Thoughts on the archaeological residue of

networks. A view from the East

Jeroen Poblome, Philip Bes & Rinse Willet
INTRODUCTION
O
ur paper is not focused on ancient Portus, connections between the eastern Mediterranean and
the Roman motherland, or even ports in the Roman East for that matter, but its general approach
hopefully may contribute to developing rational frameworks for approaching the issue of networks
from the perspective of Roman archaeologists. The empirical background to this paper is provided
by the ICRATES platform. ICRATES (Inventory of Crafts and Trade in the Roman East) was initiated
in 2004 and aims at (1) collecting published evidence for the output of artisans and for exchange in the
Roman East in an extensive database; (2) calibrating these data with original eldwork in the ancient
regions of Boeotia, Pisidia and Cilicia; and (3) developing innovative syntheses of the socio-cultural
impact and socio-economic positioning of craft activities in antiquity (Bes 2007; Bes and Poblome
2006; Bes and Poblome 2008; Bes and Poblome 2009).
It is common knowledge that the best inventions are conceived out of mild to extreme frustration
with the current state of affairs, and matters were no different with ICRATES. As ceramologists
working in an interdisciplinary research project in Turkey, we found it increasingly difcult to
answer the new questions posed by colleagues in other disciplines. All we had were the typo-
chronological responses provided by the traditional Roman ceramological toolbox. At the same
time, however, we are very much aware that this same tradition has made a major contribution to
our current understanding of ceramics and trade in the Roman East. ICRATES therefore consciously
links this rich tradition with new avenues of research, mostly in an attempt to introduce concepts of
material culture studies into the domain of Roman archaeology.
One of the most attractive aspects of the world of material culture studies is that nothing is simple
and straightforward any more, and, what is more, that it feels better that way. As a result, when
studying networks in the past we should start from questioning the obvious. In the online Oxford
English Dictionary (http://www.oed.com/) a network is dened as follows:
A chain or system of interconnected immaterial things, Any netlike or complex system or collection of
interrelated things, as topographical features, lines of transportation, or telecommunications routes (esp.
telephone lines), An interconnected group or chain of retailers, businesses, or other organizations and
An interconnected group of people; an organization; spec. a group of people having certain connections
(freq. as a result of attending a particular school or university) which may be exploited to gain preferment,
information, etc., esp. for professional advantage.
Clearly, the levels of analysis are dened by the system itself, its component elements (from
features to information and real people) and/or its underlying raison(s) detre and purpose(s).
Research into networks can make use of network analysis, which represents a collective set of
methodological tools developed with the aim of detecting and interpreting patterns of relationships
between the specic features (Brughmans 2010).
1
Networks can be studied also without recourse
to network analysis, however, and the current paper serves as an example of this more descriptive
and qualitative approach. Methodologically, it builds on the historical analytical concept of
connectivity as argued by Horden and Purcell (2000: 123): By this term, we understand the various
ways in which microregions cohere, both internally and also one with another in aggregates that
may range in size from small clusters to something
approaching the entire Mediterranean. In particular
we aim to apply the concept of connectivity in order
to provide historical meaning to recently collected
sets of archaeological data in much the same way as
was done recently in the eld of ancient history
(Malkin, Constantakopoulou and Panagopoulou
2009). This might seem to be a very light way of
approaching the functions of networks in the ancient
world, but the available archaeological data are not of
a sufcient quality to allow us to use anything more
than the descriptive methodologies of network analysis.
Archaeological data are, by denition, mute and in
need of well-dened metadata before they can be
used in computer-based approaches to network analy-
sis. When such metadata are not available, as is the
case with most traditional ceramic data that was not
collected with network analysis in mind, there is a
risk that the patterns produced will lead to circular
reasoning. While one technique might work, it would
not add any explanatory meaning to the archaeological
data. Consequently our paper is not just what one might
term as old wine in new bottles; it is instead an
attempt to illustrate how in some specic cases,
bridges can be built between data collected in the
traditional manner by Roman archaeologists and
descriptive analytical frameworks, such as connectivity,
and how meaning can be found in their patterning.
