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 …

Puritan Patriarchal Construction Of American Sexual Morality And Woman's Worth: A Daughter's Response, Savannah Mather

Honors Projects

While modern conceptions of Puritanism regard it as an artifact of American history, whose woman-killing theologies are long buried and forgotten, the bible in my father’s closet and the recently leaked Supreme Court draft to overturn Roe. Vs. Wade would argue otherwise. Cotton Mather’s favorite book Ornaments for the Daughters of Zion outlined both the ideals and detriments of the Anglo-American female identity. In this text, white women were taught to absolve themselves of the “nakedness” in dress Puritan settlers associated Indigenous people with. A woman’s ability to align herself to the ideals of chastity determined her own and her …

The Role Of Native Hawaiian Spiritual Practices In Social Systems And Environmental Stewardship, Christina A. Hornbaker

Social Sciences

The purpose of this paper is to examine how Native Hawaiian spiritual practices played a role in social systems and stewardship practices. Lightfoot and colleagues (2013) suggest that more archaeological research is needed on traditional resources and environmental management practices. The authors point out that “landscape management practices… are subtle and not prone to leaving smoking guns in the archaeological record” (Lightfoot et al. 2013), which makes such sites difficult to document without ethnographic accounts. Due to this subtlety, I will mainly be pulling information from interviews or oral histories from Hawaiian descendants, early explorers and missionary accounts, ethnographers, and …

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 …

Beakers, Berkemeiers, And Roemers: Glass Drinking Vessels From The 17th-Century Dutch Settlement Of Fort Orange, New Netherland, Kristina Staats Traudt

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis examines 17th-century glass drinking vessel remains uncovered during the 1970-1971 Fort Orange excavations in Albany, New York. Fort Orange was a colonial outpost established by the Dutch West India Trading Company on behalf of the United Provinces of the Dutch Republic in 1624. The fort served as an important trading post within the colony of New Netherland. Drinking vessels are studied in order to determine any traceable patterns of preference in form, decorative elements, or use. Vessels of note include roemers, berkemeiers, goblets, and varying forms using Venetian and Façon de Venise decorative techniques. The analysis is separated …

A Comparative Analysis Of Montpelier's, Monticello's, And Mount Vernon's Collaborative Effort With Their Descendant Communities, Rachel Gregor

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Historical homes and plantation sites focus interpretation on the life and legacy of the white owners of the property and the architectural and decorative elements of the home. In order to tell the whole-truth history of these sites, there must be an active discussion regarding the lives of the enslaved population, especially since the enslaved individuals were the reason the white owner was able to be successful. While very little written historical records exist for enslaved communities in comparison to those that survive for the white plantation owner, the surviving documentation, when coupled with archaeological evidence and especially the oral …

From Serbia To Xinjiang; A Comparative Analysis Of Genocidal Regimes, Drake Mitchell Olson

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Rather than seeking to give a causal explanation of genocide and ethnic cleansing, I ask the more pointed question “are there patterns present at the societal level that signal the potentiality of genocide in a given cultural context?” Through examination of two socially and temporally distinct instances of genocide, the Bosnian genocide and the Uyghur genocide, I argue that there exist certain patterns which precede historical instances of genocide and that these antecedent phenomena contribute to the potential for genocide in those societies. I identify three broad trends that contribute to the potential of genocide: the cultivation of ethnic nationalism …

Interpreting The Socio-Symbolic Value Of Jet And Amber Artifacts As Markers Of Religious Transformation In Early Christian Britain, Rachel C. Strohl

Theses and Dissertations

During the Medieval period in Britain, changes in the lived materiality of religion aided in the reinforcement of new ideologies. Christian missionaries and foreign invaders introduced new religious structures and cultural paradigms from the Continent that included novel symbolic forms and material markers. In pre-Christian contexts, jet and amber are thought to have been used for religious purposes due to their presumed magical properties, such as burning and generating a static charge. These materials also served as lucrative exports throughout Europe and beyond before the introduction of Christianity. Textual records from the Mediterranean as well as archaeological evidence for the …

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 …

Contextualizing The 2019 “Chile Despertó” Movement: The Impact Of Historical Relational Processes On Mobilization And Repression, Tanya Leon

International Studies (MA) Theses

To expand our theoretical and empirical understanding of mobilization and repression in Latin America, this thesis asks three critical questions. Are economic indicators sufficient predictors of social movement emergence in Latin America? What other factors contribute to large-scale mobilization in Latin America? How do government’s respond to large-scale Latin American social movements? Specifically, when, and why do democratic governments choose to employ repression against social movements? Accordingly, I construct a quantitative model to test the correlation between rise in protest and worsened economic conditions. I apply it to a comprehensive dataset of political events in multiple South American countries throughout …

Cultivation Through Excavation: Performing Community And Partnership In The Historic First Baptist Church Project, Eleanor S. Renshaw

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis explores the relationships and partnerships developing around the First Baptist Church -- Nassau Street Archaeology Project in Colonial Williamsburg. Exploring the defining of "descendant community" and the contributions of tourists through the lens of Erving Goffman's stages and participant frameworks, this project looks at the past, present, and future of this project.

