Digital Commons Network^™

Down, But Not Out: An Ethnographic Study Of Women Who Struggled With And Overcame Methamphetamine Addiction, Jodi Nettleton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Women suffer methamphetamine (meth) addiction at a rate much higher than rates for addiction to other drugs. Female meth users are susceptible and predisposed to gender-related risks: high rates of unprotected vaginal and anal sex, sex-work, and sexual coercion. Precursors for addiction (e.g., abuse, body dysphasia) put females in a difficult position for recovery and highlight the need for gender-specific research and treatment.

Methamphetamine (a synthetically derived stimulant) creates psychological and physical dependency that affects every neuron of the brain and damages the body immediately. Women ingest meth for initial effects that allay social pressures: feeling euphoric, connecting with others …

African American Athletes And The Negotiation Of Public Spaces: An Examination Of Athletic Capital And African American Perceptions Of Success, Keona Lewis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the culture of sport among African American male football players as well as African American perspectives on sport and success. A case study of six African American, Division 1 FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) collegiate student athletes was conducted along with seventeen supplemental interviews with community members, parents, coaches and former athletes and fans. The participants answered questions that explored education, success, identity construction, ethnicity and sport. Archival data was also reviewed framing the discussion on football in Florida, links between education and sport participation and African American male academic achievement. While many perspectives varied, there were collective …

Monhantic Fort Gunflints: Continuity Or Change In Mashantucket Pequot Lithic Manufacturing Patterns Due To European Contact, Scott E. Williams

Master's Theses

Abstract Monhantic Fort was a late seventeenth century fortified village located on the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation in southeastern Connecticut and was occupied between 1675-1680 during the time of King Philip’s War. The objectives of this study are to reconstruct Pequot behaviors related to production, maintenance, use, and discard of gunflints and other lithic tools made from European flint at Monhantic Fort and further if their patterns of manufacture and technologies were altered through contact with Europeans. As a number of the lithic tools, including the gunflints, recovered at Monhantic Fort had similar morphologies it was first necessary to determine exactly …

Aging Of The Lumbar Vertebrae Using Known Age And Sex Samples, April K. Smith

Anthropology Theses

The dimensions of the lumbar vertebrae are examined in order to determine if these measurements can be used to predict the age of an individual, and if the lumbar vertebrae exhibit sexual dimorphism. Various statistical techniques were utilized to analyze several dimensions of the lumbar vertebrae. Aging patterns in the lumbar elements are distinct between males and females, and females exhibit compression of the L3 element, which may be related to vertebral wedging. Some dimensions of the lumbar vertebrae are sexually dimorphic.

Cross-Sectional Morphology And Mechanical Loading In Plio-Pleistocene Hominins: Implications For Locomotion And Taxonomy, Michele M. Bleuze Ms.

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study explores locomotion and locomotor variability in Plio-Pleistocene hominins by examining cross-sectional properties and mechanical loading patterns in the proximal and midshaft femur of Paranthropus, fossil Homo sp. and H. erectus. Modern human and Pan models are used for comparative purposes. Cross-sectional properties in the proximal and midshaft femur of fossil hominins are examined to test the hypothesis that members of the same genus should exhibit similar locomotor behavior. In the proximal femur, fossil Homo sp. cluster with modern humans to the exclusion of Paranthropus, and East and South African Paranthropus cluster together. Group differences are primarily due to …

Small Finds From Chogha Gavaneh Site In The Islamabad Plain, Central Zagros Mountains, Iran, Firoozeh Forouzan

Anthropology Theses

This study examines small finds from the site of Chogha Gavaneh, Iran, including zoomorphic clay figurines, geometric-shaped objects, and sling bullets in order to deter-mine if they served an economic function during the Early Chalcolithic period (ca. 5000-4000 B.C.E.). A total of 104 animal figurines, sling bullets, and geometric-shaped objects have been found at Chogha Gavaneh. This research challenges previous archaeological interpretations of animal figurines that have interpreted them as being magical or lucky objects for hunting and religious rituals, or for use as game pieces, educational objects, or toys. Through the use of XRF (x-ray fluorescence spectrometry) analysis and …

