The Evolution of Human Settlements William M

The Evolution of Human Settlements William M. Bowen · Robert E. Gleeson The Evolution of Human Settlements

From Pleistocene Origins to Anthropocene Prospects William M. Bowen Robert E. Gleeson Cleveland State University Cleveland State University Cleveland, OH, USA Cleveland, OH, USA

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This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer International Publishing AG part of Springer Nature The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Praise for The Evolution of Human Settlements

“Our future will be made or broken in cities. Understanding urbanization from an evolutionary, complex system perspective is essential for navigating our future successfully. This book is an essential guide for that journey.” —Will Steffen, Executive Director of the Australian National University’s Climate Change Institute

“It is a delight to learn how Robert E. Gleeson and William M. Bowen deploy a fresh perspective on the data already known from the history of human settlement from the outset till today. They succeed in doing so by resorting to General System Theory going back to Ludwig von Bertalanffy, by combining it with insights from evolutionary theory of Darwinian origin and by factoring in human agency as being endowed with the ingenuity of mental models. The result is a big picture that surpasses competing approaches. It provides a timely explanation of core problems of the Anthropocene.” —Wolfgang Hofkirchner, President of the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science and Associate Professor for Technology Assessment at the Vienna University of Technology, Austria

“This is an ambitious undertaking and the results are outstanding. I cannot recommend this book strongly enough. From its conceptualization and use of systems theory thinking to its breadth of coverage and use of people and problem solving as central themes for human settlement development, it is both structur- ally sound and powerfully forward looking in a period of depressing local development. It is critical, analytic and in the end optimistic. I would use this in a class on urbanization, urban and regional planning and/or urban management to

v vi PRAISE FOR THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN SETTLEMENTS provide a background in human settlement evolution and an appreciation of the resulting structural forms generated by human behavior. Further is does not shy away from issues of management complexity and urban policy while looking at infrastructure and urban form. I recommend it without reservation.” —Kingsley E. Haynes, Ruth D. and John T. Hazel, MD Faculty Chair in Public Policy, Decision Sciences, Geography and Public Affairs, School of Public Policy, George Mason University Preface

This is a book about the road that has taken us to who we are as human beings with agency living settled lives in the early twenty-frst century. It began as notes for a class taught to master’s degree students in planning, urban studies and public affairs. The class was motivated by an interest in understanding today’s densely-populated urban settlements in which increasing scale and complexity is frequently a source of diffculty. The primary goal of the class was to provide students with suffcient con- ceptual and theoretical background, and substantive knowledge about various human settlements, and about complex social and technical systems, to begin to understand and apply some of the relevant theories, concepts, and ideas in consideration of plans, policies and decisions. The course was motivated by the possibility that the knowledge transmitted in it might exert some infuence on aspects of the future of these systems. As the name suggests, the class assumed that human beings and our settlements evolve over time, as does everything else connected with our lives. The idea was that the evolution of our settlements is not limited to the material aspects of their existence. Rather, their material aspects refect the evolved capacities of human beings to create, learn, and communicate ideas, cultures, languages, myths, and social institutions. Human settlements are a refection of human agency. We human beings are evolved creatures and our settlements are natural extensions of us. We had several distinct purposes in writing the book. First, we sought to provide a coherent model with which to obtain an overview of the natural and social histories of diverse human societies throughout the

vii viii Preface world, with special emphasis upon the environmental and geographi- cal factors that have come to characterize them through time. This we did by describing general systems theory, the principles of generalized Darwinism, and their application to the dynamics of evolving settlement systems. Second, we sought to provide context through background about humans before settlements, the advent of permanent human settlements, and the change from settlements to civilizations. The purpose here was to fesh out and characterize enough of the anthropological research on prehistoric humans to begin to establish the validity of evolutionary explanations of change in human settlements. The idea was that human settlements were created by humans for human purposes, and it is not possible to coherently understand the creations without understanding the creators. We characterize humans as social creatures with a mind, agency, lan- guage, and culture. We have cognitive capabilities that make it possible for us to learn, communicate, and create complex organizations. Our thought was that examination of such creatures in the prehistoric world would help obtain perspective and insight into how the same evolutionary processes that produced them have since in many ways led to the state of human settlements around the world today. We wanted to make it clear that generalized Darwinism can be used to understand the longer-term dynamics of cities, both prehistorically and today. Next we sought to synthesize a great deal of literature from multi- ple disciplines to describe the features of humans and human societies that made it possible for us to organize ourselves into human settlement systems. Human settlement systems extend human nature to give out- ward expression to the cumulative efforts of individuals and groups to preserve themselves and fnd meaning in their lives. We wanted to con- vey some insights into human thought and behavior which are essential for explaining the dynamics and trajectory of human settlements using generalized Darwinian principles. Important among these is that the existence of the human mind and the agency through which settlement systems have been constructed is entirely consistent with these principles. This is important because human settlement systems are products of the human mind, and of cognitively and linguistically based processes of problem solving. Finally we sought to extend the substantive knowledge of past human settlements together with principles of evolutionary and systems PREFACE ix theory to consider threats to the sustainability of human settlements and to anticipate possible future outcomes. To this end, the logic and evidence we’ve attempted to establish throughout the book leads to the conclusion that orientations that emphasize non-material as well as material culture, combined with efforts to establish and conserve diverse institutions—“polycentric” institutional structures, as Elinor Ostrom called them—are among the greatest hopes for sustaining human settlement systems into the future. Hopefully, in writing this we will have stimulated questions, discussion, and critical thinking on an informed basis and with an open mind about current urban policies and practices. This said, although our intellectual ambitions are boundless, neither of us are subject-matter experts. One of us is a regional scientist who has specialized in public sector decision-making and problem solving in regional economic development, energy policy, environmental issues and higher education. The other is an urban historian who focuses on the use of historical knowledge to frame contemporary policy issues in order to inform and improve policy making. We undertook this project together largely out a joint desire to give some systematicity to our own thinking about human settlements. We share an interest in the study of human settlements. We largely agree upon the methods most suited for obtain- ing knowledge about them, where they are headed, and what can be done to give them direction. Both of us are committed to lifelong learning about them and to sharing what we learn with others. It has been a truly collaborative project. We would like to thank Abdullah Diab, Rose Frech, Vickie Johnson, Hannah Lebovits, Alexandria Lesak, Jacob Rivera, Mike Schwartz, Aakash Shah, Kate Terrell and Daniel Wagner for their comments and helpful suggestions on earlier drafts of the document. We are indebted to Jennifer Stoneking for her adept and cheerful willingness to turn our hand-drawn graphics into ones suitable for the book. We hope our work represents the kind of transdisciplinary product that is possible when uni- versities create departments and colleges that bring researchers together without the usual disciplinary silos. The Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University, we believe, is an excellent example of that. We are grateful to our colleagues, our students, and the taxpayers of the State of Ohio who make it possible. And fnally we are deeply indebted to our spouses and our families for tolerating the time that writing this book took away from them. While our debts to these x Preface individuals as well as our many teachers and colleagues are huge, the responsibility for any errors or omissions is ours and ours alone.

