Reconfiguring Social Networks: The Emergence of Social Complexity Before and After Urbanism on Cyprus

Summary

Despite the lack of cities, the Prehistoric Bronze Age on Cyprus (2400-1700 cal BC), an island in the Eastern Mediterranean, witnesses high wealth inequality and spatiotemporal variation in the emergence of social complexity or hierarchical social networks. Previous research has shown that social networks are malleable and cycle between egalitarian and hierarchical in different facets of complexity (control of labor, access to resources, participation in trade networks) through the Prehistoric Bronze Age as social actors renegotiate their social and economic worlds. What remains unknown is whether cycling social networks are a phenomenon present only in pre-urban societies or if this social malleability continues after urbanization. To compare these processes, methods derived from small world network analysis and modern economics are used to explores the changes in and stability of social networks and wealth inequality as cities first emerge on Cyprus during the Protohistoric Bronze Age (1700-1200 cal BC).

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22382