### id250523048 large cities do not always have a marketplace > But towering, earthen mounds there hint at the legacy of the largest pre-Columbian city north of Mexico. A cosmopolitan whir of language, art and spiritual ferment, Cahokia's population may have swelled to 30,000 people at its 1050 AD peak, making it larger, at the time, than Paris. > > It's what Cahokia didn't have that's startling, writes Annalee Newitz in their recent book [Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age](https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393652666). The massive city lacked a permanent marketplace, confounding old assumptions that trade is the organising principle behind all urbanisation. - [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01fmsnbx9qzq1v1n6jcvr4sxmc) - [[The US Lost, Ancient Megacity by Jen Rose Smith#id250523048 large cities do not always have a marketplace|View in Vault]] - [n] reminds me of how [[Göbekli Tepe]] surprised people, and [[Tripolye settlements were bigger than cities]]. What people consider necessary for cities is sometimes as "off" as what they consider necessary for "sophisticated civilization" (e.g. [[writing has to more to do with inequality than complexity]])