Department of Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2019 Apr 2;116(14):6707-6712. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1818346116. Epub 2019 Feb 19.
Network approaches in archaeology offer a promising avenue for facilitating bottom-up, comparative approaches to sociopolitical organization. While recent applications have focused primarily on migration and demographic trends, identity and identity politics, and the dynamics of geopolitical and regional interaction, little in the way of comparative sociopolitical organization has been attempted. In this study, I present an alternative approach to the use of sociotypological models across southern Appalachia. In particular, I demonstrate the value in employing network analyses as a mode of formally and quantitatively comparing the relational structures and organizations of sociopolitical landscapes; in this case, those traditionally characterized as constellations of chiefdoms. By approaching southern Appalachian histories through the relationships upon which social, political, and economic institutions were actually built, I move the study of southeastern political systems beyond the use of models that emphasize the behaviors of elites and the ruling class as inspired by the ethnographic and ethnohistoric records. To these ends, using a robust regional ceramic dataset, I compare network histories and political landscapes for the southern Appalachian region between ca. AD 800 and 1650. The results of these analyses contribute insights to the study of small-scale political organizations by demonstrating that () as chiefdoms developed, leaders drew on preexisting social and political conditions; () while networks of chiefly interaction were defined by instability, wider networks of interaction were much more durable; and () quantitative network analyses and qualitative ethnohistoric accounts can articulate with one another to shed light on indigenous political organization.
网络方法在考古学中提供了一个有前途的途径，有助于促进自下而上的、比较的社会政治组织方法。虽然最近的应用主要集中在迁移和人口趋势、身份和身份政治以及地缘政治和区域互动的动态上，但很少尝试比较社会政治组织。在这项研究中，我提出了一种在南阿巴拉契亚使用社会类型学模型的替代方法。特别是，我展示了在形式上和定量上比较社会政治景观的关系结构和组织的网络分析的价值；在这种情况下，这些结构和组织通常被描述为酋长领地的组合。通过通过社会、政治和经济机构实际建立的关系来研究南阿巴拉契亚的历史，我将东南政治系统的研究从强调精英和统治阶级行为的模型中转移出来，这些模型是受民族志和民族历史记录启发的。为此，我使用了一个强大的区域陶瓷数据集，比较了公元 800 年至 1650 年间南阿巴拉契亚地区的网络历史和政治景观。这些分析的结果通过展示以下内容为小规模政治组织的研究提供了新的见解：()随着酋长制的发展，领导人利用了先前存在的社会和政治条件；()虽然酋长间的互动网络是不稳定的，但更广泛的互动网络则更为持久；()定量网络分析和定性民族历史描述可以相互结合，揭示本土政治组织的情况。