Apart from dening the analytical platform and
method, we also need to consider the broader context
of the data, in this case the Roman East. Recently,
Reger (2007; Elton and Reger 2007) has warned us
against the simplistic, over-geographical usage of the
concept of regions, and, considering that this paper is
built on the concept of connectivity between (micro)
regions, we should heed his words. Even ancient
authors agree on the difculty of dening regions in
antiquity, and they were in a position to know. There-
fore ICRATES considers regions more as radii of
action, with a potentially different size depending on
the kind of archaeological data under discussion, the
factor of agency in the past and/or the thematic
approach of the research. The eastern Mediterranean
was and still is complex from cultural, political, mili-
tary, religious, ethnological and linguistic points of
view, and its constituent regions therefore cannot be
expected to be uniform in denition or function.
The participants of the ICRATES project are
convinced that a focus on artisanal production is a
useful approach in this respect. Previously we have
argued that the symbiosis between a prosperous and
productive countryside and a busy town connected to
the wider world is to be regarded as the condicio sine
qua non for providing a sustainable basis for the devel-
opment of craft production and ensuring the presence of
its produce on long-distance markets (Poblome 2006).
When looking for connectivity, we can also approach
matters the other way round: from crafts to regions,
whilst making sure to avoid looking at only one
product, and concentrating on regional portfolios.
Modelling regional artisanal production should help
develop our understanding of the strengths and weak-
nesses of certain kinds of material produced. We
should also focus less on lines of production, but
much more on how these were integrated into the
economy of a region.
CASE-STUDIES
BOEOTIA
The region of Boeotia, representing one of the three
regions in which ICRATES is involved in eldwork,
provides a rst and clear example of the role of
networks in the eld of production from the perspective
of descriptive analysis. As with Rome and Portus in the
early Empire, the establishment of Constantinople
started to provide a new and clear focus in the eastern
Mediterranean from the fourth century AD onwards.
The place in Boeotia where we feel this effect most
clearly is the ancient town of Tanagra and its territory.
Within most sectors of the ancient town, as well as on
several of the rural sites in its territory, a striking pro-
portion of the ceramic assemblage consisted of Late
Roman 2 amphora fragments (Poblome, Ceulemans
and De Craen 2008: 568) (Table 21.1), for the most
part represented by one main fabric range. In our
view, the quantities of these oil amphorae, the fact
that other products such as jugs, lekanai and beehives
were made in the same fabric range, and the general
compatibility of the fabric with the regional clay raw
materials and geology, are strong indicators that a
series of Late Roman 2 amphorae was manufactured
in this study area. Partial conrmation of this hypoth-
esis came from recent Greek excavations at ancient
Delion, the port of Tanagra, where the remains of at
least one Late Roman 2 amphora workshop with a
kiln were excavated (as yet unpublished). So far, no
archaeometrical analysis has been performed in order
to conrm this further or establish possible links with
the material found at Tanagra. However, as a prelimi-
nary working hypothesis, we expect other production
394 POBLOME, BES & WILLET
sites to be found within the facies geographique of
Tanagra, not least because of their similarity to the
organization of other more widely distributed amphora
types (Bonifay 2004: 944).
The ancient authors tell us that the region of Tanagra
was involved in the production of wine and probably
also olive (oil?).
2
As regards networks, it reacted to
direct or indirect stimuli provided by the central
Roman authorities in the late Imperial period, in order
to supply olive oil to newly-established Constantinople
and/or Roman troops along the Danube (Karagiorgou
2001). At least some of the landholders in the region
of Tanagra were well placed to respond to these
needs and convert their agricultural products, or at
least to produce them more intensively. The resultant
well-being this brought for the community at Tanagra
is epitomized by the ranges of imported table- and
cooking-wares and amphorae (Table 21.2). In this
way, we see the emergence of a uid pattern of
exchange in response to the demands of empire at the
supra-regional level.
