Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Pvc-Lot-015-E-011, Russell Smith

Four Valleys Archive

No abstract provided.

Food Security In Ancestral Tewa Coalescent Communities: The Zooarchaeology Of Sapa'owingeh In The Northern Rio Grande, New Mexico, Rachel Burger

Anthropology Theses and Dissertations

Food security, the measure of access to safe and sufficient food, is a critical global issue, not just because of its effects on health, but also because of the potentially negative consequences that food insecurity can have on mental and social well-being. Archaeology is uniquely situated to inform and articulate with global food security studies by focusing on past lived experiences of social and environmental conditions and events. The experiences of and responses to those conditions, in turn, inform present day policy and humanitarian efforts.

This study examines how residents of Sapa’owingeh, a Classic Period (A.D. 1350-1600) Tewa ...

Reconstructing The History Of Koch Cemetery, Clare Remy

EURēCA: Exhibition of Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement

This project examined commingled and fragmentary skeletal remains from Koch Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri, where thousands of epidemic victims were buried in mass graves. There were two primary research objectives: 1) to use archival research to construct a site history and understand patient demographics, and 2) to decommingle and estimate collection population. Archival research used Ancestry LE and Newspapers.com to collect data on the demographics of the dead and historical social dynamics of healthcare. Zooarchaeological and forensic anthropological methods, including zonation and landmark analysis, were used to estimate the minimum number of individuals (MNI) and most likely number ...

Reconstructing The History Of Koch Cemetery, Clare Remy

Select or Award-Winning Individual Scholarship

This project examined commingled and fragmentary skeletal remains from Koch Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri, where thousands of epidemic victims were buried in mass graves. There were two primary research objectives: 1) to use archival research to construct a site history and understand patient demographics, and 2) to decommingle and estimate collection population. Archival research used Ancestry LE and Newspapers.com to collect data on the demographics of the dead and historical social dynamics of healthcare. Zooarchaeological and forensic anthropological methods, including zonation and landmark analysis, were used to estimate the minimum number of individuals (MNI) and most likely number ...

Typology Of Projectile Points/Knives From Upper East Tennessee, Zoen Mclachlan

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Projectile points/ knives (PPKs) are categorized by morphology, also called typology, and associated with cultural periods. A total of 64 PPKs in collections in the Archaeology Lab at East Tennessee State University were curated as untyped and without provenience. They were allegedly collected from ground surveys in Upper East Tennessee, but without archaeological context research had not been prioritized. The importance of such research lies in the fact that few publications exist on the region of Upper East Tennessee and many reference books on lithic typology portray PPKs through illustrations of the ideal morphology of each type. The challenge herein ...

On The Paleoethnobotanical Significance Of Cherokee Farm, Hattie Alexis Ruleman

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Archaeological Analysis Of An Early Mississippian Frontier Structure In Southwestern Virginia, Sophie Husslein

Honors Theses

Ely Mound (44LE12) is a significant prehistoric frontier site located in Lee County, Virginia. Frontier sites are important in understanding processes of cultural hybridity and the formation of social hierarchies. Through an analysis of artifacts recovered from a household structure during a 2019 excavation, this research explores Ely’s function on the Mississippian cultural frontier, and discusses its relationship to the Carter Robinson site located within the county (44LE10). Finally, I conclude that the occupants of Ely Mound were a local people engaging with select Mississipian cultural practices and suggest that this site could be an example of Mississippianization.

An Analysis Of Obsidian Artifacts From The Black Mountain Redoubt (48fr6463): A Late Archaic To Late Prehistoric Shoshone Campsite In Northwestern Wyoming, Mary Margaret Hagen Erlick

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports

The Black Mountain Redoubt is a small Late Archaic through Late Prehistoric campsite in northwestern Wyoming associated with a series of communal bighorn sheep hunting traps. A diverse tools assemblage along with several house features indicates a wide range of activities specifically associated with bighorn sheep hunting. We use a 100 percent analysis of the obsidian formal tool and debitage assemblage as a test of obsidian conveyance in western Wyoming. Obsidian artifacts come from the five major regional sources but are dominated by Obsidian Cliff materials in keeping with the Yellowstone Plateau conveyance zone. In contrast, obsidian from Malad, Idaho ...

