Reassessing the capacities of entertainment structures in the Roman Empire

In recent years, scholars have become increasingly skeptical of the idea that there is any relationship between the capacities of entertainment structures such as theaters and amphitheaters and the populations of Graeco-Roman cities. In this article, we begin by offering a model of information percolation in cities grounded in settlement scaling theory. We then show that, although there is a systematic relationship between the capacities of both theaters and amphitheaters and the populations of cities in the Roman Empire, this relationship is far from linear, indicating that a decreasing fraction of the population attended events in entertainment structures. In addition, although there is a great deal of variation in the extent to which each site conforms to the underlying relationships, there is a strong pattern in the sizes of these deviations and the overall standing of sites, as reflected in their civic statuses. Collecting similar measures for other relationships might be a useful way of characterizing sites and indicates a fruitful avenue for future research

Cities: Complexity, theory and history

In recent decades researchers in a variety of disciplines have developed a new &ldquo;urban science,&rdquo; the central goal of which is to build general theory regarding the social processes underlying urbanization. Much work in urban science is animated by the notion that cities are complex systems. What does it mean to make this claim? Here we adopt the view that complex systems entail both variation and structure, and that their properties vary with system size and with respect to where and how they are measured. Given this, a general framework regarding the social processes behind urbanization needs to account for empirical regularities that are common to both contemporary cities and past settlements known through archaeology and history. Only by adopting an explicitly historical perspective can such fundamental structure be revealed. The identification of shared properties in past and present systems has been facilitated by research traditions that define cities (and settlements more broadly) as networks of social interaction embedded in physical space. Settlement Scaling Theory (SST) builds from these insights to generate predictions regarding how measurable properties of cities and settlements are related to their population size. Here, we focus on relationships between population and area across past settlement systems and present-day world cities. We show that both patterns and variations in these measures are explicable in terms of SST, and that the framework identifies baseline infrastructural area as an important system-level property of urban systems that warrants further study. We also show that predictive theory is helpful even in cases where the data do not conform to model predictions.</p

Identification and measurement of intensive economic growth in a Roman imperial province

A key question in economic history is the degree to which preindustrial economies could generate sustained increases in per capita productivity. Previous studies suggest that, in many preindustrial contexts, growth was primarily a consequence of agglomeration. Here, we examine evidence for three different socioeconomic rates that are available from the archaeological record for Roman Britain. We find that all three measures show increasing returns to scale with settlement population, with a common elasticity that is consistent with the expectation from settlement scaling theory. We also identify a pattern of increase in baseline rates, similar to that observed in contemporary societies, suggesting that this economy did generate modest levels of per capita productivity growth over a four-century period. Last, we suggest that the observed growth is attributable to changes in transportation costs and to institutions and technologies related to socioeconomic interchange. These findings reinforce the view that differences between ancient and contemporary economies are more a matter of degree than kind

The Pre-History of Urban Scaling

Cities are increasingly the fundamental socio-economic units of human societies worldwide, but we still lack a unified characterization of urbanization that captures the social processes realized by cities across time and space. This is especially important for understanding the role of cities in the history of human civilization and for determining whether studies of ancient cities are relevant for contemporary science and policy. As a step in this direction, we develop a theory of settlement scaling in archaeology, deriving the relationship between population and settled area from a consideration of the interplay between social and infrastructural networks. We then test these models on settlement data from the Pre-Hispanic Basin of Mexico to show that this ancient settlement system displays spatial scaling properties analogous to those observed in modern cities. Our data derive from over 1,500 settlements occupied over two millennia and spanning four major cultural periods characterized by different levels of agricultural productivity, political centralization and market development. We show that, in agreement with theory, total settlement area increases with population size, on average, according to a scale invariant relation with an exponent in the range . As a consequence, we are able to infer aggregate socio-economic properties of ancient societies from archaeological measures of settlement organization. Our findings, from an urban settlement system that evolved independently from its old-world counterparts, suggest that principles of settlement organization are very general and may apply to the entire range of human history

Clinical presentation, auscultation recordings, ultrasonographic findings and treatment response of 12 adult cattle with chronic suppurative pneumonia: case study

Auscultation is considered the critical component of the veterinary clinical examination for the diagnosis of bovine respiratory disease but the accuracy with which adventitious sounds reflect underlying lung pathology remains largely unproven. Modern portable ultrasound machines provide the veterinary practitioner with an inexpensive, non-invasive tool with which to examine the pleural surfaces and superficial lung parenchyma. Simultaneous recording of sounds overlying normal lung and defined pathology allows critical assessment of auscultated sounds in the same animal removing confounding factors such as respiratory rate and thickness of the chest wall (body condition). Twelve cows, referred to the University of Edinburgh Veterinary School, were diagnosed with chronic suppurative pneumonia and enrolled into this prospective study to record and monitor lung sounds, ultrasonographic findings, and response to a standardised antibiotic treatment regimen. Most cows (8/12) had a normal rectal temperature on presentation but all cows had received antibiotic therapy at some time in the previous two weeks and six animals were receiving antibiotic treatment upon admission. All cattle were tachypnoeic (>40 breaths per minute) with frequent and productive coughing, halitosis, and a purulent nasal discharge most noticeable when the head was lowered. Ultrasonographic examination of the chest readily identified pathological changes consistent with severe lung pathology subsequently confirmed as chronic suppurative pneumonia in four cows at necropsy; eight cows recovered well after antibiotic treatment and were discharged two to six weeks after admission. It proved difficult to differentiate increased audibility of normal lung sounds due to tachypnoea from wheezes; coarse crackles were not commonly heard. In general, sounds were reduced in volume over consolidated lung relative to normal lung tissue situated dorsally. Rumen contraction sounds were commonly transmitted over areas of lung pathology. Trueperella (formerly Arcanobacterium) pyogenes was isolated from three of four lung tissue samples at necrospy. Treatment with procaine penicillin for 42 consecutive days resulted in marked improvement with return to normal appetite and improvement in body condition in 8 of 12 cows (67%) where lesions did not extend more than 10-15 cm above the level of the olecranon on both sides of the chest

The Global Dynamics of Inequality (GINI) project: analysing archaeological housing data

The GINI project investigates the dynamics of inequality among populations over the long term by synthesising global archaeological housing data. This project brings archaeologists together from around the world to assess hypotheses concerning the causes and consequences of inequality that are of relevance to contemporary societies globally

Diachronic modeling of the population within the medieval Greater Angkor Region settlement complex

9 pagesAngkor is one of the world’s largest premodern settlement complexes (9th to 15th centuries CE), but to date, no comprehensive demographic study has been completed, and key aspects of its population and demographic history remain unknown. Here, we combine lidar, archaeological excavation data, radiocarbon dates, and machine learning algorithms to create maps that model the development of the city and its population growth through time. We conclude that the Greater Angkor Region was home to approximately 700,000 to 900,000 inhabitants at its apogee in the 13th century CE. This granular, diachronic, paleodemographic model of the Angkor complex can be applied to any ancient civilization.We wish to thank the APSARA National Authority for permission to conduct remote sensing and collaborative field investigations. We thank M. So and M. Dana for administrative support. We thank E. Lustig and T. Lustig for comments and suggestions on aspects of economic geography and M. E. Smith and C. Isendahl for reading and offering comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Funding: Much of the work on research, planning, and writing of this manuscript was undertaken with the support of the University of Oregon Global Oregon Faculty Collaboration Fund, supported by the Global Studies Institute in the UO Office of International Affairs. Parts of this research have been funded by the Rust Family Foundation, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellowship, the National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Awards (no. 1638137), the ACLS-Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhist Studies, Australian Research Council Discovery Grant DP1092663, Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award DE150100756, Australian Research Council Discovery Grant DP170102574, and the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement nos. 639828 and 866454). Author contributions: S.K. and A.K.C. contributed to the planning of this research. S.K., A.K.C., M.H., and S.O. drafted the manuscript. S.K., A.K.C., D.E., M.T.S., M.P., G.P.M., R.F., and P.H. edited the manuscript. S.K., A.A.L., M.H., J.N.-W., D.E., P.W., and S.O. contributed to the analysis. S.K., A.K.C., P.H., and M.P. compiled the data. S.K., A.K.C., P.H., G.P.M., R.F., D.E., C.P., and M.P. contributed data. S.K., M.H., and A.A.L. designed the figures. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Data and materials availability: All data needed to evaluate the conclusions in the paper are present in the paper and/or the Supplementary Materials. Additional data related to this paper maybe requested from the authors

Antimicrobial use in food-producing animals:a rapid evidence assessment of stakeholder practices and beliefs

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.Food-producing animals throughout the world are likely to be exposed to antimicrobial (AM) treatment. The crossover in AM use between human and veterinary medicine raises concerns that antimicrobial resistance (AMR) may spread from food-producing animals to humans, driving the need for further understanding of how AMs are used in livestock practice as well as stakeholder beliefs relating to their use. A rapid evidence assessment (REA) was used to collate research on AM use published in peer-reviewed journals between 2000 and 2016. Forty-eight papers were identified and reviewed. The summary of findings highlights a number of issues regarding current knowledge of the use of AMs in food-producing animals and explores the attitudes of interested parties regarding the reduction of AM use in livestock. Variation between and within countries, production types and individual farms demonstrates the complexity of the challenge involved in monitoring and regulating AM use in animal agriculture. Many factors that could influence the prevalence of AMR in livestock are of concern across all sections of the livestock industry. This REA highlights the potential role of farmers and veterinarians and of other advisors, public pressure and legislation to influence change in the use of AMs in livestock.This work was supported by Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) [OD0558