Network science in Roman studies: the potential and challenges
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 25/02/2017

As far as the application of network science in Roman studies is concerned, the low-hanging fruit has almost all been picked. We have created networks of the Antonine itineraries and of Cicero's letters, and many more networks of large datasets of Roman material culture. Network science has recently become more commonly applied in archaeology and Roman studies in particular have seen a diverse and creative use of network science techniques, thanks to the availability of both written and material sources as well as long-running debates on theoretical models. Roman studies now face the challenge, not of copying network science techniques from sociology and physics, but to develop original network science models and methods that explicitly address its key research themes. Such work should take the unique strength of network science as its starting point: the formal representation and study of (theories about) relational phenomena and data. In this presentation I will review the use of network science in Roman studies and make some suggestions of how the potential of network science can be explored in the future. The review reveals theoretical and methodological challenges that Roman studies share with archaeology and history more broadly in their application of network science. How to deal with material data in network approaches? How to explore long-term change in social systems with network methods that have traditionally been applied to study more short-term changes? How to address sampling issues and missing data? Addressing these challenges and thinking through the relational phenomena underlying key research themes in Roman studies will reveal ways forward.

Tom Brughmans, University of Oxford