Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Pompeiian Mill-Bakeries: Spatial Organization And Social Interaction, Madeleine Rubin

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis examines bread production and the daily lives of those who worked in mill-bakeries during the first century CE. Bread was the staple food across the ancient Mediterranean; however, there is little textual evidence about those who produced the bread that fed the Roman Empire. The most significant body of evidence relating to the lives of mill-bakers is the archaeological remains of mill-bakeries from the city of Pompeii, preserved by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 CE. This thesis analyzes the spatial organization of bread production within these mill-bakeries and applies the methodologies of spatial syntax – a …

Stourhead In Arcadia Ego: The English Countryside And The Expanding British Empire In Eighteenth-Century, Rachel C. Sherr

Theses and Dissertations

Stourhead Gardens, an emblematic eighteenth-century landscape, reflects Britain's socio-cultural and imperial changes. Owned by the Hoare family, it melds classical influences and Enlightenment ideals. Existing research deciphers its iconography, but this thesis broadens the perspective, placing Stourhead in its era's socio-cultural context. It's a narrative rich in cultural and historical significance, shedding light on identity, art, and culture, past and present.

The First Peoples Of The Lower Rio Grande Valley Of Texas And Northern Mexico: An Interdisciplinary Approach To Defining The Paleoindian Period, Starr Elena Hein

Theses and Dissertations

The archaeological record of the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas and northern Mexico is poorly understood. There are few excavated sites at which Paleoindian cultural materials have been found, and in these cases the context is uncertain. In order to better understand the Paleoindian period, projectile points that reside in private collections are documented, and the time period they are assigned to, based on absolute dating from surrounding regions, is used to cross-date local materials. This is limited by the lack of named typology for Upper Paleolithic materials in the Americas. Clovis is well represented in the Lower Rio …

Demythologizing Homer: Investigating Religion In Minoan Crete, Elizabeth Rybarczyk

Student Research Submissions

The Minoan civilization of Bronze-Age Crete has, until recently, been obscured in mythological uncertainty. As a prehistoric civilization, the available evidence for historic analysis is sparse and ambiguous. This paper evaluates the material evidence for ritual activity to chart the religious developments of Minoan Crete. In the earliest periods of their civilization, the Minoans practiced animism, which reflected their ideals towards survival and cooperation. As their prosperity grew due to technological advancements, a social hierarchy formed. The emerging elite employed religion to justify their claim to power by appropriating religion, which culminated in a dual-monotheistic Knossian theocracy. This lasted until …

Menetekel: Ishmael's Black Whale And The Semiotics Of Doom, Todd Tyner Cronkhite

English Language and Literature ETDs

This study employs the narrator of Moby Dick, Ishmael, as a focal critic to interpret several potential examples of ominous writing on the wall, or menetekel. It concludes that the message of such writing, owing primarily to its irrevocably deictic relationship with the surface it is written on, is fundamentally apocalyptic in nature, regardless of its explicit content. The physical walls of the “kingdom” are incorporated into the grammar of the menetekel as object, so that its elemental message, “I was here,” becomes not only an admission of criminal trespass, but also a direct threat to the current order and …

Early Agricultural Lives: Bioarchaeological Inferences From Neolithic And Early Copper Age Tombs In The Central Po Valley, Italy, Christopher J. Eck Jr.

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The current project seeks to illuminate the diets of the earliest farming societies in central Northern Italy. Neolithic peoples who first began settling in the Central Po Valley sometime at the end of the seventh and beginning of the sixth millennium BCE forever changed the landscape from one of expanding sub-continental forests to one of intensive agricultural production and anthropogenic influence. A total of 109 individual burials from 24 separate infrastructure project excavations of 17 sites surrounding the modern city of Mantua, Italy were analyzed utilizing a biochemical approach and a bioarchaeological explanatory theoretical framework based within embodiment and life …

