
Full Answer
What are the different patterns of settlement?
Patterns of settlement. Settlements take on a range of shapes when they form. Dispersed, linear and nucleated are the most common. A dispersed pattern is where isolated buildings are spread out across an area, usually separated by a few hundred metres with no central focus.
How were the shapes of early settlements influenced by geography?
The shapes of early settlements were influenced by the surrounding landscape. They were also shaped by other factors such as who owned the land and whether the land was good for building on or not. Some examples of settlement patterns include, nucleated settlements, linear settlements and dispersed settlements .
How did pre-European settlement patterns affect the United States?
Although the land that now constitutes the United States was occupied and much affected by diverse Indian cultures over many millennia, these pre-European settlement patterns have had virtually no impact upon the contemporary nation—except locally, as in parts of New Mexico.
What is the isolated settlement pattern in geography?
The isolated settlement pattern is dominant in rural areas of the United States, but it is also an important characteristic for Canada, Australia, Europe, and other regions. In the United States, the dispersed settlement pattern was developed first in the Middle Atlantic colonies as a result of the individual immigrants’ arrivals.

What were the settlement patterns?
Definition English: A settlement pattern refers to the way that buildings and houses are distributed in a rural settlement. Settlement patterns are of interest to geographers, historians, and anthropologists for the insight they offer in how a community has developed over time.
What was the first settlement in Europe?
Minoans and Mycenae 2000–1100 BC.
What are the 3 settlement patterns?
Population settlement patterns can be separated into to three distinct patterns: Linear. Clustered (or nucleated) Scattered.
What is the physical feature that describes Europe?
Europe is often described as a “peninsula of peninsulas.” A peninsula is a piece of land surrounded by water on three sides. Europe is a peninsula of the Eurasian supercontinent and is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and the Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian seas to the south.
Who settled Europe?
Modern humans dispersed into Europe and replaced Neanderthals at least 40,000 years ago.
When was Europe settled?
Europe was first settled around 40,000 years ago during a time known as the Upper Palaeolithic. But conditions gradually deteriorated until ice covered much of the European landmass, reaching a peak 27,000 years ago.
What are the 4 types of settlement patterns?
Rural settlement patterns refer to the shape of the settlement boundaries, which often involve an interaction with the surrounding landscape features. The most common patterns are linear, rectangular, circular or semi-circular, and triangular.
What are 2 main types of settlement?
Settlements can broadly be divided into two types – rural and urban.
What are the main types of settlement?
The four main types of settlements are urban, rural, compact, and dispersed. Urban settlements are densely populated and are mostly non-agricultural. They are known as cities or metropolises and are the most populated type of settlement.
What is the unique characteristics of Europe?
The region includes the mountains of the Alps, Pyrenees, Apennines, Dinaric Alps, Balkans, and Carpathians. High elevations, rugged plateaus, and steeply sloping land define the region. Europe's highest peak, Mount Elbrus at 5,642 meters (18,510 feet), is in the Caucasus Mountains of Russia.
What are the major features of Europe?
Europe has four main landforms, many islands and peninsulas, and various climate types. The four main landforms include the Alpine region, Central Uplands, Northern Lowlands, and Western Highlands. Each represents a different physical part of Europe.
What are the characteristics of European culture?
European culture tends to be relatively laid-back, with greater emphasis on time with family. Europeans also have a greater sense of historical time. A building that's 100 years old is old in the United States but new in Europe.
What is the oldest settlement in the world?
JerichoJericho, West Bank Jericho, a city in the Palestine territories, is a strong contender for the oldest continuous settlement in the world: it dates back to around 9,000 B.C., according to Ancient History Encyclopedia.
Who was the first European?
The first Europeans to arrive in North America -- at least the first for whom there is solid evidence -- were Norse, traveling west from Greenland, where Erik the Red had founded a settlement around the year 985.
Who first settled Canada?
