterns and reservoirs were completed
• Mines were found for quarrying building materials
• Timber began to be used in buildings in combination with other materials
– New occupation groups such as engineers, construction labourers,
carpenters, miners and transporters (boatmen, sailors, loaders and
cart men), merchants ( including money-lenders and bankers), soldiers
and priests were added.
• Caste Differentiation
• Civilization
– Language, Art and Technology
– Used these houses to make bigger houses, temples and tombs
• Urban Settlement
– Community Structure
• Labour specialization
• New occupations – teachers, advocates, judges, government
servants
• New class of people – philosophers, scientists,
administrators, political leaders, dramatists, sculpture artists,
architects and town planners
• Distinct social classes
• Non-agricultural occupations expanded at a faster rate
• Invention of new means of transport
• A general sense of appreciation for civic concerns
• Structural transformations continued over subsequent
civilisations and cultural phases
• New Physical Structuring
– The Urban Settlement
• According to some historians, first settled habitation
existed as early as about 13,000 B. C.
• First known settlement as claimed by archaeologists
was Jericho in modern Israel and was established in
7,800 B. C.
• First indisputable permanent settlement inhabited by
farming community was Jarmo in Khurdistan area of
Iraq during 7,000 and 6,500 B. C.
• The first identifiable urban settlements are believed to
have existed by 3,500 B. C.
• Physical Form of Urban Settlement
– A common core consisting of the castle, fortress, fort, the temple, and
houses of the nobles and the priests
– A public square which generally formed part of the core
– A market place and perhaps a school
– Tombs, statues, rock sculptures, colonnades, obelisks, fountains, parks,
gardens and canals
– Protective inner and outer walls with moats and monumental gates

– Dwellings of the common people

– Theatre, government offices, gymnasiums, judicial courts and
institutions of higher learning (added during the Greek Period)
– Networks of water supply, sewerage, drainage, transportation systems,
bath houses, coliseums, and circuses (added by the Romans)
– Church became the central focus of medieval towns.
– Monasteries became new centre of activity
– Warehouses
– Guild halls and Town halls
• Favored areas for berry picking, root
gathering, hunting, and collecting of other
necessary materials offered a familiarity and
continuity of use that affirmed people's
spiritual beliefs that their lives had been
ordered by their "right" behaviors in
association with the land.
• The evolution of settlement location and distribution,
that is, the turning from spot-distribution to area-
distribution of the settlement in developed areas,
while in less developed areas, from spot-distribution to
linear distribution.
• The evolution of the settlement location and
distribution is an inevitable result of economic
development in the urban-rural integration, which is
restricted by factors affecting economic development.
• In the process of the urban-rural integration, modem
transportation orientation, modem market orientation,
modem industrial orientation and modem population
orientation are important motive force, and influence
the basic pattern of the settlement location and
distribution.
 Phases of Human Settlement
• Primitive non-organised human settlements
– started with the evolution of man.
• Primitive organised settlements
– ( the period of villages - eopolis - which lasted about
10,000 years.)
• Static urban settlements or cities
– polis - which lasted about 5,000-6,000 years.)
• Dynamic urban settlements
– dynapolis - which lasted 200 - 400 years.
• The universal city
– ecumenopolis - which is now beginning.
 Primitive non-organised human settlements

• The communities take up a smaller area where

they are agricultural, and a larger one where they
are hunting and cattle-breeding communities.
• They consists of a nucleus which is the built up
part of the human settlement, and several parts
which lead out into the open, thinning out until
they disappear.
• There is no physical lines connecting this
primitive settlement with others; there are no
networks between settlements.
Primitive organised settlements
• Era of organised agriculture, settlements
also began to show some characteristics of
organisation

• Initially the human had one-room dwelling

in circular form, to organise the
relationship of his community with other
communities he expanded his dwelling by
placing many round forms side by side.

• Due to the loss of space between them,

they developed more regular shapes with
no space lost between them. The
evolution reached the stage at which a
rectilinear pattern develops into a regular
grid - iron one.
Figure 6 Variability in
settlement layout and
architectural plans in
Southern Caucasus
and N-W Iran in the
Early Bronze Age. 1, 2:
Kvatskhelebi (Shida
Kartli, Georgia); 3, 4:
Shengavit (Ararat
plain, Armenia); 5:
Khöhne Shahar
(Ravaz, North-
Western Iran); 6 Yanik
Tepe (Urmia region,
North-Western Iran).
Static urban settlements

• The expansion of the nucleus in one or more

directions; it was no longer limited to the
settlement's center of gravity.
Example: The small settlement of Priene, in ancient
Greece, where the central nucleus expanded in two
ways:
– First in a linear form along a main street which
contained shops that would normally be clustered in
the central agora
– secondly through the decentralisation of some
functions, such as temples.
Fig. 2. Classical Greek city (Priene) with
orthogonal planned neighborhoods, compared
with a Yoruba city (Ado-Ekiti) with informal
(unplanned) urban neighborhoods. Cities with
layouts like Ado-Ekiti were much more common
in the past than those resembling Priene.
Priene - the temple of Athena polias
 Dynamic urban
settlement
• In the dynamic urban phase, settlements in
space are characterised by continuous growth.
• Hence, all their problems are continuously
intensified and new ones continuously
created.
• Dynamic settlements, created as a result of an
industrial technological revolution, multiplying
in number and form, and now being created
at an even higher rate.
 Early Dynapolis
• This is the phase when small independent human
settlements with independent administrative units
are beginning to grow beyond their initial
boundaries.
• From the economic point of view this development
is related to industrialisation, and from the
technological point of view to the railroad era,
which first made commuting from distance points
possible.
Metropolis / Dynametropolis
• Fate of the historical metropolises has been
dynamic growth, a static phase, and then death
Megalopolis / Dynamegalopolis
• A megalopolis has the same external
characteristics as the metropolis, the only
difference being that every phenomenon
appears on a much larger scale.
– All phenomenon of the development of human
settlements up to the metropolis is 100 sq.km.
– For megalopolis would be 1,000sq.km.
 Ecumenopolis
• Dynamic settlements have been growing
continuously during the last centuries and this
is apparent everywhere at present i.e. the
whole Earth will be covered by one human
settlement.
• The evolution of the settlement location and
distribution is an inevitable result of economic
development in the urban-rural integration, which is
restricted by factors affecting economic development,
on the other hand, it is also an important factor
affecting and restricting economic development. In the
process of the urban-rural integration, modem
transportation orientation, modem market orientation,
modem industrial orientation and modem population
orientation are important motive force, and influence
the basic pattern of the settlement location and
distribution, which plays a speeding or delaying role in
regional economic development.
• "Settlement", also called "residential area", is a
fundamental spot for human production and living,
mainly consisting of residence, street, and productive
and living utilities. It is a spatial complex with many
functions, and a basic unit to sketch the human spatial
distribution as well.
• Generally speaking, the settlement usually consists of
cities, towns, villages, sanatoriums the living districts of
farming, forestry and livestock farms and all village
hamlets, in addition, livestock area's tents and isolated
houses in the regions with sparse population.