Tom Brughmans
Biographic Data
| ID | 297425 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Tom Brughmans |
| GIVEN NAMES | Tom |
| FAMILY NAME | Brughmans |
| SIGNATURE | BRUGHMANS T |
| AFFILIATIONS | Aarhus University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1589-7768 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 163 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Grand challenges for the quantitative study of past movement systems in the twenty-first century
Past movement systems represent the material remnants of a past society's socio-political and economic interactions. While qualitative studies have expanded significantly, quantitative approaches have yet to fully leverage computational advances to better understand the formation and development of these movement systems. This special issue contextualises the collected papers within a broader ‘quantitative study of past movement systems’ overview…
Author response of: Lessons learned: creating tutorials to teach agent-based modelling to archaeologists. Round#1
A recommendation of: Ronald M. Visser, Karsten Lambers, Kenneth Aitchison, Annemarie Jutte, Doug Rocks-Macqueen, Laura van der Knaap, Iza Romanowska, Tom Brughmans, Jeroen Linssen, Adam Pažout Lessons learned: creating tutorials to teach agent-based modelling to archaeologists https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15705862
Lessons Learned: Creating Tutorials to Teach Agent-Based Modelling to Archaeologists
Agent-based modelling (ABM) is one of the most widely applied computational modelling research techniques in archaeology, because it is well suited to the questions asked by archaeologists. However, the access to vocational training for ABM is limited. In this paper we present the Open Educational Resources (OER) that we produced in an international cooperation. For this purpose, we created online and open tutorials for ABM for archaeologists. In…
Consumption Trends, Trading Patterns and Economic Development in Italy Across Centuries: Data Analysis of Roman Amphorae in a Long-Term Perspective
This paper presents novel insights into the long-term chronological patterns related to the distribution and consumption of amphora-borne foodstuffs in Italy. The study specifically focuses on the consumption of wine, olive oil and fish sauces, which exhibit diverse provenances. Notably, it contributes significantly to our understanding of the Roman economy by utilising an open dataset and a replicable research method. The analysis reveals a pron…
The Oxford Handbook of Archaeological Network Research
Network research has recently been adopted as one of the tools of the trade in archaeology, used to study a wide range of topics: interactions between island communities, movements through urban spaces, visibility in past landscapes, material culture similarity, exchange, and much more. This Oxford Handbook is the first authoritative reference work for archaeological network research, featuring current topical trends and covering the archaeologic…
Oxford Handbook of Archaeological Network Research
Una Introducción a La Investigación De Redes en Arqueología: Qué Es Y Por Qué La Necesitamos
La investigación de redes en arqueología es una subdisciplina en auge, en la que una gran diversidad de preguntas de investigación sobre el pasado humano se estudian a través de la teoría relacional y los métodos formales de redes. Este artículo pretende exponer el potencial de la investigación de redes en arqueología. Para ello, comenzamos definiendo la propia subdisciplina, abordando la importancia de cada uno de los elementos que la constituye…
Socio-economic impacts of the exposure to Roman ceramics in the inland Iron Age communities of the NW Iberian Peninsula: A quantitative approach
How did the first ever exposure to Roman imported material culture at inland sites affect local material culture practices? What does this reveal about the speed and nature of cross-cultural influence between Roman and Iron Age communities? And about the specific dynamics of integration within the Roman Empire of inland sites? Our ability to address these key questions about the exposure of Iron Age communities to the Roman world is hampered by a…
Exploring economic integration of peasant settlements in Roman Central Spain (1st c. − 3rd c. AD)
Preventive excavations in the metropolitan area of Madrid (Spain) resulted in the study of the archaeological record of a number of Roman non-elite rural sites, which uniquely allow for the analysis of ancient peasant economies in central Roman Spain. We engage with current debates on the economic roles and integration of peasant sites in the Roman imperial economy, and report on the application of a network science method to the economic network…
Simulating Roman Economies: Theories, Methods, and Computational Models
The use of formal modelling and computational simulation in studies of the Roman economy has become more common over the last decade. But detailed critical evaluations of this innovative approach are still missing and much needed. What kinds of insights about the Roman economy can it lead to that could not have been obtained through more established approaches, and how do simulation methods constructively enhance research processes in Roman Studi…
