Human settlement

Taos Pueblo, an ancient pueblo belonging to a Taos speaking Native American tribe of Pueblo people. It is approximately 1000 years old and lies about 1 mile (1.6 km) north of the modern city of Taos, New Mexico.

A settlement is a general term used in archaeology, geography, landscape history and other subjects for a permanent or temporary community in which people live, without being specific as to size, population or importance. A settlement can therefore range in size from a small number of dwellings grouped together to the largest of cities with surrounding urbanized areas. The term may include hamlets, villages, towns and cities. A UK schools curriculum requires 12-year-old pupils to understand and define the term.[1]

A settlement conventionally includes its constructed facilities such as roads, enclosures, field systems, boundary banks and ditches, ponds, parks and woods, mills, manor houses, moats and churches.[2]

Settlements can be ordered by size or other factors to define a settlement hierarchy.

Landscape history studies the form (morphology) of settlements – for example whether they are dispersed or nucleated.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Year 7 (Geography) standards
  2. ↑ Medieval Settlement Research Group
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