Crossing the threshold: a critical analysis of Levantine domestic architecture

Archaeologists studying ancient domestic architecture are often confronted with highly fragmentary architectural remains. This lack of data could lead to a focus on the visual comparison of floor plans as the most reliable and accessible source of information, or the exclusion of fragmentary structures altogether. It is argued, however, that all architectural remains carry a wide range of possibly meaningful information, which can be analyzed using an equally wide range of approaches. As an example, a set of highly fragmentary houses from the Northern Levantine region, dated to the Iron Age I period, was subjected to a quantitative, formal, technological, contextual and urban analysis, offering a diverse picture of the ancient architecture and its inhabitant

Connecting the dots: towards archaeological network analysis

In recent years network analysis has been applied in archaeological research to examine the structure of archaeological relationships of whatever sort. However, these archaeological applications share a number of issues concerning 1) the role of archaeological data in networks; 2) the diversity of network structures, their consequences and their interpretation; 3) the critical use of quantitative tools; and 4) the influence of other disciplines, especially sociology. This article concerns a deconstruction of past archaeological methods for examining networks. Through a case study of Roman table wares in the eastern Mediterranean, the article highlights a number of issues with network analysis as a method for archaeology. It urges caution regarding the uncritical application of network analysis methods developed in other disciplines and applied to archaeology. However, it stresses the potential benefits of network analysis for the archaeological discipline and acknowledges the need for specifically archaeological network analysis, which should be based on relational thinking and can be expanded with an archaeological toolset for quantitative analysi

Roman bazaar or market economy? : An agent-based network model of tableware trade and distribution in the roman east

This paper aims to evaluate notions of two crucial studies on the Roman economy by Bang and Temin based on the study of distribution patterns of ceramic tablewares in the Roman East in the period 150BCE-200CE. It presents an agentbased network model simulating the social networks which represent the flow of information and goods between traders. Results of the simulation are subsequently compared to the tableware data collected in the ICRATES database. Preliminary results suggest, contrary to Bang's hypothesis, that limited availability of reliable commercial information from different markets is unlikely to give rise to the large differences in the wideness of product's distributions observed in the archaeological record

Analyser les réseaux du passé en archéologie et en histoire

Au cours de la dernière décennie, de plus en plus d'archéologues ont utilisé des méthodes formelles d'analyse de réseaux, tant pour explorer des bases données complexes que pour tester leurs hypothèses à propos des interactions du passé. La tendance a été la même en histoire, autour de l'analyse de réseaux sociaux ayant laissé des traces textuelles. Mais les deux disciplines, qui pourtant partagent l'objectif de comprendre des comportements humains passés, ont peu dialogué à propos de ce nouvel intérêt pour les réseaux. Les journées The Connected Past, qui ont eu lieu à Southampton en mars 2012, avaient pour objectif d'ouvrir ce dialogue. À l'issue de ces journées, nous présentons ici les questions, largement communes mais pour partie propres à chaque discipline, ouvertes par l'usage de techniques d'analyse de réseaux en archéologie et en histoire. Nous faisons le pari que la recherche en la matière, dans chaque discipline, peut bénéficier de l'expérience de l'autre. Les questions et problèmes communs ont trait au caractère fragmentaire des sources, à la manière de prendre en compte, dans la visualisation et l'analyse, les dimensions spatiale et temporelle des réseaux, et plus généralement à la manière d'interpréter les résultats de ces analyses de façon à mieux comprendre les interactions passées. L'archéologie se distingue dans la mesure où les traces matérielles sur lesquelles elle travaille ne donnent qu'un accès indirect aux individus, mais permettent en contrepartie d'avoir un aperçu de changements de long terme de la vie quotidienne. Au contraire, les sources historiques offrent souvent des perspectives plus synchroniques d'analyse de réseaux, pour un moment précis du passé, centrées sur des personnes identifiées par leur nom et leur rôle social. Toutefois, les interactions documentées par les sources historiques et archéologiques ne sont pas uniquement interpersonnelles. Les points des réseaux des archéologues et des historiens peuvent aussi bien être des mots, des textes, des artefacts ou des lieux. Outre l'intérêt du dialogue entre les deux disciplines, les journées The Connected Past ont de ce fait souligné la nécessité d'une réflexion sur cette extension, et sur la traduction qu'elle implique pour des concepts sociologiques définis à l'origine à propos d'interactions entre individus. L'analyse de réseaux en histoire et en archéologie ne peut donc pas se passer des savoir-faire, notamment de critique textuelle et matérielle, propres à chaque discipline.The last decade has seen a significant increase in the use of network studies in archaeology, as archaeologists have turned to formal network methods to make sense of large and complex datasets and to explore hypotheses of past interactions. A similar pattern can be seen in history and related disciplines, where work has focused on exploring the structure of textual sources and analysing historically attested social networks. Despite this shared interest in network approaches and their common general goal (to understand human behaviour in the past), there has been little cross-fertilisation of archaeological and historical network approaches. The Connected Past, a multidisciplinary conference held in Southampton in March 2012, provided a rare platform for such cross-disciplinary communication. This article will discuss the shared concerns of and seemingly unique challenges facing archaeologists and historians using network analysis techniques, and will suggest new ways in which research in both disciplines can be enhanced by drawing on the experiences of different research traditions. The conference brought some common themes and shared concerns to the fore. Most prominent among these are possible methods for dealing with the fragmentary nature of our sources, techniques for visualising and analysing past networks - especially when they include both spatial and temporal dimensions - and interpretation of network analysis results in order to enhance our understanding of past social interactions. This multi-disciplinary discussion also raised some fundamental differences between disciplines: in archaeology, individuals are typically identified indirectly through the material remains they leave behind, providing an insight into long-term changes in the everyday lives of past peoples; in contrast, historical sources often allow the identification of past individuals by name and role, allowing synchronic analysis of social networks at a particular moment in time. The conference also demonstrated clearly that a major concern for advancing the use of network analysis in both the archaeological and historical disciplines will be the consideration of how to translate sociological concepts that have been created to deal with interaction between people when the nodes in our networks are in fact words, texts, places or artefacts. Means of textual and material critique will thus be central to future work in this field

