Digital Commons Network^™

Purpose In Place: Discerning And Forefronting Forgotten Landscapes Using The Methodological Lens Of Augmented Reality, Lindy Westenhoff

Doctoral Dissertations

Augmented reality (AR) is an under-studied tool that deserves more academic attention and gaze. By using the built landscape as its point of orientation, but providing a virtual interface with which to engage, the augmented landscape serves as a departure of the traditional digital-physical divide. This realm raises questions regarding purpose and intention, but also has its own limitations and issues with dynamic, complex spaces that change frequently. Each chapter of this dissertation stands alone as a “part” – they connect, however, through the use of this technology to answer questions unique to their spaces.

Part 1 explores the relationship …

Creating And Maintaining A Web-Based Platform For The Bard College Archaeological Forest Site, Rose Battista

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Multidisciplinary Studies of Bard College.

Main project is the website: bardforestsite.com

Plants And People: Foraging To Farming Foodway Transition From Late Archaic To Early Woodland In Western North Carolina, U.S.A., Catherine Linn Herring

Masters Theses

During the Late Archaic to Early Woodland Transition, 3,200 years B.P. [Before Present], some gathering communities in the Eastern Woodlands began to increase their cultivation of plants. While archaeologists have located several sites in the Upper Tennessee River Valley and near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee that explicitly show an increase in plant cultivation, less research has focused on the North Carolina Appalachian Summit Region. This paper uses paleoethnobotanical data and spatial analysis of site locations to explore cultivation and settlement patterns in Jackson and Swain Counties, North Carolina. Data include site locations obtained from the North …

Exchange And Social Interaction In The Tennessee River Valley: A Geospatial Approach To The Analysis Of Late Archaic Archaeological Sites, Justin S. Bailey

Masters Theses

The cultural manifestation known as the Shell Mound Archaic persisted in the lower Midwest and Midsouth region of the Eastern United States for over four millennia beginning in the Middle Archaic ca. 8900 cal BP and terminating at the end of the Late Archaic ca 3200 cal BP. A geospatial approach is applied to the analysis of exotic material exchange of the Late Archaic (ca. 5800-3200 cal BP) to assess how foraging peoples in the Tennessee River Valley interacted and persisted during this time. Exotic material items manufactured from copper, marine shell, steatite, and other nonlocal materials demonstrate distinct spatial …

A Gis Approach To Landscape Scale Archaeoacoustics, Kristy Elizabeth Primeau

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This research presents the development and critical assessment of an Archaeoacoustics Toolbox for Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology written in the Python programming language, and applies this methodology to cross cultural case studies exploring the importance of soundsheds in an anthropological-archaeological context. As counterpoint to a common critique of experiential theoretical approaches the Soundshed Analysis and Soundshed Analysis-Variable Cover tools provide a replicable means of modeling baseline estimates of the experience of sound. Testing against modern acoustical studies establishing scientific accuracy, and explanations of the sound physics calculations performed by the tools are provided. The tools are then applied to …

Decolonizing The Map: Indigenous Maps And Gis, Henry Osborne Beimers

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Indigenous mapping practices have yet to be widely considered by geographers outside of a historical context. In this paper I critique the geographic research paradigm through the lens of settler colonial and critical cartographic theory. I present evidence for the value of Indigenous mapping practices through a historical-critical GIS analysis of two Indigenous maps, and a creation of a story map to present those results. Finally, I suggest future routes to integrate digital mapping and Indigenous mapping practices, for pedagogy, and for preserving cultural resources, language, land, and traditional Indigenous knowledge.

A City Divided: A Gis-Informed Study Of Urban Planning In Amman, Jordan, Ella Lawson

Honors Theses

Amman, the capital of Jordan, faces an impending infrastructure crisis. The city is plagued by water shortages, a lack of affordable housing, extreme traffic congestion, and dwindling open space. Over the past seventy-five years, several urban planning commissions have attempted to address these issues through policy change and other municipal directives. These plans help illustrate the different forces at play in constructing the city—whether they be the residents themselves, city officials, or international consultants. All the plans use neighborhoods as a primary metric for measuring need and organizing development. Likewise, all the plans focus on the importance of green and …

Politics Vs. The Environment: The Spatial Distributions Of Mississippian Mound Centers In Tampa Bay, Adam J. Sax

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Safety Harbor culture that resided in West-Central Florida during the Mississippian period (~1000-1500 CE) was distant from the Mississippian heartland but built similar platform mound complexes and exhibited social hierarchies despite practicing an estuarine lifestyle that likely did not rely on extensive agriculture. To determine whether this coastal culture exhibited similar spatial patterns of platform mound centers to traditional inland cultures, GIS spatial analyses including distance matrices, density analyses, and least cost analyses (LCA) were performed within the Safety Harbor geographical nexus of Tampa Bay. The results were able to detect temporal changes in settlement patterns and estimate the …

