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

这个项目研究了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，当时人口的大规模迁移与整个地区大型聚落村庄的形成相吻合。利用从未出版和出版的报告、博物馆藏品和有限的考古田野工作中挑选出来的信息，它补充了该地区现有的已知美洲原住民聚居地数据库，该数据库是由之前的NSF资金开发的。该项目有五个主要目标。首先是将物质文化信息(特别是陶器和黑铁矿)添加到现有的只包含沙漠考古中心开发的空间数据的地理信息系统中。这个地理信息系统数据库包括西南部大约2000个晚期领悟地震现场。第二，在人口大流动和泛区域互联互通的时期，描述该地区社会网络的结构和动态。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强大的空间分析工具(如地理信息系统)相结合。西南考古有可能在一个相对受控和受限的环境中提供关于社会网络兴衰的“深度时间”视角。社会网络分析在很大程度上集中在当代的例子上，这是社会网络理论和方法首次应用于区域考古数据库，该数据库衡量了几个世纪以来的变化，更类似于世界各地许多非城市环境中发生的各种互动。项目成果通过各种媒体向公众展示，包括沙漠考古中心？S网站、公开讲座和广泛发行的出版物。

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 Using information culled from unpublished and published reports, museum collections, and limited archaeological fieldwork it supplements an existing database of known Native American settlements in the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.