The application of method and theory from network science to archaeology has dramatically increased over the last decade. In this article, we document this growth over time, discuss several of the important concepts that are used in the application of network approaches to archaeology, and introduce the other articles in this special issue on networks in archaeology. We argue that the suitability and contribution of network science techniques within particular archaeological research contexts can be usefully explored by scrutinizing the past phenomena under study, how these are abstracted into concepts, and how these in turn are represented as network data. For

The first three centuries ad saw the spread of new religious ideas through the Roman Empire, crossing a vast and diverse geographical, social, and cultural space. In this innovative study, Anna Collar examines both how this happened, and why. Drawing on research in the sociology and anthropology of religion, physics and computer science, Collar examines the relationship between social networks and religious transmission to explore why some religious movements succeed, while others, seemingly equally successful at a certain time, ultimately fail. Using extensive epigraphic data, Collar provides new interpretations of the diffusion of ideas across the social networks of the Jewish Diaspora and the cults of Jupiter Dolichenus and Theos Hypsistos, and in turn offers important reappraisals of the spread of religious innovations in the Roman Empire. This study will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of ancient history, archaeology, ancient religion and network theory. anna collar is Fellow of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge, and has published articles in Mediterranean Historical Review, Asia Minor Studien, Iuppiter Dolichenus (Habelt), and Network Analysis and Archaeology.

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Results of excavations in 1962–3 at the Minoan coastal town of Palaikastro were published in the Annual in 1965 and 1970, as PK VI and PK VII. While those publications did report on all excavated contexts, in some cases this took the form of a preliminary report pending fuller study. The current paper (PK VIII) fills in most of the main gaps, particularly where the Middle Minoan period is concerned, but also with some attention to the Early and Late Minoan periods. Contexts and deposits from different blocks in the town are presented, as well as from outside the main town towards the area known as Sarantari. These provide good evidence for the existence of particular phases of occupation in the town, notably throughout the Middle Minoan period (MM IA, IB, II, IIIA and IIIB), as well as in EM IIB and LM IB. Some of these phases are not very well known at Palaikastro, or in east Crete more generally. This paper thus contributes to a fuller characterisation of certain ceramic phases at the level of both the site and the region, as well as supplementing our knowledge of the long-term occupation of this important coastal town throughout the Middle Bronze Age.