Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Sexual Dimorphism And The Shape Of The Proximal Tibia In A Radiographic Sample, Emily Eiseman

Theses and Dissertations

SEXUAL DIMORPHISM AND THE SHAPE OF THE PROXIMAL TIBIA IN A RADIOGRAPHIC SAMPLE

This study investigates the use of radiographs to determine sexual dimorphism in the shape of the tibia. The goal of the research was to identify a small set of markers that would allow researchers to efficiently and accurately determine a person’s sex from a radiograph of the proximal tibia.

The sample consisted of radiographs including 75 females and 46 males ranging in age from 21 to 81. Measurements were taken on 27 points around the area of the knee including the tibia, patella, and femur. The measurements …

Food For Thought: An Analysis Of The Robenhausen Botanicals At The Milwaukee Public Museum, Ann S. Eberwein

Theses and Dissertations

Museum collections excavated from archaeological sites represent an intersection of disciplines and provoke innovative approaches to the study of these material aspects of culture. Botanical collections of food remains in particular, provide an opportunity to interrogate the way in which culinary practices in the past are understood. The circum-Alpine lake dwelling complex of central Europe includes hundreds of archaeological sites dating to the Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron Age; many of these sites are known for exceptional preservation of organic material due to a waterlogged, anaerobic environment. Robenhausen, located in eastern Switzerland was one of many lake dwellings discovered in the …

Foodways And A Violent Landscape: A Comparative Study Of Oneota And Langford Human-Animal-Environmental Relationships, Rachel Mctavish

Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT:

FOODWAYS AND A VIOLENT LANDSCAPE: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ONEOTA AND LANGFORD HUMAN-ANIMAL-ENVIRONMENTAL RELATIONSHIPS

by

Rachel C. McTavish

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2019

Under the Supervision of Robert Jeske

The goal of this research is to investigate the nature of Upper Mississippian human-animal-environmental relationships (circa AD 1050-1450), to evaluate the role of resource management, the role of sustainability, and the multi-faceted nature of human-animal relationships, to understand how these choices are related to adaptations to structural violence. The research uses the Koshkonong Locality of southeastern Wisconsin and the Fox/Des Plaines Locality as case studies to compare divergent Upper Mississippian …

Less Than Human: A Study Of The Institutional Origins Of The Medical Waste Recovered At The Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery, Alexander Anthony

Theses and Dissertations

Poor Laws enacted in the early 19th-century condemned the most destitute to confinement in almshouses, poor farms, and workhouses. These laws paralleled contemporary Anatomy Acts that turned the unclaimed bodies of individuals who died at those institutions over to medical facilities for dissection, often simultaneously removing anatomization as a punishment for murder. In essence, pauperism became punishable by anatomization. Thus, dissection served the dual purpose of reinforcing social identity amongst the lower class and privileging the social identity of upper-class medical students. This study is an analysis of the material medical waste recovered from the graves of individuals interred at …

Using Historic Glo Data And Gis To Assess The Potential For Local Bison Bison Near Two Wisconsin Late Prehistoric Oneota Localities, Andrew Michael Saleh

Theses and Dissertations

Bison (Bison bison) remains are rare in the archaeological record of Wisconsin. This thesis uses a Geographic Information System (GIS) to better understand native vegetation near sites with reported bison bone to assess their ecological viability to support local bison herds. The distribution of bison bone recovered in archaeological contexts in Wisconsin can be summarized as follows: few sites report bison remains, the archaeological contexts that do report bison are clustered in a few Late Prehistoric period locations (approximately A.D. 1300-1650), and bison remains are rare in comparison to other fauna at those sites (Arzigian et al. 1989; Boszhardt 1989, …

Lithic Technological Organization At The Aztalan Site (47-Je-0001), Robert William Vander Heiden

Theses and Dissertations

Chipped stone artifacts represent just one aspect of a complex framework of behavioral adaptations to social and environmental forces, each requiring significant investments of both time and energy. This project consists of a complete lithic analysis of all chipped stone materials recovered by University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee field schools during 1984, 2011, and 2013 from the Aztalan site (47JE01), located in Southeastern Wisconsin. This assemblage includes 1,202 pieces of lithic debitage and 200 chipped stone tools. Through employing individual flake analysis of all debitage, this thesis has produced a large database of information that can provide valuable insight into the technological …

Lithic Technological Organization At The Aztalan Site (47-Je-0001), Robert William Vander Heiden

Theses and Dissertations

Chipped stone artifacts represent just one aspect of a complex framework of behavioral adaptations to social and environmental forces, each requiring significant investments of both time and energy. This project consists of a complete lithic analysis of all chipped stone materials recovered by University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee field schools during 1984, 2011, and 2013 from the Aztalan site (47JE01), located in Southeastern Wisconsin. This assemblage includes 1,202 pieces of lithic debitage and 200 chipped stone tools. Through employing individual flake analysis of all debitage, this thesis has produced a large database of information that can provide valuable insight into the technological …