In 1604, the first European settlement north of Florida was established by French explorers Pierre de Monts and Samuel de Champlain, first on St. Croix Island (in present-day Maine), then at Port-Royal, in Acadia (present-day Nova Scotia). In 1608 Champlain built a fortress at what is now Québec City.
When was the first European discovered?
1492 – Under the patronage of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus explores the Bahamas, Cuba, and "Española" (Hispaniola), which are only later recognized as part of the New World.
Why are settlement patterns important?
Settlement patterns reflect these social and economic strategies, which allowed most of the population to stay at one location for long periods while others left to procure distant resources . Some of the most important evidence is for change in social organization and human behaviour.
What is the problem with the Neanderthals?
The problem of the relationship of the Neanderthals to the sudden appearance of modern humans is difficult; possible explanations include total replacement of Neanderthals by modern populations, interbreeding with an immigrant modern population, or Neanderthals as ancestors of modern humans.
What is the Paleolithic period?
The period of human activity to the end of the last major Pleistocene glaciation, about 8300 bce, is termed the Paleolithic Period (Old Stone Age); that part of it from 35,000 to 8300 bce is termed the Upper Paleolithic.
What was the subsistence economy?
The subsistence economy depended on hunting and gathering. Population densities were necessarily low, and group territories were large. The main evidence is animal bones, which suggest a varied reliance on species such as rhinoceros, red deer, ibex, and horse, but it is difficult to reconstruct how such food was actually acquired. Open confrontation with large animals, such as the rhinoceros, is unlikely, and they were probably killed in vulnerable locations such as lake-edge watering spots; at La Cotte de Sainte Brelade in the Channel Islands, rhinoceroses and mammoths were driven over a cliff edge. Scavenging meat from already dead animals also may have been important. Food resources such as migratory herds and plants were available only seasonally, so an annual strategy for survival was necessary. It is not clear, however, how it was possible to store food acquired at times of plenty; carcasses of dead animals frozen in the snow would have provided a store of food.
How was flint pretreated?
Flint was pretreated by heating to alter its structure and make flaking easier, and new tool types included harpoons, needles for sewing fur garments, and small blades for hafting in spears and arrows. The new technologies and more complex and specialized tool types suggest a major change in the pattern of energy expenditure.
How many cycles of climate have occurred in the last 750,000 years?
The climatic record shows a cyclic pattern of warmer and colder periods. In the last 750,000 years, there have been eight major cycles, with many shorter episodes. In the colder periods, the Arctic and Alpine ice sheets expanded, and sea levels fell. Some parts of southern Europe may have been little affected by these changes, but the advance and retreat of the ice sheets and accompanying glacial environments had a significant impact on northern Europe; at their maximum advance, they covered most of Scandinavia, the North European Plain, and Russia. Human occupation fluctuated in response to these changing conditions, but continuous settlement north of the Alps required a solution to the problems of living in extremely cold conditions.
Where did the hominins come from?
By 1,000,000 years ago hominins were widely distributed in Africa and Asia, and some finds in Europe may be that early. The earliest securely dated material is from Isernia la Pineta in southern Italy, where stone tools and animal bones were dated to about 730,000 bce.
What is a settlement pattern?
A settlement pattern re fers to the shape of the settlement as seen from above. The shapes of early settlements were influenced by the surrounding landscape. They were also shaped by other factors such as who owned the land and whether the land was good for building on or not. Some examples of settlement patterns include, nucleated settlements, linear settlements and dispersed settlements .
What is a dispersed settlement?
Dispersed settlements are ones where the houses are spread out over a wide area. They are often the homes of farmers and can be found in rural areas. Example of a dispersed settlement: Brülisau, Switzerland is an example of a linear settlement. Brülisau in Switzerland is an example of a dispersed village.
Why did early settlers form villages?
Early settlers forming villages would often live together for safety, for friendship, and to share services. These early settlements would take on distinctive patterns based on the shape of the land around them. Here we can see some examples of different settlement patterns.
