Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Review Of Archaeology And Geographical Information Systems: A European Perspective, Luann Wandsnider

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Although but six years old, our library copy of Interpreting Space: GIS and Archaeology (1990; edited by Allen, Stanton, and Zubrow) is tattered and in need of rebinding. Such has been the interest in this volume and its subject, the adaptation of Geographic Information System (GIs) technology to archaeological needs. Archaeology and Geographical information Systems complements Interpreting Space in several ways. Where the latter features mostly North American authors, European authors are the main contributors to the former. An4 in an effort to educate readers, the first offers brief reviews of hardware, software, and GIS concepts; such items are mentioned …

Regional Zooarchaeology And Global Change: Problems And Potentials, Thomas Amorosi, James Woollett, Sophia Perdikaris, Thomas Mcgovern

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

Zooarchaeology is a potentially critical tool for the reconstruction of past regional landscapes. The subfield is increasingly being asked to contribute to long-term studies of human interaction with the environment associated with national and international investigations of past and future global change. Intersite comparison of animal bone collections (archaeofaunas) is central to such regional approaches. However, zooarchaeologists have identified many factors of deposition, attrition, recovery, and analysis that might appear to make such comparisons problematic. Using selected examples drawn from the North Atlantic and Eastern Arctic, this paper suggests that, while intersite comparison is not a trivial problem, it may …

Phosphorous Concentrations At The Arner Site, Jenifer W. Putnam

Nebraska Anthropologist

Phosphate analysis of soil samples from the Arner site located in the Oglala National Grassland provides information on ancient activity patterns. This technique yields data that provide a direction for investigation during the next field season.

Using Statistics To Analyze The Ancient Egyptian Scarab, Sarah C. Guthmann

Nebraska Anthropologist

The University of Nebraska State Museum (UNSM) houses a significant collection of nearly 100 ancient Egyptian scarabs. The collection is a wonderfully diverse group, providing examples of different usage and stylistic conventions, as well as spanning several periods of ancient Egyptian history (from the First Intermediate Period to the late New Kingdom). The scarabs vary in size, type of inscription they bear. and materials from which they were produced. This study statistically demonstrates that assignments of specific dimensions of scarab size and particular inscription types were not random occurrences. nor was the employment of certain materials and particular inscription types …

Costs And Benefits Of Monogamy And Polygyny For Yanomamö Women, Raymond B. Hames

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

In this paper I analyze some of the economic costs and benefits of monogamy and polygyny for Yanomamö women. The evolutionary ecological model of resource defense polygyny predicts that when female choice is operative females will choose those males who control resources that will maximize a female’s reproductive success. A female will choose a polygynous strategy (i.e., become a co-wife) if a currently married male has more resources to offer than other unmarried males or monogamous males. This model has been successfully used to predict polygynous mating in tribal societies where males are stratified in terms of their ownership or …

Describing And Comparing Archaeological Spatial Structures, Luann Wandsnider

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Quantitative archaeological spatial analysis today is radically different from that introduced more than 20 years ago. Today spatial analysis is couched in more general formational terms that include earlier functional pursuits. Today spatial analysts (1) focus on individual formationally sensitive artifact or element attributes, rather than on types; (2) use distributional rather than partitive methods and techniques; (3) consider a suite of such attributes to construct the formational history of archaeological deposits; and, least commonly, (4) undertake comparative spatial analysis. An elaboration of the latter tactic is proposed here, that of characterizing spatial structure in terms of structural elements (or …

Ams Dating Of Plain Weave Sandals From The Central Colorado Plateau., Phil R. Geib

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

AMS radiocarbon dates on plain-weave sandals from caves of the central Colorado Plateau are reported. The sandals range in age from about 6900 to 3200 B.P. (ca. 5700-1450 cal. B.C.). The findings strengthen a case for both population and cultural continuity during the Archaic period, and support a related argument that middle Archaic break in the occupancy of several important shelters such as Cowboy Cave resulted from settlement pattern change and not regional abandonment. The dates demonstrate that living accumulations within some shelters of lower Glen Canyon resulted from Archaic foragers and not Puebloan farmers as previously claimed. Benchmark Cave, …

Women, Polygyny And Power, Michelle J. Lundeen

Nebraska Anthropologist

This paper focuses on the power possessed by polygynous women within the domestic sphere. comparing women in wealth increasing polygynous societies (represented by the Swazi of Africa and the Mormons of North America) with women in sororal polygynous societies (represented by the Mardudjara of Australia and the Achuar of South America) in an effort to determine which of these patterns is related to greater domestic power for women.

