Making Connections: Material Culture and Social Networks in the Southwest
Archaeologists use material culture—objects made and used by people—to understand relationships between individuals in the past. But how are shared objects connected to social interactions? This presentation explores this question through a combination of computer simulations and artifact analysis in the Western Pueblo region (AD 1100-1500). Focusing on areas from central Arizona to northern Arizona and western New Mexico, the study examines pottery, projectile points, and architecture to map social networks using similarities in design. An agent-based model of small-scale societies helps interpret how these material culture networks reflect real-world human connections.
Robert Bischoff is a PhD candidate at Arizona State University (ASU) and works as the digital data specialist for the Center for Archaeology and Society at ASU. He received his BA and MA degrees from Brigham Young University where he completed a thesis on San Juan Red Ware in the Four Corners region. Robert has excavated Fremont and Ancestral Puebloan sites, but he considers himself a “computational archaeologist” and does most of his research on museum collections and legacy data. He has published on the Ancestral Pueblo, Fremont, and Hohokam and specializes in quantitative methods such as network science, GIS, geometric morphometrics (2D and 3D analysis of shape), and agent-based modeling (computer simulation).
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