Collaborative Research: Methodological Challenges and Interpretations in Network Analysis of Artifact Data

在许多领域，科学家越来越多地将各种研究问题视为涉及某种网络，并通过网络分析方法来解决这些问题。 考古学也不例外。 网络视角在考古学中的一个特别富有成效的应用涉及到构建代表一个地区中有人居住的遗址之间联系的网络，其中两个遗址之间的网络链接的存在或强度是从观察到的遗址的人工制品组合之间的相似性来推断的。 例如，对前西班牙裔美国西南部的研究已经研究了在这些遗址收集的陶瓷器分布之间的相似性，以及从这些陶瓷相似性中衍生出的微观和宏观区域网络。 通过网络分析方法对这些网络及其随时间的变化进行调查，为考古学中非常感兴趣的社会过程提供了重要的见解，例如移民，人口和人口减少以及意识形态的传播。 然而，这种方法也带来了网络分析工具应用不当的严重风险。 这些工具是在其他学科中开发的，有时可能不适合考古背景，考古环境可能对解释这些方法的结果构成特殊挑战。目前的研究项目由PI约翰M。小罗伯茨（威斯康星大学密尔沃基分校）和共同PI马修A。Peeples（亚利桑那州立大学）将涉及一个跨学科的团队，致力于深入评估网络分析工具在考古背景下的有效性，方法选择对考古解释的影响，以及分析考古网络数据的新方法的调查。 这项工作将与威斯康星大学密尔沃基分校的研究生研究助理合作进行，该项目将为他们提供网络分析及其应用于实质性研究问题的深入培训。 来自亚利桑那大学的其他同事将作为顾问参与，并将开发在线工具，以帮助向其他研究人员、研究生和本科生以及公众传播该项目的好处。这项研究将解决目前考古文献中未充分理解的一些具体技术问题，例如由于所收集的人工制品数据中的采样可变性而导致的网络测量中的不确定性的测量，用于创建表示将复杂信息提炼成可访问的视觉显示的考古网络的图形的方法，以及基于网络的分析的结果与其它分析方法的结果之间的比较，以人为相似性数据。 该项目还将探讨更直接的考古问题，包括遗址的空间排列与其人工制品组合相似性之间的关系，以及网络变化如何对应于区域年表的其他方面。 该项目的一些数据来自该团队以前在美国西南部的工作，但该项目还将研究来自各种考古背景，时间和地点的其他网络数据。 总而言之，该项目将极大地提高对当前考古网络分析实践中的技术和实质性问题的理解，同时也为新方法创建了一个路线图，以产生更深入的考古见解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

Across many fields, scientists increasingly conceive of diverse research problems as involving networks of some kind, and tackle these problems via methods for network analysis. Archaeology is no exception. One particularly fruitful application of the network perspective in archaeology has involved the construction of networks representing ties between inhabited sites in a region, with the presence or strength of a network link between two sites inferred from the observed similarity between the sites' artifact assemblages. For instance, research on the pre-Hispanic American Southwest has examined the similarity between distributions of ceramic wares collected at the sites, with micro- and macro-regional networks of sites derived from these ceramic similarities. Investigations of these networks, and their change over time, via network analytic methods provide important insights into social processes that are of intense interest in archaeology, such as migration, population and depopulation, and diffusion of ideology. However, this approach also carries with it grave risks of inappropriate application of network analytic tools. These tools were developed in other disciplines and may sometimes be ill-suited to the archaeological context, and the archaeological setting can pose particular challenges for interpretation of results from these methods. The current research project undertaken by PI John M. Roberts, Jr. (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) and co-PI Matthew A. Peeples (Arizona State University) will involve an interdisciplinary team working to develop in-depth assessments of the validity of network analytic tools in the archaeological context, the implication of methodological choices for resulting archaeological interpretations, and the investigation of new approaches to analyzing archaeological network data. This work will be carried out in collaboration with a graduate research assistant at UW-Milwaukee, for whom the project will provide in-depth training in network analysis and its application to substantive research questions. Additional colleagues from the University of Arizona will participate as consultants, and online tools will be developed to help spread the project's benefits to other researchers, graduate and undergraduate students, and the public.This research will address a number of specific technical issues that are at present inadequately understood in the archaeological literature, such as measurement of uncertainty in network measures due to sampling variability in collected artifact data, methods for creating graphs representing archaeological networks that distill complex information into accessible visual displays, and comparisons between results of network-based analyses with those of other analytic approaches to artifact similarity data. The project will also explore more directly archaeological questions, including the relationship between the spatial arrangement of sites and the similarity of their artifact assemblages, and how network change corresponds to other dimensions of regional chronology. Some data for the project are derived from the team's previous work on the American Southwest, but the project will also examine other network data from a wide variety of archaeological contexts, times, and places. In sum, the project will greatly improve understanding of the technical and substantive issues surrounding the current practice of archaeological network analysis, while also creating a roadmap for new approaches that will yield deeper archaeological insights.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.