Urban Planning and Archaeology

The course aims to provide technical skills and critical tools to understand the socio-cultural phenomena of urban planning and urbanization in the past. The course takes a global and comparative approach, through the discussion of settlements and cities from different continents over the long term, from protohistory to the modern age. The case studies that will be compared include, among others, Nebelivka, Cahokia, Teotihuacan, Çatalhöyük, Angkor, Great Zimbabwe, Olinto, Ribe, and Singapore.

Alternative and complementary models to the classic approach to ancient urban planning will be explored, including concepts such as 'scalar stress', 'energized crowding', and 'low density urbanism'. The various interpretative problems connected to the nucleated population will be addressed, such as social inequalities and power systems, economic and environmental sustainability, health and climate crises, civilization, the state, imperialism and colonization.

The third part of the course highlights the development and material outcomes of early urbanization in the regions north and south of the Alps during the 1st millennium AEC.

Knowledge - The course aims to offer students a wide range of critical tools to understand and analyze human settlements through their material remains and design, but also to understand in a comparative anthropological perspective the role of complex agglomerations in shaping societies and cultures.

Skills - At the end of the course, also thanks to updates teaching methods, students will be able to critically apply interdisciplinary theories and methodologies. Students will improve independence in bibliographic research and in thematic insights. Finally, they will be able to develop projects on individual case studies by contextualizing them in the broader anthropological and social debate.