In the age of Facebook and Twitter, “social network” is a phrase heard or read almost daily. Most of our readers will have a general concept of social networks through their familiarity with these communication tools. Yet, social networks are a mainstay of the human experience, not a product of new technologies.
Articles in this issue describe analyses conducted by Southwest Social Networks (SWSN) project team members using the SWSN database and social network analysis methods. Although these analyses draw on somewhat different techniques and evidence, they all center on related questions. How did patterns of interaction and exchange change through time at local and regional scales? How might the structure and organization of networks of interaction among settlements have influenced the long-term success or failure of settlements or regions? How did the arrival of a relatively small number of northern immigrants to the mountains and deserts of the southern Southwest affect the network landscape of the region as a whole?
Social Networks in the Distant Past: The Late Precontact Southwest — Barbara J. Mills, Jeffery J. Clark, Matthew A. Peeples, W. R. Haas, Jr., John M. Roberts, Jr., J. Brett Hill, Deborah L. Huntley, Lewis Borck, Ronald L. Breiger, Aaron Clauset, and M. Steven Shackley
Proximity: What role did nearness play in creating social networks?
Pottery: How do decorated ceramics enable us to reconstruct social networks?
Obsidian: What does a sudden expansion in its exchange imply?
Brokers: Where were the middlemen? What was their role?
Internal and External Relations: Why were some groups less vulnerable to crises?
Interactions in Turbulent Times: Insights Revealed by Social Network Analyses
Collaborations: More Than the Sum of Their Parts
Back Sight — William H. Doelle, Archaeology Southwest
In the age of Facebook and Twitter, “social network” is a phrase heard or read almost daily. Most of our readers will have a general concept of social networks through their familiarity with these communication tools. Yet, social networks are a mainstay of the human experience, not a product of new technologies.
Articles in this issue describe analyses conducted by Southwest Social Networks (SWSN) project team members using the SWSN database and social network analysis methods. Although these analyses draw on somewhat different techniques and evidence, they all center on related questions. How did patterns of interaction and exchange change through time at local and regional scales? How might the structure and organization of networks of interaction among settlements have influenced the long-term success or failure of settlements or regions? How did the arrival of a relatively small number of northern immigrants to the mountains and deserts of the southern Southwest affect the network landscape of the region as a whole?
Acronyms Used in This Issue
CCD: Coalescent Communities Database (see pages 5 and 24), a precursor to the SWSN Database
GIS: Geographic Information System (see pages 7–8), an integrated computerized system for storing, mapping, and analyzing geographic data. In practice, GIS can refer to a database itself or to analyses performed on the data therein, as in “a GIS database” or “using GIS techniques.”
SNA: Social network analysis (see page 3), a group of tools derived from the mathematical field of graph theory and used to systematically examine social interactions
SWSN: Southwest Social Networks (project and database), the subject of this issue
XRF: X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (see pages 14–15), a technique that uses a special instrument to acquire elemental data in artifacts, providing information about the provenance of analyzed samples
Social Networks in the Distant Past: The Late Precontact Southwest — Barbara J. Mills, Jeffery J. Clark, Matthew A. Peeples, W. R. Haas, Jr., John M. Roberts, Jr., J. Brett Hill, Deborah L. Huntley, Lewis Borck, Ronald L. Breiger, Aaron Clauset, and M. Steven Shackley
To view a digital video of Matt Peeples’s Archaeology Café presentation on the project, click here.
To have WolframAlpha report your personal Facebook analytics, click here.
From Wikimedia Commons: Lorenzo de’ Medici as a teenager. Fresco by Benozzo Gozzoli, in the “Cappella dei Magi,” at Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence, Italy.
For further reading:
Hill, J. Brett, Jeffrey J. Clark, William H. Doelle, and Patrick D. Lyons
2004 Prehistoric Demography in the Southwest: Migration, Coalescence, and Hohokam Population Decline. American Antiquity 69(4):689–716.
Mills, Barbara J., Jeffery J. Clark, Matthew A. Peeples, W. R. Haas, Jr., John M. Roberts, Jr., J. Brett Hill, Deborah L. Huntley, Lewis Borck, Ronald L. Breiger, Aaron Clauset, and M. Steven Shackley
2013 The Transformation of Social Networks in the Late Pre-Hispanic U.S. Southwest. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 110(15):5785–5790.
Mills, Barbara J., John M. Roberts Jr., Jeffery J. Clark, William R. Haas Jr., Deborah Huntley, Matthew A. Peeples, Lewis Borck, Susan C. Ryan, Meaghan Trowbridge, and Ronald L. Breiger
2013 The Dynamics of Social Networks in the Late Prehistoric U.S. Southwest. In Network Analysis in Archaeology, edited by Carl Knappett, pp. 185–206. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Peeples, Matthew A. and John M. Roberts, Jr.
2013 To Binarize or Not to Binarize: Relational Data and the Construction of Archaeological Networks. Journal of Archaeological Science 40(7):3001–3010.
Roberts, John M., Jr., Barbara J. Mills, Jeffery J. Clark, W. Randall Haas, Jr., Deborah L. Huntley and Meaghan A. Trowbridge
2012 A Method for Chronological Apportioning of Ceramic Assemblages. Journal of Archaeological Science 39(5):1513–1520.
Proximity: What role did nearness play in creating social networks?
Mills, Barbara J., John M. Roberts Jr., Jeffery J. Clark, William R. Haas Jr., Deborah Huntley, Matthew A. Peeples, Lewis Borck, Susan C. Ryan, Meaghan Trowbridge, and Ronald L. Breiger
2013 The Dynamics of Social Networks in the Late Prehistoric U.S. Southwest. In Network Analysis in Archaeology, edited by Carl Knappett, pp. 185–206. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
SPECIAL: Animated network maps
Obsidian: What does a sudden expansion in its exchange imply?
Why were Mills and Trowbridge wading in the river? Because the land vegetation was essentially impassable, and the river provided the easiest access to the sites of interest!
From Wikimedia Commons: Sketch of a Quipucamayoc from El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno (The First New Chronicle and Good Government), a chronicle of Inca history by the indigenous Inca historian Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala (ca. 1535–1616)
