"This case study uses 3D scans of Central European Bronze Age swords (~1400–800BC) to recreate community networks of knowledge. 3D scans of 111 bronze swords were analyzed, from which measurements including blade profile, hilt profile, and…
Construction
"Links of the network were established using similar clusters as an indication of a network link. Two types of
networks were created; one network used individual swords as the nodes and shared clusters as the links,
and the second network used the blade or hilt clusters as the node and the inverted minimum spanning
tree (MST) value of the distance between the means of the clusters. For the clusters, the distance between
the group means were calculated using ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) or MANOVA (Multivariate Analysis
of Variance) values as appropriate. From these, the differences in means were analyzed using a tukey
adjustment. This type of adjustment is used to help eliminate Type 1 error across unequal groups and is
appropriate for unequal groups of unknown size (Dallal, 2012). A Type 1 error is a false rejection of the
null hypothesis. These numbers were used to create a minimum spanning tree. Since the MST interprets
higher numbers as objects that are weakly connected, and network analysis interprets higher numbers as
a stronger bond, those measurements had to be flipped. The matrices were inverted using the following
formula: New variable = largest value + smallest value – original value. This formula results in a change
where the largest number becomes the smallest number and each value in between inverts according to
that scale.
A weight of 1 was assigned every time two swords shared a cluster. Thus, every sword included in the
cluster containing all of blade profile 1 shares a link with a weight of 1. Likewise, every sword included
in the first cluster of hilts would contain a separate weight of 1. Separate networks were created for each
decoration using clusters based on shape data for blade profiles, hilt profiles, concentric circles, dashes,
parallel curves, and parallel straight lines; in this case, each link was given a weight of 1. Secondary matrices
included a combination of the original matrices where a weight of 1 represented either a shared blade or
hilt cluster and a weight of 2 represents both a shared hilt and shared blade cluster. Finally, combined matrices were created using blade and hilt data, all decorative data, and a combination of blade and hilt
plus decorative data where the link weight ranged from 1–8 based on the number of clusters shared. These
data are available in the supplemental DRUM files (Golubiewski-Davis, 2016)."
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