An Introduction to Network Analysis for the Ancient World

When and how did networking become a resource for ancient communities? Were these networks perceived by ancient societies and actors as a means to perform and assert social, personal and group identities? Covering various periods and geo-cultural areas from Iran to the western Mediterranean, with a strong focus on classical antiquity, the papers collected here approach the topic of network as resources in three different but interrelated thematic domains: the interaction between societies and the natural environment (socio-natural networks), the transmission of knowledge and habitus (networks of knowledge and power) and religious interactions (sacred landscape). The social values that communities attribute to the networks they are embedded in are opened up to new interpretative layers, dynamics and scales. Looking at networks as resources changes our perspective on both terms of the equation. On the one hand, ancient networks are reframed in their relational and social contexts and linked to their actors’ intentions and perceptions. On the other hand, the properties of specifi c networks, such as fl uidity, redundancy and the strength and fragility of relationships, shed new light on resources and resource-related socio-cultural dynamics.

This paper aims to provide a framework for the new critical approaches in archaeological network analysis presented in the CAA 2011 Data Analysis session. It will briefly introduce the history of two network traditions that have been highly influential in archaeology: social network analysis and complex networks in physics. A review of published archaeological and historical applications follows, illustrating that, although a wide range of applications already exists, archaeologists have still to explore its full potential as a research perspective. Some relevant papers presented at the Data Analysis session are briefly described and considered in order to add original and critical approaches to an already very diverse corpus. We will argue that an awareness of the dominant network traditions, their differences and how they have been applied by archaeologists, as well as a specifically archaeological critique of adopted techniques, is a necessity for future research agendas.

Attempts to reconstruct socio-economic life often equals striving to tackle social and economic complexity. Crucial to their success, is a methodological approach enabling systematic examination of large and diverse data sets, allowing the researcher to maintain the overview. At least since the 1970s, network analytical methods have gained some recognition within historical fields. Ancient Egypt represents a particularly well-suited case study for network approaches. Still, formal network analysis has only by exception been applied to material and texts from ancient Egypt. The current talk aims to critically discuss the applicability - and usability - of ‘Social Network Analysis’ within the field of Egyptology. In doing so, the author introduces her PhD-project, ‘Socio-Economic Relations in Ptolemaic Pathyris: A Network Analytical Approach to a Bicultural Community’. Demonstrations and visualizations are generated from preserved Greek and Demotic textual sources from the site.

H2D|Revista de Humanidades Digitais, 2022

A small archive of texts from ancient Iraq is used to demonstrate an approach to network analysis in which traditional close reading and computational text analysis go hand-in-hand. The computational methods produce tables and graphs that link back to online editions of the primary material, enabling the user to check the results.

… Approaches and Applications: A Handbook. Oxford, 2007

Social network analysis as a distinct field of study had its genesis in the anthropological revolt against structural-functionalism in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

It is run on a non-proi t, voluntary basis by postgraduate research students at the University of Cambridge. Although primarily rooted in archaeological theory and practice, ARC increasingly invites a range of perspectives with the aim of establishing a strong, interdisciplinary journal which will be of interest in a range of i elds.

This paper deals with the use of network analytical methods in archaeology. These methods are well known in the social sciences but have not yet been applied to archaeological data. The aim is to discover and display the social structure of a given network for which relational data is available. The explanation of the determined structure of relationships is therefore the next step in our research. In cultural anthropology, for example, the communication between members of a group, the exchange of raw ma- terial and the diffusion of inventions are all subjects of interest. These are also aspects of human behavior that can be observed in archaeological data. Therefore, the application of these methods is also very promising to our own studies and their inclusion opens new horizons in our research. First applications of this analytical approach in archaeology are currently being conducted at the Institute for Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Cologne. We are particularly concentrating on the exchange mechanisms involved in the distribution of raw materials for flint artifact production. Similarities in pottery decoration serve as a further indication of communication networks between settlements of the Early Neolithic “Bandkeramik” in the Rhineland. The paper will give an introduction into the archaeological background; will then deal with the principles of social network analysis and preliminary results from the network analyses thus far carried out will be presented.

eTopoi Journal for Ancient Studies. Special Volume 7 (2020): Political and Economic Interaction on the Edge of Early Empires, ed. by David A. Warburton, 2020

This paper introduces key concepts of network theory and analysis, and their relevance to archaeological research. The framework is compared to alternative approaches, in particular World-Systems Theory (WST) and its offshoot, World-Systems Analysis (WSA). After reviewing both strengths and weaknesses of a networks perspective through relevant examples, the discussion highlights potential developments for understanding cultural connectivity with particular reference to social complexity.

Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, 2019

Archaeologists reconstruct the activities and interactions of individuals using the accumulated material culture of the past, yet detecting these interactions can be difficult using traditional archaeological analytical tools. The development of a methodological framework emerging from graph theory, coupled with the growth of computational power and a growing multidisciplinary theoretical framework aimed at interpreting these analyses, have eased the difficulties of uncovering, analyzing, and interpreting networks in the past. From examining physical locations of sites and how they interact together (Peregrine 1991) to examining trade routes and migration pathways (Hofman et al. 2018), and the exchange of ideas across time and space (Mills et al. 2013), network approaches have infiltrated archaeology and grown exponentially in published studies (Brughmans 2013; Mills 2017).

Understanding connectivity is a key to understanding decision making. Social network analysis offers formalized ways of describing and thus comparing attributes of actors related to each other in networks. Using quantitative spatial data, social network analysis promises deeper insights into how social positions are achieved and developed, as mirrored in the ancient fl ows of materials. The volume collects contributions of an international conference on network analysis in archaeology, held in 2015 at the University of Cologne as part of the DFG Research Training Group 1878 'Archaeology of Pre-Modern Economies'.