A Dagger to the Heart? Testing Assumptions of Archaeological Network Analysis with New Guinean Ethnographic Collections

Summary

Progressive cultural and biological diversification and divergence over space and time is one of the grand meta-narratives of archaeological thought. Much of the method and theory employed in support of this narrative is arguably at odds with what Emirbayer and Goodwin label the "anti-categorical imperative" at the heart of social network relational thinking. Here we utilize spatial network models within the broader family of Exponential Random Graph Models (ERGMs) to examine the relationship between style and technology of ethnographic material culture from Papua New Guinea (decorated bone daggers), language, and a set of more or less plausible geographically patterned social network formations derived from ethnographic data and network theory. We argue that material cultural diversity, language patterning, and social network structure are inextricably linked, but may each be governed and shaped by differing processes and motivations. Our analysis of ethnographic material culture also lays bare some of the issues inherent in using archaeological material culture as a proxy for social network structure.

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): 20112