Modeling the Past - by John Terrell & Mark Golitko & Helen Dawson & Marc Kissel (Hardcover)

About the Book

"How do researchers use dynamic network analysis (DYNA) to explore, model, and try to understand the complex global history of our species? Reduced to bare bones, network analysis is a way of understanding the world around us--a way called relational thinking--that is liberating but challenging. Using this handbook, researchers learn to develop historical and archaeological research questions anchored in DYNA. Undergraduate and graduate students, as well as professional historians and archaeologists can consult on issues that range from hypothesis-driven research to critiquing dominant historical narratives, especially those that have tended ignore the diversity of the archaeological record"--

Book Synopsis

How do researchers use dynamic network analysis (DYRA) to explore, model, and try to understand the complex global history of our species? Reduced to bare bones, network analysis is a way of understanding the world around us - a way called relational thinking - that is liberating but challenging. Using this handbook, researchers learn to develop historical and archaeological research questions anchored in DYRA. Undergraduate and graduate students, as well as professional historians and archaeologists can consult on issues that range from hypothesis-driven research to critiquing dominant historical narratives, especially those that have tended to ignore the diversity of the archaeological record.

Review Quotes

" What I like about the whole book is the emphasis on historical and archaeological research as 'not the search for truth, but as a venue to test hypotheses - research that is testable, refutable, and replicable.'" - Stephen Acabado, University of California-Los Angeles

About the Author

Marc Kissel is an assistant professor of anthropology at Appalachian State University. He has published on various topics such as modern human origins, warfare and peacefare in the past, origins of human symbolic expression, and critical pedagogy. He is part of the team behind "March Mammal Madness," a science outreach project that over the course of several weeks in March reaches hundreds of thousands of learners in the United States every year.