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设想为涉及某种网络，并通过网络分析的方法来解决这些问题。考古学也不例外。网络观点在考古学中的一个特别卓有成效的应用涉及到建立网络，代表一个区域中有人居住的遗址之间的联系，从观察到的遗址人工制品组合之间的相似性推断出两个遗址之间是否存在或有网络联系。例如，对前西班牙裔美国西南地区的研究考察了在遗址收集的陶器分布之间的相似性，以及从这些陶瓷相似性得出的遗址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，如移民、人口和人口减少以及意识形态的扩散。然而，这种方法也伴随着不适当应用网络分析工具的严重风险。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，考古背景可能对解释这些方法的结果构成特殊挑战。目前的研究项目由小派·约翰·M·罗伯茨承担。(威斯康星大学-密尔沃基分校)和PI Matthew A.Peeples(亚利桑那州立大学)将有一个跨学科小组，致力于对考古背景下网络分析工具的有效性进行深入评估，对考古解释的方法选择的影响，以及对分析考古网络数据的新方法的调查。这项工作将与密尔沃基大学的一名研究生研究助理合作进行，该项目将为该助理提供网络分析及其在实质性研究问题上的应用方面的深入培训。来自亚利桑那大学的更多同事将作为顾问参与，并将开发在线工具，以帮助将该项目的好处传播到其他研究人员、研究生和本科生以及公众。这项研究将解决一些目前在考古文献中未被充分理解的具体技术问题，例如由于收集的文物数据中的采样变异性而导致网络测量的不确定性的测量，创建表示考古网络的图表的方法，将复杂信息提取到可访问的可视显示中，以及基于网络的分析结果与其他分析方法对文物相似性数据的比较。该项目还将探讨更直接的考古问题，包括遗址的空间安排与其文物组合的相似性之间的关系，以及网络变化如何与区域年代学的其他维度相对应。该项目的一些数据来自该团队之前在美国西南部的工作，但该项目也将检查来自各种考古背景、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，同时也为新的方法创造了一个路线图，将产生更深入的考古见解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.