The Development of Cities

[JDR Dragoon]

Rune I’m taking it that your original premise was that many of the European city claims to longevity if not overemphasised then downright lies! and you are citing native American (Iroquois Nation ??) use of Manhattan as a counter.

Basically yes. If you want to put it another way: I am arguing that settlement continuity on a given location does not constitute a "city/town". The dating of a given named locations age can only objectively be achieved by looking at when the location received its legal charter and juridic recognition as a "city/town". In the case of Trier, the town received itc charter as a city during the 1st century AD. In the case of New York, it was with the arrival of the Dutch and the founding of New Amsterdam (and in the case of Mexico City it was Tenochtitlan etc. etc.). This of course leaves us with a lot of potential "holes". For instance Trier might have had legal status as a "city/town" among the tribe (the Treverii) who inhabited (and continued to inhabit) the area untill the Romans showed up. But we have no way of knowing about it since they have left no written record describing the status of the settlement that would be the Roman Augusta Treverorum.

My premise is that given the physical geographical nature of western Europe it is virtually a guarantee that the majority of the European sites would have been not just occupied but also fortified.

I am not so sure about that. In any event it depends on what period of (pre)history we are talking about.

Without over generalizing (hopefully!) the sites invariably occupy positions that would control economically sustainable lands/trade routes/strategically important sites etc. Archaeological evidence aside, even the landscape provides clues eg still observable traces of Hill forts and agricultural field shapes.

Yup. And funnily enough the situation is about the same in the Americas (overall speaking of course).

Moving on a bit; my reasoning behind Europe having virtually always been inherently overpopulated is based to a certain extent on what you call a "Migration Theory" both from external inward flow of peoples and from, what were often climatically induced, internal overpopulation problems due to economic unsustainability. I’m not talking so much population density per mile here but rather the ability of ‘the Land’ to support its human population. That, too my way of thinking is a major, if not the major driving force behind Western European Global expansionism.

Perhaps in post-mideval times (although this can be debated). But I sincerely doubt that the above scenario was the case beforehand. When people move, they usually have a specific reason for doing so, they ususally don´t move very far, and they don´t do so in large numbers.