Vojtěch Kaše (University of West Bohemia), Tomáš Glomb (Masaryk University), and Jan Fousek (Aix-Marseille University) contributed to the new Oxford Handbook of Archaeological Network Research with the chapter Networks and Religious Transformations.
In this chapter, the team of authors with roots in the GEHIR project demonstrates the potential of formal network analysis for the study of religious transformations in past societies. The chapter proposes that the study of these phenomena can especially profit from employing methods associated with studying three types of network structures: spatial networks, social networks, and textual networks. The chapter discusses the applicability of these network structures with respect to three levels of analysis for studying religion and religious transformations in human societies: a micro level, analyzing religion with respect to individual religious groups or communities; a meso level, approaching religion on the level of religious traditions; and a macro level, dealing with religion from a long-term, macrohistorical perspective of human evolution. Finally, the chapter proposes that network approaches can help to bridge the gap between the rather traditional historical study of religion and recent naturalistic approaches to religion.
Link for the chapter here.
Aleš Chalupa, Tomáš Glomb, and Juraj Sarkisjan published the article: Stations of the Publicum Portorium Illyrici are a Strong Predictor of the Mithraic Presence in the Danubian Provinces: Geographical Analysis of the Distribution of the Roman Cult of Mithras in Open Archaeology.
In this short text, Tereza looks back at the experience of attending summer schools focusing on quantitative methods and evaluates how beneficial it was for her research and self-development in the Study of religions.
