cyberSW: A Data Synthesis and Knowledge Discovery System for Archaeology
The cyberSW project is focused on developing an online platform and analytical infrastructure for conducting regional scale archaeological research in the U.S. Southwest and Mexican Northwest. The project involves a compilation and standardization of more than 100 years of published and unpublished archaeological data resulting in a online database containing information on tens of millions of objects from tens of thousands of sites across the region. The project builds on the earlier Southwest Social Networks (SWSN) Project which developed approaches focused on applying methods and models from the interdiciplinary field of social network analyses to archaeological data.
Project Details
The cyberSW project is focused on building a cutting-edge digital platform that serves as an online gateway to archaeological data from the U.S. Southwest and Mexican Northwest. cyberSW is an integrated knowledge discovery system designed to support interdisciplinary research on long-term social change at decadal to centennial scales. The platform brings together data on millions of artifacts from tens of thousands of archaeological settlements, making it one of the largest and most comprehensive digital archaeological repositories in the world. By enhancing access to regional datasets, cyberSW is transforming how researchers, students, and communities engage with the deep histories of the Southwest.
With so much archaeological data archived in different places, finding big-picture patterns about life long ago can be challenging. To help solve this problem, cyberSW merges several existing synthetic databases from the U.S. Southwest into one scalable, networked database. This consolidation of data, combined with powerful mapping and analytical tools, makes cyberSW an invaluable resource for helping you explore your research questions about the Southwest’s past. cyberSW is a collaborative space for conducting interdisciplinary research on and exploring the pre-Hispanic archaeological record of the US Southwest and Northwest Mexico. Our goal is to engage not just archaeologists, but scholars from other disciplines, interested parties from federal, state, and tribal entities as well as the general public.
Partners: University of Arizona, School of Anthropology | University of Arizona, Management Information Systems | University of Colorado, Boulder, Department of Anthropology | Archaeology Southwest | University of Wisconson, Milwaukee | NMBIOARCH Database
Research Team
- Matthew Peeples, ASU
- Jeffery J. Clark, Archaeology Southwest
- Barbara J. Mills, University of Arizona
- Scott Ortman, University of Colorado, Boulder
- Sudha Ram, University of Arizona
- John M. Roberts, Jr., University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
- Ann Stodder, NMBIOARCH Database
- Joshua Watts, Archaeology Southwest
Funding
2022 National Science Foundation, Human Networks and Data Science, Research Program (HNDS-R) - Human Networks, Sustainable Development, and Lived Experience in a Nonindustrial Society.
2021 National Science Foundation, Human Networks and Data Science, Infrastructure Program (HNDS-I) - From Households to Landscapes: Cyberinfrastructure for Interdisciplinary Research in the Ancient American Southwest.
2018 National Science Foundation, Jointly funded by Measurement, Methodology, and Statistics and Archaeology programs - Methodological Challenges and Archaeological Interpretations in Network Analysis of Artifact Assemblage Data.
2017 National Science Foundation, Resource Implementation for Data Intensive Research (RIDIR) program - cyberSW: A Data Synthesis and Knowledge Discovery System for Long-term Interdisciplinary Research on Southwest Social Change.
2014 National Science Foundation, Archaeology Program - Exploring Adaptive Social Networks in the Face of Geographic Adversity
Outcomes
List of Publications and Theses/Dissertations using cyberSW/Southwest Social Networks Project Data
Baller, Kendall. 2018. Investigating Social Boundaries in Southwestern New Mexico: Collective Social Identification and Network Connections in the Classic Mimbres Period. MA Thesis, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ.
Barvick, Kathleen. 2023. Crafting in Clay: A Geometric Morphometric Analysis of Ancestral Pueblo Water Jars. MA Thesis, University of Arizona, Tucson.
Bernardini, Wesley, and Matthew A. Peeples. 2015. Sight Communities: The Social Significance of Shared Visual Landmarks. American Antiquity 80(2):215–235.
