Maritime Networks in the Ancient Mediterranean World

In this one-off, extended Project Gallery article, the participants of a recent workshop jointly present a manifesto for the study of ancient Mediterranean maritime connectivity. Reviewing the advantages and perils of network modelling, they advance conceptual and methodological frameworks for the productive study of seaborne connectivity. They show how progressive research methods can overcome some of the problems encountered when working with uneven datasets spanning large geographical regions and long periods of time. The manifesto suggests research directions that could better inform our interpretations of human connections, both within and beyond the Mediterranean.

Leidwanger, J. 2014. "Maritime Networks and Economic Regionalism in the Roman Eastern Mediterranean." Special Issue on Social Networks in Archaeology (Les réseaux sociaux en archéologie), edited by C. Knappett, Les nouvelles de l’archéologie 135: 32-38.

Exchange in the Roman Mediterranean has often been described with general network terminology, but rarely have the formal methods or theory of network analysis been applied to the archaeological evidence for Roman maritime interaction. Using case studies around the island of Cyprus, this paper addresses how network approaches might inform analysis of seaborne economic and social connectivity at different scales across the ancient world. The locations of opportunistic ports, and the cargo sizes and approximate durations of journeys represented by shipwrecks provide parameters for characterizing network activity: in this case the networks that linked communities beyond the major coastal urban ports into a highly regionalized maritime economy. This approach to network activity defines and emphasizes a regional scale as distinct from both local and long-distance activity. It raises critical issues about the structure and functioning of networks in light of the socioeconomic conditions and logistics of ancient seafaring, and it provides a framework for investigating the development of markets in the Roman maritime economy. Rather than revealing a single expansive and well-integrated “trade network” across the Roman Mediterranean, the approach here suggests multiple discrete regional and interregional networks centered on distinct products, ships, distances, agents, communities, and economic mechanisms.

Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2021

The 21st c. finds maritime archaeology burgeoning on a global scale. Maritime archaeologists, now fully integrated into academia and current scholarly dialogue, are exploring new paths through and beyond integral subjects of our domainnamely, iconography, harbors, and shipbuilding. New theoretical and technological challenges, such as digital applications and, more recently, network analysis, lead to intriguing new ideas and open new paths for exploring the past. As a maritime archaeologist who works in the eastern Mediterranean, I opened this book with great interest and with a genuine incentive to sail into the "Roman seas" of "Eastern Mediterranean economies." The book is divided into six chapters, accompanied by two appendixes and an index. The first three chapters (109 pages, almost half of the main text), are well-researched introductions to the main components of maritime archaeology treated in this book. Comprehensive overviews of previous scholarship, based on a copious and up-to-date bibliography, can be used with confidence by scholars who need a kick start in this area of research. Certain sections on the applications and potential of network theory in maritime archaeology, in particular, are very informative and create a robust theoretical context. The first chapter, "Maritime interaction and Mediterranean communities," sets the scene for what is to follow and establishes the goal of the booknamely, "to identify patterns and densities of connections through the movements of people and goods, between the 2nd century BC and the 7th century AD" (5). Four short but well-explained sections discuss basic concepts and research areas: "movement, connectivity, and economic history," "Roman maritime economies," "shipwreck data sets"and they introduce the "Eastern Mediterranean case studies." Overarching themes that the reader encounters throughout the booksuch as regionalism, the necessity for a multiscalar approach to Roman maritime economies, and the significance of small ships and portsare first addressed here. The second chapter, "Topography and tools of interaction," focuses on ancient seafaring and navigation. The rich literature on the subject is well handled, and the author deftly summarizes the results of previous research. Some topics could have been covered more thoroughly, such as the history of shipbuilding, where an opportunity is missed to better contextualize the social aspects of various traditions by elaborating on Pomey's idea of different structural families of boats and ships. 1 But the overall discussion is well structured, and what the reader takes away is another key theme of this book: the significance of the