It is interesting to note that the results of our pre-
liminary comparisons between Tanagra and two other
contemporary Boeotian towns, Thespiae and Koroneia,
do not indicate similar types and proportions of
imported pottery: furthermore, in the case of Koroneia
Late Roman 2 amphorae played a relatively minor role
(Table 21.3). We consider this to be an important
observation that warns us against making excessively
generalized regional conclusions. The presence of
amphorae shows that networks can function, as was
the case with Boeotian Tanagra. At the same time,
however, the fact that they could also be absent at
sites c. 30 km distant with different material culture
assemblages, hints at limits to supply networks.
SAGALASSOS
The workings of networks can be more subtle, how-
ever. In the case of ancient Sagalassos, the Pisidian
town at which members of the ICRATES project also
undertake ceramological analysis, no amphorae seem
to have been produced at or near the site before the
middle of the fourth century AD. At some point in the
third quarter of that century, however, one or more
landholders in the territory of Sagalassos decided to
start packaging part of their agricultural produce in
amphorae (Poblome et al. 2008).
Amphorae usually were produced in regions that
disposed of a marketable agricultural surplus destined
for wide distribution. In the case of Sagalassos, they
were not widely produced since the town is located
within the Taurus mountain range and is relatively
distant from the Mediterranean or navigable rivers
the ideal environments for the production of amphorae.
Thus the fact that amphorae were manufactured in a
Pisidian context at all is something that needs to be
explained. In our opinion, the landholders who took
the initiative to produce local amphorae were faced
with a sequence of conscious decisions while posses-
sing sufcient capital to be able to initiate and maintain
their production. We have suggested previously that
they would have chosen to produce the containers
only with specic aims in mind, possibly in response
to changing conditions in either the generation of
their agricultural produce (supply) or the level of
interest in their produce (demand), or perhaps both.
In this respect, the fact that amphorae were chosen at
all as containers for their surplus production is impor-
tant in that this is a functional category of pottery that
traditionally was conceived for distribution, and the
TABLE 21.1. The absolute and relative quantities of Late Roman 2 amphorae, other late Roman amphorae and late Roman red
slip wares for urban Tanagra and four rural sites.
URBAN
(no. 13,464)
TS2
(no. 1,158)
TS3
(no. 4,848)
TS4
(no. 1,626)
% of sherds assigned to the late
Roman period
31.21 (no. 4,202) 8.89 (no. 103) 10.46 (no. 507) 10.09 (no. 164)
% of Late Roman 2 fragments (of
the late Roman total)
34.91 (no. 1,467) 29.13 (no. 30) 16.17 (no. 82) 26.22 (no. 43)
% of all other late Roman
amphorae sherds (of the late
Roman total)
39.79 (no. 1,672) 41.75 (no. 43) 43.20 (no. 219) 59.15 (no. 97)
% of late Roman red slip ware
sherds (of the late Roman total)
4.66 (no. 196) 7.89 (no. 40) 4.88 (no. 8)
THOUGHTS ON THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESIDUE OF NETWORKS 395
landholders must have been aware of this. Thus the late
Roman amphorae from the region of Sagalassos could
represent tentative evidence for the rationalization of
parts of the agricultural matrix of the study area,
possibly coupled to an intensication of production.
Furthermore, the typological resemblance of the early
series of Sagalassos amphorae to the initial phase of
Late Roman 1 wine amphorae suggests that they were
cultivating vines. We consider it to be more than a
coincidence that the same period saw the beginning
of the production of typical relief decorated oinophoroi
in the potters quarter in the eastern suburb of
TABLE 21.2. The range of functionalities for local/regional, imported and uncertain fabrics for Tanagra. (Updated from Poblome,
Ceulemans and De Craen 2008: 567, table 4.)
