Connecting Sunken Actors: Social Network Analysis in Maritime Archaeology

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Contextualizing Maritime Archaeology in Australasia" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

‘Social Network’ has become a popular term thanks to online tools as Facebook or Twitter, allowing us to connect with everyone. Specific to archaeology, Social Network Analysis (SNA) is well established as a method, but its theoretical application in Maritime Archaeology is an incipient initiative. This paper presents the use of maritime network model as a potential instrument to reinterpret underwater sites by integrating spatial and non-spatial patterns of cultural contact. The method implies an abstraction of an historical phenomenon in concepts of network analysis to be represented as network data. Using my case study–Rochelongue shipwreck (France) dated in the 7th-6th centuries B.C– the Maritime Network Model illustrate the flow of material goods, information, power, influence and social control. As a result, it can be argued that exploring the structural position of actors in a network can reveals information about developing relationships in maritime trade during the past.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Contextualizing Maritime Archaeology in Australasia   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2021

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology