Assessing Departures from Log-Normality in the Rank-Size Rule

Savage, Stephen H.

doi:10.1006/jasc.1996.0106

Cited by 41 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 10 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Larger scale economic and demographic processes are invoked to understand city size distributions on the level of nations or "city systems," often studied with rank-size analyses (Berry 1964). This approach has seen numerous archaeological applications, and archaeologists have contributed methodological refinements (e.g., Drennan and Peterson 2004;Savage 1997).…”

Section: City Size Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Empirical Urban Theory for Archaeologists

Smith

2010

J Archaeol Method Theory

156

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

I review several bodies of empirical urban theory relevant to the archaeological analysis of ancient cities. Empirical theory is a type of "middlerange theory" (following Robert Merton): sets of concepts and methods that are less abstract, and have greater empirical content, than high-level social theory. The categories of theory reviewed here include environment-behavior theory, architectural communication theory, space syntax, urban morphology, reception theory, generative planning theory, normative theory, and city size theory. Most of these approaches originated in the fields of architecture, planning, and geography, and they directly link the urban-built environment to the actions of people within cities.Keywords Urbanism . Theory . Planning . Middle-range theory . Built environment Archaeological research on ancient cities and urbanism exhibits a wide range of perspectives on the use of theory. Some archaeologists pursue descriptive research with little explicit use of theory, while others embrace high-level social theory. Still others chart a course between these poles by using lower-level concepts. Work in this latter category is more abstract than empirical description but more grounded and less abstract than high-level social theory. I call this body of work "empirical urban theory," and in this paper I argue that this is an especially productive explanatory approach for understanding ancient cities and urban life. In defining "theory" I follow anthropologist Roy Ellen, who states that theories, provide us with a framework through which we can explain and interpret data, and they should do so parsimoniously. So, we might define theory as 'A supposition or body of suppositions designed to explain phenomena or data' (Ellen 2010: 390).

show abstract

Section: City Size Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Empirical Urban Theory for Archaeologists

Smith

2010

J Archaeol Method Theory

156

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…1). Several variations on this theme created by combining these departures from log-normal in different ways have also been identified e.g., [21]. The generality of the assumptions underlying the log-normal expectation has been questioned in contemporary studies, and seems even more suspect for the range of societies whose settlement distributions have been studied in this way archaeologically [11 (p. 148), 19 (pp.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Comparing archaeological settlement systems with rank-size graphs: a measure of shape and statistical confidence

Drennan

Peterson

2004

Journal of Archaeological Science

109

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…5 are values calculated for the A coefficient defined by Drennan and Peterson (2004) to quantify the deviation of rank-size distributions from Zipf's rule. This metric is one of several that have been proposed (Johnson 1980, Savage 1997, Griffin and Stanish 2007. The A coefficient was chosen for use here because of its intuitive correspondence to the difference in area enclosed by a rank-size plot above the Zipf line and the area below it.…”

Section: Illustrated Inmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emergence of fusion/fission cycling and self-organized criticality from a simulation model of early complex polities

Griffin¹

2011

Journal of Archaeological Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Assessing Departures from Log-Normality in the Rank-Size Rule

Cited by 41 publications

References 10 publications

Empirical Urban Theory for Archaeologists

Empirical Urban Theory for Archaeologists

Comparing archaeological settlement systems with rank-size graphs: a measure of shape and statistical confidence

Emergence of fusion/fission cycling and self-organized criticality from a simulation model of early complex polities

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About