A Cross-Cultural Trek Of Nomadism Through Metaphoric Criticism, Gabrielle Wilkosz

All Theses

How has the worldwide phenomenon of nomadism—present day, recent past, and ancient past—been characterized through metaphor by writers, orators, and auteurs? Using metaphoric criticism, I show how the rhetoric of twenty-first-century "van-lifers" builds on a long global history of displacement that ranges from Central Asia to Malaysia to the Grand Canyon. This project’s three case studies span two decades each, comprising the Kitan people of Central Asia (1207-1227); Bukat people of Borneo in Malaysia (1930-1950), and contemporary "van-lifers" of the US (2001-21). This MA thesis parses a newfound connection between the language of nomadism and Burkean “truth”; the language of …

Resurrecting Gaelic: Modernity And Heritage Language Revival In Scotland In A Comparative Perspective, Sean Coady

Student Research Submissions

Many people from across the world have little or no connection to their heritage languages. Whether this loss is caused by conquest, colonialization, or simply lack of parent-child transmission, many believe that they are missing an integral part of their cultural identity and want to reclaim the languages of their forebearers. There is wide debate about how, why, and if this linguistic reclamation and revitalization should happen because, in the face of modernity and language evolution, the best solutions are not always clear. What constitutes successful language revitalization in the modern world, and why does it happen? Gaelic in Scotland …

Analysis Of Spindle Whorls And Fishing Weights From The Ancient Maya Trading Port Of Moho Cay, Belize, Kaitlin Samples

LSU Master's Theses

Abstract

Trading, fishing, and spinning thread were important parts of the ancient Maya world. Iconography and archaeological excavations have shown the importance of the three activities. The ancient Maya had an extensive trade network along the Belize River. The site of Moho Cay was an important trading area within this network. Excavations at Moho Cay show the importance of trade, fishing, and spinning at Moho Cay. The excavations done in 1979, led by Dr. McKillop and the team of Trent University, yielded a large sample of spindle whorls and fishing weights. Analysis of these spindle whorls and fishing weights is …

Women And Western Mission: A Case Study On The Christian Khasi And Garo Tribal Women, Rosemary Philip

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Western mission justified a mission to the Global South that was ingrained with the dominance of its culture and values. Women’s mission, as a tool of this mission, patronized themselves as the ‘care-taker’ of the ‘subjugated’ women of the Global South. This mission promulgated new ways of thinking and prescribed new gender roles and values to the Global South. In doing so, it framed the traditional roles and cultural values of the non-Western world as oppressive and replaceable. Subsequently, Women’s mission along with Western feminism and Feminist theology as a broad idea has been challenged by feminists from the Global …

Emotions In Work And War: Comparisons Of Emotional-Cultures Of New Deal Ccc Enrollees And Wwii U.S. Army Enlistees, 1933-1945, Maeve Losen

Master's Theses

Though the Great Depression and Second World War were consecutive eras and overlapped in numerous aspects, scholarship often overlooks the commonalities between these periods. To demonstrate these eras’ shared qualities, this thesis examines the relationship in emotional-cultures—the cultural norms that dictated how individuals felt and demonstrated their emotions—among Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) enrollees and U.S. Army enlistees during WWII.

The broad intent of this undertaking is to place the cultural history of the Great Depression and WWII in conversation and to show the advantage of inter- and multidisciplinary work by applying anthropological and historical theories of emotion. Though the historical …

Silver, Ships And Soil: Gift-Giving In Medieval Icelandic Sagas, Emma Eubank

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Through applying anthropological theory to gift exchange in medieval Icelandic sagas, we can uncover a wealth of information about the construction and reinforcement of gender, power, and value. This study incorporates Mauss, Sahlins, and Graeber alongside other theorists to analyze how the narrators of Egil's Saga, The Saga of Grettir the Strong, and Gisli Sursson's Saga perceived a past Iceland.