Evaluating the Potential of Computational Modelling for Informing Debates on Roman Economic Integration
Urbanization and Riverine Hinterlands: A Proposal for an Integrative High-Definition and Multi-Scalar Approach to Understanding Ancient Cities and their Dynamic Natural Resources
Rivers have always been a magnet for human settlement, providing resources, such as water, food, and energy, and communication and travel routes. Climate- and human-made changes to the environment can easily affect the fragile balance between the ‘natural’ and the ‘urban’, causing droughts, floods, and other changes in riverine systems that challenge economic, environmental, and social sustainability. This is especially true in semi-arid regions …
Sensitivity analysis in archaeological simulation: An application to the Mercury model
Computational modelling is increasingly gaining attention in archaeology and related disciplines. With the number of new models growing it is often difficult to evaluate their significance and the generality of the results. This is partially due to the narrow reporting of the model's results, which are often limited to those directly relevant to the research question posed in the first place. Although this is not an issue per se, models, if explo…
A Study of the Centuries-Long Reliance on Local Ceramics in Jerash Through Full Quantification and Simulation
The Danish-German Jerash Northwest Quarter Project revealed a robust and striking pattern of the extreme dominance (>99%) of locally produced ceramics over six centuries and across different depositional contexts (in total over half a million pottery sherds). The archaeology of Jerash points towards an exceptional degree of self-sufficiency in craft products: why? The project team implemented a full quantification approach during excavation, manu…
Networked medieval strongholds in Garhwal Himalaya, India
Hundreds of high-elevation medieval strongholds are dispersed throughout the Central Himalayan region of Garhwal Himalaya, India. Believed to have originated in the eleventh century AD, these sites are interwoven into local folklore, yet they have been subject to limited research. This article presents new survey data, along with computational and spatial analyses of 193 Garhwal strongholds, facilitating the assessment of more complex hypotheses-…
Formal Modelling Approaches to Complexity Science in Roman Studies: A Manifesto
Complexity science refers to the theoretical research perspectives and the formal modelling tools designed to study complex systems. A complex system consists of separate entities interacting following a set of (often simple) rules that collectively give rise to unexpected patterns featuring vastly different properties than the entities that produced them. In recent years a number of case studies have shown that such approaches have great potenti…
Introducing visual neighbourhood configurations for total viewsheds
The Visual Neighbourhood Configurations (VNCs) approach is presented: a new approach for exploring complex theories of visual phenomena in landscapes by processing total viewsheds. Such theories most commonly concern the configuration of visual properties of areas around locations rather than solely the visual properties of the locations themselves. The typical approach to interpreting total viewshed results by classifying cell values is therefor…
Exploring Transformations in Caribbean Indigenous Social Networks through Visibility Studies: The Case of Late Pre-Colonial Landscapes in East-Guadeloupe (French West Indies)
This paper presents a study of the visual properties of natural and Amerindian cultural landscapes in late pre-colonial East-Guadeloupe and of how these visual properties affected social interactions. Through a review of descriptive and formal visibility studies in Caribbean archaeology, it reveals that the ability of visual properties to affect past human behaviour is frequently evoked but the more complex of these hypotheses are rarely studied …
The case for computational modelling of the Roman economy: A reply to Van Oyen
We thank Astrid Van Oyen for a highly constructive and important discussion piece that will improve our own future work, as well as that of others. We wish to elaborate on one issue: that formalist approaches do not necessarily have inherently modernist theoretical assumptions
Mercury: An Agent-Based Model of Tableware Trade in the Roman East
A large number of complex hypotheses exists that aim to explain aspects of the Roman economy, consisting of many explanatory factors that are argued to affect each other. Such complex hypotheses cannot be compared or tested through the traditional practice of qualitative argumentation and comparison with selected small sets of written and material sources alone. Moreover, these hypotheses often draw on different conceptual frameworks to abstract …
The connected past: Challenges to network studies in archaeology and history
Roman bazaar or market economy? Explaining tableware distributions through computational modelling
Networks in Archaeology: Phenomena, Abstraction, Representation
Understanding Inter-settlement Visibility in Iron Age and Roman Southern Spain with Exponential Random Graph Models for Visibility Networks
