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Journal ArticleDOI

Finding a Place for Networks in Archaeology

Matthew A. Peeples
- 04 Feb 2019 - 
- Vol. 27, Iss: 4, pp 451-499
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TLDR
There are still many daunting challenges ahead for the formal exploration of social networks using archaeological data, but if archaeologists can face these challenges, they are well positioned to contribute to long-standing debates in the broader sphere of network research on the nature of network theory, the relationships between networks and culture, and dynamics ofsocial networks over the long term.
Abstract
Formal network analyses have a long history in archaeology but have recently seen a rapid florescence. Network models drawing on approaches from graph theory, social network analysis, and complexity science have been used to address a broad array of questions about the relationships among network structure, positions, and the attributes and outcomes for individuals and larger groups at a range of social scales. Current archaeological network research is both methodologically and theoretically diverse, but there are still many daunting challenges ahead for the formal exploration of social networks using archaeological data. If we can face these challenges, archaeologists are well positioned to contribute to long-standing debates in the broader sphere of network research on the nature of network theory, the relationships between networks and culture, and dynamics of social networks over the long term.

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Journal ArticleDOI

Europe and the People without History

Katherine Verdery, +1 more
- 22 Jan 1984 - 
TL;DR: This article showed that European expansion not only transformed the historical trajectory of non-European societies, but also reconstituted the historical accounts of these societies before European intervention, and asserted that anthropology must pay more attention to history.
Journal ArticleDOI

Cumulative Cultural Evolution within Evolving Population Structures.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors synthesize empirical and theoretical studies from multiple fields to highlight how both population size and structure can shape the pool of cultural information that individuals can build upon to innovate, present the potential pathways through which humans' unique social structure might promote CCE, and discuss whether humans' social networks might partly result from selection pressures linked to our extensive reliance on culturally accumulated knowledge.
Journal ArticleDOI

Excising culture history from contemporary archaeology

TL;DR: The long-standing role of this approach to situate archaeological remains in space and time is far outweighed by the negative impacts of its underlying assumptions about the correspondence of biological and cultural groups, intragroup uniformity, discrete spatial boundaries, primordialism, and sequential change as mentioned in this paper.

The Role of Agent-Based Modeling in Archaeology

TL;DR: Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) represents a methodology with significant potential for altering archaeological analytical practice as mentioned in this paper, however, the scope of the research topics investigated has not increased accordingly.
References
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TL;DR: Simple models of networks that can be tuned through this middle ground: regular networks ‘rewired’ to introduce increasing amounts of disorder are explored, finding that these systems can be highly clustered, like regular lattices, yet have small characteristic path lengths, like random graphs.
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Journal ArticleDOI

Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital

TL;DR: In this paper, the concept of social capital is introduced and illustrated, its forms are described, the social structural conditions under which it arises are examined, and it is used in an analys...
Book

Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity

TL;DR: Identity in practice, modes of belonging, participation and non-participation, and learning communities: a guide to understanding identity in practice.
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