Bernardini, Wesley, Matthew A. Peeples, Leigh Kuwanwisiwma, and Gregson Schachner. 2021. Reconstructing Population in the Context of Migration. In Becoming Hopi: A History, edited by Wesley Bernardini, Stewart B. Koyiyumptewa, Gregson Schachner, and Leigh Kuwanwisiwma, pp. 133–160. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ.
Bischoff, Robert J. 2018. A Spatial and Temporal Analysis of San Juan Red Ware. MA Thesis, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT.
Bischoff, Robert J. 2023. Investigating Material Culture Through Multilayer Network Analysis in Tonto Basin. KIVA 89(3):247–273.
Bischoff, Robert J. 2025. Evaluating the Relationship Between Material Culture and Social Networks in Archaeology. Ph.D. Dissertation, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ.
Borck, Lewis. 2016. Lost Voices Found: An Archaeology of Contentious Politics in the Greater Southwest, AD 1100–1450. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ.
Borck, Lewis, Barbara J. Mills, Matthew A. Peeples, and Jeffery J. Clark. 2015. Are Social Networks Survival Networks? An Example from the Late Pre-Hispanic US Southwest. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 22(1):33–57.
Brughmans, Tom, and Matthew A. Peeples. 2023. Network Science in Archaeology. Cambridge Manuals in Archaeology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Clark, Jeffery J., and Barbara J. Mills. 2018. Chacoan Archaeology at the 21st Century. Archaeology Southwest Magazine.
Collar, Anna, Fiona Coward, Tom Brughmans, and Barbara J. Mills. 2015. Networks in Archaeology: Phenomena, Abstraction, Representation. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 22(1):1–32.
Crawford, Katherine A., Angela C. Huster, Matthew A. Peeples, Nicolas Gauthier, Michael E. Smith, José Lobo, Abigail M. York, and Dan Lawrence. 2023. A Systematic Approach for Studying the Persistence of Settlements in the Past. Antiquity 97(391):213–230.
Daems, Dries, Emily Coco, Andrew Gillreath-Brown, and Danai Kafetzaki. 2024. The Effects of Time-Averaging on Archaeological Networks. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 31(2):473–506.
Davis, Kaitlyn E., and Scott G. Ortman. 2021. The Tewa Community at Tsama Pueblo (LA 908): Artifacts from the 1970 Excavations, Vol. 38. Maxwell Museum Technical Series. Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, Albuquerque, NM.
Davis, Kaitlyn Elizabeth. 2022. Agricultural Adaptations in Light of Socioeconomic Changes in the Northern Rio Grande. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Colorado, Boulder, Boulder, CO.
Dungan, Katherine A., and Matthew A. Peeples. 2018. Public Architecture as Performance Space in the Prehispanic Central Southwest. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 50:12–26.
Dungan, Katherine A., Devin White, Sylviane Déderix, Barbara J. Mills, and Kristin Safi. 2018. A Total Viewshed Approach to Local Visibility in the Chaco World. Antiquity 92(364):905–921.
Dungan, Katherine Ann. 2015. Religious Architecture and Borderlands Histories: Great Kivas in the Prehispanic Southwest, 1000 to 1400 CE. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ.
Flower, Carolyn, Wendy C. Hodgson, Andrew M. Salywon, Brian S. Maitner, Brian J. Enquist, Matthew A. Peeples, and Benjamin Blonder. 2021. Human Food Use Increases Plant Geographical Ranges in the Sonoran Desert. Global Ecology and Biogeography 30(7):1461–1473.
Gauthier, Nicolas. 2019. Archaeological Approaches to Population Growth and Social Interaction in Semiarid Environments: Pattern, Process, and Feedbacks. Ph.D. Dissertation, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ.
Gauthier, Nicolas. 2021. Hydroclimate Variability Influenced Social Interaction in the Prehistoric American Southwest. Frontiers in Earth Science 8.
