4 Broken Links and Black Boxes: Material Affiliations and Contextual Network Synthesis in the Viking World
Søren Michael Sindbæk · Oxford University Press eBooks · 2013
Computational solutions to network synthesis problems have recently been explored in mathematics in terms of probabilistic algorithms for network design optimization. The application of similar formal methods to archaeological datasets holds the potential to generate predictive models. Like any complex modelling, however, they entail a risk of providing black-box solutions to black-box problems — presenting models whose basis is difficult or impossible to assess, and whose predictions may be equally difficult to validate considering the generous margin of error within which archaeologists need to operate. This chapter proposes that archaeological approaches to network synthesis must also involve a contextual reading of network data: observations arising from individual contexts, morphologies, and use patterns. This point is demonstrated with reference to a study of Viking-period communication in the North Sea region.