Reassessing The History Of The Poverty Point Phenomenon: A Case Study From The Jaketown Site, Mississippi, Usa, Seth Bradley Grooms

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Towards the end of the Late Archaic period (ca. 4800-3000 cal BP), between 3,600 and 3,300 years ago, Native Americans engineered a colossal earthwork complex that covers approximately 200 hectares in northeast Louisiana. Today, it is a UNESCO World Heritage site known as Poverty Point and the namesake for a material culture pattern documented to varying degrees at sites throughout the Lower Mississippi Valley (LMV). However, the nature of interactions between these sites and the type site is poorly understood. The people who constructed the Poverty Point site lived on wild food resources. They hunted, fished, and gathered food from …

The Coming Of The Anatolians: Mobility, Conflict, And Piracy In The Early Bronze Age Aegean, Natalie M. Yeagley

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the possibility that piracy was practiced in the Aegean Sea region in the Early Bronze Age (c. 3000-2000 BCE), by utilizing archaeological evidence to examine the prevalence and nature of violence in this region in this period. Piracy was most likely an aspect of the great surge in mobility, wealth, and conflict that characterized the extension of the Anatolian Trade Network (ATN) from the eastern Aegean into the central and western Aegean around 2550/2500-2100 BCE. I will trace the movement and examine the impact of tangible materials such as Anatolian architecture, metals, ceramics, and ships, and their …

Mound-Summit Practices At Cockroach Key (8hi2) Through The Lens Of Practice Theory, Chandler O. Burchfield

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cockroach Key (100-1000 CE) has one of the tallest platform mounds (Mound A) in Tampa Bay and all of prehistoric Florida; however, little is known about what the surface was used for. This research uses a forward-looking approach (following the ideas of Pauketat and Kassabaum) of interpreting mound-summit practices to avoid pre-Mississippian platform mound misconceptions of surfaces serving primarily as elite residences. Recent GPR investigations on the mound-summit revealed a circular pattern of anomalies hypothesized as a structure. These results are tested by the sampling of artifacts from a small diameter auger (18 auger samples) and elemental distributions based on …

A Comparative Study Between Khufu’S First And Second Boats In Respect Of Their Materials, Archaeological Conditions, And Conservation, Kanan Yoshimura

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a study and comparative analysis of the two large, wooden boats found next to the Giza pyramid of King Khufu, a ruler of ancient Egypt’s Fourth Dynasty, c. 2575-2550 BC. Each boat was found dismantled and buried on the south side of the king’s pyramid in pits 4-meters deep and each was covered with stone slabs. This study will investigate both boats with respect to the carpentry techniques used in their construction; their materials, such as different woods, ropes, mortar, and copper; the meaning of the inscriptions found on each boat; and the deterioration of some parts …

Un-Done: The Historiographical Dialogue Between Past And Present, Rachel Cobler Wollert

Masters Theses

Art critic for The Nation and professor of at Columbia, Arthur C. Danto led the charge with his essay “The End of Art” in 1984 to declare the end of art. Thirty-eight years later, the awareness of colonial problematics in the elite institutionalism of art history today warrants a reanalysis of art historical ontologies of progress (and their ties to colonialism), which have seemingly disbanded in the discipline’s current rhetoric. Because Danto’s historical framework to end art focuses on progress through artistic means, does it fall short or even negate itself by missing the deconstruction of colonial afterlives still present …

North Of The Grid: The Black Experience Of 17th -19th Century Rural New York City, Stephanie E. Barnes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the United States, transatlantic slavery was a racial project and template for race-making which created a country that relied on institutions that were organized and performed through social stratification. Today, the nation still operates on systemically racist institutions that have benefited whites while disadvantaging ‘others.’ The narratives presented in American history are rooted in whiteness and benefit the white community while marginalizing nonwhites. Over two hundred years of slavery history in this country has been purposely manipulated and left out. My research focuses on using an historical archaeological framework to research and share the lives of free and enslaved …

