Obsidian Circulation Networks in Southwest Asia and Anatolia (12,000 - 5700 B.P.): A Comparative Approach

Abstract

This Master’s thesis documents and interrogates networks of regional interaction in southwest Asia and Anatolia during the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods (12,000 - 5700 B.P.) by comparing the variable use of obsidian raw material variants at 151 sites. This represents an effort to bring together all of the obsidian sourcing data produced for this broad archaeological setting, and evaluate it from a heterarchical approach that highlights the distributed nature of regional interaction. Heterarchical perspectives are applied here through the use of network analysis in order to highlight clusters of sites that are more connected to each other than they are to others in the system, and to determine the roles of each site in the system’s overall structure. As such, order is highlighted as a result of the organization of data-driven ties among sites, which are unrestricted by presumptions relating to geographical position or of pre-defined rank. The results are compared with more established models of regional interaction in the settings of interest, and heterarchical perspectives through network analysis are shown to complement common understandings of broad-scale connectivity at various points in time.