Emily Jean Peterson

Understanding the origins and development of trade networks is essential for understanding the social history of Island Southeast Asia, and its place in the globalizing modern world. Emerging evidence from archaeology indicates that these trade networks have a deep and complex history. This dissertation research project employs a model that relates the role of trade to the structure of exchange networks to explain the contraction of trade networks that has been observed at several Island Southeast Asian sites. Chemical characterization studies of a variety of excavated materials, including pottery, obsidian, and pig bone from the early Neolithic site of PA1 in the Banda Islands, Indonesia, are used to test this hypothesis.