Collaborative Research: The Structure and Dynamics of Social Networks within the Southwest

这个项目研究了前西班牙裔美国西南部的社交网络的结构和动态。它考察了公元1200年至1550年之间的一段时间，当时人口大规模流离失所，与整个地区形成的大型聚集村庄相吻合。利用从未发表和已发表的报告，博物馆收藏和有限的考古实地考察中挑选的信息，它补充了该地区已知美洲原住民定居点的现有数据库，该数据库是由NSF资助开发的。该项目有五个主要目标。首先是将物质文化信息（特别是陶瓷和黑曜石）添加到现有的地理信息系统中，该地理信息系统仅包含沙漠考古中心开发的空间数据。这个地理信息系统数据库包括大约2000个西南部的晚期前西班牙遗址。第二是在人口大流动和泛区域互联的时期，描述该地区社交网络的结构和动态。三是将社会学、地理信息系统（GIS）、物理学、数学等社会网络分析的新方法和新理论应用于考古学。第四，研究人员将使用高分辨率的考古数据来测试当前关于网络结构和变化的理论。第五，研究人员将社会网络理论与GIS等强大的空间分析工具相结合。西南考古学有可能提供一个“深时间”的角度来看待社交网络在一个相对受控和有限的环境中的兴衰。社会网络分析主要集中在当代的例子，这是社会网络理论和方法的第一次应用到一个区域考古数据库，测量几个世纪以来的变化，这是更类似于在世界各地的许多非城市环境中发生的各种互动。项目成果以公众可以通过各种媒体获得的方式呈现，包括沙漠考古中心？的网站，公开讲座和广泛分发的出版物。

This project examines the structure and dynamics of social networks in the prehispanic U.S. Southwest. It examines the period of time between A.D. 1200 to 1550, when there were massive displacements of population that coincided with the formation of large, aggregated villages throughout the area. Using information culled from unpublished and published reports, museum collections, and limited archaeological fieldwork it supplements an existing database of known Native American settlements in the region that was developed with prior NSF funding. The project has five major goals. First is to add material culture information (especially ceramics and obsidian) to an existing GIS that contains only spatial data developed by the Center for Desert Archaeology. This GIS database includes roughly 2000 late prehispanic sites across the Southwest. Second is to characterize the structure and dynamics of social networks in the area during a period of great population flux and pan-regional interconnectivity. The third is to apply new methods and theories of social network analysis from sociology, Geographic Information System (GIS), physics, and mathematics to archaeology. Fourth, researchers are to test current theories about network structure and change using high-resolution archaeological data. And fifth, the researchers are to integrate social network theory with powerful tools of spatial analyses such as GIS. Southwest archaeology has the potential to provide a "deep time" perspective on the rise and fall of social networks within a relatively controlled and circumscribed environment. Social network analysis has largely concentrated on contemporary examples and this is the first application of social network theory and methods to a regional archaeological database that measures change over centuries and that is more analogous to the kinds of interactions that take place in many non-urban settings throughout the world. Project results are presented in a manner accessible to the public in variety of media, including the Center for Desert Archaeology?s website, public lectures, and widely distributed publications.