Discussions of long-term geographical change have tended to stress changes in landscape produced by the sustained or unfolding operation of particular processes rather than changes in the nature of the processes themselves. This paper calls for more study of the latter, It is argued that in the very long term, human spatial order has been organised around a succession of qualitatively different systems, each reflecting changes in the scale at which society was integrated and in its ideological constructs. A succession of five different systems of spatial order are examined, each replete with its own processes and forms of integration. It is further argued that exploring how one system gave way to another provides us with a geographical contribution to the wider debate on societal evolution, one in which the spatial structuring of the processes involved appears crucial to their operation.
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