Fine Roman Dining At Affordable Pompeian Prices: A New Evaluation Of The Non-Domestic Gardens Of Pompeii, Claire Campbell

World Languages, Literatures and Cultures Undergraduate Honors Theses

Previous scholarship has designated Roman gardens into otium or negotium designations; however, this research on Roman gardens suggests that these concepts often exist in the spaces simultaneously. To address this issue, I compiled catalogs of garden spaces identified at Regio I and Regio VI of Pompeii. This methodology cuts across traditional public and private or productive and aesthetic designations, which will allow me to draw connections between the gardens found in different types of settings. This new catalog methodology of Roman gardens presented in this thesis allows for an integrative analysis of garden spaces, which reveals that these commercial gardens ...

The Genetic Links Between Archaic And Modern Humans, Maria J. Orellana Rosales

Thinking Matters Symposium

Our modern physiology is the mixture of many archaic humans that once roamed our planet. The evidence of these archaic humans is still present in our DNA. This poster reviews how our understanding of ancient human genetics has drastically changed due to advances in molecular genetics. Neanderthal and Denisovan remains have been sequenced for nuclear and mitochondrial DNA. Neanderthal and Denisovan genetic ancestry have been identified by genomic studies in modern human populations across Eurasia and Pacific Island regions. Studies have shown a gene flow of 4±1% from Neanderthals to present-day Eurasians. Whereas, Papuan and Melanesian individuals share 4 ...

Recovery Method For Mites Discovered In Mummified Human Tissue, Jessica Smith

Anthropology Department Theses and Dissertations

Much like other arthropods, mites have been discovered in a wide variety of forensic and archaeological contexts featuring mummified remains. Their accurate identification has assisted forensic scientists and archaeologists in determining environmental, depositional, and taphonomic conditions that surrounded the mummified remains after death. Consequently, their close association with cadavers has led some researchers to intermittently advocate for the inclusion of mites in archaeological site analyses and forensic case studies. However, despite their potential value, mites have been underutilized with a variety of reasons for the lack of inclusion of mites in archaeological and forensic analyses. Chief amongst these reasons is ...

Bacteria, Guano And Soot: Source Assessment Of Organic Matter Preserved In Black Laminae In Stalagmites From Caves Of The Sierra De Atapuerca (N Spain), Joeri Kaal, Virginia Martínez-Pillado, Antonio Martínez Cortizas, Jorge Sanjurjo Sánchez, Arantza Aranburu, Juan-Luis Arsuaga, Eneko Iriarte

International Journal of Speleology

Speleothems are a recognized source of paleoclimatic information, but their value as a source of signals from human activities in caves with an archaeological record has rarely been explored. Previous studies of speleothems in the Sierra de Atapuerca karst system (Burgos, northern Spain) revealed an important human fossil record, provided information about human activities in and around these caves, and the impacts on their natural environment. The present study reports the results of molecular characterization of dark-colored laminae from the stalagmites Ilargi (Galería de las Estatuas) and GS1, GS2, and GS3 (Galería del Silo), by pyrolysis-GC-MS (Py-GC-MS) and thermally assisted ...

Book Review Of The Money Museum Of The Deutsche Bundesbank By Sylvia Obst, Marshall Joseph Becker

Anthropology & Sociology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Turbo Shell Scrapers From The Society Islands: An Ethnohistorical And Microfossil Analysis Approach, Carol Oordt

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Shell is an important raw material in the Society Islands, especially for the manufacture of tools. In Polynesian archaeology, shell scrappers are a commonly recognized tool and are most often associated with vegetable peeling or scraping; however, ethnohistoric sources have described a wider range of activities for which shell scrapers were used, including in cloth manufacturing and as knives. Archaeological excavations on the islands of Mo’orea and Ra‘iātea recovered several potential Turbo shell scrapers from two Pre-Contact domestic lagoon sites. This study investigates whether these shells were used as scrapers and, if so, for what types of activities ...

The Bioarchaeology Of The Lake St. Agnes Mound (16av26) Site: Exploring Diet From Fragmentary Remains, Kenneth Tremblay

LSU Master's Theses

The Lake St. Agnes Mound (16AV26) site, located in central Louisiana, is composed of two, temporally distinct burial components; one, a Coles Creek period component, at the base of the mound (~780-880 CE), and the other, a Plaquemine subperiod component, at its apex (~1400 CE). These burials, though heavily fragmented, commingled, and representing small sample sizes, are valuable for studying the transition to agriculture in the Lower Mississippi River Valley. It is now clear that for the Coles Creek period, maize was likely only a ceremonial crop rather than a staple food source (Kidder, 1993; Listi, 2011). The reliance on ...

Health Disparities Between Women And Men In Medieval Europe: A Bioarcheological Study Of Gender Roles, Ella Uren

Conspectus Borealis

No abstract provided.

