Editing Town (section)

==History==
Through different periods of recorded history, many towns have grown into sizeable settlements, with the development of properties, centres of culture, and specialized economies.

===Neolithic===
[[Çatalhöyük]], currently an archaeological site, was considered to be the oldest inhabited town, or [[proto-city]], that existed from around 7500 BC. Inscribed as a [[World Heritage Site]], it remains a depopulated town with a complex of ruins.

===Roman era===
{{Main|Roman villa}}
{{Original research|section|date=December 2021}}
{{Refimprove section|date=February 2025}}
In [[Ancient Rome|Roman times]], a villa was a rural settlement formed by a main residential building and another series of secondary buildings. It constituted the center from which an agricultural holding was administered. Subsequently, it lost its agricultural functions and reduced its activity to residential.{{citation needed|date=December 2021}} With the consolidation of large estates during the [[Roman Empire]], the town became the center of large farms.{{citation needed|date=December 2021}}

A distinction was created between rustic and urban settlements:
*Rustic villas ([[Villa rustica]]),<ref> Varro, de Rustica I.11, 13</ref><ref>Columella I.4 § 6</ref> from where the exploitation of resources was directed, slave workers resided, livestock were kept and production was stored.
*Urban villas, in which the [[lord]] resided and which increasingly adopted the architectural and beautification forms typical of urban mansions. When from the first century the great territorial property was divided between the area directly exploited by the lord and that ceded to tenant settlers, urban villas became the centers of the administrative power of the lords,{{citation needed|date=December 2021}} appearing the forms of vassalage typical of feudalism of the fourth century.{{citation needed|date=December 2021}}