Food consumption
Local/regional production Imported Uncertain
Tanagra/Boeotian fabric(s): plain-wares African and Phocaean red
slip wares
Red slip, table-wares
Food processing & preparation
Local/regional production Imported Uncertain
Buff fabric: plain-wares Aegean: casseroles or
amphorae
Black Sea fabric?: amphorae
and plain-wares
Casserole fabrics: casseroles Late Roman 2: plain-wares Grog fabric, plain-wares
Orange micaceous: plain-wares
Orange sandy: plain-wares
Tanagra/Boeotian fabric(s): plain-wares
White-grey clayey fabric: plain-wares
Agricultural production
Local/regional production Imported Uncertain
Brown sandy: amphorae Black Sea fabric: amphorae Red slip: amphorae
Buff fabric: amphorae Late Roman 1: amphorae
Casserole fabric(s): amphorae and beehives Late Roman 2: amphorae,
(amphorae) stands and
beehives
Orange micaceous: amphorae Late Roman 3: amphorae
Orange sandy: amphorae and beehives Late Roman 4: amphorae
Tanagra/Boeotian fabric(s): amphorae and beehives Late Roman 5: amphorae
White-grey clayey fabric: amphorae
TABLE 21.3. The absolute and relative quantities of late Roman pottery and Late Roman 2 amphorae at Koroneia (not yet fully
studied) and Thespiae.
Koroneia Thespiae
Total 10,443 Total 8,701
% late Roman of total 3.31% (no. 346) % late Roman of total 4.90% (no. 408)
% Late Roman 2 of late Roman total 16.18% (no. 56) % Late Roman 2 of late Roman total 39.22% (no. 160)
396 POBLOME, BES & WILLET
Sagalassos (Talloen and Poblome 2005; Murphy and
Poblome 2011).
Once again, the emergence of Constantinople as the
major pole of attraction or node in network terms
within the context of broader regional connections in
the Roman East, and the contingent civil and military
opportunities that it offered, may have tempted some
landholders in the area of Sagalassos to specialize
and intensify part of their agricultural production. The
not so straightforward results of the residue analysis
performed on the Sagalassos amphorae, albeit based
on an early Byzantine sample series (Romanus et al.
2009), as well as the fact that so far we have not been
able to characterize the distribution pattern of these
amphorae, suggest that we shall probably never under-
stand the economic calculations made by the ancient
landowners. Nevertheless, we should like to suggest
that they took networking into account in order to
ensure that their produce circulated.
A major challenge that hinders our understanding of
how connectivity worked in the Roman East is the fact
that our picture is still very incomplete. There are still,
for example, many hidden landscapes of production.
Thus, when working at Tanagra, Thespiae and Koro-
neia, not only do we come across the usual variety of
sigillata and red slip wares, but the survey pottery
assemblages also include different and presumably
town-specic lines of table-ware production, together
with a range of fabrics that we consider to be Greek
in character and that do not seem to correspond to the
production centres of table-wares attested at Athens
(Rotroff 1997a; 1997b), Corinth (Wright 1980; Slane
2003) or Patras (Hubner 1996; 2003). Furthermore,
new discoveries are bound to make our picture more
complex. Before 1987 nobody had ever heard of
Sagalassos red slip ware (Poblome 1999), yet this
class of pottery clearly represents a high-quality type
of table-ware that is comparable to any of the main
types circulating in the Roman East, and in its late
Roman phase of production formed part of the wider
Late Roman D tradition (Poblome and Frat 2011).
NETWORKS AND DISTRIBUTIONS
So far we have attempted to use the concept of con-
nectivity to explain phenomena from an artisanal pro-
duction point of view. In the second part of this
paper, we should like to present some considerations
as to how successful networking could provide also
for knock-on effects in distribution patterns. As in
the previous part, we propose an obvious example, a
more subtle one, and discuss some problems that
arise from all of them.
