People and Space: Defining Communities and Neighborhoods with Social Network Analysis

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "People and Space: Defining Communities and Neighborhoods with Social Network Analysis" at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Archaeological applications of social network analysis (SNA) inherently have a strong spatial component. Material culture exists in space, and the identification and distribution of these materials facilitates the creation of spatially located networks. Archaeology can contribute to the broader field of SNA through the creation and application of spatial SNA methods. Conversely, SNA may also be a powerful tool in the identification or reconstruction of neighborhoods and communities in the past through its ability to identify linked groups. This intersection means that SNA can provide powerful techniques to help archaeologists determine the presence and extent of different communities, as well as assess interactions within and among those communities. SNA can draw on artifact exchange systems, methods of production, or documentary sources to identify links between different nodes in networks of interaction. These data can then be used to reconstruct social networks. This session presents several papers from multiple regions focused around the application of SNA to identify discrete communities or neighborhoods. Interest in SNA as a tool to interpret archaeological evidence has been increasing dramatically, as has interest in identifying communities and neighborhoods. This application of SNA research is an open avenue of applicable research with potential utilization beyond archaeology.