Newitz colors the narrative with accounts of personal visits to each site and interviews with the archaeologists there, many of whom debunk past scholars who looked at sites through a Western lens. Cahokia, located near present-day Saint Louis, was at its height (circa 1050 C.E.) an agricultural epicenter big on collective gatherings, fun and not (human sacrifices were common), until flood and drought likely took a toll. Thailand’s Angkor is known now for its majestic temples, but in the 13th century, those were just part of an agriculturally complex and sprawling region with a sophisticated infrastructure that was hard to maintain amid climate fluctuation and shaky leadership. Pompeii was famously obliterated by a volcanic eruption in 79 C.E., but before it then exemplified a diverse society whose folkways survived beyond the city’s ruins. Catalhoyuk, located in present-day Turkey 9,000 years ago, marked humanity’s uneasy shift from farming communities to a dense city until sustained cold and drought unraveled the place. To do that, they select a quartet of once-mighty metropolises.

Newitz is interested in how cities form, grow, and dissipate, and the author trains their focus on how everyday lives were affected by those processes. An exploration of four far-flung ancient cities, each undone by climate and politics.Īn alternate title for this book might be A People’s History of Urbanism.

Four lost cities