Minors In The Mines: Archaeological Indicators Of Child Labor In Prehistoric Mining Contexts In Europe, Nikita K. Werner

Theses and Dissertations

Developing a theoretical and methodological framework for the study of children, childhood, and child labor in prehistory has two goals. The first is to reintegrate children into cultural narratives in light of the increased popularity of the topic among archaeologists; the second is to equip researchers with the tools to apply developing theories to prehistoric populations in which there is material and physical evidence of child labor. Using the prehistoric mining complex of Hallstatt in alpine Austria as a case study, this thesis highlights how a reevaluation of existing data can provide a more inclusive interpretation of childhood even in …

Community Identity, Culinary Traditions And Foodways In The Western Great Lakes, Jennifer R. Haas

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation project examines for evidence of substantial differences in community and community identity, as expressed through culinary traditions and foodways, of Early and Middle Woodland populations in the western Great Lakes region from circa 100 BC to AD 400. The research compares culinary traditions and foodways of Early and Middle Woodland populations in southeastern Wisconsin using multiple lines of fined grained material data derived from the Finch site (47JE0902). As an open air Early to Middle Woodland (ca 100 BC to AD 400) domestic habitation, the Finch site serves as a case study for elucidating culinary traditions and foodways …

Minors In The Mines: Archaeological Indicators Of Child Labor In Prehistoric Mining Contexts In Europe, Nikita K. Werner

Theses and Dissertations

Developing a theoretical and methodological framework for the study of children, childhood, and child labor in prehistory has two goals. The first is to reintegrate children into cultural narratives in light of the increased popularity of the topic among archaeologists; the second is to equip researchers with the tools to apply developing theories to prehistoric populations in which there is material and physical evidence of child labor. Using the prehistoric mining complex of Hallstatt in alpine Austria as a case study, this thesis highlights how a reevaluation of existing data can provide a more inclusive interpretation of childhood even in …

Less Than Human: A Study Of The Institutional Origins Of The Medical Waste Recovered At The Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery, Alexander Anthony

Theses and Dissertations

Poor Laws enacted in the early 19th-century condemned the most destitute to confinement in almshouses, poor farms, and workhouses. These laws paralleled contemporary Anatomy Acts that turned the unclaimed bodies of individuals who died at those institutions over to medical facilities for dissection, often simultaneously removing anatomization as a punishment for murder. In essence, pauperism became punishable by anatomization. Thus, dissection served the dual purpose of reinforcing social identity amongst the lower class and privileging the social identity of upper-class medical students. This study is an analysis of the material medical waste recovered from the graves of individuals interred at …

"Buried...Like A Human Being" At The Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery: A Bioarchaeological Approach To Defining Fetal And Infant Personhood Through Biological Development, Historical Discourse, And Diapering, Brianne Charles

Theses and Dissertations

The ambiguity of life is visible in the complex sets of beliefs that cultures develop around abortion, stillbirth, and neonatal death. This research grew out of ambiguities surrounding bioarchaeological methods of age estimation among fetal and infant remains and the need for additional lines of evidence to define what a prenatal or postnatal age contextually means, how these definitions were upheld or challenged, and what impact these definitions had on the mortuary treatment of these bodies.

Discernment between fetal and infant skeletal remains is important to forensic investigations and bioarchaeological questions of personhood, infant mortality, and maternal health. However, skeletal …

Using Historic Glo Data And Gis To Assess The Potential For Local Bison Bison Near Two Wisconsin Late Prehistoric Oneota Localities, Andrew Michael Saleh

Theses and Dissertations

Bison (Bison bison) remains are rare in the archaeological record of Wisconsin. This thesis uses a Geographic Information System (GIS) to better understand native vegetation near sites with reported bison bone to assess their ecological viability to support local bison herds. The distribution of bison bone recovered in archaeological contexts in Wisconsin can be summarized as follows: few sites report bison remains, the archaeological contexts that do report bison are clustered in a few Late Prehistoric period locations (approximately A.D. 1300-1650), and bison remains are rare in comparison to other fauna at those sites (Arzigian et al. 1989; Boszhardt 1989, …

Ancient Andean Tattooing Practices, Madison Auten

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the practice of tattooing in the ancient Andean world focusing on Peru. I ask the question: What can we learn about how people in the ancient Andean world used tattoos? For example, who were the people receiving tattoos, where on the body were tattoos located and what did they depict? To address this, I collected data on tattoos preserved on human remains. Mummies originating from Peru were examined and their tattoos were photographed. The mummies I examined come from collections in three museums in the United States, including: the Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM), the Field Museum (FM) …

