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I suspect that less efficient land use and the need for large urban centres to produce most of their staples relatively nearby might conspire to create more sprawling settlements with smaller populations. I'm also not convinced that there were as many large conurbations as now - at least not as many in use at any given time.
That said, the scale of some ancient cities is incredible. The settlement surrounding Ankor Wat was the largest and most populous city to have ever existed, until Paris overtook it in the 1800s. The engineering and urban planning skills that went into it are amazing!
General_Strike-
I suspect that less efficient land use and the need for large urban centres to produce most of their staples relatively nearby might conspire to create more sprawling settlements with smaller populations. I'm also not convinced that there were as many large conurbations as now - at least not as many in use at any given time.
I'm only speculating, of course, and have no idea either way. My main suspicion is that we have little evidence of what must have been large (wooden) shanty towns around the stone-built urban cores of which we see remains today. I'm obviously also not trying to claim that the population was comparable to ours. There is little doubt that most Mayan cities had relatively clearly determinable periods of flourishing that, thanks to Mayan inscriptions, can be related to political events, and that the cities whose remains we see were indeed great at different times.
That said, the scale of some ancient cities is incredible. The settlement surrounding Ankor Wat was the largest and most populous city to have ever existed, until Paris overtook it in the 1800s. The engineering and urban planning skills that went into it are amazing!
Yes, and not only Angkor, but also Bagan:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagan
Less of a megacity, but equally impressive in some ways.
Oliver Schick
Slightly further to the south, but somewhat related:
http://newscientist.com/article/dn27945-myth-of-pristine-amazon-rainforest-busted-as-old-cities-reappear/
Thanks to @Sumo for posting it in the Epic Win thread.
One of my more persistent impressions when reading about research into ancient history is that I always end up thinking that ancient populations must have been much larger than we currently assume. The re-emergence of these sites is also interesting in the light of old tales like the one about El Dorado.
It is very interesting to think that apart from the many already somewhat explored ancient civilisations of North America, Mesoamerica and Andean South America, there may also have been similar city-states or perhaps even empires in Amazonian South America.