Advancing The Spatial Turn In History Through Deep Mapping: Ghost Maps, Neogeography, And Frederick Jackson Turner, Jessica L. Mathai

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The permeation of the spatial turn into the humanities, and in particular history, has both imbued scholarship and opened up new areas for research. This dissertation examines the conceptual and theoretical implications of advancing the spatial turn in history and evaluating existing approaches such as Historical GIS and ghost mapping as a foundation for deep mapping. The resulting deep map developed in this study utilizes Neogeography and web technology in the form of JavaScript Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to develop a prototype that overcomes many of the limitations that occur when simultaneously integrating multiple sources of data and software functionality, …

Investigating The Spatial And Statistical Dimensions Of Mortuary Choice In The Historical-Period Old City Cemetery In Roslyn, Washington, Sarah Rain Hibdon

All Master's Theses

The historical-period Old City Cemetery in Roslyn, Washington contains individuals from diverse social backgrounds and exhibits considerable variation in mortuary expression. As such, the Old City Cemetery offers a unique opportunity to explore potential differences in social group mortuary practices spatially and statistically. Using burials in Roslyn’s Old City Cemetery, this project developed a methods framework to assess mortuary practice through demographics, burial location, and monument/plot attributes. I tested correlations between demographics and mortuary expression using spatial-statistical cluster analysis (Ripley’s K-Function), spatial density analysis (Kernel Density Estimation), and non-spatial statistical significance assessments (Factor analysis and Pearson’s R), and identified …

The Spatial Historian: Creating A Spatially Aware Historical Research System, James P. Schindling

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The intent of this study is to design a geospatial information system capable of facilitating the extraction and analysis of the fragmentary snapshots of history contained in hand-written historical documents. This customized system necessarily bypasses off-the-shelf GIS in order to support these unstructured primary historical research materials and bring long dormant spatial stories previously hidden in archives, libraries, and other documentary storage locations to life. The software platform discussed here integrates the tasks of information extraction, data management, and analysis while simultaneously giving primary emphasis to supporting the spatial and humanistic analysis and interpretation of the data contents. The premise …

The Archaeology Of The Postindustrial: Spatial Data Infrastructures For Studying The Past In The Present, Daniel Trepal

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Postindustrial urban landscapes are large-scale, complex manifestations of the past in the present in the form of industrial ruins and archaeological sites, decaying infrastructure, and adaptive reuse; ongoing processes of postindustrial redevelopment often conspire to conceal the toxic consequences of long-term industrial activity. Understanding these phenomena is an essential step in building a sustainable future; despite this, the study of the postindustrial is still new, and requires interdisciplinary connections that remain either unexplored or underexplored. Archaeologists have begun to turn their attention to the modern industrial era and beyond. This focus carries the potential to deliver new understandings of the …

Bladelet Polish: A Lithic Analysis Of Spracklen ( 33 Gr 1585 ), An Upland Hopewell Campsite, Tyler R. E. Heneghan

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis builds upon recent investigations at Spracklen (33GR1585), a small upland site in Greene County, Ohio. The presence of non-local cherts, bladelets, and bladelet cores indicates a Middle Woodland Ohio Hopewell occupation. Raw material sourcing, debitage analyses, and a use-wear analysis uncovered that Spracklen functioned as a logistical hunting campsite. Its people utilized bladelets for butchery and hide-working processes. This information provides new insights into Hopewellian life in the uplands and its place within Hopewell community organization.

The Spatial Ordering Of Nabataea: An Integrated Analysis Of The Geography, Architecture, And Morphology Of Nabataean Petra, Christopher Clifton Angel

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Nabataean city of Petra is well known for its sandstone architecture and rock-hewn funerary landscape. Over the last few decades, numerous studies examined their history, culture, art, and architecture. The few studies that assessed the urban space of Petra focused on the functional properties of individual architectural forms and their nominal placement within the overall landscape. This study focused on the spatial configurations of architecture as relational to the dynamics of Nabataean politics and ritual where shifts in social order manifested similar shifts in spatial order which in turn produced and reproduced forms of social order. The production of …

A Landscape Of Water And Waste: Heritage Legacies And Environmental Change In The Mesabi Iron Range, John Baeten

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This dissertation explores the intersection between mining technology, industrial heritage, and environmental history, using iron mining in the Mesabi Range of the Lake Superior Iron District as its core case study. What impact did technological shifts in iron mining and ore processing have on the environment of the Lake Superior basin? How did the environmental changes wrought from low-grade iron ore mining and processing, such as the expansion of open-pits and the production of tailings, affect different communities in Minnesota’s Mesabi Range? And finally, how have the environmental legacies of iron mining been remembered and memorialized, or ignored and forgotten?

