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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

A Comparison Of Shovel Testing And Surface Collection As Archaeological Site Discovery Methods: A Case Study Using Mississippian Farmsteads, Cameron Smith Howell Jan 2016

A Comparison Of Shovel Testing And Surface Collection As Archaeological Site Discovery Methods: A Case Study Using Mississippian Farmsteads, Cameron Smith Howell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Shovel testing and controlled surface collection are commethods of archaeological site investigation that are generally approved by state and federal agencies as well as the academic community for cultural resource management projects and research. While both techniques are equally utilized, little research has been conducted on how equivalent these techniques are in terms of their efficacy for finding site. This thesis seeks to find a way to compare these techniques by creating mathematical models to describe how well the methods behave when tested on known datasets generated from Mississippian period farmsteads. The predicted performance can then be compared to real …


From Turkeys To Tamales: Paleoindian To Preclassic Period Faunal Use At Maya Hak Cab Pek Rockshelter In Southern Belize, Stephanie Raye Orsini Jan 2016

From Turkeys To Tamales: Paleoindian To Preclassic Period Faunal Use At Maya Hak Cab Pek Rockshelter In Southern Belize, Stephanie Raye Orsini

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Very little is known about Paleoindian and Archaic subsistence strategies of the people of Mesoamerica prior to the development of ceramics. Rockshelters with good preservation and stratigraphic deposits can provide excellent contexts for a comparative faunal analysis though time. In February of 2014 the Bladen Paleoindian and Archaic Project (BPAP), directed by Dr. Keith Prufer, began excavations at the rockshelter Maya Hak Cab Pek (MHCP). The site has evidence for human activities from the Paleoindian period (11,500 BC to 8,000 BC) through the Preclassic Maya period (2,000 BC to AD 250). This research uses zooarchaeological analysis to investigate animal use …


Fluorine Dating Of Human Bone At The Pre-Columbian Maya Cemetery Of Caves Branch Rockshelter, Belize, Morgan Isaacs Jan 2016

Fluorine Dating Of Human Bone At The Pre-Columbian Maya Cemetery Of Caves Branch Rockshelter, Belize, Morgan Isaacs

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis tests the ion-selective electrode fluorine dating method on the remains from the Maya mortuary site Caves Branch Rockshelter (CBR) in Belize. CBR is a cemetery containing at least 400 burials from the late Preclassic to the Postclassic periods. The intensive use and reuse of the site has disturbed the burial matrices, making it difficult to seriate the burials. Fluorine dating analyzes the amount of fluorine that has accumulated in bone over time. In principle, an older burial will contain more fluorine from groundwater than a more recently buried bone; however, this principle must be tested at each site …


Linearly Stressed To Death: Consideration Of Early Childhood Stress As A Main Contributor To The Regional Variability In Classic Maya Mortuary Profiles, Nicholas Billstrand Jan 2016

Linearly Stressed To Death: Consideration Of Early Childhood Stress As A Main Contributor To The Regional Variability In Classic Maya Mortuary Profiles, Nicholas Billstrand

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Late and Terminal Classic periods were times of great social, economic, and political change in Maya civilization. Scholars have suggested that increasing levels of dietary stress during this time may have been the result of ecological instability, drought, warfare, and significant levels of population movement across the Maya lowlands. All of these processes may have affected human health and left measurable markers of stress in human skeletal material. The burial population recovered from two sites on Ambergris Caye, located near the coast of Belize, have significantly more sub-adult individuals than sites in inland Belize, such as Actuncan, suggesting the …