Finding The Meaning In Ceramic Patterns From A Chaco Canyon Burial, Michael Lucero

Theses

The focus of this research considers the culture of the Ancestral Puebloans from the American Southwest region. This project reflects and examines the cultural arts and practices in relation to funerary aspects of the ancient Puebloan society that flourished in Chaco Canyon, located in present-day New Mexico. While investigations of historians and archaeologists have concentrated on findings within the Great House of Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon, research focused on the structures and objects within rooms. The base of this research examines a collective set of vessels from burial room 33, excavated from the original exhibition of George H. Pepper, …

Searching For Hades In Archaic Greek Literature, Daniel Stoll

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No single volume of mythological or philological research exists for Hades. In the one moment Hades appears in archaic Greek literature, speaking for only ten lines, Hermes stands nearby. Thus, to understand and journey to Hades is to reckon with Hermes’ close presence. As I synthesize research by writers from several different disciplines, may some light be brought into the depths. May we analyze Hades’ brief appearance in archaic Greek literature, examining how what I define as the “Hermetic” emits from his breath in the one moment he physically appears and speaks.

Reclamation, Laura Day Webb

MA Projects

This exhibition will take the form of a group show of African artists who weave
cultural heritage with the contemporary, to challenge Western perceptions of African art and culture. Artists Wole Langunju (Nigeria), Prudence Chimutuwah (Zimbabwe), Lincoln Mwangi (Kenya), Moira Bushkimani (Kenya), and Angèle Etoundi Essamba (Cameroon) are confirmed to participate. In addition to the contemporary works by these artists on display, two Nigerian Gèlèdé masks have been generously loaned from the private collection of Olusanya Ojikutu, one from the early 20th century and, the other, whose dating is undetermined. In showcasing these works in tandem, the exhibition creates a …

Linear Programming Analysis And Diet Breadth Modeling At Bridge River, British Columbia, Sean Patrick Boyd

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Studies in diet breadth modeling and patch choice have been and continue to be a hot topic of interest among practitioners of human behavioral ecology and the set of data available at Bridge River can certainly add to these debates and discussions that have been dominating anthropology in the past few decades. The faunal assemblage of Housepit 54’s 17 anthropogenic floors have provided researchers with a plethora of data that clearly indicates periods of resource depletion and partial to full site abandonment. Using Linear Programming and Diet Breadth Modelling I analyze the most represented species in the record and establish …

Archaeology And Seasonality Of Stock Island (8mo2), A Glades-Tradition Village On Key West, Ryan M. Harke

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Later Glades-period cultures (ca. 500–1760 CE) of south Florida and the Florida Keys are understudied and thus poorly understood, especially those that pre-date the arrival of Spaniards to the New World. Recent archaeological models of their sociopolitical organization suggest that by the Glades I-II transition (750/800 CE), south Florida peoples were organized into what appear to be regional population centers (e.g., Pineland and Mound Key, Granada, Turner River) and smaller hinterland towns in the Everglades (e.g., Cane Patch, Bear Lake) and the Florida Keys (e.g., Stock Island, Clupper Site). Smaller towns are hypothesized to be sedentary, heterarchically-organized, simple chiefdoms from …

Into The Basque Country: The Spiritual Underpinnings Of Eduardo Chillida's Gure Aitaren Etxea, Katherine J.E. Scalia

Theses and Dissertations

In 1988, Eduardo Chillida dedicated his sculpture, Gure Aitaren Etxea, to the victims of the 1937 Spanish Civil War aerial attack on the city of Gernika. This thesis maintains that beyond memorial, the sculpture can be understood as a sacred site and examines the sources of the sculpture’s spiritual dimension, paying particular attention to the work’s underlying Basque influences. Gernika’s cultural significance, the intricacies of the Basque language, and the history of Basque Nationalist ideology are addressed. The paper concludes, however, that while Chillida found great stimulus within his own culture, the sculpture’s ability to serve as refuge, sanctuary, …