Control, Allegiance, And Shame In Male Qing Dynasty Hairstyles, Carolle Pinkerton

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis is about the politicization of hairstyles in imperial China. They indicated conformity with social norms, or rebellion against them. This was especially true under the country’s last dynasty. The Manchu conquerors imposed their own hairstyle, the queue, on their Han Chinese subjects to make their rule palpable to China’s illiterate millions. “Hair martyrs” who refused to accept this “barbarous” hairstyle were ruthlessly eliminated. The Manchus had feared assimilation into the much larger Han population. But the introduction of one uniform male hair style for both Manchus and Han blurred the lines between the two groups. In this way …

“She Too ‘Omanish’”: Young Black Women’S Sexuality And Reproductive Justice In Bluefields, Nicaragua, Ishan Elizabeth Gordon-Ugarte

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Most never-married young “Creole” (Afro-Caribbean) women in Bluefields, Nicaragua are raised in fundamentalist Protestant families and institutions that emphasize sexual abstinence before marriage. In this context, abstinence is required to maintain social standing and “respectability.” Nevertheless, women in Bluefields, the administrative center of Caribbean Nicaragua, exhibit what Creoles themselves understand to be high rates of sexuality and pregnancy among post-menarche unmarried teenaged women (USAID, 2012; Mitchell et al. 2015). Such young women’s pregnancies occur at an important developmental stage of their lives and have long been associated by social scientists with adverse social, emotional, and health situations. These scholars have …

A “Medieval” Myth For A “Modern” Empire Britain Under The Shadow Of Arthur (1461–1612), Julian Gonzalez De Leon Heiblum

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation studies the use of the Arthurian myth from the fifteenth through early seventeenth centuries, as a narrative that connected a set of political principles for the unification of Britain and its imperial expansion. Joining other competing political myths in the British archipelago, the political significance of the Arthurian myth has nevertheless been overlooked. On the one hand, the myth informed the transformations of kingship in England and Wales from the crowning of Edward IV to the early years of James’ English reign. It did so specifically within the process of institutionalizing a British crown which was intertwined with …

“A Certain Brauch:” German-Georgian Palatine And Rhenish Immigrant Houses In Columbia County, New York And Their Vernacular Architectural Roots, Andrew J. Roberge

Senior Projects Spring 2022

In this archaeological and architectural survey of 18th Century Palatine and Rhenish immigrant houses in New York's Hudson Valley, specifically in Columbia County, I track the development of three houses from their earliest vernacular forms to those touched by the Georgian influence. The Georgian worldview, stemming from European Enlightenment ideals, began permeating colonial American society in the 18th Century. It's influence first began to touch the wealthy and elite most connected with mother Europe, and then trickled into more common society. I chronicle and analyze Germantown, NY's Reformed Sanctity Church Parsonage, Germantown, NY's Simeon Rockefeller House, and Clermont, NY's "Stone …

Colonial Markets, Consumers, And Trade: A Comparative Analysis Of Historic Ceramics From The Bluefields Bay Area, Westmoreland, Jamaica, Lacy Risner

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

The ceramic assemblages from a British colonial settlement in Bluefields Bay, Jamaica, provide a unique window into the market availability, exchange routes, and consumption patterns of the eighteenth century. This study compares the historic ceramics collected from two sites in Bluefields Bay to one another and to other intra-island (Jamaica), intraregional (Lesser Antilles), and international (North America) colonial and postcolonial sites to reveal patterns of individual and global ceramic consumption and distribution in the emergent capitalist networks and markets of the colonial era. Integrating small British colonial sites into the networks of other more extensive studies focusing primarily on plantations …

“Nappy Hair, Don’T Care”: Storytelling Through Strands, Sasha D. Onyango

Senior Projects Spring 2022

There is a Kiswahili phrase that goes “intelligence/the mind is like hair, everyone has their own’. Following that logic, how Kenyan women relate to their hair is unique to the individual yet there remains collective and shared experiences. The questions that I raise throughout the paper explore: 1) how images and narratives of hair throughout Kenyan history have influenced the way women today understand how they interact with their hair, 2) the ways Kenyan women are taught about hair grooming and the journey of learning to care for their hair, and 3) Kenyan women’s understanding of their hair and how …

Accommodation And Coping In Medieval Catholic England: A Historical Dramaturgy Casebook For The Chester Mystery Cycle’S Play 14: Christ At The House Of Simon The Leper, Christ And The Moneylenders, And Judas’ Plot, Andrew J. Roberge