Pepper Pike, Ohio, USA William M. Bowen Shaker Heights, Ohio, USA Robert E. Gleeson Contents

Part I Background and Theory

1 Models for Thinking About Human Settlements 3 The Intended Contribution of This Book 7 A Model for Thinking About Human Settlements as Material Systems 15 A Model for Thinking About Human Settlements as Living Systems 17 A Model for Thinking About Human Settlements as Social Systems 18 References 20

2 General Systems Theory, Evolution, and Human Settlements 21 General Systems Theory 23 Evolution 32 Human Agency 36 References 42

xi xii Contents

Part II The Prehistoric World: Human Origins of Settlement Systems

3 Humans Before Settlements 45 Darwin’s Discovery 45 Outline of Human Natural History 47 Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherer Culture 60 Human Behaviors, Social Relations, and the Emergence of Agriculture 63 References 71

4 The Advent of Permanent Human Settlements 73 The Turn Toward Settled Life 73 The Rise of a Settled Mindset 83 References 93

5 From Settlements to Civilizations 95 New Patterns of Social Relations 97 Elements of the Cycle of Growth and Decline 109 References 121

Part III Elements of the Great Transition

6 Mechanisms of Settlement Evolution: Cultural Learning and the Creation of Social Institutions 125 The Evolution of Culture and Cultural Learning 128 Cooperation: Social Norms, Reciprocity, Punishment, and Intergroup Competition 134 The Emergence and Evolution of Social Institutions 140 Culture and Social Institutions at the Start of the Twenty-First Century 146 References 150

7 Human Problem-Solving 153 Problems of Organization and Communication 160 Myth and Problem-Solving in Evolving Human Settlements 167 CONTENTS xiii

Ancient Athens: Material Expression of Mytholiminal Problem-Solving 173 References 178

8 Theory of Mind in Settlement System Evolution 181 Human Imagination and Intellect 185 Ideational Foundations of Human Settlement Evolution 187 Artifcial Selection 196 References 199

9 The Industrial Revolution and Its Effects 201 Uncorking the Genie: Population Growth and the Industrial Revolution 201 Enabling the Industrial Revolution: Emergence of New Forms of Social Relations 205 From Industrial Social Relations to the Industrial Revolution 219 References 223

Part IV Prospects for Settlement Systems at the Beginning of the Anthropocene

10 Decision-Making, the Direction of Change, and the Governance of Complex, Large-Scale Settlement Systems 227 Darwinian Decision-Making and the Origins of New Variation 232 Decision Failure and the Importance of Institutional Diversity 240 References 245

11 Sustainability Problems Facing Industrial Settlement Systems 247 Persistent Institutionalized Inequality 251 Anthropogenic Climate Change 259 Polycentric Governance Solutions to Sustainability Problems 265 References 271 xiv Contents

12 Prospects for Human Settlements in the Anthropocene: Challenges to Equality, Sustainability, and Agency 273 Scientifc Projections About the Future 277 A Fundamental Question 282 Conclusion: The Generalized Darwinian Processes Through Which Settlements Change 297 References 299

Index 301 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 The generic structure of a system 27 Fig. 2.2 Human settlement with sub-systems 30 Fig. 2.3 Settlements as sub-systems within a network of human settlements 32 Fig. 2.4 A framework for understanding the evolution of human settlements 39 Fig. 3.1 The evolution of hunter-gatherer culture 53 Fig. 4.1 The emergence of settlements in a primary region (Adapted from MacNeish (1992), Table 12.2, p. 326) 82 Fig. 4.2 Traditional model of settlement growth 85 Fig. 5.1 Human settlement with sub-systems 96 Fig. 9.1 Estimated world population, with projected growth curves (Note Population/Projection represented in Billions) 203