A Multispecies Perspective Into Dietary Genetic Adaptations And Ancient Migration In The Peruvian Andes, Kelsey Jorgensen

Wayne State University Dissertations

Successful adaptation to the high-elevation Andes would have required both cultural and biological adaptations by early human populations. These past adaptations continue to shape the evolutionary outcomes of both humans and non-human species today. A multispecies perspective was used to examine how humans and non-human creatures, specifically insects, were shaped by past human adaptations. This dissertation asked two primary questions: 1) Given the importance and evolutionary history of potato consumption in the Peruvian Andes, is a genetic adaptation to better digest potato starch detectable in present-day Peruvians? and 2) Using the Andean Potato Weevil (APW) phylogeny as a proxy, what …

Earth Tone Sigh Spell, Martha Glenn

Theses and Dissertations

A written accompaniment to the artist’s thesis exhibition titled Earth Tone Sigh Spell, conceived during the years 2020-21 and installed at The Anderson Gallery, Richmond from May 1–15, 2021.

The following thesis explores themes of personal memory, geo-theory, myth, symbol, and historical event. The artist uses research and stream of consciousness writing methods as a way to weave these concepts together and tie them back to her own practice with installation, sculpture, and new media.

Recipes For The Living And The Dead: Technological Investigation Of Ceramics From Prehistoric Sicily. The Case Studies Of Sant’Angelo Muxaro And Polizzello, Gianpiero Caso

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The current study aims at testing whether potters acting across Central Sicily broadly shared the same manufacturing practices between the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, or if they mediated and promoted a more diversified production. The study explores the technological features of local pottery by adopting an interdisciplinary approach to compare ancient ceramics from rock-cut burials at Sant’Angelo Muxaro, with those from the sanctuary at Polizzello through a combination of analytical techniques. The two sites were chosen as they best represent the cultural background of the Platani Valley. Sant’Angelo Muxaro seems to become the main location across inland Sicily …

Variability Among Later Stone Age Hunter-Gatherers, Mica Jones

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The hunting and gathering way of life is the most enduring and resilient in human history. However, the ways that a wild food-based subsistence system affects people’s social and economic organization are often oversimplified and variability is poorly understood. In general, there’s been a tendency, particularly among non-Anthropologists, to assume that hunter-gatherer societies are static and that historic groups represent an earlier, simpler way of life. This is particularly true in Africa, where small, highly mobile groups are common ethnographically. However, dramatic rainfall fluctuations over the last ~30,000 years significantly altered resources available to hunter-gatherers in diverse environments of northern …

“Noah Fires An Arrow!” The Rise Of Narrative Mechanics In Tabletop Role-Playing Games 1979-1989 And The Importance Of Archiving The Human Element, Cameron Jp Fontaine

Theses and Dissertations

Tabletop role-playing games (TRPG) emerged out of the war gaming and science fiction subcultures in the mid-1970s. During the latter half of the 1970s these games shifted away from their combat focused wargaming roots to forge their own identity separate from miniature wargaming. In the 1980s the industry expanded rapidly and many of the new games focused their efforts on crafting narrative rather than combat based mechanics. It was this focus on narrative mechanics and unique settings which enabled the industry to both directly and indirectly engage with the socio political and cultural movements of the 1980s in Reagan’s America. …

Fort Ancient And Woodland Pottery From The Hahn Site, Hamilton County, Ohio: A Petrographic Analysis Of Chronological Changes In Ceramic Temper, Shelby C. Lutz 20

Honor Scholar Theses

Thousands of pottery sherds have been excavated by the Cincinnati Museum Center from the Hahn Site (Ohio Archaeological Site #33HA10), located near Newtown, Ohio. These potsherds, created by Native Americans, show a variety of temper materials, including fragments of limestone, shell, grog, and rock debris from glacial outwash. To better understand changes in the pottery-making technique, transitions and advancements in temper material, and possible economic and trade indicators, ceramic petrography and geochemical analyses were used to determine temper variability. A single archaeological feature from the site was chosen as a case study, Feature 146. This feature is a depression that …