Intellectual Property Rights: A Focus On Photography Of Native Americans, Jennifer Wiggins

Nebraska Anthropologist

In 1990, many believed that Native Americans were aided in their fight for equality and justice with the passing of the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). This act did not, however, include items of intellectual property such as photographs. It is now vitally important, as we enter the technological age, that Native Americans regain control of their images, beliefs, and religion that are captured on film. However, it is not feasible that all photographs depicting Native Americans can be returned. Those to which they do have a viable reclaimance are the photographs that show private religious …

Cattle, Co-Wives, Children, And Calabashes: Material Context For Symbol Use Among The Il Chamus Of West-Central Kenya, Alan J. Osborn

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

This paper examines systemic contexts for symbol use among the Maa-speaking Il Chamus in the Lake Baringo region of west-central Kenya. The systemic context for symbols and material culture consists of the environmental constraints and behavioral responses that characterize pastoralist life in East Africa. The author's interest in this problem developed in response to Ian Hodder’s work among the Il Chamus, Pokot, and Tugen in the Baringo District. Unlike Hodder, however, the author argues that symbols and their use in East Africa can be more productively explained from a materialist perspective. Specifically, it is proposed that symbols affixed to certain …

Humankind's Greatest Gift: On The Innateness Of Language, Tina Brown

Nebraska Anthropologist

Although the environment has an effect on the quality of language development, the fact that language is limited to the human species, that neurological structures of the brain specialize in language functions, and that universal characteristics of language and language development occur independently of environmental factors suggests that human language has a definite biological component.

Busy Corporations: The Effects Of Corporations On The Environment And The Public, Markus Craig

Nebraska Anthropologist

This paper is the result of one semester's research into the external costs of corporate structure, detailing some of the corporate business practices, their inherent implications, and effects on the environment and on people. This paper helps unravel the adversarial relationship between modem corporations and the environmental and labor movements in the US, concentrating on a survey of the literature of the last two decades and isolates some major themes fundamental to an understanding of this important debate.

Length Of Widowhood: According To The Grave, Charles Geisel

Nebraska Anthropologist

Widows have outlived their husbands in every society for thousands of years, but medical advances have almost doubled people's life-spans in the last century. This growing longevity could affect the spouse survivorship. as average life expectancy for females increases more quickly than for males. Lengths of survivorship for the last 150 years and tendencies of age groups for husbands and wives show that widows are adapting to this life-span. Demographic research at Wyuka Cemetery in Lincoln. Nebraska. provided data for a statistical test of changes in survivorship.

Dorothy M. Mcewen: An Appreciation, Peter Bleed

Nebraska Anthropologist

Over the past 18 years, the University of Nebraska-Uncoln Department of Anthropology has seen many changes. We have moved, changed leadership, become computerized, added and lost faculty, and recruited, registered and graduated hundreds of students. Through all of those changes, the department has been blessed with a very steady hand at the helm of our office. Dorothy McEwen has been a dependable rock in a sea of change.

Dorothy came to the department as a temporary worker in the "Division of Archeological Research." In 1978 Dale Henning needed some help producing reports and brought Dorothy in to crank out pages …

Reservoirs And Reservations, Karen M. Griffin

Nebraska Anthropologist

In the late 1930s and 1940s. the Army Corps of Engineers was heavily involved in the development plans for a number of large dams located throughout the country. Many of these dams, and the reservoirs they created, have either been situated on Native American reservations or have had direct impact on reservations. This paper proposes that while the original intent of these dams was to benefit a number of people, there may have been those who saw dams as a convenient tool in the fight to terminate and assimilate the Native American population. Evidence regarding two of these projects, the …

National Language Policy In The United States: A Holistic Perspective, Cody L. Knutson

Nebraska Anthropologist

English is not the official national language of the United States of America. However, this issue has often come to the forefront of many political debates, since language encompasses a wide array of political, economic and various other social implications. Acknowledging the right to the retention of local culture, a historical and cross-cultural study of language policy is interpreted to justify a limitation on the number of languages at the national political level if flexibility is maintained for individual states to adjust to the needs of their constituencies.

