The following discussion provides an introduction to the set of four papers that follow. All of these papers focus on Network Analysis and were presented in a symposium at CAA 2006 organized by the authors. As reflected by the many papers elsewhere in this volume and in previous CAA proceedings, the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in archaeology is now a fundamental for any work with a spatial component. Since the publication of Interpreting Space (Allen et al. 1990), the landmark volume that introduced GIS to the archaeological world, many different aspects of GIS applications in archaeology have developed and flourished. Approaches to landscape analysis have generated some heated theoretical debate as well as innovative methodologies, while data management in general and Cultural Resource Management specifically, are now embedded within these spatial technologies. Interestingly, though, Network Analysis (NA) has largely remained outside of these developments. As descri...

Archaeologists reconstruct the activities and interactions of individuals using the accumulated material culture of the past, yet detecting these interactions can be difficult using traditional archaeological analytical tools. The development of a methodological framework emerging from graph theory, coupled with the growth of computational power and a growing multidisciplinary theoretical framework aimed at interpreting these analyses, have eased the difficulties of uncovering, analyzing, and interpreting networks in the past. From examining physical locations of sites and how they interact together (Peregrine 1991) to examining trade routes and migration pathways (Hofman et al. 2018), and the exchange of ideas across time and space (Mills et al. 2013), network approaches have infiltrated archaeology and grown exponentially in published studies (Brughmans 2013; Mills 2017).

This paper deals with the use of network analytical methods in archaeology. These methods are well known in the social sciences but have not yet been applied to archaeological data. The aim is to discover and display the social structure of a given network for which relational data is available. The explanation of the determined structure of relationships is therefore the next step in our research. In cultural anthropology, for example, the communication between members of a group, the exchange of raw ma- terial and the diffusion of inventions are all subjects of interest. These are also aspects of human behavior that can be observed in archaeological data. Therefore, the application of these methods is also very promising to our own studies and their inclusion opens new horizons in our research. First applications of this analytical approach in archaeology are currently being conducted at the Institute for Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Cologne. We are particularly concentrating on the exchange mechanisms involved in the distribution of raw materials for flint artifact production. Similarities in pottery decoration serve as a further indication of communication networks between settlements of the Early Neolithic “Bandkeramik” in the Rhineland. The paper will give an introduction into the archaeological background; will then deal with the principles of social network analysis and preliminary results from the network analyses thus far carried out will be presented.

The concept of networks is found “in almost all fields”1 of science, including the social sciences. It has also become part of our everyday language, with a variety of meanings. In the social sciences, the word began to acquire a specific definition and to be used in a particular way more than 50 years ago. The examples of two pioneers will show how the concept has helped to advance knowledge in psychosociology and social anthropology. We examine in this article the principles of social network analysis and focus on methods for the study of personal networks in surveys.