The Conversation: Socially Distanced Layout of the World’s Oldest Cities Helped Early Civilization Evade Diseases

In his research focused on early farmers of Europe, Professor of Anthropology R. Alexander Bentley wondered about a curious pattern through time: Farmers lived in large dense villages, then dispersed for centuries, then later formed cities again only to abandon those as well. Why?

Archaeologists often explain what we call urban collapse in terms of climate change, overpopulation, social pressures or some combination of these. Each likely has been true at different points in time. But scientists have added a new hypothesis to the mix: disease.

To test this hypothesis, Bentley and his colleagues studied the arrangement of ancient settlements using a variety of simulations to see if people living in close proximity to one another and to animals affected the spread of diseases. Read more about their findings at The Conversation.

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Cindi King (865-974-0937, cking126@utk.edu)