Overgrazing: Is A Solution Available?, Brian Osborn

Nebraska Anthropologist

Overgrazing is a growing problem which results in land degradation and a loss of habitat for local wildlife. This paper reviews overgrazing and reviews the degradation it causes, comparing the Sahel region in Africa to the Great Plains of the United States. Both areas have an enormous problem with overgrazing, a problem unlikely to be solved by technology. The only solution lies in a change of attitude and practice by the human population.

Nebraska Anthropologist Volume 13: 1996-1997 Table Of Contents

Nebraska Anthropologist

ARTICLES

01 Intellectual Property Rights: A Focus on Photography of Native Americans (Jennifer Wiggins)

07 National Language Policy in the United States: A Holistic Perspective (Cody L. Knutson)

17 Overgrazing: Is a Solution Available? (Brian Osborn)

23 Reservoirs and Reservations (Karen Griffin)

31 Humankind's Greatest Gift: On the Innateness of Language (Tina Brawn)

37 Using Statistics to Analyze the Ancient Egyptian Scarab (Sarah C. Guthmann)

45 Busy Corporations: The Effects of Corporations on the Environment & the Public (Markus Craig)

53 Phosphorous Concentrations at the Arner Site (Jenifer W. Putnam)

57 Circular or Rectangular Ground Plans: Some Costs & Benefits …

Circular Or Rectangular Ground Plans: Some Costs And Benefits, Arwen L. Feather

Nebraska Anthropologist

Architecture, as a technological strategy, provides shelter from the environment with the minimum possible cost in construction and maintenance of dwellings. There is a significant cross-cultural relationship between ground plan shape and settlement permanence. Circular ground plans are associated with impermanent settlements and rectangular ground plans with permanent settlements. The structural strengths and weaknesses that exist in the dwellings with either circular or rectangular ground plans contrast with each other and affect selection. Architectural design, then, is determined by choices between the needs of people in a given environment and what costs adapting to that will incur.

Analytical Perspectives On A Protohistoric Cache Of Ceramic Jars From The Lower Colorado Desert, James Bayman, Richard Hevly, Boma Johnson, Karl J. Reinhard, Richard Ryan

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

A cache of hermetically sealed ceramic jars found in the Lower Colorado Desert was examined using chronometric dating, pollen and macrofossil extraction, design analysis, and water retention experimentation. The cache apparently dates to the protohistoric fifteenth through seventeenth centuries. Findings from these studies contribute to knowledge in four problem areas: (1) ceramic jar function and use-history; (2) storage technology and caching behavior; (3) ceramic dating and chronology; and (4) symbolic iconography. Biotic remains from inside the jars document their use for transporting a variety of riverine and desert plants, before they were finally filled with flowers and seeds, and placed …

Analytical Perspectives On A Protohistoric Cache Of Ceramic Jars From The Lower Colorado Desert, James M. Bayman, Richard H. Hevly, Boma Johnson, Karl J. Reinhard, Richard Ryan

Karl Reinhard Publications

A cache of hermetically sealed ceramic jars found in the Lower Colorado Desert was examined using chronometric dating, pollen and macrofossil extraction, design analysis, and water retention experimentation. The cache apparently dates to the protohistoricfifteenth through seventeenth centuries. Findings from these studies contribute to knowledge in four problem areas: (1) ceramic jar function and use-history; (2) storage technology and caching behavior; (3) ceramic dating and chronology; and (4) symbolic iconography. Biotic remains from inside the jars document their use for transporting a variety of riverine and desert plants, before they were finally filled with flowers and seeds, and placed in …