Savannah's Ethnic Irish Neighborhoods In The Nineteenth Century: A Historical Multimethod Examination, Sarah A. Ryniker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to identify residency patterns and neighborhoods for Savannah-Irish immigrants in the mid-nineteenth century. Using a multimethod approach, this thesis explores historical, social, and economic factors that influenced settlement patterns and cultivated the conditions for an Irish-American identity, particularly in two neighborhoods, Old Fort and Yamacraw. Guided by Yancey et al.’s (1976) emergent ethnicity theory, this study uses archival materials, as well as chi-square tests for association, and the 1860 Federal Census of Chatham County, Georgia, to geolocate Irish immigrants. With an emphasis on County Wexford, Ireland, the results suggest residency was associated with Irish …

Late Prehistoric Lithic Economies In The Prairie Peninsula: A Comparison Of Oneota And Langford In Southern Wisconsin And Northern Illinois, Stephen Wayne Wilson

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an examination of the environmental settlement patterns and the organization of lithic technology surrounding Upper Mississippian groups in Southeastern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois. The sites investigated in this study are the Washington Irving (11K52) and Koshkonong Creek Village (47JE379) habitation sites, contemporaneous creekside Langford and Oneota sites located approximately 90 kilometers apart. A two-kilometer catchment of Washington Irving is compared to that of the Koshkonong Creek Village to clarify the nature of environmental variation in Langford and Oneota settlement patterns and increase our understanding of Upper Mississippian horticulturalist lifeways. Lithic tool and mass debitage analyses use an …

Spatial Organization Of Lithic Technology At The Mather-Klauer Lodge Site: A Terminal Woodland Occupation On Grand Island, Michigan, Andrew L. Mallo

Theses and Dissertations

The Mather-Klauer Lodge site is a Terminal Woodland (c.a. AD 600- AD 1600) occupation of the west side of Grand Island, Michigan, where Echo Creek empties into Lake Superior. Excavations by Illinois State University field schools and the Commonwealth Cultural Resources Group identified a buried, compact, greasy living surface containing four hearth features, a storage pit, and over 20,000 pieces of lithic debitage. Analysis of the lithic assemblage shows that the organization of lithic technology at the Mather-Klauer Lodge site utilized the bipolar reduction technique to reduce locally available quartz cobbles with the goal of producing flakes of various shapes …

Transportation And Sanitation Drivers Of Land Use/Land Cover Change: Loss Of The Jamaica Bay Wetlands, Margaret Joy Cytryn

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents an analysis (1830-2014) of the historical events of land use/land cover change in the Jamaica Bay estuary, identification of the agents of change, and a perspective on the potential drivers of transportation and sanitation in land use/land cover change.

Change And Continuity: Euro-American And Native American Settlement Patterns In The St. Joseph River Valley, Allison M. Kohley

Masters Theses

In recent years there has been a particular interest in the fur trade and colonialism through identification and investigation of Fort St. Joseph. This fort was an 18th century French trading post in the St. Joseph River valley located in southwestern Michigan and northwestern Indiana. This study expands our current understanding of the change and continuity of the Euro- American and Native American settlement patterns in the valley during the periods immediately prior to, during, and after the abandonment of Fort St. Joseph through the use of geographic information systems (GIS) and statistical analyses.

Archaeological Site Distribution In The Apalachicola/Lower Chattahoochee River Valley Of Northwest Florida, Southwest Georgia, And Southeast Alabama, Adam M. Schieffer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research examines and compares the distributions of archaeological sites and materials in order to investigate native settlement patterns and resources use throughout 12,000 years of prehistory and protohistoric time within the Apalachicola/Lower Chattahoochee River valley of northwest Florida, southwest Georgia, and southeast Alabama. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are used to map the distributions of sites from different time periods and to explore their relation to various environmental characteristics that are now available in digital format. I employ tools now available in GIS to examine several longstanding research questions and expand upon archaeological interpretations within this region, where the University …

Prehispanic Water Management At Takalik Abaj, Guatemala, Alicia E. Alfaro

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Land and water use at archaeological sites is a growing field of study within Mesoamerican archaeology. In Mesoamerica, similar to elsewhere in the world, landscapes were settled based partially upon the characteristics of the environment and the types of food and water resources available. Across Mesoamerica, landscape concepts were also important to religious beliefs and ritual activity in a manner that may have had the potential to influence the power dynamics of a site. This thesis focuses on the management of water at the site of Takalik Abaj in Guatemala during the Middle to Late Preclassic periods (c. 1000 B.C. …

Agriculture, Influence, And Instability Under The Ancien Régime: 1708-1768, Adam J. Polk

Masters Theses

The French Revolution has been studied from myriad perspectives. The majority of scholarship focuses on the political and urban chaos of the times. Agricultural conditions and the influence of onerous taxation and stagnant agricultural options are given only a cursory examination in most research. This thesis aims to investigate the relationship between agronomic and environmental conditions and the eruption of violence in urban centers during the French Revolution and the years leading up to it (1708-1768). This period prior to the French Revolution serves as a template to investigate the nature of the rural-agricultural influences, with a particular focus paid …

