Networks in Archaeology: Phenomena, Abstraction, Representation

Abstract The application of method and theory from network science to archaeologyhas dramatically increased over the last decade. In this article, wedocument this growth over time, discuss several of the important concepts thatare used in the application of network approaches to archaeology, and introducethe other articles in this special issue on networks in archaeology. We arguethat the suitability and contribution of network science techniques withinparticular archaeological research contexts can be usefully explored by scrutinizingthe past phenomena under study, how these are abstracted into concepts,and how these in turn are represented as network data. For this reason, each ofthe articles in this special issue is discussed in terms of the phenomena thatthey seek to address, the abstraction in terms of concepts that they use to studyconnectivity, and the representations of network data that they employ in theiranalyses. The approaches currently being used are diverse and interdisciplinary,which we think are evidence of a healthy exploratory stage in the application ofnetwork science in archaeology. To facilitate further innovation, application, andcollaboration, we also provide a glossary of terms that are currently being usedin network science and especially those in the applications to archaeologicalcase studies