Reconstructing human-centered interaction networks of the Swifterbant culture in the Dutch wetlands : An example from the Archaeoecology Project
TL;DR: In this paper, a human-centered interaction network is used to study the Neolithic transition of the Swifterbant culture in the northwestern Netherlands (approximately 4700-4000 BCE).
Abstract: In archaeology, palaeo-ecological studies are frequently used to support archaeological investigations, but linking and synthesizing datasets and concepts from ecology, ethnography, earth sciences, and archaeology has historically been rare. While advances in computational approaches and standards of data collection have enabled more collaborative approaches to understanding the past, these endeavors are only now beginning to pick up pace. Here, we propose a method to collect data of these assorted types, synthesize ecological and archaeological understanding, and move beyond subsistence-focused studies to those that incorporate multifaceted economies. We advocate for the use of ‘human-centered interaction networks’ as a tool to synthesize and better understand the role of culture, ecology, and environment in the long-term evolution of socio-ecological systems. We advance the study of human-centered interaction networks by presenting an archaeoecological (archaeological-ecological) perspective on the Neolithic transition of the Swifterbant culture in the northwestern Netherlands (approximately 4700–4000 BCE). We employed network science to better understand the relationships of animal and plant species to the uses that people made of them. The analysis of the Swifterbant system reveals a highly connected set of interactions among people, plants, and animals, as could be expected on the basis of the hypothesis of an ‘extended broad-spectrum economy’. Importantly, this broad spectrum extends beyond the subsistence sphere.
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TL;DR: The study of human-environment interactions is one of the mainstream topics in archaeological research, with increasing interest in the context of current societal challenges concerning environmental shifts related to climate change, sea-level rise, extreme natural events and also the exponential increase in anthropisation in recent decades.
Abstract: The study of human–environment interactions is one of the mainstream topics in archaeological research, with increasing interest in the context of current societal challenges concerning environmental shifts related to climate change, sea-level rise, extreme natural events and also the exponential increase in anthropisation in recent decades [...]
1 citations
TL;DR: In this article , a human-centered interaction network model is used to identify how social processes put constraints on the manufacture and continued use of large ocean-going va'a in Eastern Polynesian contexts.
Abstract: While Eastern Polynesian archaeologists rarely recover archaeological remains of canoes (va‘a), ethnohistoric texts document how such vessels played a central role in the daily lives of commoners and chiefs alike. Here, we refocus discussions of va‘a in Polynesian societies through synthesizing proxy information (archaeological data, evidence from ethnographic and ethnohistoric sources, ecological modeling, human-centered interaction networks) on canoe use in the Society Islands of French Polynesia. While all communities who initially settled Eastern Polynesia archipelagoes must have done so with large double-hulled canoes, their use was absent in some societies by the time of European contact. We question why some Eastern Polynesian societies retained the use of large ocean-going canoes, while others did not. For high island archipelagoes like the Society Islands, sources document how large double-hulled canoes facilitated and supported elite intra-archipelago voyaging, warfare, and exchange with near and remote hinterlands up until European contact in the mid-eighteenth century. While smaller canoes were used by commoners on a daily basis for subsistence fishing and island-wide transport, larger ocean-going canoes were strictly the purview of high-ranking elites. Our human-centered interaction network models help us to identify how social processes put constraints on the manufacture and continued use of large ocean-going va‘a in Eastern Polynesian contexts. We deploy such data to outline steps in the production, use, and re-use of canoes. We employ network science to better understand the relationships between animal and plant species used by the Mā‘ohi in canoe manufacture, quantifying the number of resources used, the number of social personae involved, and the amount of labor/energy involved in their manufacture. Finally, we use Mo‘orea settlement pattern data, as well as landscape and elevation data, to visually model the extent to which local ecologies or habitats constrained access to long-lived hard wood trees, key raw materials in the construction of ocean-going vessels. We consider the additional variables of soil pH and tree regrowth rates in our modeling of the ecological limits of preferred va‘a species. We then query differential patterns of continued use of ocean-going vessels in two Eastern Polynesian archipelagoes: the Gambier archipelago and the Society Islands. Utilizing these multiple sources of data, we return to the age-old question of what roles social and natural processes played in the resiliency of the socio-political systems of Polynesian chiefdoms. We view ocean-going canoes as critical social tools in terms of resilience, as use of these water craft reduced island isolation and allowed for contact with near, and sometimes far, neighbors who served as critical buffering agents, particularly in times of ecological crises, such as drought, famine, or tsunamis.
