Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Role Of Fake And Fraudulent Objects Within The Museum Context: A Case Study Of Tiwanaku Ceramics In The Milwaukee Public Museum Collection, Armando Manresa

Theses and Dissertations

During the 20th century thousands, if not millions, of fake and fraudulent artifacts made their way into museum collections around the world through purchases, donations, and museum exchanges. The growth in Pre-Columbian collections, in particular, was precipitated by the many archaeological discoveries during that time as well as the continued looting of known and unrecorded sites across Latin America. As authentic items flooded the collectors’ market and from there into art and natural history museums, a mass-scale industry in fake and fraudulent artifacts arose to meet the demand. These items were primarily created for tourists, but some artists became so …

Compositional Analysis Of Pottery From Middle Woodland Waukesha Phase Sites In Southeastern Wisconsin And Havana Hopewell Related Sites In Northeastern And Northwestern Illinois, Megan Elizabeth Thornton

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides a compositional analysis of a selected sample of Middle Woodland ceramic sherds from sites in southeastern Wisconsin and northern Illinois. The analysis compares the ceramic pastes from Middle Woodland pottery from nine different archaeological sites. These sites include the Peterson, Finch, Alberts, and Crab Apple Point sites in Wisconsin, the Sloan, Albany Village, Blythe, DeWitte/Liphardt Habitation sites in northwestern Illinois, and the Kautz site in northeastern Illinois.

The analysis includes a review of available documentation, as well as descriptions and characterizations of sherds utilizing an attribute-based analysis of metric, morphological, and petrographic data. In southeastern Wisconsin, the …

The Koshkonong Creek Village Site (47je0379): Ceramic Production, Function, And Deposition At An Oneota Occupation In Southeastern Wisconsin, Natalie Carpiaux

Theses and Dissertations

The ceramic assemblage recovered from excavations at the Koshkonong Creek Village (KCV) site (47JE0379) is examined to determine functional and stylistic significance from a temporal and spatial perspective. Occupied from circa A.D. 1000 to 4000, KCV presents an opportunity to look at Oneota in the locality from its early to late iterations. The ceramics were analyzed by attributes and categorized in a type-variety system laid out by Schneider (2015) for comparative purposes. Using a household approach and a feature-level analysis, ceramics trends are mapped and explored using GIS. The research collected lends credence to noted trends of cultural continuity in …

To Temper Or Not To Temper: A Petrographic Textural Study Of Clays And Formative Ceramic Sherds From The Valley Of Oaxaca, Mexico, Cheri Lynn Price

Theses and Dissertations

Ceramics are one of the best forms of material culture archaeologists can use to analyze questions of social, political, economic, and ideological complexity. The purpose of this thesis research is to determine if the clays used to manufacture later Middle Formative-Terminal Formative ceramics in the Valley of Oaxaca were tempered or otherwise modified by looking at texture of sherds petrographically. Clay samples from around the valley, modern sherds, and Formative sherds were examined and compared using six different forms of analysis. The results show that it is most probable that the Formative sherds were not tempered. However, several sherds exhibited …

Consumerism And Ceramics At The Stephen Field Farmstead, Walworth County, Wisconsin, Kathleen Elizabeth Bindley

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the expression of consumer behavior and choice through ceramic archaeological remains from the Stephen Field Farmstead (47WL351) site, a nineteenth-century farmstead located in East Troy Township, Walworth County, Wisconsin, with emphasis placed on the ceramics recovered from Feature One, a stone-lined privy vault. Ceramics were collected in 2010, 2011, and 2013, during field investigations conducted by the Wisconsin Historical Society-Museum Archaeology Program. The collection is permanently housed at the East Troy Area Historical Society, but is currently on loan to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. An inventory of the ceramic vessels from Feature One at the Stephen Field …

The Cambria Connection: Identifying Ceramic Production And Community Interaction In Late Prehistoric Minnesota, Ad 1050-1300, Katy Jean Mollerud

Theses and Dissertations

The Cambria phase (AD 1050-1300) is an archaeological complex primarily centered on the elevated terraces of the Minnesota River in south-central Minnesota. Cambria phase pottery demonstrates technical and stylistic influences from several different late prehistoric cultures, and although the Cambria phase is currently classified as part of the Initial Middle Missouri Variant, certain affinities are evident between the grit-tempered, rolled rim ceramics at Cambria and the Powell-Ramey series at Cahokia. Although this pottery is a minority ware at Cambria, it is ubiquitous in the site literature, where it is interpreted as evidence for interaction with the Mississippian world. However, the …

Forgotten Sherds: Analysis Of Archaeological Ceramics From The Riverside Site (20me01), Michigan, Devyn Mcilraith

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides an analysis of the ceramic sherds recovered from the Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM) and the Oshkosh Public Museum’s (OPM) 1961-1963 excavations at the Riverside site (20ME01) in Menominee, Michigan. The Riverside site is most well known as a Late Archaic/ Early Woodland Old Copper/Red Ocher burial site. This analysis focuses on using the ceramic assemblage to refine the Riverside site’s cultural chronology and relationship to the Riverside II site (20ME40). More than 1,300 sherds were collected from the site between 1961 and 1963 and they have been permanently housed at the MPM for the past 60 years. …

Understanding Use And Function: An Intrasite Comparative Analysis Of The 2011 Uwm Aztalan Ceramic Assemblage, Jill Marie Kotwasinski

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides an analysis of a subset of the ceramics recovered during the 2011 UWM Aztalan excavations. The analysis was designed to determine if there is a difference between ceramic assemblages recovered from different site depositional contexts presumably reflective of different behaviors, such as refuse disposal, domestic activities, or ritual activity. This analysis consists of a comparison of ceramics from the 2011 UWM Collection, in addition to the three main recovery contexts of the Northeast Mound: the Northeast Mound Top, Sub Mound, and Fill at Aztalan (Zych 2013) and vessels from the 2013 UWM collection. Utilizing only the rim …

Investigating Sociopolitical Complexity Through The Presentation Of Food: An Analysis Of Middle To Late Formative Ceramics From Amalucan, Puebla, Mexico, Allyse Freeman

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the relationship between sociopolitical complexity and ceramics from the site of Amalucan, Puebla, Mexico, with an emphasis on trends during the Middle to Late Formative (800 B.C.-A.D. 200). Ceramics were collected during field investigations in the 1960s by Dr. Melvin Fowler and are currently housed at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. An inventory of the various provisional types of ceramics at Amalucan was compiled, including variability in vessel forms and stratigraphic contexts. This was paramount since it helped situate Amalucan within the larger Puebla-Tlaxcala Valley. Various analyses were conducted, including an evaluation of evidence of food presentation (feasting), …

Effigy Mounds, Social Identity, And Ceramic Technology: Decorative Style, Clay Composition, And Petrography Of Wisconsin Late Woodland Vessels, Jody Clauter

Theses and Dissertations

This ceramic analysis is focused on a combination of technical and decorative analyses involving energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) and petrographic data unused by or unavailable to previous researchers. The ceramics used in this study are non-collared forms of Late Woodland (AD 700 - 1200) types found across southern Wisconsin. Ceramic attributes from these data sets are analyzed using multi-variate statistical methods and the resulting clusters are plotted geographically. Results indicate regionalization of particular attributes with a major east-west trend noted in some cases. However, geographical plotting shows broad overlap among river valleys and locales. Importantly, EDXRF data demonstrates that …