Visualizing Anishinaabe Ceramics: A Collaborative Approach To Digital Archaeology, Hillary V. Kiazyk

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis explores how collaboration can enrich and inform a digital-archaeological project and the process of braiding interests of archaeologists and Indigenous community partners. Research was conducted in partnership with the staff from the Ojibwe Cultural Foundation (OCF) on Manitoulin Island. We focused on the production of a digital model and 3D print of Anishinaabe ceramics from the Providence Bay archaeological site. The OCF wanted the material culture from Providence Bay accessible to community members as the ceramics themselves were too fragile for display or teaching without risking further damage. A 3D print of a Providence Bay vessel was produced ...

Geophysical Survey Of North Kakalin Village On Wisconsin Site Ou-0115, Kaukauna, Peter N. Peregrine

Archaeological Reports

Between September and November 2020 Lawrence University conducted a geophysical survey in the area immediately northwest of the historic Grignon Mansion. The survey was undertaken to follow up on a previous geophysical survey, conducted in 2018, that identified possible prehistoric structures in that area. A combination of high-resolution magnetic, soil resistivity, and ground penetrating radar surveys were conducted over a 40 meter by 40 meter area in anticipation of better resolving these structures. The survey identified a number of features that appear to support the results of the 2018 survey, thus strengthening the case for the presence of undisturbed prehistoric ...

Handbook For The Deceased: Re-Evaluating Literature And Folklore In Icelandic Archaeology, Brenda Nicole Prehal

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The rich medieval Icelandic literary record, comprised of mythology, sagas, poetry, law codes and post-medieval folklore, has provided invaluable source material for previous generations of scholars attempting to reconstruct a pagan Scandinavian Viking Age worldview. In modern Icelandic archaeology, however, the Icelandic literary record, apart from official documents such as censuses, has not been considered a viable source for interpretation since the early 20th century. Although the Icelandic corpus is problematic in several ways, it is a source that should be used in Icelandic archaeological interpretation, if used properly with source criticism.

This dissertation aims to advance Icelandic archaeological theory ...

Marine Resource Specialization In Viking Age Iceland: Exploitation Of Seabirds And Fish On Hegranes In Skagafjörður, Grace M. Cesario

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation focuses on the zooarchaeology of four Viking Age sites on Hegranes, located in Skagafjörður, north Iceland, in order to understand the early economy of the region and place it in a broader context with other settlement sites across the island. This research helps to understand the ways the earliest people in Iceland provided for themselves through niche construction activities that included landscape domestication, animal husbandry, bird hunting, and fishing. It also looks at the zooarchaeological indicators of household autonomy to understand the early social and political landscape in Skagafjörður. At these sites, there is evidence for ...

The Material Culture Of Temperature: Measurement, Capital And Semiotics, Scott W. Schwartz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Temperature was invented in the 17th century. While cosmologists affirm that fluctuations in heat are as old as the universe, the intensive quantified scale marking these fluctuations has a relatively short history. This dissertation analyzes why temperature developed when it did and what temperature does for and to its users. I demonstrate that the ubiquitous and quotidian epistemological artifact temperature epitomizes capitalized methods of seeing, measuring, and knowing. At its broadest, the concern of this dissertation is the material culture of knowledge production among capitalizing populations—those that believe in and practice the perpetually accelerating asymmetrical growth of wealth.

In ...

Dating The Morris House: A Study Of Heritage Value In Nova Scotia, Jonathan Fowler, Andre Robichaud, Colin P. Laroque

Northeast Historical Archaeology

In 2009, a group of concerned citizens in Halifax rallied to the banner of The Heritage Trust of Nova Scotia and the Ecology Action Centre to save an 18th century building from demolition. Their case for preserving the building hinged on its unique heritage value, it having formerly housed the office of Charles Morris,Nova Scotia’s first Chief Surveyor. Thanks to their efforts, the Morris House was temporarily relocated to a nearby vacant lot while a new apartment building gradually rose in its place. Although researchers had believed the Morris House pre-dated 1781, the year of Charles Morris’s ...

The Use Of Tobacco Pipes In Identifying And Separating Contexts On Smuttynose Island, Maine, Arthur R. Clausnitzer Jr.

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Five years of excavation on Smuttynose Island, Isles of Shoals, Maine has recovered a large number of artifacts. These artifacts are related to nearly four hundred years of European use and occupation of the island, and include over 7,000 fragments of white clay tobacco pipes. Unfortunately, the specific soil conditions of the site often made field identification of different contexts difficult during the excavation process. This paper explores the use of clay pipes in the separation and identification of different stratigraphic contexts. Questions addressed include the utility of various stem-bore dating methods, and the use of identifying the origin ...

