13 Neighborhood as an Archaeological Concept

There is no question that traditional cities, including most urban centers studied by archaeologists, are and were typically sub-divided into numerous face-to-face communities or neighborhoods. However, the large size of even the smallest of these urban centers impedes the ability of archaeologists to generate the data needed for their full assessment. As a result, all of the papers in this volume consider the interaction between neighbors—which is certainly an important issue for understanding the structure of early urban societies—but an overall analysis of the structure of whole neighborhoods is rarely achievable.