Complex systems existed in the past, archaeologists never doubted this. Until recently, however, a suitable analytical framework for examining the properties of such systems was unavailable. The last decade has seen a growing number of archaeological applications of network-based techniques, mainly influenced by social network analysis and network models in physics.
Archaeological applications are still dealing with growing pains, however. The list of published applications is short and they have not yet tapped into the full potential of the networks perspective. Moreover, the nature of archaeological data as indirect and fragmentary reflections of the past confronts network analysts with an interesting challenge - one that will allow archaeologists to make valuable contributions to the “new” science of networks.
This talk aims to confront this challenge. It will argue how a networks approach can be used to explore archaeological datasets as well as identifying properties of complex systems in the past.
Original Title
BRUGHMANS, T. (2011) Complex networks in archaeology. In 'Interface 2011' 27-29 July 2011, University College London, London.
Complex systems existed in the past, archaeologists never doubted this. Until recently, however, a suitable analytical framework for examining the properties of such systems was unavailable.…