False Starts And Score Marks: New Tools For Historic Butchery Analysis, Andrea Zoltucha Kozub

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Faunal assemblages from 19th-century urban sites generally consist of retail meat cuts acquired from butcher shops. Bones that have been butchered with regularity, precision, and occasionally, a type of knife mark introduced here as a “score mark”, indicate that the meat was butchered professionally. Additional butchering was often performed at home by housewives or female servants using cookbook direction for guidance. Their activities may be recorded on bones in the form of irregular cut, chop, and/or saw marks that reflect inexperience, poor tool selection, and even frustration. The collective marks of both professional and amateur butchers are “signatures” that ...

“Wild Neat Cattle…”: Using Domesticated Livestock To Engineer Colonial Landscapes In Seventeenth-Century Maryland, Valerie M. J. Hall

Northeast Historical Archaeology

The excavation of two 17th-century sites in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, provides an opportunity to explore the impacts of domesticated livestock on the surrounding landscape. Faunal assemblages are analyzed following Henry Miller’s (1984, 1988) foundational study of subsistence practices of early English colonists in the Tidewater region. Data sets from Sparrow’s Rest (18AN1436) and Shaw’s Folly (18AN339) are examined to determine the percentages of domestic livestock vs. wild game consumed by the families at each site as compared to the patterns identified on contemporaneous sites in Miller’s survey, as well as to elucidate potential environmental impacts ...

Digging The Repast: A Port Town Diet Through The Lens Of The Natural Landscape, Jocelyn Lee

Northeast Historical Archaeology

This article presents analysis of faunal remains from the Burch House, an 18th-century house in Port Tobacco, Maryland. The location of Port Tobacco gave the town accessibility to water and land transportation, allowing the town to become an important commercial center from the late 17th century to the 18th century. In the 18th century, the town served as the county seat in Charles County, Maryland. The faunal material discussed in this paper was recovered during the 2010 excavation of the Burch House, one of three surviving 18th century buildings. The faunal assemblage from the Burch House provides a snapshot of ...

Human Impacts On The Land: A Look At The Historic Sellman House (18an1431), Sarah A. Grady

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Unintentional anthropogenic land modification contributes to the global issue of erosion and sedimentation. Investigations of one site, Sellman’s Connection, (18AN1431) by the Smithsonian Environmental Archaeology Laboratory (SEAL), combines archaeological and geological methods to measure anthropogenic changes in a landscape in Edgewater, Maryland, USA. The methods measure the effects of daily landscape use by two successive households -- the Sellmans and Kirkpatrick-Howats -- who occupied the Sellman House over nearly 300 years.

Cultivating Historic Farms: A Study Of Late-Nineteenth Century Maryland Farms, Sarah N. Janesko

Northeast Historical Archaeology

This study examines late-19th century farmsteads in Anne Arundel County, Maryland to measure and explain changes in agriculture and the effect of farming strategies on the local landscape. Agricultural census data from 1850–1880 in the county’s First Election District are used to measure significant changes in crop production after the Civil War. From this local level analysis, one farmstead is analyzed to understand those agricultural changes at the household level. Results from exploratory statistics, two-sided independent t tests, and one-way analysis of variances demonstrate that mean production of tobacco, wheat, and corn decreased significantly in the decades after ...

Manipulating The Landscape: A Mark, Not Just On The Land, But On The Minds Of Men, Kathleen E. Clifford

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Comparative studies of landscapes and architecture provide additional insights to research already available on mid- to late-eighteenth-century plantations and the mindsets of the colonial elite that oversaw their construction. Many examples exist of plantation owners modifying landscapes rather than using natural topography, suggesting the plantation layout is a mirror of the owner’s personal worldview or, on a deeper level, a projection of future aspirations. By mapping plantation landscapes and comparing spatial layouts, it may be possible to see patterns in how planters structured themselves socially within their own class and used their plantations as a means to rise within ...

Shell Button-Making On The Delmarva Peninsula, Ca. 1930s-1990s, Siara L. Biuk

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Shell button-making in the United States began in northeastern industrial cities like New York in the late 19th century, using ocean shell imported from Australia and the south Pacific. A German immigrant brought the industry from Austria to the American Midwest after recognizing the potential of the freshwater mussel beds of the Mississippi River as a resource for shell button-making. The industry flourished for several years but suffered from labor strikes and depletion of the local mussel population. In the early 1930s entrepreneurs established shell button factories in rural portions of eastern Maryland and Delaware (Delmarva), again using imported ocean ...