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Throughout the history of archaeology, researchers have evaluated human societies in terms of systems and systems interactions. Complex systems theory (CST), which emerged in the 1980s, is a framework that can explain the emergence of new organizational forms. Its ability to capture nonlinear dynamics and account for human agency make CST a powerful analytical framework for archaeologists. While CST has been present within archaeology for several decades (most notably through the use of concepts like resilience and complex adaptive systems), recent increases in the use of methods like network analysis and agent-based modeling are accelerating the use of CST among archaeologists. This article reviews complex systems approaches and their relationship to past and present archaeological thought. In particular, CST has made important advancements in studies of adaptation and resilience, cycles of social and political development, and the identification of scaling relationships in human systems. Ultimately, CST helps reveal important patterns and relationships that are pivotal for understanding human systems and the relationships that define different societies.
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Cutting the Network, Knotting the Line: a Linaeological Approach to Network Analysis
Abstract Network methods have seen a rapid rise in archaeology in recent years. There are still concerns regarding how well formal networks are able to effectively model local interaction. These are often present in the so-called qualitative network approaches—studies that tend to be based on close readings of relations between entities and the way they form dynamic networks of agents. Such studies have demonstrated the value in scrutinizing the way in which relations might be acted on in practice, and how that might differ from expected results. But rarely do such studies produce network data of the kind analyzed by formal network analytical methods. Formal approaches, on the other hand, blur the specificity of individual relations and trade much of their specificity for the ability to make general statements about relations across large datasets. More generally, the modality of the relation/edge is a crucial way in which formal network analysis differs from other prevalent relational approaches popular in archaeology today, where the substantivity of individual relations is paramount. Such relations are often seen as starting points for subsequent hybridizations that radically alter, if only temporarily, the structure of their respective networks. I argue that a key step in allowing networks to reformulate from initial, data-driven network schemata is the introduction of a more symmetrical agency between the node and the edge. In this article, I discuss how ethnographic sources can be used to achieve this for archaeological survey data. I use assemblage theory as a framework to explore the potential the edge has to offer archaeological network modelling. While assemblage theory is helpful for this purpose, the lack of a computational formality to assemblage theory immediately places it at odds with network science. As a complement, I will also employ the computational ontology CIDOC-CRM to more explicitly articulate the character of links between nodes in archaeological networks. The paper will end by suggesting a method of network modelling which integrates the line as a key source of agency. As a nod to Ingold’s call for an increased emphasis on the line, I call this approach network linaeology.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1637076
- PAR ID:
- 10376486
- Publisher / Repository:
- Springer Science + Business Media
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory
- Volume:
- 28
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 1072-5369
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 178-196
- Size(s):
- p. 178-196
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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