Giomi, Evan. 2022. Exploring the Development and Persistence of the Eastern Puebloan Economy: Rio Grande Glaze Ware as a Window on Regional Interaction. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ.
Giomi, Evan, Barbara J. Mills, Leslie D. Aragon, Benjamin A. Bellorado, and Matthew A. Peeples. 2022. Reading between the Lines: The Social Value of Dogoszhi Style in the Chaco World. American Antiquity 87(1):100–123.
Giomi, Evan, and Matthew A. Peeples. 2019. Network Analysis of Intrasite Material Networks and Ritual Practice at Pueblo Bonito. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 53:22–31.
Habiba, Jan C. Athenstädt, Barbara J. Mills, and Ulrik Brandes. 2018. Social Networks and Similarity of Site Assemblages. Journal of Archaeological Science 92:63–72.
Harlan, Mark E., and Deni Seymour. 2017. Sobaipuri O’Odham and Mobile Group Relevance to Late Prehistoric Social Networks in the San Pedro Valley. In Fierce and Indomitable: The Protohistoric Non-Pueblo World in the American Southwest, pp. 170–187. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, UT.
Hegmon, Michelle, Jacob Freeman, Keith W. Kintigh, Margaret C. Nelson, Sarah Oas, Matthew A. Peeples, and Andrea Torvinen. 2016. Marking and Making Differences: Representational Diversity in the U.S. Southwest. American Antiquity 81(2):253–272.
Hegmon, Michelle, Will G. Russell, Kendall Baller, Matthew A. Peeples, and Sarah Striker. 2021. The Social Significance of Mimbres Painted Pottery in the U.S. Southwest. American Antiquity 86(1):23–42.
Hill, J. Brett, Matthew A. Peeples, Deborah L. Huntley, and H. Jane Carmack. 2015. Spatializing Social Network Analysis in the Late Precontact U.S. Southwest. Advances in Archaeological Practice 3(1):63–77.
Ingram, Scott E. 2025. Climate and Human Behavior Studies for Our Warming World: An Introduction to the Models, Methods, and Data. Advances in Archaeological Practice:1–18.
Luévano, Terrence Bradley. 2022. A GIS Model of Shell Exchange Between Coast Southern California and Northern Arizona. MA Thesis, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ.
Mills, Barbara J. 2015. Challenges and Opportunities for Network Approaches to Interregional Interaction: Perspectives from the North American Southwest. In The Lapita Cultural Complex in Time and Space: Expansion Routes, Chronologies and Typologies, edited by Scarlett Chiu, Christoph Sand, and Nicholas Hogg, 3:. Archaeologia Pasifika. Institute of Archaeology of New Caledonia and the Pacific and the Center for Archaeological Studies, Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.
Mills, Barbara J. 2016. Communities of Consumption: Cuisines as Networks of Situated Practice. In Knowledge in Motion: Constellations of Learning Across Time and Place, edited by Andrew P. Roddick and Ann B. Stahl, pp. 248–270. Christine Szuter. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ.
Mills, Barbara J. 2017. Social Network Analysis in Archaeology. Annual Review of Anthropology 46:379–97.
Mills, Barbara J. 2018. What’s New in Chaco Research? Antiquity 92(364):855–869.
Mills, Barbara J., Jeffery J. Clark, and Matthew A. Peeples. 2016. Migration, Skill, and the Transformation of Social Networks in the Pre-Hispanic Southwest. Economic Anthropology 3(2):203–215.
Mills, Barbara J., Jeffery J. Clark, Matthew A. Peeples, W. R. Haas, John M. Roberts, J. Brett Hill, Deborah L. Huntley, et al. 2013. Transformation of Social Networks in the Late Pre-Hispanic US Southwest. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110(15):5785–5790.
Mills, Barbara J., and Matthew A. Peeples. 2019. Reframing Diffusion through Social Network Theory. In Interaction and Connectivity in the Greater Southwest, edited by Karen G. Harry and Barbara J. Roth, pp. 40–62. University Press of Colorado, Boulder, CO.