Archaeology And The Philosopher's Stance: An Advance In Ethics And Information Accessibility, Dina Rivera

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ancient Greek scholars have scaffolded ethical examination for several fields beyond philosophy, providing essential guidance for management and practicum within professions. From the Society of Antiquaries of London (1718) to the Society of American Archaeology (1934), the professional study has continued to evolve as new translations of the past and new models for predicting human behavior in the future would underpin the development of ethics in academic archaeology. Database enabled study creates opportunities for open research, expanding data pools and scientific perspectives and becomes essential for providing inclusivity, respect, and cooperation in order to build and rebuild paradigms.

A Plan For Progress, Preservation, And Presentation At The Safety Harbor Museum And Cultural Center, Amanda L. Ward

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There are numerous ways in which heritage can be managed and presented to the public, such as: physical museums, virtual museums, tours of historic homes, and archaeological parks. For this project, I participated in and observed heritage preservation management under a unique partnership of the City of Safety Harbor recreation department and the Safety Harbor Museum Board in Safety Harbor, Florida. My internship was with the Safety Harbor Museum and Cultural Center, primarily under the direction of Shannon Schafer and Christine McWilliams. My initial focus was assisting these two groups with projects specific to the needs of the museum. I …

Legal Frameworks For Protecting Cultural Heritage In Conflict Zones, Marcie M. Muscat

Dissertations and Theses

Cultural heritage has always been at risk during times of war. UNESCO first endeavored to address the issue shortly after World War II, in 1954, when it passed the first of three signature conventions to protect against the damage, destruction, and pillage of cultural property in times of armed conflict. Lacunae and other deficiencies in their frameworks, however, rendered these conventions difficult to enforce and largely ineffectual. This study offers an assessment of the strengths and limitations of the UNESCO system of cultural-heritage protection, with a particular focus on the 1954 Hague Convention. It is argued that, by superseding certain …

Martian Mother, Elizabeth Mcgrady

Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the relationship between humans and land, through the lens of the scientific and religious, bridging the physical realm with the spiritual. It acts as accompanying material to the project titled Martian Mother, supplementary information to the visual work, and an extension of the proposal, the center of the work. The proposal exists to send myself, or a like-minded individual, to Mars with artificial insemination equipment to give birth to the first Martian, becoming the first Martian Mother. This work is rooted firmly in speculative fiction, creating a nonlinear future framework for a new society and space exploration.

Social Memory, Persistent Place, And Depositional Practice At The Hand Site (44sn22) In Southeastern Virginia, Taylor Blair Triplett

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

The Hand site is a complex Native American village site located on the Nottoway River in southeastern Virginia. Intensive excavations in the 1960s identified over 600 archaeological features, including hearths, pits, structural remains, and a complex of human and canine burials, long assumed to date to the Protohistoric period. While previous researchers emphasized the site’s ties to the colonial actors, a reexamination of the collection instead suggests the site was a geographic locus for Indigenous peoples for over a thousand years. A close attention to chronology as well as space speaks to a deep history of emplacement, whereby social memory …

Philosophical Archeology In Theoretical And Artistic Practice, Ido Govrin

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The aim of this thesis is to examine philosophical archeology and the feasibility of knowledge that derives from researching it simultaneously through theoretical and artistic practice.

Philosophical archeology essentially embodies one’s relation to history and historiographic research—a research methodology at the core of which lies a “historical a priori”, that which a priori conditions the historical development of a phenomenon. However, this research conceives of philosophical archeology more broadly, as a multifaceted term that traverses the discourse of the humanities at large.

By pursuing this doctoral research, my original contribution to knowledge is twofold: (1) I historicize philosophical archeology—a …