"...Settlement patterns, extraction of natural resources, pollution, demand for animal products, agriculture fertilizers and pesticides, changes in land use (habitat loss degradation and fragmentation), over-exploitation, disease, introduction of genetically modified plants, hunting, climate change, and invasive species, have all contributed to the alteration of the natural course of global ecosystems and global biodiversity...."
Full Answer
What is settlement pattern?
People have lived and interacted together for a very long time, and settlement patterns have been identified dating back to as long as humans have been on our planet. Settlement pattern as a concept was developed by social geographers in the late 19th century.
What shapes relationships between settlement?
Relationships between settlements are shaped by trade and the movements of raw materials, finished products, people, capital, and ideas. Patterns of settlement across Earth’s surface differ markedly from region to region and place to place.
What is the relationship between settlement and trade?
Relationships between settlements are shaped by trade and the movements of raw materials, finished products, people, capital, and ideas. Patterns of settlement across Earth’s surface differ markedly from region to region and place to place. Settlement patterns change through time.
What are the factors that influence settlement patterns?
Settlement patterns are influenced by the price of land, available transportation infrastructure, public policy initiatives, and social and ecological processes that are not necessarily quantifiable. Settlement patterns are partly influenced by population pressure.
How does natural resources affect patterns of settlement?
Natural factors such as terrain, rivers and sunlight influence the construction of settlements at both regional and local levels. This gives settlements certain characteristics of distribution, scale, hierarchy and morphology.
What environmental factors help explain the patterns of human settlement in the region?
Settlement sites are chosen because there are many good reasons for locating a settlement there such as water supply, flat and arable land, building supply, protection, shelter from weather, bridging point, crossroad – intersection of roads.
What is the relationship between settlements and the environment?
There is always a negative relationship between the settlements and natural environment. Development or growth of unplanned settlement areas is always disadvantageous for natural environment. Lack of legal, cultural responsibilities and ethical aspects, devastation in natural environment is always stronger.
What is the importance of settlement pattern?
Settlements and the patterns they etch on Earth's surface provide not only information on current economic, political, and social conditions, but also a historical record of past conditions. Today's settlement patterns provide information about past settlement processes and land-use patterns.
How does the environment affect settlements?
Settlement structure is a driver of environmental change as it influences the amount of natural land that is converted into human habitation, the demand for non-renewable natural resources and the production of pollution and waste.
What are the four environmental factors that influence settlement?
In order to better categorize which factors ultimately affect settlement, geographers have generally accepted four umbrella terms to describe these elements: climatic, economic, physical, and traditional.
Which resources are important to human settlements?
The presence of wood (trees), stone and metal ores allowed us to manufacture and build products like tools and weapons. And since these natural resources could be sold, a settlement located near these natural resources would prosper. And then there were the rarer, expensive natural resources, like gold, silver and oil.
What influenced settlement patterns?
Spatial variation in climate, physiography, and natural resources has influenced human settlement patterns throughout history. Civilizations have flourished in fertile valleys, along river and lake shores, in coastal areas, and near other highly productive ecosystems.
What are the benefits of settlement?
Advantages of SettlementYou decide the outcome. ... A settlement brings the dispute to an end so you can put the complaint behind you and move on.Settlement is usually much faster, with less steps than the hearing process.Settlement talks are confidential.More items...
How does climate affect settlement patterns?
The most widespread direct risk to human settlements from climate change is flooding and landslides. Projected increases in rainfall intensity and, in coastal areas, sea-level rise will be the culprits. Cities on rivers and coasts are particularly at risk.
What are the factors that determine human settlement?
Factors can be push or pull....Human Settlement Factors:Body of water (transportation routes, water for drinking and farming)Flat land (easy to build)Fertile soil (for crops)Forests (timber and housing)
What are the factors that influence the settlement pattern?
1 Physical Environment. One of the most basic factors affecting settlement patterns is the physical geography of the land. ... 2 Transportation Systems. Settlement patterns have always been affected by the technology available to settlers, and especially by methods of transportation. ... 3 Economic Concerns. ... 4 Government Policies.
What geographic or environmental factors are beneficial to the development of human civilizations?
Geography and the environment play a monumental role in the establishment and success of a nearly every civilization. For example, rivers bring water and allow for agricultural development, while mountains or deserts provide for protection and create a barrier.
What factors are responsible for development of various patterns in a settlement?