Plate 21.1 shows the distribution patterns of the
major types of table-ware in circulation in the late
Roman East, and is based on the published evidence
archived in the ICRATES database. African and
Phocaean red slip wares can be considered to be in a
league of their own, with other wares such as Cypriot
and Egyptian red slip wares representing more region-
ally focused patterns of distribution. From a network
point of view it is important to consider that Roman
pottery specialists agree that table-wares were not
traded for their own sake, but were assimilated into
existing ows of exchange. In this way, table-wares
become a strategic part of the exchange package,
although their patterns of distribution will never have
come about because of them. Ceramics of this kind
are, in other words, integral to the exchange patterns
of which they form a part, combining parasitic and at
the same time supportive roles within these patterns.
Often, this type of pottery represents the only archaeo-
logical trace of such networked exchanges.
In the next step pulling forces that is to say
economic, social, political, religious and cultural
forms of demand need to be taken into account in
order to explain the attested ows of exchange. These
forces are abstract notions that represent explicit or
implicit policies of different manifestations of auth-
ority. In the case of our example, Constantinople was
an obvious pulling force, which helps to explain the
higher presence of African red slip ware along the
route connecting it to the producing region. Obviously
many more factors including variable transport
infrastructure, levels of information and patterns of
demand need to be taken into account when
explaining specic ceramic assemblages in each of
these communities. In terms of networks, however,
Constantinople at least represented the potential of
association with this ow of exchange, which, to be
sure, did not come about simply as a result of table-
wares. It would be beyond the scope of this paper to
try and explain why a number of ows of exchange
were concentrated in Constantinople (Rickman 1980:
1989; Bonifay 2003: 11516, 11921, 1278;
Bonifay 2004: 479; Bonifay 2005: 5767; Pieri 2005:
148), and so we therefore propose to dene this role
in abstract terms by coining the eastern capital as a
framework of exchange. Such frameworks are
network nodes emitting sustainable pulling forces
with demonstrable archaeological effects. Other (and
mostly smaller) urban centres can be considered to
THOUGHTS ON THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESIDUE OF NETWORKS 397
have emulated this role, creating other frameworks of
exchange. These frameworks are all but static and
perform in both the geographical and chronological
sense. In the case of our example, we do not consider
the fairly high presence of African red slip ware in
the second half of the fourth century AD as well as
the contemporary arrival of Phocaean and Cypriot red
slip wares as coincidental, but that they resulted instead
from the initial brokering force of the Constantino-
politan node, in the wake of its foundation as a new
imperial capital. The fairly high presence of Phocaean
red slip ware in the northern Levant, on the other
hand, can be considered to have resulted from an
interplay between different frameworks of exchange.
Constantinople was tapping into the agricultural
potential of this region, possibly for its own supplies
but also for ensuring that the Danubian limes was
supplied. This region was functioning in what one
might term as a stable way, a situation attested by the
levels of production and distribution of the Late Roman
1 amphorae. Thus the high presence of Phocaean red
slip ware, followed by African red slip ware, in the
northern Levant did not originate fromdirect connections
between the regions of production and consumption, but
was brokered through the integrated functioning of
different frameworks of exchange, with Constantinople
as the main pulling and pushing force. In this sense the
presence of Phocaean and African red slip wares in the
northern Levant can be considered as a knock-on
effect of networking. Considering the scope of this
paper, other aspects represented in Plate 21.1 are left
undiscussed.