Human Decomposition Ecology At The University Of Tennessee Anthropology Research Facility, Franklin Edward Damann

Doctoral Dissertations

The University of Tennessee Anthropology Research Facility (ARF) is well known for its unique history as a site of human decomposition research in a natural environment. It has been integral to our understanding of the processes of human decomposition. Over the last 30 years 1,089 bodies have decomposed at this 1.28 acre facility, producing a density of 850 corpses per acre of land. This project evaluated the abiotic and biotic characteristics of the soil exposed to various levels of human decomposition in order to determine the effect on the physicochemical properties and the indigenous bacterial communities.

Specifically, 75 soil samples …

"We're Parents Too!" Changes In Father Involvement In Domestic Labor Among Urban Middle Class Dual-Worker Couples, Ruth Burgett Jolie

Anthropology ETDs

The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate fathers involvement in domestic labor among middle class, dual-worker families in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I argue that men's participation in domestic labor is affected by their parental identities. Three things influence parental identity: (1) demographics, including socioeconomic position, age, race/ethnicity, (2) religiosity, meaning ones adherence to religious values and participation in a formal religious institution (Wilcox 2002:781), and (3) parental ideology, denoting the belief structure surrounding what a parent ought to do. Demography and religiosity are themselves mediated by parental ideology, and in turn also further shape, parental ideology. Parental ideology directly …

Environmental Impact Of The Euro-American Emigration Through Southwestern Idaho (1840-1862): Effect On Native Lifeways, Garrett G. Webb

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

It has traditionally been held by historians that during the period of Euro-American emigration that preceded settlement of southwestern Idaho in 1863, environmental degradation stemming from emigrants undermined native lifeways and incited conflict between the two cultures. The quantitative nature of the emigration, potential ecological impacts, and the historical perspective all suggest that such claims cannot be substantiated. Overall, the negative effect upon native lifeways may have been significantly less than what is maintained by the current historical paradigm. Instead, conditions of mutual interdependence that existed during the fur trade (1811-1840 A.D.) likely persisted throughout the period of emigration. It …

Global Demographic Challenges: Case Study Women, Madeline Fox

Social Sciences

Half of the world lives on less than $2 a day. Everywhere men, women and children live in extreme poverty and suffer. Anthropogenic climate change has intensified famines, droughts, floods, hurricanes and other natural disasters. Modern civilization has altered nature and nature has responded to these alterations. Every year approximately 80 million people are added to the
planet, increasing pressure on the land. These added numbers of people require increased food and land resources and produce more pollution. While populations grow, arable lands with high yields do not. It is essential to reduce global consumption of all commodities and reduce …

Ordinary Spirits In An Extraordinary Town: Finding Identity In Personal Images And Resurrected Memories In Lily Dale, New York, Mary Catherine Gaydos Gabriel

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Every summer, Lily Dale, New York, a community founded on spiritualist beliefs and steeped in an eccentric explosive past, hosts thousands of visitors seeking to communicate with dead friends and relatives, while the residents lead ordinary lives in the midst of the supernatural hype permeating their town. Their stories are considered by most to be secondary to the illustrious trappings of the community in which they occurred. My research employs oral histories prompted by personal photographs to showcase the residents' everyday experiences amidst the town's infamy, illuminating the undervalued individual experience of those living in communities of such extraordinary repute. …

Can The "Peasant" Speak? Forging Dialogues In A Nineteenth-Century Legend Collection, William Pooley

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The folklore collections amassed by Jean-François Bladé in nineteenth-century southwestern France are problematic for modern readers. Bladé's legacy includes a confusing combination of poorly received historical works and unimportant short stories as well as the large collections of proverbs, songs, and narratives that he collected in his native Gascony. No writer has ever attempted to study any of Bladé's informants in detail, not even his most famous narrator, the illiterate and "defiant" Guillaume Cazaux.

