The question of whether Late Iron Age oppida in Europe were truly ‘urban’ has dominated debate over these sites since the nineteenth century. Oppida have been surprisingly absent from comparative urban studies, however, despite increasingly nuanced perspectives on the nature and diversity of the urban phenomenon. In particular, Roland Fletcher's implication that oppida might represent part of a broader alternative form of low-density urbanism has been largely overlooked, by Iron Age scholars and urbanism specialists alike. With the complex nature of many oppida now becoming increasingly apparent, I suggest it is a pertinent time to assess Fletcher's claim and examine whether oppida can be convincingly compared to low-density urbanism elsewhere in the world and, if so, what implications this might have for understanding Iron Age societies. This paper argues that oppida do indeed display aspects of low-density urbanism and that this is likely to be due to the negotiated nature of power in Iron Age societies.

中文翻译：

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超越铁器时代的“城镇”：以低密度城市化为例考察乌鸦

自19世纪以来，关于欧洲铁器时代晚期的鸦片是否真的是“城市”的问题一直主导着这些地点的争论。尽管对城市现象的性质和多样性的看法日趋细微，但比较城市研究却没有奥平达。特别是，铁器时代的学者和城市主义专家都忽略了罗兰·弗莱彻（Roland Fletcher）的暗示，即乌鸦纲可能代表低密度城市主义的更广泛替代形式的一部分。随着许多Oppida的复杂性变得越来越明显，我建议现在是时候评估Fletcher的主张并研究Oppida是否可以令人信服地与世界其他地方的低密度城市主义进行比较，如果可以的话，这可能意味着什么？了解铁器时代的社会。