Testing the ‘Small-Site’ Approach with Multivariate Activity and Network Analysis

Abstract

A.L. Kroeber’s ‘small-site approach, which posits that small-scale sites can be used as touchstones for understanding materials observed at large-scale centers was never properly tested on Peru’s north coast. While fundamentally sound with modifications, the original approach was limited by the inadequacy of computational tools to effectively study differing relationships between materials and activities observed in and/or absent from archaeological settings of differing scale. Although regional settlement pattern survey and the analysis of large-scale monumental centers have long been the popular means of archaeological investigation and cultural assessment in Peru, the complementary investigation of smaller-scale quotidian spaces and households is largely lacking. Combining activity and network analysis to identify differential relationships observed in well studied small-scale (Cojal) and nearby, contemporaneous, large-scale (Pampa Grande) household contexts, this paper tests the adequacy of the small-site approach for elucidating patterns that characterize complex social interrelationships.