Mills, Barbara J., and Matthew A. Peeples. 2024. Migration and Archaeological Network Research. In The Oxford Handbook of Archaeological Network Research, edited by Tom Brughmans, Barbara J. Mills, Jessica Munson, and Matthew A. Peeples, p. 0. Oxford University Press.
Mills, Barbara J., Matthew A. Peeples, Leslie D. Aragon, Benjamin A. Bellorado, Jeffery J. Clark, Evan Giomi, and Thomas C. Windes. 2018. Evaluating Chaco Migration Scenarios Using Dynamic Social Network Analysis. Antiquity 92(364):922–939.
Mills, Barbara J., Matthew A. Peeples, W. Randall Haas Jr, Lewis Borck, Jeffery J. Clark, and John M. Roberts Jr. 2015. Multiscalar Perspectives on Social Networks in the Late Prehispanic Southwest. American Antiquity 80(1):3–24.
Mills, Barbara J., John M. Roberts Jr., Jeffery J. Clark, William R. Haas Jr., Deborah Huntley, Matthew A. Peeples, Lewis Borck, Susan C. Ryan, Meaghan Trowbridge, and Ronald L. Breiger. 2013. The Dynamics of Social Networks in the Late Prehispanic US Southwest. In Network Analysis in Archaeology: New Approaches to Regional Interaction, edited by Carl Knappett, p. 0. Oxford University Press.
Mills, Barbara J. 2023. From Frontier to Centre Place: The Dynamic Trajectory of the Chaco World. Journal of Urban Archaeology 7:215–252.
Munson, Jessica, Barbara J. Mills, Tom Brughmans, and Matthew A. Peeples. 2024. Anticipating the Next Wave of Archaeological Network Research. In The Oxford Handbook of Archaeological Network Research, edited by Tom Brughmans, Barbara J. Mills, Jessica Munson, and Matthew A. Peeples, p. 0. Oxford University Press.
Ortman, Scott G. 2024. Settlement Scaling Analysis as Social Network Analysis. In The Oxford Handbook of Archaeological Network Research, edited by Tom Brughmans, Barbara J. Mills, Jessica Munson, and Matthew A. Peeples, p. 0. Oxford University Press.
Ortman, Scott G., and Jeffrey H. Altschul. 2023. What North American Archaeology Needs to Take Advantage of the Digital Data Revolution. Advances in Archaeological Practice 11(1):90–103.
Peeples, Matthew A. 2013. Social Networks in the Distant Past. Archaeology Southwest Magazine.
Peeples, Matthew A. 2018. Connected Communities: Networks, Identity, and Social Change in the Ancient Cibola World. University of Arizona Press.
Peeples, Matthew A. 2019. Finding a Place for Networks in Archaeology. Journal of Archaeological Research 27(4):451–499.
Peeples, Matthew A., Wesley Bernardini, Lyle Balenquah, and Kellam Throgmorton. 2021. Connections and Boundaries. In Becoming Hopi: A History, edited by Wesley Bernardini, Stewart B. Koyiyumptewa, Gregson Schachner, and Leigh Kuwanwisiwma, pp. 261–298. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ.
Peeples, Matthew A., and Robert J. Bischoff. 2023. Archaeological Networks, Community Detection, and Critical Scales of Interaction in the U.S. Southwest/Mexican Northwest. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 70:101511.
Peeples, Matthew A., Jeffery J. Clark, William H. Doelle, Andy Laurenzi, and Barbara J. Mills. 2016. The Big Picture: The National Historic Preservation Act and Regional Syntheses in the U.S. Southwest. Journal of Arizona Archaeology 4(1):1–9.
Peeples, Matthew A., and W. Randall Haas Jr. 2013. Brokerage and Social Capital in the Prehispanic U.S. Southwest. American Anthropologist 115(2):232–247.