1 citations
14 Dec 2014
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors conducted fieldwork near one of the river dunes in the Swifterbant river system (the Netherlands) provided new insights in the regional occupation history during the Neolithic (c. 4500-3700 BC).
Abstract: Fieldwork conducted from 2008 to 2010 near one of the river dunes in the Swifterbant river system (the Netherlands) provided new insights in the regional occupation history during the Neolithic (c. 4500-3700 BC). Excavations in the 1960's and 1970's at river dune sites S21-S24 focused on the finds and features in the dune sand. It proved impossible to subdivide the finds into various occupation phases in Mesolithic and Neolithic. In contrast, the levee sites along the river system are dated to the period 4300-4000 cal. BC. The new excavations at S25 are located at the border zone of the dune, built-up with clay deposits in with all finds were registered within small spit cells (50 cm x 50 cm x 5 cm). This allowed a detailed analysis of the spatial distribution of the finds. In combination with several 14 C dates, the data indicates a slow build-up of the deposits in the period 4500-3700 cal. BC. A comparison of artefact characteristics underlines that S25 is to be interpreted as a site of the Swifterbant culture. Nevertheless S25 proved to be rather different from all other known sites in the area. Its ceramics are a subset of the ceramics available at the other sites. There are no features (e.g. no hearths, graves, or postholes). Additionally, there is no evidence for cereal cultivation. It is concluded that S25 is a dump zone related to activities on the river dune. These activities are more restricted in scope than those attested by the levee sites, suggesting that the river dune had a specific function in the regional occupation system. It is supposed that S25 is the remnant of a series of small scale and intermittent visits to the dune. As such, S25 extends our interpretation of human behavioural variability in the Swifterbant region.
1 citations
28 Mar 2019
TL;DR: This paper investigated the relevance of taboo from a diachronic perspective and focused on the Neolithisation in the western part of the North European Plain, where taboo was expanded to include three theoretical behavioural options: deliberate avoidance, deliberate incorporation and non-ritual adoption.
Abstract: This paper investigates the relevance of the notion of taboo from a diachronic perspective and focuses on the Neolithisation in the western part of the North European Plain. While taboo is a very strong cultural notion, the transition to farming by definition means a subsistence change. The notion of taboo was expanded to include three theoretical behavioural options. These are deliberate avoidance (taboo), deliberate incorporation and non-ritual adoption. In my opinion the diachronic taboo model presented here helps us to step away from the more mechanical availability model and focus on the social processes underlying the process of Neolithisation. It makes clear that the small-scale introduction of domestic animals from around 4700–4450 cal BC did not have any social relevance — at least not visible to the archaeologist. The introduction of cereals in the period 4300–4000 cal BC seems to have been of greater social relevance, resulting in new pottery types. Around 4000 cal BC the perception of domestic cattle may have changed profoundly, judging from the deposition of cattle horns. The outcome of this process around 4000 cal BC is then a society in which both cereals and domestic cattle have taken centre stage.
1 citations
References
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors constructed networks of collaboration between scientists in each of these disciplines and proposed a measure of collaboration strength based on the number of papers coauthored by pairs of scientists, and the number other scientists with whom they coauthored those papers.
Abstract: Using computer databases of scientific papers in physics, biomedical research, and computer science, we have constructed networks of collaboration between scientists in each of these disciplines. In these networks two scientists are considered connected if they have coauthored one or more papers together. Here we study a variety of nonlocal statistics for these networks, such as typical distances between scientists through the network, and measures of centrality such as closeness and betweenness. We further argue that simple networks such as these cannot capture variation in the strength of collaborative ties and propose a measure of collaboration strength based on the number of papers coauthored by pairs of scientists, and the number of other scientists with whom they coauthored those papers.
2,528 citations
TL;DR: A new, free software is introduced calculating a large spectrum of network indices, visualizing bipartite networks and generating null models, and enables ecologists to readily contrast their findings with null model expectations for many different questions, thus separating statistical inevitability from ecological process.
