1094 towns and villages: The Americas In other instances towns and villages were built in the absence of preexisting settlements In such cases, religious authorities would be consulted in order to ascertain if the gods found a site acceptable If so, the boundaries of the town would be officially established, including the pomerium, a ritual boundary within which magistrates could exercise power and outside of which burials, cremations, and military exercises could take place Aside from social and commercial functions, Roman towns and villages served certain military functions The towns would protect Roman territory against invaders and offer bases from which military campaigns would be launched; these were the primary functions of Rome’s first colonial settlements Another military function of towns and villages was to provide a Roman presence in a distant part of Roman territory Since many towns were conquered during military campaigns, the Romans would seek to maintain territory by populating areas with Romans Members of the military might receive land as part of their war booty after conquest in or near newly conquered towns and villages As Rome grew during the late republic and the empire, a greater need for natural resources developed By establishing settlements in a given area, local resources could be exploited, managed, and exported from the towns This was an especially common practice in North Africa, where the majority of Rome’s grain supply was grown Commercial and agricultural development was managed and expanded from the towns and villages established throughout Roman territory THE AMERICAS BY J J GEORGE The establishment of village and town settlements, allowing people to live sedentary lives, is often but not always brought about by agricultural development More than 100 species of edible plants were originally cultivated by Native Americans, the most familiar and widespread of which were maize, which came from Mexico, and potatoes, which were originally grown in the highlands of Peru Other cultigens that were staples for many early communities included sweet potatoes, manioc, several kinds of beans, squash, tomatoes, and chili peppers As farmers settled beside their crops, permanent villages were established Surplus crops could be stored and traded with other communities; surpluses could also allow for certain community members to move beyond subsistence tasks and develop as craftsmen, merchants, priests, or ruling elite Thus, many scholars argue that agriculture paved the way for social and economic stratification and for urban advances that laid the foundation for later complex cities and empires However, not all permanent villages developed as agriculture-based entities For example, early large villages in regions as diverse as California, the Northwest Coast, and coastal Peru illustrate that sedentary civilization can develop in the absence of agriculture In localities where resource- rich environments offered dependable food supplies, such as the salmon available seasonally along the Northwest Coast and the sardines and anchovies found in coastal Peru, villages developed and thrived according to nonagrarian initiatives Generally, then, no single pattern defined or predicted the likelihood that a settlement would develop or succeed; each case was unique and subject to a variety of local factors Changes in climate, for instance, could have dramatic effects on local populations, forcing massive resettlements or even causing the collapse of complex urban or semi-urban environments, as is thought to have happened when an extended drought struck the Moche towns in the Moche valley of northern Peru around the sixth century c.e Similarly, climate change and associated decreasing yields of wild resources have been suggested as the causes of the collapse of the Hopewell in North America in the first centuries of the Common Era In the context of ancient civilizations, a village can be categorized as a settlement of as many as 30 or 40 dwellings occupying an area of several acres A village would typically feature sturdy structures that remained in place and were occupied for extended periods of time; deep deposits of refuse, called middens; and some level of community planning Early villages often had basic social hierarchies ruled by chiefs, as with similarly defined chiefdoms Towns, by comparison, include many of the largest prehistoric communities, which covered hundreds of acres and featured housing structures numbering into the hundreds Characteristic of towns were deep middens; heavy structures that were rebuilt or strengthened over time; dwelling units arranged in definite patterns, often in relation to ceremonial units or structures; and fortifications All of these characteristics indicate long-term occupation of single sites In North America the ancestors of many peoples who would later settle into villages and towns were present as early as 7,000 years ago While the archaeology suggests that town-level organization did not happen until after 500 c.e., examples of early North American village settlements are extensive Such settlements include Hopewell Indian sites formed in the American Midwest by roughly 300 b.c.e.; coastal villages formed in British Columbia and southeastern Alaska, with evidence of plank houses, by 200 b.c.e.; and the villages of the Adena people, as affi liated with burial mounds and earthwork, which were formed in Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia between 1000 b.c.e and 200 c.e Village life based on agriculture featuring intensive irrigation appeared quite suddenly in the southwestern United States around 300 b.c.e., as immigrants from Mexico established a Hohokam culture settlement in the Gila River valley at Snaketown, in southern Arizona These people grew maize, beans, and squash and watered their crops by means of extensive canals Early Hohokam houses were almost square, measuring 10 to 15 feet per side, and were loosely grouped together The population of Snaketown is thought to have been about 100