Peeples, Matthew A., and Barbara J. Mills. 2018. Frontiers of Marginality and Mediation in the U.S. Southwest: A Social Networks Perspective. In Life beyond the Boundaries: Constructing Identity in Edge Regions of the North American Southwest, edited by Karen G. Harry and Sarah A. Herr, pp. 25–56. University Press of Colorado, Boulder, CO.
Peeples, Matthew A, Barbara J Mills, W Randall Haas Jr, Jeffery J Clark, and John M Roberts Jr. 2016. Analytical Challenges for the Application of Social Network Analysis in Archaeology. In The Connected Past: Challenges to Network Studies in Archaeology and History, edited by Tom Brughmans, Anna Collar, and Fiona Coward, p. 0. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.
Peeples, Matthew A., Jessica Munson, Barbara J. Mills, and Tom Brughmans. 2024. Introduction. In The Oxford Handbook of Archaeological Network Research, edited by Tom Brughmans, Barbara J. Mills, Jessica Munson, and Matthew A. Peeples, p. 0. Oxford University Press.
Peeples, Matthew A., and John M. Roberts. 2013. To Binarize or Not to Binarize: Relational Data and the Construction of Archaeological Networks. Journal of Archaeological Science 40(7):3001–3010.
Peeples, Matthew A., John M. Roberts Jr, and Yi Yin. 2024. Challenges for Network Research in Archaeology. In The Oxford Handbook of Archaeological Network Research, edited by Tom Brughmans, Barbara J. Mills, Jessica Munson, and Matthew A. Peeples, p. 0. Oxford University Press.
Pelletier, Benjamin. 2022. Movement and Ceramic Variability in Northern Arizona. MA Thesis, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ.
Roberts, John M., Emily Dorshorst, Yi Yin, Matthew A. Peeples, Ronald L. Breiger, and Barbara J. Mills. 2023. Sampling Variability and Centrality Score Comparisons in Archaeological Network Analysis: A Case Study of the San Pedro Valley, Arizona. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 51:104100.
Roberts, John M., Barbara J. Mills, Jeffery J. Clark, W. Randall Haas, Deborah L. Huntley, and Meaghan A. Trowbridge. 2012. A Method for Chronological Apportioning of Ceramic Assemblages. Journal of Archaeological Science 39(5):1513–1520.
Roberts, John M., Yi Yin, Emily Dorshorst, Matthew A. Peeples, and Barbara J. Mills. 2021. Assessing the Performance of the Bootstrap in Simulated Assemblage Networks. Social Networks 65:98–109.
Ryan, Stacy L. 2017. Classic Period Projectile Point Design Variation in the Tucson Basin and San Pedro Valley, Arizona. MA Thesis, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ.
Smith, Michael E., José Lobo, Matthew A. Peeples, Abigail M. York, Benjamin W. Stanley, Katherine A. Crawford, Nicolas Gauthier, and Angela C. Huster. 2021. The Persistence of Ancient Settlements and Urban Sustainability. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118(20):e2018155118.
Strawhacker, Colleen, Grant Snitker, Matthew A. Peeples, Ann P. Kinzig, Keith W. Kintigh, Kyle Bocinsky, Brad Butterfield, et al. 2020. A Landscape Perspective on Climate-Driven Risks to Food Security: Exploring the Relationship between Climate and Social Transformation in the Prehispanic U.S. Southwest. American Antiquity 85(3):427–451.
Vernon, Kenneth B., and Scott G. Ortman. 2024. A Method for Defining Dispersed Community Territories. Journal of Archaeological Science 170:106048.
Weiner, Robert S. 2023. “It Shows My Way”: An Archaeology of Roads, Religion, and Power in the Chaco World. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Colorado, Boulder, Boulder, CO.
White, Sean. 2023. The Tau of Doors: The Footprints of the Past. MA Thesis, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ.