Location, location, location—it’s the first rule of real estate. For a long time, it’s been widely assumed that being close to resources drives settlement patterns, with cities generally founded near water and fertile land for growing crops. But a new paper by a husband-and-wife archaeological team questions that idea, using the example of an ancient city in what’s now southern Mexico. The researchers argue that Monte Albán, the largest city in its region for more than a thousand years, wasn’t situated near especially good farmland. But what it did have from the city’s foundation was a defendable hilltop location and a more collective form of government that attracted people both to the settlement and its surrounding area.
Click here for original story, Ancient Mexican city endured for centuries without extremes in wealth and power
Source: Phys.org