Rather than dismissing Bladé as a poor ethnographer whose transcripts do not reflect what his informant Cazaux said, I propose taking Bladé's own confusion about authenticity …

Recommendations For The Chamlidere Petrified Forest Management Plan, Fatma Ertem

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Anything inherited from our ancestors or from nature can be considered as our heritage. Heritage can be classified as cultural and natural heritage. Turkey has been the cradle of many civilizations, religions, and ethnic groups because of the unprecedented natural heritage and critical geopolitical location of Anatolia. Given all the treasure of cultural and natural heritage in Turkey, heritage management practices have not been emphasized as they deserve. A petrified forest was found in Chamlidere, Ankara (Turkey) in 2004. Chamlidere petrified forest preserves information related to the biodiversity of forests in the Galatian Volcanic Province during the Early-Middle Miocene. When …

Violence, Symbols, And The Archaeological Record: A Case Study Of Cahokia's Mound 72, Kathryn Koziol

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Acts of violence are not always easily distinguished in their form. Given the additional difficulties caused by the obscure nature of the archaeological record, it is no wonder that interpretations of these behaviors are so skewed both between and within fields of research. There is little consistency in this academic dialogue, which prevents researchers from grappling with the larger perspectives that should be approached. For instance, just how far back in our human history have events such as genocide occurred? Are these modern in origin? The scale of ancient events and our anthropological scopes need more adjustment to the unique …

Borders And Barriers: Perspectives On Aging And Alternative Medicine Among Transnational North Indian Immigrants, Kanan B. Mehta

Anthropology Theses

This study explores the practice of alternative medicine among a group of senior, transnational Indian immigrants. I analyze how cross-cultural ideologies influence aging and immigrant experiences in healthcare. I explore the ways in which transnational networks nurture social relations and aid in acquiring healthcare resources. This study also examines the developments that alternative medicine underwent during the colonial rule and how those developments affected the trajectory of biomedicine. I focus on the practice of alternative medicine as a significant contributor to immigrant health. Finally, I argue that we need to strive for a symbiosis between alternative medicine and Western biomedicine …

Faunal Remains From The Pine Hill Site (Ps-6), St. Lawrence County, New York, Jessica Lee Vavrasek

Masters Theses

The Pine Hill collection was discovered in the archaeology lab at State University of New York College at Potsdam after remaining unstudied for over 30 years since its initial excavation in the 1960s and 1970s. Pine Hill has been identified as a fifteenth century St. Lawrence Iroquois village site, located in St. Lawrence County, New York. The faunal remains and bone tools from the site indicate food procurement strategies, seasonal activities, the presence of discrete activity areas at the site, and the production and use of a wide range of bone tools. Replication experiments conducted on several bone tool types …

Gentility And Gender Roles Within The 18th-Century Merchant Class Of Newport, Rhode Island, Nicki Hise

Graduate Masters Theses

The Capt. Thomas Richardson household rose to prominence in Newport, Rhode Island during the community’s golden age of prosperity in the 18th century when Newport quickly became one of the leading seaports in the New World. However, all prosperity halted due to the hardships and damage Newport suffered during the American Revolutionary War. Much of the city’s property and economic success was destroyed at the hands of occupying British troops, and the Rhode Island community was never able to fully recover. Like others in colonial Newport, Capt. Thomas Richardson achieved genteel status as a merchant, distiller, and slave ship owner …

Geophysical Study At Old Stone Fort State Archaeological Park, Manchester, Tennessee, Stephen Jay Yerka

Masters Theses

The Old Stone Fort State Archaeological Park covers over 800 acres within Manchester, Tennessee, and is owned and managed by the Tennessee Division of State Parks. The central archaeological site within the park boundary is The Old Stone Fort mounds that enclose about 50 acres on a plateau above the convergence of the Big Duck and the Little Duck Rivers. The hilltop enclosure dates to the Middle Woodland Period, and radiocarbon dates obtained at the site range from the first to the fifth century A. D. Because of its size and apparent complexity, previous investigations of the site have been …