Senior Projects Spring 2022

In this historically focused dramaturgy casebook for the medieval Catholic Chester Mystery Cycle's Play 14, Christ at the House of Simon the Leper, Christ and the Moneylenders, and Judas’ Plot, I offer suggestions for Play 14's production as it might have appeared in the cycle's final year of performance, 1575. I contextualize and grapple with the play's antisemitisms, and also offer a brief history of antisemitism in medieval Europe. I also analyze Play 14 and the Chester Mystery Cycle for their rhetorical appeals to the medieval vernacular language, contexts, and events, as well as their anachronistic temporal and geographic …

Analysis Of Artifacts And Storage Organization: Clinton Lock 2, Hannah Curtis

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

For this project, we are hoping to address the potential problems and help refine future work between the storage in the Cummings Center and the Anthropology Department. Some of the research questions that we have are: What is in the Cummings Center from the Anthropology Department? What type of techniques is the most beneficial in storing archaeological material? How are the items stored in the Cummings Center? Is this method of storage going to protect or damage the artifact? Do we still need to keep this material, returned to its original owner, or can it be deaccessioned? We plan to …

Traversing Paradigms: An Environmental Journey To Body And Mind, Martin Ceja Mejia

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Traumatic life experiences altered the way I perceive the world. As a result, I embark on a journey to reshape my relationship to self, the built and natural world; to environment. In this thesis I ask: How do I want to relate to the environment? Considering I am a doubly colonized agent, I also aim to decolonize my relationship to environment along the process. Therefore, this work aims to formulate a new, personal, relationship to environment through academic literature, history, psychology, Indigenous knowledge and science, and literary studies, among other fields of knowledge. This work is interdisciplinary in nature; life …

The Syndemic Landscape: A New Paradigm For Montana Suicide Prevention Grounded In Agricultural Renewal, Emory Chandler Padgett

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Montana has had one of the highest suicide rates in the nation for half a century, and since 2000, it has risen almost 50%. Despite suicide’s alarming persistence in the state, there has been minimal academic study of suicide or mental health specifically in Montana, so this thesis attempts to answer a few questions: Why does Montana have such a high suicide rate? Is there something culturally, historically, or socially unique about Montana that contributes to suicide? Are current prevention efforts helpful, harmful, or lacking? Could a consideration of culture and land benefit an understanding of suicide in Montana? What …

All Roads Lead To Darrington: Building A Bluegrass Community In Western Washington, James W. Edgar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Through the mid-twentieth century, a significant pattern of migration occurred between Appalachia and the Pacific Northwest, with Washington’s thriving timber industry offering compelling economic opportunities. Many workers and families from western North Carolina settled in the small mountain town of Darrington, Washington, frequently accompanied by their banjos and guitars. As a group of young bluegrass enthusiasts from Seattle established relationships with Darrington’s “Tar Heel” musicians, a collaborative music community formed, laying the foundation for the region’s contemporary bluegrass scene.

Drawn from a series of ethnographic interviews, this project illuminates the development of a bluegrass community in western Washington, while identifying …

Above The Oxbow: The Construction Of Place On Mount Holyoke, Danielle R. Raad

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is a study of the orogenesis of Mount Holyoke, or the making of place on a mountain. It is an orogenic ethnography and a contemporary archaeological ethnography of place. Mount Holyoke is a mountain in Western Massachusetts that rises above the Connecticut River Valley. It is a prominent destination for tourists and locals alike to recreate outdoors in a state park, to observe the view of the valley below, and to visit the historic, nineteenth-century Summit House. I explore the nature and nuances of attachment to Mount Holyoke through time, by examining conceptions of place over two centuries. …

Desde El Fuego Que En Mí Arde: Performance, Literatura Y Cine Afro-Latinoamericano Producidos Por Mujeres Afrodescendientes En Perú, Cuba Y Brasil (1960–2000), Elena Ekatherina Chavez Goycochea

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines different films, literary, and performance art pieces created by contemporary afro-descendant women from Peru, Cuba, and Brazil after the sixties with emphasis on the most relevant works of Conceição Evaristo, Sara Gómez, Victoria Santa Cruz, and Lucía Charún-Illescas. I focus my research on the crucial role these artists played in the cultural identity formation of Latin America when inserting ‘race’ as a category of socio-political analysis and cultural production. How did their films, performances, and texts challenge national narratives and imaginaries after 1960? Although in the sixties, women improved their civil rights in different countries, the ‘mujer …