Solution. - Patterns of settlements are affected by various physical factors like relief, soils, climate, availability of water supply, etc. - Physical factors influence the type and spacing of settlements, which results in various patterns of settlements.
What are the factors that influence settlement patterns?
Settlement patterns are influenced by the price of land, available transportation infrastructure, public policy initiatives, and social and ecological processes that are not necessarily quantifiable.
Why is settlement pattern important?
The settlement pattern makes clear why good stratigraphy was obtained in what is normally a difficult context, that of a stratified series of villages. The reason is that, once abandoned, structures were never disturbed . Burials within the structures were also never drastically disturbed; abandoned houses were abandoned household cemeteries.
How do marine benthic animals disperse?
The vast majority of marine benthic animals have a planktonic larval stage, and the dispersal and settlement patterns of these larvae are important determinants of population dynamics. Larval transport is greatly affected by the near-shore flow regime. In this case, a wave phenomenon known as ‘internal waves’ plays a role. Internal waves are similar to surface waves in being periodic undulations of a fluid interface, but internal waves happen within the ocean, at points where there are sharp gradients in the temperature or salinity of water. Such gradients often occur somewhere in the top 30 m of the ocean. Although internal waves cannot be seen by eye, they can be observed with thermometers mounted in the ocean. Though not as obvious as surface swell, internal waves have important ecological consequences. For example, tidally generated internal waves are accompanied by circulating cells of water near the surface, and on many shores these cells are advected shoreward with the internal waves. Larvae that can swim fast enough or are sufficiently buoyant to stay at the water’s surface are concentrated in areas of downwelling between cells and are consequently carried inshore. Internal waves thus provide a mechanism for returning dispersed larvae to the shore where they can settle and recruit into the population. The mass transports and long-shore and rip currents accompanying surface gravity waves provide alternative mechanisms by which larvae can be transported, in this case both on- and offshore. For any of these advective mechanisms, behavioral control by the larva over its position in the water column can affect the direction and rate of transport. Aside from advective transport, the process of turbulent mixing, common to wave-swept shores, may also disperse larvae.
Why is the division of open land areas into prototypical areas important?
Furthermore, the division of open land areas into prototypical areas also makes it possible to evaluate the potential of forests, soil, and peat bogs to serve as carbon sinks. To maintain or enhance this carbon storage capacity, measures to protect ecosystems and improve soil are necessary.
How does channel straightening affect river water?
This also increases possibility of increased rates of soil erosion particularly where overgrazing and deforestation have reduced vegetation cover. Modification of river channels through channel straightening can lead to rapid flow of water into streams, thus promoting rapid increase in water level in rivers.
What are the different types of settlements?
There are innumerable geometric possibilities relating to local terrain and location (such as road, canal, riverbank, or spring-line settlements), political conditions, or genesis of the settlements: colonial villages often had defensive functions expressed in linear or circular forms (Figure 2 ). The simpler hamlet clusters which characterized settlement in poorer more difficult agricultural environments were often associated with kinship groups, organic growth of settlements over long periods of time, as well as tribal roots of landownership in the early Middle Ages.
How does settlement affect the environment?
Settlement patterns are partly influenced by population pressure. In urban areas, there is a tendency for the slums to develop in areas which have been designated as flood-prone zones. Settlement on steep slopes as well as cultivation on such lands also tends to increase the vulnerability of the community to landslides. This also increases possibility of increased rates of soil erosion particularly where overgrazing and deforestation have reduced vegetation cover. Modification of river channels through channel straightening can lead to rapid flow of water into streams, thus promoting rapid increase in water level in rivers. Flooding of the low-lying areas often follows this.
What is settlement pattern?
In the scientific field of archaeology, the term "settlement pattern" refers to the evidence within a given region of the physical remnants of communities and networks. That evidence is used to interpret the way interdependent local groups of people interacted in the past. People have lived and interacted together ...
How was settlement pattern study conducted?
Settlement pattern studies were first conducted using regional survey, in which archaeologists systematically walked over hectares and hectares of land, typically within a given river valley. But the analysis only truly became feasible after remote sensing was developed, beginning with photographic methods such as those used by Pierre Paris at Oc Eo but now, of course, using satellite imagery and drones.
What is the difference between a settlement pattern and a settlement system?
If there is a difference, and you could argue about that, it might be that pattern studies look at the observable distribution of sites, while system studies look at how the people living at those sites interacted: modern archaeology can't really do one with the other.
What is the study of settlement patterns in archaeology?