What is an example of a dispersed village?
Brülisau in Switzerland is an example of a dispersed village.
Where did the dispersed settlement pattern originate?
In the United States, the dispersed settlement pattern was developed first in the Middle Atlantic colonies as a result of the individual immigrants’ arrivals. As people started to move westward, where land was plentiful, the isolated type of settlements became dominant in the American Midwest.
What are the two categories of settlements?
Using as classification criteria the shape, internal structure, and streets texture, settlements can be classified into two broad categories: clustered and dispersed.
What are the main economic activities in the mountain region?
Mining, livestock raising, and agriculture are the main economic activities, the latter characterized by terrace cultivation on the mountain slopes. The sub-mountain regions, with hills and valleys covered by plowed fields, vineyards, orchards, and pastures, typically have this type of settlement.
What is a scattered village?
A scattered dispersed type of rural settlement is generally found in a variety of landforms, such as the foothill, tableland, and upland regions. Yet, the proper scattered village is found at the highest elevations and reflects the rugged terrain and pastoral economic life. The population maintains many traditional features in architecture, dress, and social customs, and the old market centers are still important. Small plots and dwellings are carved out of the forests and on the upland pastures wherever physical conditions permit. Mining, livestock raising, and agriculture are the main economic activities, the latter characterized by terrace cultivation on the mountain slopes. The sub-mountain regions, with hills and valleys covered by plowed fields, vineyards, orchards, and pastures, typically have this type of settlement.
What is linear settlement?
Linear Rural Settlements. The linear form is comprised of buildings along a road, river, dike, or seacoast. Excluding the mountainous zones, the agricultural land is extended behind the buildings. The river can supply the people with a water source and the availability to travel and communicate.
What is clustered rural settlement?
A clustered rural settlement is a rural settlement where a number of families live in close proximity to each other, with fields surrounding the collection of houses and farm buildings. The layout of this type of village reflects historical circumstances, the nature of the land, economic conditions, and local cultural characteristics. ...
Where are small garden plots located?
Small garden plots are located in the first ring surrounding the houses , continued with large cultivated land areas, pastures, and woodlands in successive rings. The compact villages are located either in the plain areas with important water resources or in some hilly and mountainous depressions.
What are the patterns of settlement?
Dispersed, linear and nucleated are the most common. A dispersed pattern is where isolated buildings are spread out across an area, usually separated by a few hundred metres with no central focus.
Where do dispersed settlements occur?
Dispersed settlements usually occur in: remote or mountainous regions. areas where the land is predominantly used for agriculture. areas with limited job opportunities. locations with few, if any, job opportunities. A linear settlement pattern occurs in a line or arc shape.
What are the patterns of rural settlement?
Patterns of rural settlement indicate much about the history, economy, society, and minds of those who created them as well as about the land itself. The essential design of rural activity in the United States bears a strong family resemblance to that of other neo-European lands, such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina, or tsarist Siberia —places that have undergone rapid occupation and exploitation by immigrants intent upon short-term development and enrichment. In all such areas, under novel social and political conditions and with a relative abundance of territory and physical resources, ideas and institutions derived from a relatively stable medieval or early modern Europe have undergone major transformation. Further, these are nonpeasant countrysides, alike in having failed to achieve the intimate symbiosis of people and habitat, the humanized rural landscapes characteristic of many relatively dense, stable, earthbound communities in parts of Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America.
How did pre-European settlements affect the United States?
Although the land that now constitutes the United States was occupied and much affected by diverse Indian cultures over many millennia, these pre-European settlement patterns have had virtually no impact upon the contemporary nation—except locally, as in parts of New Mexico. A benign habitat permitted a huge contiguous tract of settled land to materialize across nearly all the eastern half of the United States and within substantial patches of the West. The vastness of the land, the scarcity of labour, and the abundance of migratory opportunities in a land replete with raw physical resources contributed to exceptional human mobility and a quick succession of ephemeral forms of land use and settlement. Human endeavours have greatly transformed the landscape, but such efforts have been largely destructive. Most of the pre-European landscape in the United States was so swiftly and radically altered that it is difficult to conjecture intelligently about its earlier appearance.
How were townships laid out?
Townships were laid out as blocks, each six by six miles in size, oriented with the compass directions . Thirty-six sections, each one square mile, or 640 acres (260 hectares), in size, were designated within each township; and public roads were established along section lines and, where needed, along half-section lines. At irregular intervals, offsets in survey lines and roads were introduced to allow for the Earth’s curvature. Individual property lines were coincident with, or parallel to, survey lines, and this pervasive rectangularity generally carried over into the geometry of fields and fences or into the townsites later superimposed upon the basic rural survey.
How were farms connected to towns?
Successions of such farms were connected with one another and with the towns by means of a dense, usually rectangular lattice of roads, largely unimproved at the time. The hamlets, villages, and smaller cities were arrayed at relatively regular intervals, with size and affluence determined in large part by the presence and quality of rail service or status as the county seat. But, among people who have been historically rural, individualistic, and antiurban in bias, many services normally located in urban places might be found in rustic settings. Thus, much retail business was transacted by means of itinerant peddlers, while small shops for the fabrication, distribution, or repair of various items were often located in isolated farmsteads, as were many post offices.
How much land did farms have in the 1980s?
By the late 1980s, for example, when the average farm size had surpassed 460 acres, farms containing 2,000 or more acres accounted for almost half of all farmland and 20 percent of the cropland harvested, even though they comprised less than 3 percent of all farms.
What are the characteristics of American settlement?
Another special characteristic of American settlement, one that became obvious only by the mid-20th century, is the convergence of rural and urban modes of life. The farmsteads—and rural folk in general—have become increasingly urbanized, and agricultural operations have become more automated, while the metropolis grows more gelatinous, unfocused, and pseudo-bucolic along its margins.
What is the impression of the settled portion of the American landscape, rural or urban, is one of disorder and inco?
The overall impression of the settled portion of the American landscape, rural or urban, is one of disorder and incoherence, even in areas of strict geometric survey. The individual landscape unit is seldom in visual harmony with its neighbour, so that, however sound in design or construction the single structure may be, the general effect is untidy. These attributes have been intensified by the acute individualism of the American, vigorous speculation in land and other commodities, a strongly utilitarian attitude toward the land and the treasures above and below it, and government policy and law. The landscape is also remarkable for its extensive transportation facilities, which have greatly influenced the configuration of the land.
What are the characteristics of Europe?
One characteristic of Europe is its high level of urbanization. Even in sparsely settled Northern Europe, over 80 percent of the people live in urban area (Iceland 94 percent)6. Southern and Eastern Europe are the least urbanized, with an average of 69-70 percent. While widespread urbanization is relatively recent in Europe, dating back only a century or two, the spread of cities into Europe can be associated with the classical Greek and Roman Empires, making many cities in Europe more than 2,000 years old. Among the largest metropolitan areas are Paris (10.9 mill.), London (10.4 mill.), and Madrid (6.1 mill.)7. European cities, like North American cities, reflect the operation of competitive land markets and they also suffer from similar problems of urban management, infrastructure maintenance, and poverty. Yet, what makes most European cities distinctive in comparison with North American cities is their long history, being the product of several major epochs of urban development.
What is the diversity of Europe's geography?
The diversity of Europe’s geography means that are important variations not only from the Germanic cities to the cities of Mediterranean Europe but also from these areas to the eastern European cities, which experienced over 40 years of communism.
Where is the Rhineland?
It stretches approximately from Northwest England across Greater London to the Benelux states and along the German Rhineland, Southern Germany, Alsace in France in the west, and Switzerland to Northern Italy in the south ( Figure 12.26 ).
