[Archport] Networks in archaeology and history

[Bruno Lopes <bruno-lopes85@hotmail.com>]

The Connected Past. A satellite conference at CAA 2014, Paris.

With the Support of Sciences Po,  the DYREM research program, Médialab, and the French network of historical network analysis.

Presentation

The Connected Past is a community led by a multi-disciplinary international steering committee. It aims to provide discussion platforms for the development of original and critical applications of network and complexity approaches to archaeology and history. To this purpose The Connected Past organises international conferences, focused seminars and practical didactic workshops.

Argument

Over the past decade ‘network’ has become a buzz-word in many disciplines across the humanities and sciences.

Researchers in archaeology and history in particular are increasingly exploring network-based theory and methodologies drawn from complex network models or social network analysis as a means of understanding dynamic social relationships in the past, as well as technical relationships in their data.

This series of conferences aims to provide a platform for pioneering, multidisciplinary, collaborative work by researchers working to develop network approaches and their application to the past.

The conference will be held immediately after the CAA conference (Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology), also happening in Paris, allowing participants to easily attend both – but participants from other disciplines, especially history, are also most welcome.

The conference aims to:

• Provide a forum for the presentation of network-based research applied to archaeological or historical questions
• Discuss the practicalities and implications of applying network perspectives and methodologies to archaeological and historical data in particular
• Strengthen the group of researchers interested in the potential of network approaches for archaeology and history
• Foster cross-disciplinary dialogue and collaborative work towards integrated analytical frameworks for understanding complex networks
• Stimulate debate about the application of network theory and analysis within archaeology and history in particular, but also more widely, and highlight the relevance of this work for the continued development of network theory in other disciplines

Topics

We welcome contributions addressing any of (but not restricted to) the following themes:

• The diffusion of innovations, people and objects in the past
• Social network analysis in archaeology and history
• The dynamics between physical and relational space
• Evolving, multilevel and multiplex networks
• Emergent properties in complex networks
• Agency, structuration and complexity in network approaches
• Future directions for network approaches in archaeology and history

Submission guidelines

Please email proposed titles and abstracts (max. 250 words)

by November 12th 2013

to: connectedpast@soton.ac.uk

Complete papers will not be required. Oral presentations will be limited to 15 minutes so as to leave room for discussion. The abstracts should be written in English, but French talks accompanied by an English presentation, or vice versa, will be admitted, and French questions or answers will be welcome during the debates. Lunch will be offered to presenters and hopefully to all participants, but the organizers cannot fund travel or lodging.

There are no attendance fees. Although this event is free of charge, registration is required and the number of places is limited. Registration to the event will open once the final programme is advertised in late November, and places will be allocated on a first-come-first-serve basis.

A “The Connected Past” practical workshop, “Introduction to network analysis for archaeologists” will also be organized during CAA2014 in Paris (see the CAA programme).

The conference will be held on Saturday April 26, 2014 in Paris

Scientific Responsability

Organisers

Claire Lemercier (CNRS, Sciences Po, Paris), Tom Brughmans (University of Southampton), The Connected Past steering committee.

Scientific Committee

Professor Alex Bentley (Dept. of Archaeology and Anthropology, Bristol University)
Tom Brughmans (Archaeological Computing Research Group, University of Southampton)
Dr. Anna Collar (McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge)
Dr. Fiona Coward (School of Applied Sciences, Bournemouth University)
Professor Carl Knappett (Homer Thompson Chair in Aegean Prehistory, University of Toronto)
Dr. Tim Evans (Department of Physics, Imperial College London)
Professor Claire Lemercier (Centre de Sociologie des Organisations, Sciences-Po Paris)
Professor Irad Malkin (Department of History, Tel Aviv University)
Professor Barbara Mills (School of Anthropology, University of Arizona)
Professor Koji Mizoguchi (School of Social and Cultural Studies, Kyushu University Japan)