An Approach from Networks Science to Bronze Age Archaeology in Southeast Iberia

This paper applies networks science to the archaeology of the Bronze Age in southern Iberia, with the aim of extrapolating large-scale social, economic and productive dynamics from artefactual, topographical and architectural data gathered during more than a century of archaeological research. We compare three different networks of archaeological settlements connected through shared economic categories, integrating for the first time the diachronic dimension: Early Bronze Age (EBA) for sites dated between ~ ∼ 2200–1800 BCE , Middle Bronze Age (MBA) for sites dated between ~ ∼ 1800–1550 BCE , and Early and Middle Bronze Age (EMBA) for sites that persist across both chronologies. Although all networks align closely with a random graph structure, the MBA network stands out for its different values in degree centrality, betweenness centrality and modularity, compared to EBA and EMBA. When the interpretation of the archaeological context is considered in the analysis, MBA appears characterised by extensive procurement and distribution networks compared to EBA, implying a more integrated web of inter-community interaction.