The study of settlement patterns in archaeology involves a set of techniques and analytical methods to examine the cultural past of a region.
Where were regional studies performed?
By the end of the 1950s, regional studies had been performed in Mexico, the United States, Europe, and Mesopotamia; but they have since expanded throughout the world.
When was the settlement pattern developed?
Settlement pattern as a concept was developed by social geographers in the late 19th century. The term referred then to how people live across a given landscape, in particular, what resources (water, arable land, transportation networks) they chose to live by and how they connected with one another: and the term is still a current study in geography of all flavors.
Who was the first person to study Pueblo settlement?
According to American archaeologist Jeffrey Parsons, settlement patterns in anthropology began with the late 19th-century work of anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan who was interested in how modern Pueblo societies were organized.
How do settlement patterns change?
Settlement patterns change through time. Cities, the largest and densest human settlements, are the major nodes of human society. Throughout the world, cities are growing rapidly, but none so rapidly as those in developing regions. Urbanization is changing the current patterns of both rural and urban landscapes around the world.
What are the types of settlement patterns observed across regions?
Analyze maps and satellite images and compare different types of settlement patterns observed across regions (e.g., linear rural settlement along roadways, railways, and rivers; urban centers that spread from a central node; village clusters or rural landscapes; seaport settlements that are interrupted by water, such as a water body or a large river).
What factors led to the decline and/or disappearance of towns and cities?
Analyze and explain the factors that led to the decline and/or disappearance of towns and cities (e.g., rail lines did not connect with the town, relocation of the county seat, decline in resource extraction or production, single-industry towns in periods of recession, bypassed by road development, out-migration of people, especially young people).
What is the purpose of an analysis of community history?
Analyze a community history to describe changes in land use over time (e.g., farms developed into suburbs, factory buildings changed to urban malls, unused train depots transformed to restaurants or art centers).
What are the functions of settlements?
Functions of Settlements. 1. The numbers, types, and range of the functions of settlements change over space and time. Therefore, the student is able to: A. Explain how and why the number and range of functions of settlements have changed and may change in the future, as exemplified by being able to.
What do students need to understand to understand human settlement?
Students must understand the processes underlying the patterns of human settlement over space and time. Understanding these themes enables students to see settlements as a record of human history and as the fulcrum of many of the human processes that are changing Earth’s surface.
What information do settlements provide?
Today’s settlement patterns provide information about past settlement processes and land-use patterns.
Anthropological Underpinnings
Patterns Versus Systems
- Archaeologists refer to both settlement pattern studies and settlement system studies, sometimes interchangeably. If there is a difference, and you could argue about that, it might be that pattern studies look at the observable distribution of sites, while system studies look at how the people living at those sites interacted: modern archaeology can't really do one with the other.
History of Settlement Pattern Studies
- Settlement pattern studies were first conducted using regional survey, in which archaeologists systematically walked over hectares and hectares of land, typically within a given river valley. But the analysis only truly became feasible after remote sensing was developed, beginning with photographic methods such as those used by Pierre Paris at Oc Eobut now, of course, using sat…
New Technologies
- Although systematic settlement patterns and landscape studies are practiced in many diverse environments, before modern imaging systems, archaeologists attempting to study heavily vegetated areas were not as successful as they might have been. A variety of means to penetrate the gloom have been identified, including the use of high definition aerial photography, subsurfa…
Selected Sources
- Curley, Daniel, John Flynn, and Kevin Barton. "Bouncing Beams Reveal Hidden Archaeology." Archaeology Ireland32.2 (2018): 24–29.
- Feinman, Gary M. "Settlement and Landscape Archaeology." International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences(Second Edition). Ed. Wright, James D. Oxford: Elsevier, 2015. 654–58, doi:10....
- Curley, Daniel, John Flynn, and Kevin Barton. "Bouncing Beams Reveal Hidden Archaeology." Archaeology Ireland32.2 (2018): 24–29.
- Feinman, Gary M. "Settlement and Landscape Archaeology." International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences(Second Edition). Ed. Wright, James D. Oxford: Elsevier, 2015. 654–58, doi:10....
- Golden, Charles, et al. "Reanalyzing Environmental Lidar Data for Archaeology: Mesoamerican Applications and Implications." Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports9 (2016): 293–308, doi:10.1016/...
- Grosman, Leore. "Reaching the Point of No Return: The Computational Revolution in Archaeology." Annual Review of Anthropology45.1 (2016): 129–45, doi:10.1146/annurev-anth…