Analyser les réseaux du passé en archéologie et en histoire
Au cours de la dernière décennie, de plus en plus d'archéologues ont utilisé des méthodes formelles d'analyse de réseaux, tant pour explorer des bases données complexes que pour tester leurs hypothèses à propos des interactions du passé. La tendance a été la même en histoire, autour de l'analyse de réseaux sociaux ayant laissé des traces textuelles. Mais les deux disciplines, qui pourtant partagent l'objectif de comprendre des comportements humai…
Networks in Archaeology: Phenomena, Abstraction, Representation
Connecting the Dots: Towards Archaeological Network Analysis
In recent years network analysis has been applied in archaeological research to examine the structure of archaeological relationships of whatever sort. However, these archaeological applications share a number of issues concerning 1) the role of archaeological data in networks; 2) the diversity of network structures, their consequences and their interpretation; 3) the critical use of quantitative tools; and 4) the influence of other disciplines, …
Roman bazaar or market economy? Explaining tableware distributions through computational modelling
Introducing exponential random graph models for visibility networks
Formal Modelling Approaches to Complexity Science in Roman Studies: A Manifesto
Complexity science refers to the theoretical research perspectives and the formal modelling tools designed to study complex systems. A complex system consists of separate entities interacting following a set of (often simple) rules that collectively give rise to unexpected patterns featuring vastly different properties than the entities that produced them. In recent years a number of case studies have shown that such approaches have great potenti…
A Study of the Centuries-Long Reliance on Local Ceramics in Jerash Through Full Quantification and Simulation
The Danish-German Jerash Northwest Quarter Project revealed a robust and striking pattern of the extreme dominance (>99%) of locally produced ceramics over six centuries and across different depositional contexts (in total over half a million pottery sherds). The archaeology of Jerash points towards an exceptional degree of self-sufficiency in craft products: why? The project team implemented a full quantification approach during excavation, manu…
Understanding Inter-settlement Visibility in Iron Age and Roman Southern Spain with Exponential Random Graph Models for Visibility Networks
Introducing visual neighbourhood configurations for total viewsheds
The Visual Neighbourhood Configurations (VNCs) approach is presented: a new approach for exploring complex theories of visual phenomena in landscapes by processing total viewsheds. Such theories most commonly concern the configuration of visual properties of areas around locations rather than solely the visual properties of the locations themselves. The typical approach to interpreting total viewshed results by classifying cell values is therefor…
Exploring Transformations in Caribbean Indigenous Social Networks through Visibility Studies: The Case of Late Pre-Colonial Landscapes in East-Guadeloupe (French West Indies)
This paper presents a study of the visual properties of natural and Amerindian cultural landscapes in late pre-colonial East-Guadeloupe and of how these visual properties affected social interactions. Through a review of descriptive and formal visibility studies in Caribbean archaeology, it reveals that the ability of visual properties to affect past human behaviour is frequently evoked but the more complex of these hypotheses are rarely studied …
Consumption Trends, Trading Patterns and Economic Development in Italy Across Centuries: Data Analysis of Roman Amphorae in a Long-Term Perspective
This paper presents novel insights into the long-term chronological patterns related to the distribution and consumption of amphora-borne foodstuffs in Italy. The study specifically focuses on the consumption of wine, olive oil and fish sauces, which exhibit diverse provenances. Notably, it contributes significantly to our understanding of the Roman economy by utilising an open dataset and a replicable research method. The analysis reveals a pron…
Simulating Roman Economies: Theories, Methods, and Computational Models
The use of formal modelling and computational simulation in studies of the Roman economy has become more common over the last decade. But detailed critical evaluations of this innovative approach are still missing and much needed. What kinds of insights about the Roman economy can it lead to that could not have been obtained through more established approaches, and how do simulation methods constructively enhance research processes in Roman Studi…
Sensitivity analysis in archaeological simulation: An application to the Mercury model
Computational modelling is increasingly gaining attention in archaeology and related disciplines. With the number of new models growing it is often difficult to evaluate their significance and the generality of the results. This is partially due to the narrow reporting of the model's results, which are often limited to those directly relevant to the research question posed in the first place. Although this is not an issue per se, models, if explo…
