Regional Settlement Networks Analysis: A Global Comparison

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Regional Settlement Networks Analysis: A Global Comparison" at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Settlement networks express the nature of human interactions across vast regions. Over the past 20,000 years, human settlement behavior has seen several nonlinear major transitions from mobile hunter-gatherer networks, to sedentary communities, to urban societies. Through the lens of a global comparison, we aim to identify shared trajectories and global patterns, beyond chronological and spatial constraints, by analyzing comparable traits such as site size, settlement density, settlement network size, and intensity. Regional models that range across those major transitions can be contextualized within a comparative framework, thus aiming at bridging the gap between global and regional-local scales of interaction. Specific factors in the emergence of networks varied across space and time. Comparing different outcomes might inform us about the factors influencing the duration and continuities of those networks. Bringing together quantitative methods and new theoretical frameworks has the potential to shed new light on the nature of human settlement behavior in extensive regions, over long time spans.