Bordered Identities: Class, Ethnicity, And Transnational Social Networks, Rayette Ellen Martin

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis looks at the bordered identities of middle class second generation Mexican Americans in Las Vegas, Nevada. Through an analysis of the borderlands or gray spaces that occur at the intersections of class practices, transnational relationships and ethnic identities, participants’ bordered identities were found to be reinforced, contested, and generally negotiated. Participants’ identities are flexible; their expressed identities change in relation to context or situation. In the United States, Mexicans and Latinos more generally have been subjected to racial and ethnic oppression since the Mexican American war ended in 1848.This long history of discrimination has maintained perceptions that all …

Composite Of Complexity: Manifestations Of Whiteness And Class Among Las Vegas Italian Americans, Danielle Nicole Axt

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Conventional terminology and conventional boundaries, in regard to ethnicity, are no longer applicable to the ever shifting population of the United States. In specific, the various degrees of White ethnic identity does not easily transition into convenient all encompassing categories such as Caucasian or more simply, White. Whiteness studies have been at the forefront of this critique, most recently asserting that White ethnic identity is heavily influenced by context. However, although many studies are now recognizing the impact of multiple layers of White ethnic identity (along the lines of gender, locale, socioeconomic level etc.) many still neglect to identify a …

Navigating The Paradox Of Fear: Collaborative Research Exploring Resettlement And Vulnerability With Displaced Women In Colombia, Emily E. R. Braucher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In April of 2008, the Colombian Constitutional Court issued a report based on women's testimonials that identified gender-specific risks associated with forced displacement as result of armed conflict. This study explores the coping strategies employed by Colombian women to address socio-economic vulnerability and improve living conditions during resettlement in Bogotá. Specifically, the research tracks the process of adaptation during the struggle to achieve economic stability. The findings suggest that a prevailing culture of fear influences multiple aspects of adjusting to the city and constricts the participants' access to new social networks. Lessons gathered from the participants using collaborative anthropological methods …

"A Good Sized Pot": Early 19th Century Planting Pots From Gore Place, Waltham, Massachusetts, Rita A. Deforest

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis looked at the elite status of cultivating gentlemen at the site of the Gore Place greenhouse through the medium of planting pots. The goal of this thesis was to analyze the planting pot remains and to subsequently answer three questions: what kinds of activities were performed in the greenhouse, who was conducting those activities, and most importantly, how they played in to Christopher Gore's self presentation as having elite status. This project analyzed over 2,000 pot sherds found during the excavation of the 1806 Gore Place greenhouse. The outcome of a minimum vessel count of the planting pots …

Beef, Mutton, Pork, And A Taste Of Turtle: Zooarchaeology And Nineteenth-Century African American Foodways At The Boston-Higginbotham House, Nantucket, Massachusetts, Michael Andrew Way

Graduate Masters Theses

In 1774, nearly ten years before slavery was abolished in Massachusetts, an emancipated African American weaver named Seneca Boston purchased a tract of land in the Newtown section of Nantucket, Massachusetts. It is here that over the next thirty years Seneca Boston and his Wampanoag wife, Thankful Micah, would build a house, now known as the Boston-Higginbotham House, and raise six children. The Boston-Higginbotham House was home to the descendents of Seneca Boston and Thankful Micah for over one hundred years. Throughout the 19th century a vibrant and active African American community was developing in Newtown, and several generations of …

A Macrobotanical Analysis Of Native American Maize Agriculture At The Smith's Point Site, Kelly A. Ferguson

Graduate Masters Theses

The Smith's Point site was a seasonally inhabited Native American encampment in Yarmouth, Massachusetts occupied from the Middle Woodland through the early Colonial periods. Excavations at the site in the early 1990s yielded the remains of a multi-component site including both an agricultural field and an adjacent living area. The macrobotanical remains from the agricultural and living area features were examined for this thesis project in order to investigate subsistence practices at the site. The findings show that Native Americans actively shaped these ecological niches for purposes such as maintaining and improving their subsistence base. These landscape management activities included …

