http://connectedpast.soton.ac.uk/

The Connected Past: people, networks and complexity in archaeology and history

University of Southampton 24-25 March 2012
http://connectedpast.soton.ac.uk/
Organisers: Tom Brughmans, Anna Collar, Fiona Coward

Confirmed keynote speakers: Professor Carl Knappett and Professor Alex Bentley

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 as a means of understanding dynamic social relationships in the past, as well as technical relationships in their data. This conference 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 over two days immediately preceding the CAA conference (Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology), also hosted by the University of Southampton (http://caa2012.org), allowing participants to easily attend both.

The conference aims to:
• provide a forum for the presentation of multidisciplinary network-based research
• discuss the practicalities and implications of applying network perspectives and methodologies to archaeological and historical data in particular
• establish a 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, highlight the relevance of this work for the continued development of network theory in other disciplines

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 and multiplex networks
· Quantitative network techniques and the use of computers to aid analysis
· Emergent properties in complex networks
· Agency, structuration and complexity in network approaches
· Agent-based modelling and complex networks
· Future directions for network approaches in archaeology and history

Please email proposed titles and abstracts (max. 250 words) to:
connectedpast@soton.ac.uk by November 20th 2011.
Visit the conference website for more information: http://connectedpast.soton.ac.uk/