Bentley decided to apply the same model of how disease and patterns of behaviour spread during COVID, to map out how a contagious disease could have spread in an mega settlement called Nebelivka ...

Anthropologist Alex Bentley tells The Conversation Weekly about his research how modelling the spread of COVID sparked new research on the spread of disease in early civilisations.

This layout suggests a theory. Whether the people of Nebelivka knew it or not, this lower-density, clustered layout could have helped prevent any disease outbreaks from consuming the entire settlement ...

Social distancing may have roots 6,000 years ago, as research shows Neolithic villages like Nebelivka used clustered layouts to control disease spread. The phrase “social distancing” became widely ...

They focused on a settlement called Nebelivka, in what is now Ukraine, where thousands of wooden homes were regularly spaced in concentric patterns and clustered in neighborhoods.

Geophysical plot of Nebelivka settlement shows its circular layout, divided into neighborhoods. Duncan Hale and Nebelivka Project, CC BY-NC This time, the layout was different than at jam-packed ...

Whether intentional or not, the way mega-settlements in southeastern Europe from 6,000 years ago were laid out would have cut down on the spread of disease.

Whether the people of Nebelivka knew it or not, this lower-density, clustered layout could have helped prevent any disease outbreaks from consuming the entire settlement.