Networked medieval strongholds in Garhwal Himalaya, India
Hundreds of high-elevation medieval strongholds are dispersed throughout the Central Himalayan region of Garhwal Himalaya, India. Believed to have originated in the eleventh century AD, these sites are interwoven into local folklore, yet they have been subject to limited research. This article presents new survey data, along with computational and spatial analyses of 193 Garhwal strongholds, facilitating the assessment of more complex hypotheses-…
Complex Networks in Archaeology: Urban Connectivity in Iron Age and Roman Southern Spain
In this article the authors highlight some of the issues surrounding the study of past urban connectivity and how archaeologists can deal with them by adopting a complex networks research perspective
Connecting the Dots: Towards Archaeological Network Analysis
In recent years network analysis has been applied in archaeological research to examine the structure of archaeological relationships of whatever sort. However, these archaeological applications share a number of issues concerning 1) the role of archaeological data in networks; 2) the diversity of network structures, their consequences and their interpretation; 3) the critical use of quantitative tools; and 4) the influence of other disciplines, …
Complex Networks in Archaeology: Urban Connectivity in Iron Age and Roman Southern Spain
In this article the authors highlight some of the issues surrounding the study of past urban connectivity and how archaeologists can deal with them by adopting a complex networks research perspective
Thinking Through Networks: A Review of Formal Network Methods in Archaeology
Analyser les réseaux du passé en archéologie et en histoire
Au cours de la dernière décennie, de plus en plus d'archéologues ont utilisé des méthodes formelles d'analyse de réseaux, tant pour explorer des bases données complexes que pour tester leurs hypothèses à propos des interactions du passé. La tendance a été la même en histoire, autour de l'analyse de réseaux sociaux ayant laissé des traces textuelles. Mais les deux disciplines, qui pourtant partagent l'objectif de comprendre des comportements humai…
Introducing exponential random graph models for visibility networks
Networks in Archaeology: Phenomena, Abstraction, Representation
Understanding Inter-settlement Visibility in Iron Age and Roman Southern Spain with Exponential Random Graph Models for Visibility Networks
Mercury: An Agent-Based Model of Tableware Trade in the Roman East
A large number of complex hypotheses exists that aim to explain aspects of the Roman economy, consisting of many explanatory factors that are argued to affect each other. Such complex hypotheses cannot be compared or tested through the traditional practice of qualitative argumentation and comparison with selected small sets of written and material sources alone. Moreover, these hypotheses often draw on different conceptual frameworks to abstract …
The connected past: Challenges to network studies in archaeology and history
Roman bazaar or market economy? Explaining tableware distributions through computational modelling
Exploring Transformations in Caribbean Indigenous Social Networks through Visibility Studies: The Case of Late Pre-Colonial Landscapes in East-Guadeloupe (French West Indies)
This paper presents a study of the visual properties of natural and Amerindian cultural landscapes in late pre-colonial East-Guadeloupe and of how these visual properties affected social interactions. Through a review of descriptive and formal visibility studies in Caribbean archaeology, it reveals that the ability of visual properties to affect past human behaviour is frequently evoked but the more complex of these hypotheses are rarely studied …
The case for computational modelling of the Roman economy: A reply to Van Oyen
We thank Astrid Van Oyen for a highly constructive and important discussion piece that will improve our own future work, as well as that of others. We wish to elaborate on one issue: that formalist approaches do not necessarily have inherently modernist theoretical assumptions
Introducing visual neighbourhood configurations for total viewsheds
The Visual Neighbourhood Configurations (VNCs) approach is presented: a new approach for exploring complex theories of visual phenomena in landscapes by processing total viewsheds. Such theories most commonly concern the configuration of visual properties of areas around locations rather than solely the visual properties of the locations themselves. The typical approach to interpreting total viewshed results by classifying cell values is therefor…
Formal Modelling Approaches to Complexity Science in Roman Studies: A Manifesto
Complexity science refers to the theoretical research perspectives and the formal modelling tools designed to study complex systems. A complex system consists of separate entities interacting following a set of (often simple) rules that collectively give rise to unexpected patterns featuring vastly different properties than the entities that produced them. In recent years a number of case studies have shown that such approaches have great potenti…
Evaluating the Potential of Computational Modelling for Informing Debates on Roman Economic Integration
