This introduction presents a brief history of the study of early cities, archaeological research on the nature of ancient cities. It also provides an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapter of this book. The book delineates some distinctive features of ancient cities and then compares these features. It first concerns early cities as arenas of performance, which includes studies of Egyptian, Maya, and Southeast Asian cities. Next, the book analyzes early cities and information technologies. Then, early urban landscapes are explained. The book also considers cities in the Harappan tradition and their successors in South Asia, and explains the rise and fall of Cahokia. Finally, the book focuses on Rome in the early centuries CE, the capital cities of imperial Assyria in the early to middle centuries BCE, and Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, in the fourteenth to early sixteenth centuries CE.