Other examples may not be as clear-cut as this, but
actually represent the majority of cases. When consid-
ering the situation of early Imperial table-wares in
Greece, for instance, the role played by Italian sigillata
at the colonia of Corinth nds no parallel (Slane 2004)
in the Roman East. This port, with its two harbours,
acted as an emporium where transshipment took
place, and thus, in terms of the regional distribution
of goods, it unsurprisingly nds itself at the apex of
the pyramid. When comparing the potters stamps on
Italian sigillata in Corinth, Argos, Athens, Kenchreai
and Olympia (Bes and Poblome 2006: 1567, table 4,
nos. 356), ICRATES looked for such patterns of
dependency. Clearly, Corinth stands out in having
most Italian sigillata and receiving it earlier than
anywhere else in Greece. For the other Greek sites,
an important proportion of the stamped pieces also
occurred at Corinth, which, together with similarities
in types and provenances of their table-ware, could
hint at some pattern of dependency on Corinth or
some distributive function for the latter. However this
is only part of the story and at each of the sites studied
Italian sigillata arrived by means of other routes; this is
especially true of Olympia, which, together with
Corinth (Slane 2004: n. 26), stands out with a particu-
larly large amount of late Italian sigillata (Martin 2006:
175, g. 1). In more general terms, we need to be aware
of the fact that in many cases we sense or suspect that
networking could be at play, but it is still difcult to
prove with good archaeological evidence.
In this sense, the principles of material culture
studies should protect us from providing excessively
positivistic answers when it comes to reconstructing
past networks. Some time ago, it was proposed that
a multi-layered exchange pattern existed between
Sagalassos and Egypt, involving goods, people and
ideas (Poblome and Waelkens 2003). Phrased in
network-terms, Sagalassos can be considered as a satel-
lite of the Alexandrian network, and it is very clear
which party beneted most from this relationship.
Recently, when looking at the inner Anatolian distri-
bution pattern of Sagalassos red slip ware and how
this correlated in general terms to the provenance of
some of the coins, sh and marble found in the town,
we started to think in terms of characterizing another
pattern of exchange. We started to have doubts, how-
ever. Indeed, the detail of the evidence calls for caution.
When looking at the numismatic evidence, for
example, most of the small change at Sagalassos
came from the local mint, demonstrating the existence
of a healthy economy or one in which economic
activity was maintained with a period of coin issue
(Poblome 2008). Coins from neighbouring Selge, and
from the second century AD onwards Pamphylian
Perge, added to the balance. Most other imported
coins are single issues from Pisidia and Pamphylia,
and a range of Phrygian sites. The latter do not
necessarily form a cluster, nor do they form part of an
intelligible exchange pattern, but they do indicate that
Sagalassos was not only oriented southwards but that
it was connected into the inner Anatolian road network
as well. While a detailed consideration of the marble,
pottery and sh (Van Neer et al. 2004) lies beyond
the scope of this paper, close inspection of the evidence
suggests that, like the coins, it has the potential to make
an important contribution to reconstructing operational
networks.
This kind of evidence is important, and raises the
question as to whether the seemingly lucky coincidence
of more than one category of material evidence is
398 POBLOME, BES & WILLET
sufcient for us to start thinking in terms of connec-
tivity. Clearly there will have been much exchange in
antiquity for non-systematic and sometimes even
coincidental reasons. Although we are convinced that
such relationships need to be studied and that in aggre-
gate they will mean something on the balance sheet of
the ancient economy, meaningful patterns of sustain-
able economic growth can come about only when
haphazard relationships are transformed into systematic
and interdependent networks. At the same time,
material culture specialists should be aware of the
inherent danger that the signicance of their simple
artisanal evidence can be exaggerated by third parties.
In this respect, there is also an urgent need to start docu-
menting the ipside of the coin, namely things that did
not function by network. It is thus important to consider
cases of deciency as well as success, because this
makes the ancient socio-economic balance sheet more
real.
