The contemporary relevance of archaeology would be greatly enhanced if archaeologists could develop theory that frames human societies of all scales in the same terms. We present evidence that an approach known as settlement scaling theory can contribute to such a framework. The theory proposes that a variety of aggregate socioeconomic properties of human networks emerge from individuals arranging themselves in space so as to balance the costs of movement with the benefits of social interactions. This balancing leads to settlements that concentrate human interactions and their products in space and time in an open-ended way. The parameters and processes embedded in settlement scaling models are very basic, and this suggests that scaling phenomena should be observable in the archaeological record of middle-range societies just as readily as they have been observed in contemporary first-world nations. In this paper, we show that quantitative scaling relationships observed for modern urban systems, and more recently for early civilizations, are also apparent in settlement data from the Central Mesa Verde and northern Middle Missouri regions of North America. These findings suggest that settlement scaling theory may help increase the practical relevance of archaeology for present-day concerns.

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This study analyzes the spatial and temporal patterning of civic-ceremonial structures in the central Mesa Verde region of the northern Southwest to assess changing patterns of leadership in Pueblo society. Great kivas, as the most ubiquitous and persistent form of Pueblo public architecture in the area prior to A.D. 1280, provide a durable means of assessing community membership and for analyzing how the introduction of other civic-ceremonial buildings may reflect shifts in public space and leadership strategies over time. It is suggested here that great kivas represent a fundamental and enduring symbol of community group assembly that underwent changes over time, the most profound of which occurred in the final decades prior to migration from the area in the late A.D. 1200s. The overall constellation of civic-ceremonial structures over time indicates altering leadership strategies just prior to the depopulation of the region.