This dissertation employs aspects of network theory to study social complexity in the Euboean Gulf from the Mycenaean Palatial period through the Protohistoric Iron Age (c. 1400-700 BCE). The Euboean Gulf and its surrounding lands were unique in the Mediterranean during this time span with respect to their social and geographical context, connectivity with the wider world, and changes in societal organization. In particular, this study focuses on the inter-relationship of conceptual, social, and technological networks on multiple scales (local, regional, and trans-Mediterranean). The first part of the dissertation (Chapters 1-4) introduces the project and discusses current disciplinary issues, its theoretical framework, and its geographical context. The second part (Chapters 5-9) provides a diachronic explication of network dynamics in the Euboean Gulf, ranging across local, regional, and trans-Mediterranean scales. These chapters provide synthesis, analysis, and interpretation of a variety of related, though seemingly divergent, social phenomena, including the collapse of the Mycenaean palaces and the eighth-century political revolution, the disappearance of Linear B and adaptation of the Greek alphabet from the Phoenician script, the technological transition from bronze to iron as the dominant utilitarian metal, and a major shift in the nature of maritime interactions – from being predominantly eastern Mediterranean phenomena to encompassing nearly all the shores of the Middle Sea. In sum, I argue first that human interactions across multiple scales feed into one another to shape the major social, political, and technological changes seen throughout the period in question, and second that networks provide a strong means of modeling and explaining these changes. In particular, the networks in which the Euboean Gulf operated increasingly exhibit characteristics of “small worlds” and “the strength of weak ties,” where the addition of even a single connection into a wider system can result in the relatively rapid diffusion of political, cultural, and technological ideas. At the same time, these networks go through phases of higher and lower degrees of centrality and stability, resulting in occasional societal upheaval and restructuring in explainable (though not necessarily predictable) patterns in the dynamics of social complexity.

Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, 2015

Maritime Networks in the Mycenaean World. By Thomas F Tartaron. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 2013. ISBN 978--1--107--00298--2 (Hardcover UK £65.00), 341pp., index, 95 illustrations.

This collective volume explores the ways merchants managed to connect different spaces all over the globe in the early modern period by organizing the movement of goods, capital, information and cultural objects between different commercial maritime systems in the Mediterranean and Atlantic basin. Merchants and Trade Networks in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, 1550-1800 consists of four thematic blocs: theoretical considerations, the social composition of networks, connected spaces, networks between formal and informal exchange, as well as possible failures of ties. This edited volume features eleven contributions who deal with theoretical concepts such as social network analysis, globalization, social capital and trust. In addition, several chapters analyze the coexistence of mono-cultural and transnational networks, deal with network failure and shifting network geographies, and assess the impact of kinship for building up international networks between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. This work evaluates the use of specific network types for building up connections across the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Basin stretching out to Central Europe, the Northern Sea and the Pacific. This book is of interest to those who study history of economics and maritime economics, as well as historians and scholars from other disciplines working on maritime shipping, port studies, migration, foreign mercantile communities, trade policies and mercantilism.

The term 'theoric network' can be understood either as a network made up of all the cities that send festival delegates (theoroi) to one particular festival, together with the city that organizes the festival itself, or as the overall 'hyper-network', comprising the sum of all such theoric networks. The paper explores the issue of whether contemporary 'social network theory' provides a valid working model for understanding theoric networks (or the theoric network), looking at such issues as connectivity, clustering, and the Strogatz-Watts principle.

This volume collects 28 papers authored by leading experts from nine European countries, Turkey, the US, and Canada. Multiple aspects of interconnectivity between cities and regions of the Black Sea and the Mediterranean in antiquity are studied, such as political and economic networks or local responses to major cultural or religious trends. All of the investigations present problems at the current state of research under close consideration of a wide range of primary evidence, some of which has come to light only recently. Several contributions deal with geopolitical implications, others focus on economic connections of the Black Sea area and its integration into commercial networks, and a third group assembles contributions that are dedicated to the mobility of persons, artworks or cultural concepts. This book is intended to serve not only as a reference work for the ancient Black Sea area and its adjacent territories, but also as a stepping stone for further research on the topic and as encouragement for constructive dialogues between scholars from West and East.

2015

Foxhall, L., K. Rebay-Salisbury, et al. 2015. "Tracing Networks: technological knowledge, cultural contact and knowledge exchange in the Ancient Mediterranean and beyond," in E. Barker, S. Bouzarovski, C. Pelling, and L. Isaksen (eds) New Worlds out of Old Texts: Developing Techniques for the Spatial Analysis of Ancient Narratives. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 281-300.

Part of: BRIDGING SOCIAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL SPACE THROUGH NETWORKS Workshop, 2nd-3rd December 2016, Topoi-Building Dahlem, Hittorfstr. 18, 14195 Berlin