Population Change In Times Of War: Biodistance Analysis Of Medieval And Early Modern Skeletal Populations From Adriatic Croatia, Lindsey Jo Helms Thorson

Theses and Dissertations

Research by doctoral candidate Lindsey Jo Helms Thorson, under the supervision of Dr. Patricia Richards, investigated population during the Ottoman expansion into Croatian territories to determine whether migration contributed significantly to changes in the biological make-up of the population. The study focused on phenotypic trait variation, using cranial and dental metric and nonmetric data, in two skeletal samples from the Medieval (pre-Ottoman) period and two skeletal samples from the Early Modern (Ottoman) period in the central Dalmatian region of Croatia, curated at the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts – Anthropology Center. Historical narratives suggest that as the Ottoman Empire …

Death In Anonymity: Population Dynamics And The Individual Within The Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery, 1882–1925, Brooke L. Drew

Theses and Dissertations

Prior to hospital construction in late 1991 and early 1992, and again in 2013, archaeologists were called upon to excavate 1,649 and 831 burials, respectively, from the unmarked Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery. The individuals disinterred during these field seasons represent what remains of a much larger indigent population buried by Milwaukee County between 1882 and 1925 in what has been designated as Cemetery II. Long before the expanding facilities at Wauwatosa’s Milwaukee Regional Medical Center threatened these graves, however, the very nature of pauper burial grounds caused the identities of these disenfranchised individuals to be systematically obliterated.

The research …

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 …

A Zooarchaeological Study Of Fishing Strategies Over Time At The Rio Chico Site On The Central Coast Of Ecuador, Amy Milson Klemmer

Theses and Dissertations

Human response to environmental crises is an issue we face today and will continue to face in the future. Food security, in the sense of access to sufficient nutrition, is a part of that. Ocean fisheries are among the critical resources affected. The archaeological record can provide insights into ecological strategies that did – or did not - work. Archaeological evidence of human occupation on the Ecuadorian coast stretches back 11,000 years, making this region of South America well-suited to evaluating ecological resilience and sustainability; however, detailed analyses of prehistoric fish remains from coastal Ecuador are rare. This thesis concerns …

The Heart Of The Madder: An Important Prehistoric Pigment And Its Botanical And Cultural Roots, Michelle Laberge

Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, an interest in natural botanical dye sources has prompted new research into the cultivation and processing of prehistoric dye plants. Advances in chemical analyses of ancient European textiles have provided more information about dye plants such as woad (Isatis tinctoria) weld (Reseda luteola) and madder (Rubia tinctorum), which were important sources of color in early textile production. Evidence of madder dye has been reported in the archaeological record of the European Bronze and Iron Ages in textiles preserved in the Hallstatt salt mines, Scandinavian bog sites and other elite European burials but the picture of madder usage …

Identity In The Archaeological Record: Richardville, Natoequah And The Fur Trade In Northeastern Indiana., Elizabeth Spott

Theses and Dissertations

Gender, ethnicity and social class are powerful structuring components that influence the formation of personal identity and social groups, as well as constrain interpersonal interactions within social groups. The following dissertation is an examination of how gender, ethnicity and class were actively negotiated and employed by Native Americans, Métis and whites to construct personal and social identities on the frontier during the nineteenth century fur trade. This discussion of identity will focus on the example of John B. Richardville to examine how he used material culture to construct, portray and maintain multiple personal and social identities in the nineteenth century …

Stone Tools And Agricultural Communities: Economic, Microwear, And Residue Analyses Of Wisconsin Oneota Lithic Assemblages, Katherine Sterner

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is an investigation into community organization as an approach to understanding the shift from typologically complex to a simpler lithic technology after circa A.D. 500 in the Prairie Peninsula. The research compares Oneota lithic practice in western Wisconsin (A.D. 1400-1700) at the La Crosse locality to that in eastern Wisconsin (A.D. 1100-1450) at the Koshkonong locality to develop a model for communities in two different geographic and temporal contexts.

Three types of lithic analyses were conducted on nine different Wisconsin Oneota sites to achieve research goals. Assemblage analysis was conducted on all nine assemblages. The goal of this …

A Matter Of Suspension: An Experimental Approach To Hammerstone Hafting In Prehistoric Keweenaw Copper Mining, Katherine Trotter

Theses and Dissertations

For thousands of years before European contact, the vast deposits of copper in the Lake Superior Basin were exploited by the indigenous population of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and surrounding areas. The copper used and traded by the Native Americans in and around the Lake Superior Basin came from mines on Isle Royale and in the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan. In the process of mining, a number of tools were utilized, including both grooved and ungrooved hammerstones. Grooved hammerstones are most commonly found in the Keweenaw while ungrooved stones are most commonly found on Isle Royale. Caches of these …

The Canine Surrogacy Approach And Paleobotany: An Analysis Of Wisconsin Oneota Agricultural Production And Risk Management Strategies, Richard Wynn Edwards

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this research is to investigate the nature of Upper Mississippian subsistence systems (circa AD 1050-1450), to evaluate the role of agriculture, and to understand how these dietary choices are related to risk management systems and the development of cultural complexity in the Midcontinent. The research uses the Koshkonong Locality of southeastern Wisconsin as a case study and compares it to other Upper Mississippian groups throughout Wisconsin and northeastern Illinois, Middle Mississippian groups in Illinois and southeastern Wisconsin, and contemporaneous Late Woodland groups in southeastern Wisconsin.