Urbanization and Riverine Hinterlands: A Proposal for an Integrative High-Definition and Multi-Scalar Approach to Understanding Ancient Cities and their Dynamic Natural Resources
Rivers have always been a magnet for human settlement, providing resources, such as water, food, and energy, and communication and travel routes. Climate- and human-made changes to the environment can easily affect the fragile balance between the ‘natural’ and the ‘urban’, causing droughts, floods, and other changes in riverine systems that challenge economic, environmental, and social sustainability. This is especially true in semi-arid regions …
Sensitivity analysis in archaeological simulation: An application to the Mercury model
Computational modelling is increasingly gaining attention in archaeology and related disciplines. With the number of new models growing it is often difficult to evaluate their significance and the generality of the results. This is partially due to the narrow reporting of the model's results, which are often limited to those directly relevant to the research question posed in the first place. Although this is not an issue per se, models, if explo…
A Study of the Centuries-Long Reliance on Local Ceramics in Jerash Through Full Quantification and Simulation
The Danish-German Jerash Northwest Quarter Project revealed a robust and striking pattern of the extreme dominance (>99%) of locally produced ceramics over six centuries and across different depositional contexts (in total over half a million pottery sherds). The archaeology of Jerash points towards an exceptional degree of self-sufficiency in craft products: why? The project team implemented a full quantification approach during excavation, manu…
Networked medieval strongholds in Garhwal Himalaya, India
Hundreds of high-elevation medieval strongholds are dispersed throughout the Central Himalayan region of Garhwal Himalaya, India. Believed to have originated in the eleventh century AD, these sites are interwoven into local folklore, yet they have been subject to limited research. This article presents new survey data, along with computational and spatial analyses of 193 Garhwal strongholds, facilitating the assessment of more complex hypotheses-…
Simulating Roman Economies: Theories, Methods, and Computational Models
The use of formal modelling and computational simulation in studies of the Roman economy has become more common over the last decade. But detailed critical evaluations of this innovative approach are still missing and much needed. What kinds of insights about the Roman economy can it lead to that could not have been obtained through more established approaches, and how do simulation methods constructively enhance research processes in Roman Studi…
The Oxford Handbook of Archaeological Network Research
Network research has recently been adopted as one of the tools of the trade in archaeology, used to study a wide range of topics: interactions between island communities, movements through urban spaces, visibility in past landscapes, material culture similarity, exchange, and much more. This Oxford Handbook is the first authoritative reference work for archaeological network research, featuring current topical trends and covering the archaeologic…
Oxford Handbook of Archaeological Network Research
Una Introducción a La Investigación De Redes en Arqueología: Qué Es Y Por Qué La Necesitamos
La investigación de redes en arqueología es una subdisciplina en auge, en la que una gran diversidad de preguntas de investigación sobre el pasado humano se estudian a través de la teoría relacional y los métodos formales de redes. Este artículo pretende exponer el potencial de la investigación de redes en arqueología. Para ello, comenzamos definiendo la propia subdisciplina, abordando la importancia de cada uno de los elementos que la constituye…
Socio-economic impacts of the exposure to Roman ceramics in the inland Iron Age communities of the NW Iberian Peninsula: A quantitative approach
How did the first ever exposure to Roman imported material culture at inland sites affect local material culture practices? What does this reveal about the speed and nature of cross-cultural influence between Roman and Iron Age communities? And about the specific dynamics of integration within the Roman Empire of inland sites? Our ability to address these key questions about the exposure of Iron Age communities to the Roman world is hampered by a…
Exploring economic integration of peasant settlements in Roman Central Spain (1st c. − 3rd c. AD)
Preventive excavations in the metropolitan area of Madrid (Spain) resulted in the study of the archaeological record of a number of Roman non-elite rural sites, which uniquely allow for the analysis of ancient peasant economies in central Roman Spain. We engage with current debates on the economic roles and integration of peasant sites in the Roman imperial economy, and report on the application of a network science method to the economic network…
Archaeology (19 works) · History (14 works) · Computer Science (13 works) · Geography (10 works) · History (10 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (9 works) · Data science (7 works) · Engineering (7 works) · Classical Antiquity Studies (6 works) · Economics (6 works)