Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Life Styles, Death Styles, And Posthumous Portraiture: Elite Female Burials In Iron Age Europe, Emily Ryan Stanton

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes the grave good assemblages in 222 burial contexts from HallstattD (c. 600-400 BCE) tumulus cemeteries in west-central Europe to test the hypothesis that certain combinations of grave goods were associated with particular categories of persons based on an intersectional marking of gender, status, age and social role. The primary data set consists of high-status graves – male, female, ungendered/pre-gendered subadults, and those of indeterminate gender – in the Heuneburg interaction sphere in southwest Germany. The results of this analysis are compared to a secondary data set of comparable burials from other west-central European locations, to determine whether …

Dulce Sueños De Tierra, Sweet Dreams Of Earth, Jordany Genao

Theses and Dissertations

Jordany's paper congregates their archival research into an art practice that examines the decolonial impulse to excavate the self and produce autonomy. Using ceramics to reference and re-animate Taino ritual objects found in museums, resulting in alternative museology, their work seeks to honor Caribbean ancestors by subverting colonial history.

Skin Echoes, Andreia Santana

Theses and Dissertations

Santana’s explores the intersection of biology and identity, incorporating living matter and performative gestures into installations to reflect on social constructs of history and gender. By observing water and its qualities of defying Western dichotomies, Skin Echoes focuses on the material interchanges across bodies and the wider material world.

Entangled Conquest: A Study Of Cultural Hybridization And Change In Norman Ireland, Sean Mcconnel

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis employs entanglement theory and new geophysical macro-analytical methods to

examine the spread of Norman culture in late medieval Ireland. The traditional theories of

Anglo-Norman conquest by mass migration, by military conquest, and by political conquest are

reviewed and compared to a more nuanced theory of Normanization, which suggests that

genetically Irish people, who spoke Irish, practiced Irish law, and pursued Irish interests were

primarily responsible for what is considered "Norman" material culture on the Island. This

dissertation presents the idea that adherence to the English king was a necessary and expedient

action on the part of Irish lords …

(Re)Constructing Homescapes: “Archaeological Remote Sensing” And Ground-Truthing Of The Walker Place Homestead At Spirit Hill Farm, Tate County, Mississippi, Gabriel Griffin

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis focuses on an early nineteenth-century homestead known as the Walker Place homestead at Spirit Hill Farm in northern Mississippi. The goal of this thesis is to conduct a ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and shovel test survey to explore how changing landscapes simultaneously (re)create and destroy senses of place or Homescapes. Homescapes have received little attention in the field of archaeology and have not been applied to Euro-American Homescapes. I apply this theoretical construct in a novel way as a venture to further develop an avenue in archaeology to be collaborative and understand the past in a way that accurately …

Waqf In Transition: Tracing Local Institutional Change During The British Mandate In Palestine, Zachary Murray

Theses and Dissertations

The British Mandate’s actions of state-building in Palestine were informed by a Zionist-Western modernist envisioned past of Palestine. This state-building ideology was embedded within much of the bureaucracy of the Mandate’s system and infringed on numerous Palestinian institutions such as Waqf. Waqf was disenfranchised in particular through the implementation of urban development programs, like town planning and archaeological regimes, which sought to support the British-Zionist recasting of Palestine.

This thesis aims to show how the British’s ideology of Palestine informed the Mandate’s internal polices and actions which infringed on the rights of waqf. This was done through two axes of …

Two Cemeteries In One: An Historic Archaeological Analysis Of The Cemeteries That Comprise Today’S Liberty Cemetery In Trevor, Wisconsin, Sydne Morgan Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an historic archaeological comparison of the two cemeteries that comprise today’s Liberty Cemetery in Kenosha County, Wisconsin: the Old Cemetery (1844-1883) and the New (1885-1924). Salem, Wisconsin’s first settlers arrived in the 1830s, and shortly thereafter some began burying their dead at a place called Liberty Corners. The burial grounds continued to grow, and within a few years, the church across the street began overseeing it. The church transferred the graveyard to a private organization in 1884, and that group mixed a new cemetery—called Liberty Cemetery—into the same grounds as the old one. This thesis compares these …

Impacts Of Politicization And Conflict On Archaeological Resources: An Analysis Of Trends In Iraq, Andrew N. Vang-Roberts

Theses and Dissertations

Archeological resources have been used by political regimes to further their own interests since the discipline was established in the late 19th century. Regime-backed 20th century dictators in Iraq, Iran and Egypt understood that whoever controls a nation’s archeological resources controls its memory and its people. However, power changes hands and archeological resources are not immune to the shifting of power, be it through external conflict such as an invasion or internal conflict such as a revolution. In situations where the ruling party is overthrown and a power vacuum forms, destructive activities such as looting and land development increase and …

Understanding Community: Microwear Analysis Of Blades At The Mound House Site, Silas Levi Chapman

Theses and Dissertations

Understanding Middle Woodland period sites has been of considerable interest for North American archaeologists since early on in the discipline. Various Middle Woodland period (50 BCE-400CE) cultures participated in shared ideas and behaviors, such as constructing mounds and earthworks and importing exotic materials to make objects for ceremony and for interring with the dead. These shared behaviors and ideas are termed by archaeologists as “Hopewell”. The Mound House site is a floodplain mound group thought to have served as a “ritual aggregation center”, a place for the dispersed Middle Woodland communities to congregate at certain times of year to reinforce …

North American Data, Joseph A. Burwell

Theses and Dissertations

North American Data fractures and reconfigures pre-existing narratives into new, unauthorized forms of storytelling. Core samples extracted from various narrative sources are reassigned new roles according to their proximity to each other. This paper functions as an introduction to the essential actors and their dramatic inclinations within fluctuating scenarios.

