SIMREC · Simulating Roman Economies. Studying the Roman Economy through computational network modelling and archaeological big data

SIMREC (Simulating Roman Economies) is an inter-disciplinary project that will explore the most hotly debated questions about the Roman economy: was the Roman Imperial trade market equally integrated as nowadays? How important were social networks for structuring this flow of information? It will address two methodological issues currently preventing scholars from answering these questions: limited use of archaeological big data and the lack of quantitative comparisons of complex hypotheses. SIMREC will combine recent advances in computational network science and simulation methods with increasingly available archaeological big datasets, enabled through focused training in these methods at the host institution. In doing so, SIMREC will significantly add to the accumulated knowledge on the Roman economy and will enable for the first time essential quantitative comparisons between the centuries-long Roman record and modern-day economies. The training and research offered by SIMREC will position the experienced researcher (ER) as an expert in network science and computational modelling for the study of the past, and will enable him to significantly influence paradigms and practice in Roman archaeology and history.