Entertaining, Dining, And Novel Drinking: Rural Gentility And The Reverend John Hancock's Household, Lexington, Massachusetts, 1700-1750, Katie Lynn Kosack

Graduate Masters Theses

The rise of refined behavior paralleled the expansion of colonial markets and consumer choice. Objects related to the refined consumption of food and drink took center stage in the transformation of colonial entertaining. The availability of new foodstuffs and the associated equipage transformed sociability and the meaning of eating and drinking. These changes coupled with the high level of social mobility in eighteenth century Massachusetts, meant that performances with novel objects became dynamic symbols of one's social status. Utilizing Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital, this work explores how Rev. John Hancock, minister of Lexington, Massachusetts, expressed his social status through …

Denison House: Women's Use Of Space In The Boston Settlement, Heather Marie Capitanio

Graduate Masters Theses

Established in 1892, Denison House Settlement in Boston, Massachusetts was the third college settlement of its kind in the United States. Like other settlement houses of the time, Denison House was established as a base for community refurbishment and statistical study. Located at 93 Tyler Street in the rundown South Cove area of Boston, it offered its lower class "neighbors" a variety of activities and facilities within its perimeters. Judging only from late nineteenth-century attitudes and mores, one would assume that the women who worked and lived at Denison House would have been turned away by the poor residents of …

The Quantification Of Displacement Of The Anterior Teeth In The Human Dentition, Peggy Jean Van Scotter-Asbach

Dissertations (1934 -)

The credibility of bite mark analysis as a forensic science is under fire in our legal system. The basis of opinions regarding the probability of a dental pattern observed in bite mark evidence matching a suspect's dentition has not been objectively substantiated. Though guidelines and standards are in place, bite mark analyses have failed to provide basic scientific methods in order to be deemed of evidentiary value. Forensic scientists need to take a step back and develop valid and reliable methodologies that provide a statistical approach for defining dental characteristics in the human dentition.

For this study, three computer-generated, mathematically …

A Faunal Analysis Of 1wx15, The Indian Hill Site, Wilcox County, Alabama, Elizabeth Ellen Lovett

Masters Theses

Abstract

This study seeks to expand the knowledge of Woodland subsistence practices in the Alabama River valley by presenting an analysis of the faunal assemblage from the Indian Hill site, 1WX15. Additionally, this study presents a comparison of 1WX15 to other sites from the Tombigbee, Alabama, and Coosa river valleys in order to present a broad picture of Woodland subsistence in and near the Eastern Gulf Coastal Plain.

An intra-site comparison revealed the primary vertebrate resources exploited were mammals and turtles. The substantial amount of turtle fragments suggested the site was occupied during warm months, with a fall and winter …

Educators' Perspectives And Approaches To Teaching In Culturally And Linguistically Diverse Classrooms, Karmen Melissa Stephenson

Masters Theses

In recent years the Midway School System in Midway, Tennessee (pseudonyms are used for the town, the school, and the participants in this research), has experienced a significant demographic change that has had both social and academic impacts. An influx of Hispanic students, primarily from Mexico, has brought students who are culturally different and for whom English is not the first language into a school that has traditionally been comprised of almost all white English speaking students. In the era of No Child Left Behind and other large scale educational reforms, this demographic change presents many new challenges to educators …

A Vegetation History From Emerald Pond, Great Abaco Island, The Bahamas, Based On Pollen Analysis, Ian Arthur Slayton

Masters Theses

Emerald Pond (26° 32' 12" N, 77° 06' 32" W) is a vertical-walled solution hole in the pine rocklands of Great Abaco Island, The Bahamas. In 2006, Sally Horn, Ken Orvis, and students recovered an 8.7 m-long sediment core from the center of the pond using a Colinvaux-Vohnout locking piston corer. AMS radiocarbon dates on macrofossils are in stratigraphic order and indicate that the sequence extends to ca. 8400 cal yr BP. Basal deposits consist of aeolian sands topped by a soil and then pond sediment, suggesting that the site began as a sheltered, dry hole during a Late Pleistocene …