Despite notable differences in appearance and governance, ancient human settlements function in much the same way as modern cities, according to new findings by researchers at the Santa Fe Institute and the University of Colorado Boulder1. Previous research has shown that as modern cities grow in population, so do their efficiencies and productivity. A citys population outpaces its development of urban infrastructure2, for example, and its production of goods and services outpaces its population. Whats more, these patterns exhibit a surprising degree of mathematical regularity3 and predictability, a phenomenon called urban scaling.But has this always been the caseSFI Professor Luis Bettencourt researches urban dynamics4 as a lead investigator5 of SFIs Cities, Scaling, and Sustainability research program. When he gave a talk in 2013 on urban scaling theory, Scott Ortman, now an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology6 at CU Boulder and a former Institute Omidyar Fellow, noted7 that the trends Bettencourt described were not particular to modern times. Their discussion prompted a research project on the effects of city size through history.To test their ideas, the team examined archaeological data from the Basin of Mexico . In the 1960s before Mexico Citys population exploded surveyors examined all its ancient settlements, spanning 2000 years and four cultural eras in pre-contact Mesoamerica.Using this data, the research team analyzed8 the dimensions of hundreds of ancient temples and thousands of ancient houses to estimate populations and densities9, size and construction rates of monuments and buildings, and intensity10 of site use.Their results indicate that the bigger the ancient settlement, the more productive it was.It was shocking and unbelievable, says Ortman. We were raised on a steady diet telling us that, thanks to capitalism11, industrialization, and democracy, the modern world is radically12 different from worlds of the past. What we found here is that the fundamental drivers of robust13 socioeconomic patterns in modern cities precede all that.Bettencourt adds: Our results suggest that the general ingredients of productivity and population density14 in human societies run much deeper and have everything to do with the challenges and opportunities of organizing human social networks.Though excited by the results, the researchers see the discovery as just one step in a long process. The team plans to examine settlement patterns from ancient sites in Peru, China, and Europe and study the factors that lead urban systems to emerge, grow, or collapse15.
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1 boulder n.巨砾；卵石，圆石 参考例句： We all heaved together and removed the boulder.大伙一齐用劲，把大石头搬开了。 He stepped clear of the boulder.他从大石头后面走了出来。
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