Abstract: Many analyses of ecological networks in recent years have introduced new indices to describe network properties. As a consequence, tens of indices are available to address similar questions, differing in specific detail, sensitivity in detecting the property in question, and robustness with respect to network size and sampling intensity. Furthermore, some indices merely reflect the number of species participating in a network, but not their interrelationship, requiring a null model approach. Here we introduce a new, free software calculating a large spectrum of network indices, visualizing bipartite networks and generating null models. We use this tool to explore the sensitivity of 26 network indices to network dimensions, sampling intensity and singleton observations. Based on observed data, we investigate the interrelationship of these indices, and show that they are highly correlated, and heavily influenced by network dimensions and connectance. Finally, we re-evaluate five common hypotheses about network properties, comparing 19 pollination networks with three differently complex null models: 1. The number of links per species ("degree") follow (truncated) power law distributions. 2. Generalist pollinators interact with specialist plants, and vice versa (dependence asymmetry). 3. Ecological networks are nested. 4. Pollinators display complementarity, owing to specialization within the network. 5. Plant-pollinator networks are more robust to extinction than random networks. Our results indicate that while some hypotheses hold up against our null models, others are to a large extent understandable on the basis of network size, rather than ecological interrelationships. In particular, null model pattern of dependence asymmetry and robustness to extinction are opposite to what current network paradigms suggest. Our analysis, and the tools we provide, enables ecologists to readily contrast their findings with null model expectations for many different questions, thus separating statistical inevitability from ecological process.
1,222 citations
01 Jan 2008
TL;DR: The new R-package bipartite, introduced here, provides functions to viualise webs and calculate a series of indices commonly used to describe pattern in ecological webs, focusing on webs consisting of only two trophic levels, e.g. pollination webs or predator-prey-webs.
Abstract: Interactions among species in ecological communities have long fascinated ecologists. Prominent recent examples include pollination webs (Memmott et al., 2004), species-rich predator-prey systems (Tylianakis et al., 2007) and seed dispersal mutualisms (all reviewed in Bluthgen et al., 2007). Many of the topological descriptors used in food webs since the 1960s have limited ecological meaning when only two trophic levels are investigated (for example chain length: Pimm, 1982/2002; Montoya et al., 2006). Here, the network becomes bipartite, i.e. every member of one trophic level is only connected to members of the other trophic level: direct interactions within trophic levels are regarded as unimportant. For bipartite ecological networks very many, more or less different, indices have been proposed to capture important features of the interactions and of the species. For example, species degrees (number of species the target species is linked to) or species strength (sum of level of dependencies of other species on the target) are supposed to quantify the importance of a species in a web. The new R-package bipartite, introduced here, provides functions to viualise webs and calculate a series of indices commonly used to describe pattern in ecological webs. It focusses on webs consisting of only two trophic levels, e.g. pollination webs or predator-prey-webs. We had three types of ecological bipartite webs in mind when writing this package: seed-disperser, plant-pollinator and predatorprey systems. Bipartite networks, as analysed and plotted in the package bipartite, can be represented by a matrix, in which, in our definition, columns represent species in the higher trophic level, and rows species in the lower trophic level. Entries in the matrix represent observed links, either quantitatively (with one to many interactions per link) or qualitatively (binary). Usually such matrices are very sparse, marginal sums (i.e. abundance distributions) highly skewed and average number of interactions per link are low (around 2: Bluthgen et al., 2007). With the package bipartite, presented here, we wanted to overcome two main deficiencies in the field: 1. Lack of software to calculate various indices and topological descriptors of bipartite networks. And 2. No convenient plotting tool for bipartite networks. This article aims to briefly present the two visualisation functions (plotweb and visweb), then present an example output from the calculation of network-level descriptors (using function networklevel) and finally address some miscellaneous issues to do with fitting degree distributions, secondary extinction slopes and null models for bipartite webs. Along with several functions we also include 19 data sets on pollinator networks, taken from the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis webpage devoted to this topic (www.nceas.ucsb. edu/interactionweb). There are several other bipartite data sets at this repository, and our data include only quantitative plant-pollinator networks.
1,078 citations
TL;DR: Traditional network analytic techniques to 2-mode data, as well as developing new techniques are presented and three areas are covered in detail: displaying 2- mode data as networks, detecting clusters and measuring centrality.
971 citations
TL;DR: This paper focuses on a measure originally defined for unweighted networks: the global clustering coefficient, and proposes a generalization of this coefficient that retains the information encoded in the weights of ties.
958 citations