This collaborative research project (CRP) addresses the program "The Evolution of Cooperation and Trading" (TECT) through an examination of the evolution of cooperation tying together the self-organizing commercial networks of the first global age (1400-1800). The CRP will produce new theoretical insights about cooperation in the context of the dynamic complex system of which these evolving networks were a part. Through a convergence of methods unusual in the historical social sciences, the CRP will reveal the mechanisms of cooperation that permitted merchants and others to establish and sustain these often long-distance trading networks. In the social science literature, it is often asserted that greater human cooperation in trading became possible with the increasing effectiveness of state or similar institutions. However, these networks were characterized by a diffusion of authority and frequently by-passed the segmented political hierarchies characteristic of the period's governments. Moreover, these networks served as the source of the creativity and innovation necessary to respond in a flexible manner to the era's endemic disruptions to transportation and capital flows. Focused archival research and an extensive review of published information will create a shared database, provided to public archives, with a sufficient variety and quantity of data about the neglected topic of cooperation during the first era of globalization to increase confidence in the CRP's analyses. The CRP employs Geographic Information Systems (GIS) as a data integration engine and visualization tool to bring together layers of information necessary to understand the high levels of cooperation. The CRP uses spatial statistics and mathematical modeling to compensate for incomplete data due to the fragmentary survival of sources and to discern the possible impact of layers of interaction of which there are few surviving traces. It also utilizes various types of mathematical modeling to explore the emergence of new forms and cause-and-effect relationships, to validate or corroborate hypotheses, and to identify unexpected tendencies or trends. The mathematical expressions identified for these purposes will form the basis for the creation of a temporal GIS to facilitate the discovery and understanding of dynamics in a complex, non-linear system. One of the great contemporary research challenges, which DynCoopNet addresses, is to find a way to understand such a dynamic, non-linear, complex system over a period of four centuries. Moreover, because so much of the cooperation in trading that sustained these connections cannot be easily explained, the collaborative research will make available a body of historical, ethnographic data and resulting empirical generalizations of the evolution of cooperation, which can be used to evaluate available theories. Through DynCoopNet's advances in GIS and mathematical modeling, Owens will make an original contribution to his discipline by employing concepts and techniques of abstraction and visualization with which the historical social sciences are generally unfamiliar. The DynCoopNet CRP promotes considerable international, multi-disciplinary collaboration for research, publication, and database distribution. It has launched Idaho State University's innovative new internship- and GIS-based Master's degree program in geographically-integrated history, the M.A. in Historical Resources Management (MHRM), of which Owens is co-creator. The students funded through DynCoopNet will have internship opportunities in other countries and will participate in networking meetings in Europe, which will help create a cohort of transformative leaders in the discipline. Moreover, because of the higher percentage of women and minorities among history majors, NSF funding will help attract such students into a technologically rich educational and employment environment in which these groups are currently underrepresented.
