Hey there, this is Flora Lichtenen, and you're listening to Science Friday.

Today we are hitting the streets, the dusty, ancient streets, looking for clues about the origins of democracy.

Researchers writing in the journal Science advances explain how the design of ancient temples, plazas, cities can tell us how a civilization was governed.

So what does ancient architecture reveal about democracy and do the democratic design principles hold true today?

Here to chip away at some of these big questions is Dr. Jake Holland Lulowitz,

anthropologist and assistant professor at the Pennsylvania State University.

Hey, Jake, welcome to Science Friday.

Hi, guys. Thanks so much for having me.

What does Democratic design or Democratic architecture look like?

Oh, yeah. I don't know if we can call the architecture

democratic, but it certainly reflects kind of ethos and our institutions, which themselves are

democratic. And so when we're thinking of democracy, I think what we're thinking of are

places that are inclusive, that can hold a lot of people that are designed to facilitate deliberation and conversation.

Give me some examples from the sites that you looked at.

Sure. At least where I work in in southeastern North America,

you know, we're looking for big, huge, round structures. You know, they're much bigger than a house,

right? They can fit more than one important family. Maybe they can fit everyone in the village.

Maybe they can fit family representatives from lots of villages coming together.

And the shape, the circle, is really important too, because when you're sitting in a circle

and we find evidence for benches around the walls, you can see everyone else, right?

No one is necessarily front and center, right? You're not, it's not like a

classroom where all of my students are looking at me and I'm telling them stuff that they

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