The Effect Of Mortgage Liberalization On Housing Patterns In Tampa Bay, Jason Richardson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study seeks to determine whether the process of mortgage finance liberalization, manifested in concurrent activities of securitization, deregulation, and neo-liberal policy, have resulted in changes to the tenure of residents in neighborhoods in Tampa Bay. It makes use of existing literature on gentrification and mortgage finance and compares those findings with three sample neighborhoods in and around the city of Tampa. To do so the thesis employs data collected from lenders pursuant to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, court records of sales and mortgages filed with the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Hillsborough County, and interviews with stakeholders …

Analysis Of Abundance And Biodiversity Of Mosquitoes And Their Epidemiological Implications In Three Urban Neighborhoods In The Southeastern United States, Erick Xavier Caamano

All ETDs from UAB

Birmingham, Alabama has experienced several mosquito-borne epidemics, including Saint Louis encephalitis (SLE) and West Nile virus (WNV). Despite the outbreak of these diseases, the city lacks a mosquito surveillance program that would assist in vector control efforts. In order to assess the possible advantages of implementing a surveillance system for the city, three neighborhoods were chosen for surveys based on the fact that past epidemics have been concentrated in these areas. During the two surveillance years, 2009 had more abundance of mosquitoes and more species variability than the 2010 season. Overall, as abundance of mosquitoes increased in a particular site, …

Predictive Modeling In Western Louisiana: Prehistoric And Historic Settlement In The Kisatchie National Forest, Erik Nicholas Johanson

Masters Theses

This thesis is an effort to provide the US Forest Service with a tool to effectively and efficiently protect and manage the cultural resource heritage of the Kisatchie National Forest. The development and subsequent evaluation of modeling efforts are vital to the archaeology of the region. There are two goals of this modeling project: to evaluate the active US Forest Service Predictive Model and secondly, if warranted, which it was, to improve upon previous models in the region. To do so 23 environmental variables were analyzed, many of which are inter-related, to develop a new set of probability zones while …

Food Deserts' And 'Food Swamps' In Hillsborough County, Florida: Unequal Access To Supermarkets And Fast-Food Restaurants, Dana Beth Stein

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research has shown that the suburbanization of supermarkets has created `food deserts', defined as areas where socially disadvantaged individuals lack access to nutritious food outlets. Additionally, the growing presence of fast-food restaurants has created `food swamps', or areas where socially disadvantaged individuals encounter an overabundance of unhealthy food outlets. While previous studies have analyzed either `food deserts' or `food swamps' using conventional statistical techniques, a more comprehensive approach that includes samples of both healthy and unhealthy entities and considers the variety of available food options is necessary to improve our understanding of the local food environment and related disparities.

This …

The Clash Of Heritage And Development On The Island Of Roatã¡N, Honduras, Alejandro J. Figueroa

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The present study examines the spatial relationship between archaeological sites on the island of Roatán, Honduras and their topographical and biophysical location, as well as how these relationships are and continue to be impacted by the island's current socioeconomic context. Despite several studies and explorations conducted on the island's history, archaeology, and geography since the early twentieth century, little is known of its place and role within the larger cultural and socioeconomic spheres of interaction in this region: Mesoamerica and the Intermediate Area. Previous archaeological research has shown that hilltops on Roatán were chosen in prehispanic times for the location …

Nearer, My Farm, To Thee: A Spatial Analysis Of African American Settlement Patterns In Hillsborough County, Florida, Matthew Andrew O'Brien

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have demonstrated their utility in predictively modeling the location of archaeological sites, and providing a framework for cataloging sites eligible for heritage management status. The intent of this GIS-based study is to begin to create a geohistorically organized database of information culled from historic documents and archaeological excavation. In this case study of postbellum land tenure in Hillsborough County, Florida, a GIS-based approach is used to demonstrate the impacts of federal and state land ownership policy decisions during the Reconstruction Era and beyond. GIS data are also used to reveal information about how people use their …

The Dirt On Prehispanic Water Management At Palmarejo, Honduras, Zaida Darley

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Water is an essential resource for human life. Even in the tropical environment of the Maya Lowlands, water scarcity is a concern, because the region cycles between abundant rainfall and seasonal droughts. To understand how societies flourished during periods of water scarcity, archaeologists have studied prehispanic water management in the Maya Lowlands. Yet, water management research has tended to focus predominantly on large urban Maya populations, excluding smaller-scale societies that face the same challenges associated with water scarcity. This study investigates the neighboring non-Maya society of Late Classic (A.D.650-900) Palmarejo in northwestern Honduras to explore how water management was organized …