Mayan Suburbia
December 21, 2000 11:27 AM Subscribe
Mayan Suburbia
Did the Mayans follow modern city development patterns 1500 years ago? Maybe, say some archaeologists who recently uncovered ancient suburbs, complete with subdivisions on artificial lakes, big private lawns, and strip malls.
[ from Rebecca's Pocket ]
Did the Mayans follow modern city development patterns 1500 years ago? Maybe, say some archaeologists who recently uncovered ancient suburbs, complete with subdivisions on artificial lakes, big private lawns, and strip malls.
[ from Rebecca's Pocket ]
Well, this isn't as surprising as all that. The word "suburb" comes from Latin suburbium after all (and gained currency in English to describe the outskirts of Elizabethan London). Roman city planning was pretty advanced.
posted by dhartung at 1:13 PM on December 21, 2000
posted by dhartung at 1:13 PM on December 21, 2000
It is surprising when you realize that the Mayan's developed similar patterns to the Romans without even knowing the Romans existed.
posted by Neb at 2:22 PM on December 21, 2000
posted by Neb at 2:22 PM on December 21, 2000
Aliens. Aliens did it, I say.
Oops, wrong thread. I still don't consider it surprising, only perhaps in terms of scale.
posted by dhartung at 4:04 PM on December 21, 2000
Oops, wrong thread. I still don't consider it surprising, only perhaps in terms of scale.
posted by dhartung at 4:04 PM on December 21, 2000
I still find it amazing that architecture in the New World looks so similar to that in the Old World. That is, without ever having seen or been influenced by other cultures the results are so similar. It says something deep about humans and how they go about solving problems.
Equally amazing is that they did it all without wheeled vehicles or beast of burden. The result was that their roads and alleyways were very narrow which caused the Spanish problems when that tried to get their horses and carts into the old Indian cities.
posted by lagado at 4:04 PM on December 21, 2000
Equally amazing is that they did it all without wheeled vehicles or beast of burden. The result was that their roads and alleyways were very narrow which caused the Spanish problems when that tried to get their horses and carts into the old Indian cities.
posted by lagado at 4:04 PM on December 21, 2000
Nah, I'd say that it's all just common epiphenomena arising from similar simple rules.
Not really all that suprising. I mean, how many basic ways are there of organizing a city? And how many of them are easy to implement gradually without all that much planning? And how many of them actually *work*?
I mean... this is a problem that has solutions that tend to look remarkably similar, at least in the roughly-grained sense.
posted by beth at 12:03 PM on December 22, 2000
Not really all that suprising. I mean, how many basic ways are there of organizing a city? And how many of them are easy to implement gradually without all that much planning? And how many of them actually *work*?
I mean... this is a problem that has solutions that tend to look remarkably similar, at least in the roughly-grained sense.
posted by beth at 12:03 PM on December 22, 2000
They may appear to be simple rules once you've seen them operate but their a lot of complexity that went into creating that simplicity. Parallel evolution is always surprising to me.
posted by lagado at 10:32 PM on December 22, 2000
posted by lagado at 10:32 PM on December 22, 2000
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by daveadams at 11:31 AM on December 21, 2000