This study uses two primary lines of evidence; macrobotanical remains and dietary …

A Public Humanity: The Application Of Isotopic Analysis To The Intersection Between Body And Law At The Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery, Shannon Kate Freire

Theses and Dissertations

The Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery is an umbrella term used to describe the four cemeteries that were used by Milwaukee County from 1878 through 1974 for the burial of the indigent, unclaimed, institutionalized, and anatomized. Three of these cemeteries remain undisturbed. The primary focus of this research is the twice-excavated Cemetery II (Wisconsin Burial Site 47BMI0076), in use between 1882 and 1925. Archaeological excavations in 1991-1992 and again in 2013 resulted in the recovery of over 2,400 individuals from this cemetery location.

In Wisconsin, legislative efforts to govern indigent burial and dissection mediated competing aspirations between medical education and …

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 …

Production And Technological Change: Ironworking In Prehistoric Ireland, Kevin Garstki

Theses and Dissertations

The introduction of iron into Ireland during the 8th century BCE had profound influences on the organization of society, from economic and political networks to the means by which power and status were negotiated. However, the organization of iron production is still relatively poorly understood. This dissertation seeks to explore how iron technology was organized during the Early Iron Age (c. 800 – 400 BCE) and Developed Iron Age (c. 400 – 1 BCE) in Ireland, and uses this context to demonstrate that the development of new technologies can be most clearly understood by investigating the archaeological remains of production …

The Saints Peter And Paul Parish And The Milwaukee County Poor Farm: A Comparative Osteological Analysis Between Two Historic Cemeteries In Wisconsin, David Michael Strange

Theses and Dissertations

The constituents of the Saints Peter and Paul Parish of Independence, Wisconsin contracted Commonwealth Heritage Group in 2015 to excavate and analyze 108 individuals located in an unmarked portion of the parish cemetery during a large church renovation project. This thesis is an osteological analysis of the excavated cemetery population, providing an estimated age, sex, and pathological profile of the individuals interred therein. In addition, a comparative analysis is conducted between subadult segments of the Ss. Peter and Paul Parish sample and the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery located in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. The parameters of the analysis include the investigation …

The Richter Site (47dr80): A Millennium Of Prehistoric Technological And Cultural Change On Washington Island, Door County, Wisconsin, Michelle M. Birnbaum

Theses and Dissertations

The Richter site (47DR80) was excavated by University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee archaeological field schools during the summers of 1968 and 1973 under the direction of Guy Gibbon and G. Richard Peske. This site was identified by excavators as a North Bay Middle Woodland culture occupation based on Ronald Mason’s typology created from his work at the Mero and Porte des Morts sites on Wisconsin’s Door Peninsula. Although various specialized analyses have focused on aspects of the Richter site material culture, no site report or overall analysis of material culture exists. This study provides the first synthetic account of the UWM excavations …

Shifting Ground: Rethinking Concepts Of Continuity And Change In Late Iron Age And Early Roman Landscapes Of Southern England, Lara Ghisleni

Theses and Dissertations

What kinds of landscapes does the segmentation of space and time by the Late Iron Age/Early Roman transition create, include, and exclude? What continues, changes, and co-exists, and how is the landscape interconnected in the context of these negotiations? This thesis re-conceptualizes continuity and change during the Late Iron Age (100 BCE–CE 43) and Early Roman period (CE 43–CE 150/200) in southern England, exploring how relationships with place and landscape generate the contexts for community formation and transformation. Despite the deconstruction of the traditional acculturation paradigm—Romanization—it has proven difficult to circumvent binary categories of identity and process that relegate continuity …

Cultural Constructions Of Nature: Animal Representation And Use In Early Iron Age Southeastern Slovenia, Adrienne C. Frie

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the place of animals in the cultural world of Early Iron Age southeastern Slovenia (800-300 BCE) by analyzing animal iconography and faunal remains in archaeological contexts. The central questions are: What types of human-animal relationships characterized Early Iron Age Slovenia, and how were these relationships intertwined with conceptions about animals in local cultural frameworks? I examine the conception of the animal world and its symbolic significance through quantitative and qualitative analyses of animal depictions on artifacts as well as faunal remains from mortuary contexts. The analysis is structured to answer a series of empirical questions that provide …