Nobi Ni-Tse’Tse’Ede (House On The Cold One): Northern Great Basin Archaic Hunter-Gatherer Household Archaeology, Harney County, Oregon, Emily Jane Epstein

Theses and Dissertations

Excavation results from four sites on Tse’tse’ede (The Cold One), which is also commonly known as Steens Mountain, produced archaeological evidence for a prehistoric subsistence and settlement system on the western flank of Tse’tse’ede. Material culture recovered in association with one house, domestic surfaces, and from a high elevation hunting locale provides evidence for human use of the mountain spanning the Archaic. Analysis suggests human occupation of the range intensified post Cal 3000 BP.

The archaeological results were compared against an ethnographically derived model for household and community food security, the basis of settlement and subsistence systems. The model failed …

“Sparks Fly ”: Connecting Midwestern Historic Forts Through A Comparative Study Of Gunflints, Jeffrey A. Spanbauer

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will outline the temporal changes and choices of colonial powers and individuals as expressed at historic frontier posts in the Midwest between 1683 and 1779 as expressed through their supply and usage of gunflints. Gunflints exist as persistent artifacts at historic sites, and especially so at fortifications like Fort de Chartres, Fort St. Joseph, Fort Michilimackinac and Fort Ouiatenon. These sites exist within the same chronological timeframe, from 1690-1780, and saw occupation by both the French and British, with nearby indigenous groups, and should serve as instructive means to investigate the factors involved in the supply, selection, and …

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 …

A Preliminary Museological Analysis Of The Milwaukee Public Museum's Euphrates Valley Expedition Metal Collection, Jamie Patrick Henry

Theses and Dissertations

Destruction of ancient sites along the Euphrates River in northern Syria due to the construction of the Tabqa Dam resulted in excavations conducted between 1974 and 1978 by the Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM) at the site of Tell Hadidi, Syria, by Rudolph Dornemann. The hundreds of thousands of artifacts at the MPM have never been completely published. This preliminary analysis presents an inventory and analysis of the 941 metal artifacts as well as new archival information about the Tell Hadidi/ Euphrates Valley Expedition, whose publication has recently become critical, in order to make the material more useful for future research.

Conjoined Lucuma Fruit Vessels: Evolution & Context In Nasca Art, Carley Elder

Theses and Dissertations

The function of a ceramic vessel is often evaluated in relation to its form. Vessels with complex forms can be challenging to analyze from this perspective and require a different approach. One such example is an overlooked yet long-lived specialized vessel type in the form of conjoined lúcuma fruits found throughout the ancient Andes. The main object of this study is a Nasca version of this vessel type in the Virginia Museum of Fine Art. This study explores the relationship between form and iconography, rather than function. It examines how Nasca potters adopted the conjoined lúcuma form vessel and adapted …

Identifying The Visible: A Look At How Economic Class And Ethnicity Influence Women's Visibility Within A Household, Cori Elise Rich

Theses and Dissertations

Archaeology has allowed for underrepresented, often invisible, groups of people within history to become visible and have their stories told. Minority groups such as women, African Americans, and those occupying the lower class are just some of these underrepresented groups who have been identified through cultural remains. Despite archaeologists' best efforts in identifying these groups; there is still much work yet to be conducted. There is a lack of information from the eighteenth-century, and even less work done on the way ethnicity and class impact women's visibility within the archaeological record.

This paper utilizes seven site reports, from households of …

The Historical Ceramics Of Camp Floyd, Jennifer L. Elsken

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an historical archaeological project involving the classification and analysis of the ceramics found at Camp Floyd, a 19th century military site 40 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah. United States military troops were dispatched to the Utah Territory to establish a Pony Express Station and an Overland Stage Trail, to assert federal authority in the Territories, and to end the ongoing conflict between the federal government and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The primary research question concerned the ceramic usage patterns at Camp Floyd as compared to other military sites and non-residential …

Melchizedek, The Man And The Tradition, Ann Nicholls Madsen

Theses and Dissertations

The common elements which emerge from this study are: Melchizedek was a priest-king, ruling a small city-state and presiding over the cult. He lived among a people far advanced from the primitive. There is no consensus among scholars concerning the meaning of his name but "Sedeq (a name for God) is my King" is a possible translation. Melchizedek's city-state was named Salem and of the four plausible geographical locations postulated, the Salem-Shechem theory leaves fewer problems. Abraham and Melchizedek worshiped the same God who was known by several names, among which were 'El 'elyon, God Most High and Yahweh. All …