Archaeologists regularly adopt theories, methods, and techniques developed in other disciplines because they believe doing so will allow them to create new understandings of the past. Some of these adoptions are flashes in the pan, having little impact on the discipline. Others spread rapidly, having immediate impacts but only last short spans of time before they lose their currency and are replaced by new trendy developments. Some adoptions find few adherents at first, undergo a period of development, and then spread slowly through the field. Many of these become niche applications, while others are widely adopted, becoming regular components of the archaeological toolbox for varied time spans.

Developed in sociology and other social sciences, Social Network Analysis (SNA) has been used by small numbers of archaeologists for decades. In the last decade or so, the number of archaeologists using the methods and techniques has expanded but remains small. This small group, however, is making significant strides in applying the methods and techniques of SNA to the archaeological record worldwide. SNA is most often applied in archaeology to regional data sets comprising many sites to gain understandings of social interactions and their changes through time. Important and at times novel insights on social interactions and processes have been developed in several regions including the American Southwest and Northeast. Results are published frequently in the pages of major archaeological (e.g., American Antiquity) and general science journals. With these successes, SNA has become a niche methodology within the larger discipline. Those of us involved in SNA research recognize its great potential to create new understandings of the past that cannot be achieved through other methods and techniques.

So how does SNA move out of its niche status and become more widely used by archaeologists working in North America and elsewhere? The editors of this book suggest in their introductory chapter that one stumbling block is a misperception that “network concepts and methodologies per se are simply not appropriate for research use” in archaeology and history (p. 1). They go on to state that the goal of the volume is to overcome this misperception by demonstrating the great potential of network methods and address problems with the application of SNA head-on. The following eight substantive chapters address specific issues surrounding the application of network methods and techniques, primarily SNA, in archaeology or history. Most of the chapters provide case studies of network analyses that demonstrate the authors’ approaches to the methodological issues they address.

The basic take-aways from the book are that there must be a strong link to theory, one must understand the theory and concepts behind the components of network methods and techniques used, units of analysis must be appropriate, assumptions about network connections must be explicitly stated, the limitations of available data in terms of chronology must be considered, and the spatial boundaries of the research area must be well chosen. This is all basic to the application of any methodology to the archaeological record, as is the recognition that the archaeological record is never complete. The value of the chapters to my mind is the demonstration of how these issues are addressed in specific case studies.

While a valuable contribution to the literature, this book by itself will not bring SNA out of its niche status. The continued efforts by the book's contributors and others in the application of SNA to a variety of archaeological issues and regions will, I believe, have a stronger likelihood of doing so by demonstrating repeatedly the potential of its methods and techniques to provide new insights into the past.

Based on a conference held in March 2012, this book was published four years later. I frequently wonder what role such books with multiple contributors serve in the current publishing environment. Are they dated by the time they are published? Journal articles are generally published less than a year after submission, and in many journals in three to six months. If it takes a chapter four to five years to appear in print in an edited volume, is it beneficial to the chapter author(s) or the discipline itself in the current fast-paced publications environment? I consider this question when asked to contribute chapters, and my responses of late have all been thanks, but no.