Socio-economic impacts of the exposure to Roman ceramics in the inland Iron Age communities of the NW Iberian Peninsula: a quantitative approach

How did the first ever exposure to Roman imported material culture at inland sites affect local material culture practices? What does this reveal about the speed and nature of cross-cultural influence between Roman and Iron Age communities? And about the specific dynamics of integration within the Roman Empire of inland sites? Our ability to address these key questions about the exposure of Iron Age communities to the Roman world is hampered by a research bias in classical archaeology towards the study of ceramics contexts from coastal sites. In this paper we present the first replicable quantified contextualised ceramics data analysis to address these questions, through a study of more than 150,000 sherds from inland sites in the northwestern Iberian Peninsula. We conclude that century-long gradual changes in local common wares and amphorae from Iron Age traditions to Roman-inspired forms reflect changing food production and consumption behaviours. This transition is also reflected in an increasing presence of imported Roman goods. Our results suggest very gradual but increasing integration with the Roman world and ceramic data patterns correlate with known events from textual sources: Caesar’s campaign, the Augustan Cantabrian wars, and the Flavian reformsS

UNA INTRODUCCIÓN A LA INVESTIGACIÓN DE REDES EN ARQUEOLOGÍA: ¿QUÉ ES Y POR QUÉ LA NECESITAMOS?

Network archaeological research is a thriving sub-discipline, in which a wide range of research questions about the human past are studied through relational theory and formal network methods. This paper aims to expose the potential of network archaeological research. To do so, we begin by defining the sub-discipline itself, addressing the importance of each of its constituting elements and what kinds of historical questions can be solved through it. As a result, we aim to provide a deeper understanding of "what" network research is, "what" we can do with it, and, most importantly, “why” we need it.La investigación de redes en arqueología es una subdisciplina en auge, en la que una gran diversidad de preguntas de investigación sobre el pasado humano se estudian a través de la teoría relacional y los métodos formales de redes. Este artículo pretende exponer el potencial de la investigación de redes en arqueología. Para ello, comenzamos definiendo la propia subdisciplina, abordando la importancia de cada uno de los elementos que la constituyen y qué tipo de preguntas históricas pueden resolverse a través de ella. Como resultado, tratamos de que el lector comprenda mejor “qué” es la investigación de redes, “qué” podemos hacer con ella y, lo que es más importante, “por qué” la necesitamos

Networks in Archaeology: Phenomena, Abstraction, Representation

The application of method and theory from network science to archaeology has dramatically increased over the last decade. In this article, we document this growth over time, discuss several of the important concepts that are used in the application of network approaches to archaeology, and introduce the other articles in this special issue on networks in archaeology. We argue that the suitability and contribution of network science techniques within particular archaeological research contexts can be usefully explored by scrutinizing the past phenomena under study, how these are abstracted into concepts, and how these in turn are represented as network data. For this reason, each of the articles in this special issue is discussed in terms of the phenomena that they seek to address, the abstraction in terms of concepts that they use to study connectivity, and the representations of network data that they employ in their analyses. The approaches currently being used are diverse and interdisciplinary, which we think are evidence of a healthy exploratory stage in the application of network science in archaeology. To facilitate further innovation, application, and collaboration, we also provide a glossary of terms that are currently being used in network science and especially those in the applications to archaeological case studies

Open science in archaeology

No abstract available

Complex networks in archaeology: urban connectivity in iron age and Roman southern Spain

In this article we highlight some of the issues surroundingthe study of past urban connectivity and how archaeologists can deal with them by adopting a complex networks research perspectiv