Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory ( IF 3.2 ) Pub Date : 2025-01-03 , DOI: 10.1007/s10816-024-09688-z
Deborah Priß, John Wainwright, Dan Lawrence, Laura Turnbull, Christina Prell, Christodoulos Karittevlis, Andreas A. Ioannides
Networks are increasingly used to describe and analyse complex archaeological data in terms of nodes (archaeological sites or places) and edges (representing relationships or connections between each pair of nodes). Network analysis can then be applied to express local and global properties of the system, including structure (e.g. modularity) or connectivity. However, the usually high amount of missing data in archaeology and the uncertainty they cause make it difficult to obtain meaningful and robust results from the statistical methods utilised in the field of network analysis. Hence, we present in this paper manual and computational methods to (1) fill gaps in the settlement record and (2) reconstruct an ancient route system to retrieve a network that is as complete as possible. Our study focuses on the sites and routes, so-called hollow ways, in the Khabur Valley, Mesopotamia, during the Bronze and Iron Age as one of the most intensively surveyed areas worldwide. We were able to predict additional sites that were missing from the record as well as develop an innovative hybrid approach to complement the partly preserved hollow way system by integrating a manual and computational procedure. The set of methods we used can be adapted to significantly enhance the description of many other cases, and with appropriate extensions successfully tackle almost any archaeological region.
中文翻译:
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填补空白 — 不完整考古网络的计算方法
网络越来越多地用于根据节点(考古遗址或地点)和边缘(表示每对节点之间的关系或连接)来描述和分析复杂的考古数据。然后,可以应用网络分析来表达系统的局部和全局属性,包括结构(例如模块化)或连通性。然而,考古学中通常存在大量缺失数据及其造成的不确定性,这使得很难从网络分析领域使用的统计方法中获得有意义和可靠的结果。因此,我们在本文中提出了 (1) 填补定居记录中的空白和 (2) 重建古老路线系统以恢复尽可能完整的网络的手册和计算方法。我们的研究重点是青铜和铁器时代美索不达米亚 Khabur 山谷的遗址和路线,即所谓的空心通道,是世界上调查最密集的地区之一。我们能够预测记录中缺失的其他地点,并开发一种创新的混合方法,通过集成手动和计算程序来补充部分保存的空心系统。我们使用的这套方法可以适应,以显着增强对许多其他案例的描述,并通过适当的扩展成功地处理几乎任何考古区域。