Distributed Urban Networks in the Gulf Lowlands of Veracruz.

The concept of low-density urbanism has developed in archaeology over the past 20 years to characterize settlements that display the same types of features as nucleated cities (monumental architecture, services provided for a hinterland, division of labor, class differences) but lack dense populations. Ancient cities that emerged in tropical regions typically resemble a distributed urban network (Scarborough and Isendahl 2020) with interconnected and regularly spaced monumental nodes scattered among dispersed residences and agricultural land. The monumental nodes in the region did not permanently house dense populations but drew the countryside into a habitual pattern of centripetal movement to frequent religious, economic, and administrative services provided there. We demonstrate that the Gulf lowlands of Mexico exemplify this type of urbanism, and we highlight its features related to land use, governance, and longevity. Given the formidable challenges of understanding a distributed urban network, we advocate approaches that do not impose hierarchical interpretations or discrete territories but, rather, explore them as a network of places. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]