ICRATES is involved also in processing ceramics
from the Hellenistic layers of Kinet Hoyuk or ancient
Issos. This town was booming in the late Hellenistic
period, amongst others, on account of Delos, and can
be considered to have been located in the core of the
Eastern sigillata A production region (Lund, Maltana
and Poblome 2006). Clearly, any port in this part of
Cilicia was potentially in a position to prot from this
increased level of activity, and Issos actually had two
ports (Gates 1998: 260). Our preliminary evidence
indicates, however, that Issos was ourishing in the
early days of Eastern sigillata A production but that,
for reasons as yet unknown, the site entered into a
period of decline in the rst quarter of the rst
century BC, resulting in its abandonment. This little
story indicates that although there can be a lot of
obvious archaeological criteria to indicate why and
where things went well, our limited capacity to under-
stand agency in antiquity should make us very careful
in interpreting such patterns. Nor should we forget
that things may not have gone well for the community
for much of the time, but that this is not readily gleaned
from archaeological literature or by archaeological
reasoning.
CONCLUSION
We should like to suggest that relating the study of
artefact distributions much more closely to evidence
for production is a very important clue to unravelling
networks in the Mediterranean. As things normally go
in classical archaeology, the most representative
ranges of artefacts with extensive distribution patterns
(for example the set of Late Roman amphorae, African
red slip ware, Italian sigillata and also Eastern sigillata
A) have received most academic attention. Without
wishing to play down the importance of these classes
of pottery, it seems worth considering the ways that
such wares have acted as an index against which to
judge the success of other artisanal products and
whether this comparative exercise does justice to
typical ancient modes of production.
Although ancient pottery production centres in the
Roman East are known very poorly, the available
evidence does support the notion that sizeable
manufacturing output was achieved by multiplying
small-scale production units rather than enlarging
existing facilities (McCormick 2001: 58). Such
processes of horizontal multiplication took place
within attested production centres, and we would like
to suggest that the widely distributed wares mentioned
above were the result of such processes of horizontal
multiplication involving many small-scale production
units within one or other region. They would have
resulted in so-called production conglomerates that
are typically associated with one or other framework
of exchange. In other words, the archaeology of
production units indicates that small-scale production
units geared towards their own regional markets are
to be regarded as the norm in antiquity. Obviously
this conclusion should cause us to change our focus
on distribution patterns, shifting it away from putting
more dots on the map, which seems to be the predomi-
nant interest of modern scholars, and concentrating
more upon understanding which markets artisanal
entrepreneurs had in mind, and what risks they were
prepared to take. Considering the fact that even the
highly successful types of table-ware in the Roman
East tended to be dominant in their own regions of
production indicates that entrepreneurs were reluctant
to take risks and that they mainly preferred the markets
they knew within their own regional radius or network.
It is only when conglomerates of production are present
that further markets are reached through the functioning
of frameworks of exchange. However, these conditions
are perhaps more exceptional than their representation
in the archaeological literature would seem to suggest.
The wide distribution patterns of these cases should
actually be considered as an aggregate of a patchwork
of outputs comprising many regional production centres,
with pulling forces that were not necessarily purely
commercial in nature, but possibly tied to larger
mechanisms instigated, implicitly or explicitly, by
THOUGHTS ON THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESIDUE OF NETWORKS 399
central authorities, such as the annona. In sum, a
production-linked focus on distribution patterns holds
great potential for approaching the contribution that
the artisanal sector made to ancient society, and part-
icularly to understanding past networks. Clearly, each
generation gets the classical archaeology it deserves,
and ours seems to be increasingly intricate.
Acknowledgements
The ICRATES Project is supported by the Fund for
Scientic Research, Flanders-Belgium (G.0.788.09).
Research at Sagalassos is funded by the Belgian
Programme on Interuniversity Poles of Attraction
(IAP 7/09), the Research Fund of the University of
Leuven (GOA 13/04), Project G.0562.11 of the Fund
for Scientic Research, Flanders-Belgium (FWO), the
Hercules Foundation (AKUL/09/16) and a Methusalem
Grant from the Flemish Ministry for Science Policy.
NOT E S
1. Networks are also discussed by Earl and his colleagues in
Chapter 23.
2. See Snodgrass (1987: 8990) for the third-century BC author
and traveller Herakleides.
RE F E R E NC E S
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