Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Identity, Integration, And Assimilation Recorded In Manitoba's Polish And Ukrainian Cemeteries, Lukasz Albanski, John C. Lehr

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Polish and Ukrainian rural cemeteries in southeastern Manitoba reflect the process of negotiating complex religious, geographic, and ethnic identities within Canadian society. Before 1914 the identities of Slavic immigrants from eastern Europe to western Canada were influenced more by religious affiliation than by geographic origins. This Slavic population, now assimilated into mainstream Anglophone society, retains elements of Polish and Ukrainian on grave markers as expressions of difference and acts of resistance against total homogeneity. In rural Manitoba grave markers record the process of exogamy and cultural blending, while cemetery landscapes replicate the social relationship between cultural groups from the same …

Archeological Interpretation Of The Frontier Battle At Mud Springs, Nebraska, Peter Bleed, Douglas D. Scott

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Between February 4 and 7, 1865, Cheyenne, Sioux, and Arapaho warriors engaged a force of U.S. Army soldiers at Mud Springs, Nebraska. Historical records from both sides indicate that this fight marked an early phase of the Indian Wars. Based on systematic metal detections, firearms identification, and terrain analysis, this paper adds archeological insights into the arms and tactics used by the opposing sides. Well-armed Native fighters used terrain to approach U.S. troops, who maintained a defensive posture. U.S. soldiers appear to have dug a rifle pit to see approaching attackers.

Book Review: Rights In The Balance: Free Press, Fair Trial, And Nebraska Press Association V. Stuart. By Mark R. Scherer, G. Michael Fenner

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Nebraska Press Association v. Stuart establishes the public’s right to attend criminal trials and the right of the press to attend on behalf of the the public that cannot, or chooses not, to do so. There shall be no Star Chamber in the United States. We shall know how our judges and prosecutors operate. We shall know what goes on inside the courtroom, for the doors shall be open.

Mark Scherer has succeeded in making this narrative of constitutional brainstorming, brief writing, and appellate arguing most exciting. It is a story well told. My hope is that he’s sitting at …

Book Review: The Alberta Supreme Court At 100: History & Authority Edited By Jonathan Swainger, James Muir

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

The book is a collection nine essays, five of which attempt to cover the whole or much of the last 100 years for a specific topic (constitutional, family, water, energy, and property law) through the identification of important or exemplary cases. The other four focus on either shorter time periods (a study of the makeup of the bench in its earliest years or the court’s treatment of women’s issues since the 1970s) or on only a pair of cases (over conscription during the First World War or Native hunting rights). There are large areas of law left out of this …

Book Review: The Arapaho Language By Andrew Cowell, With Alonzo Moss Sr., Neyooxet Greymorning

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

The Arapaho Language is divided into five primary analytical areas on phonology, inflectional morphology, derivational morphology, usage, complex clauses, and syntax. Under these headings an additional 21 subfields and numerous grammatical rules are also provided. One feature that makes this book particularly beneficial is its extensive use of narrative texts, historical accounts, and life experiences of several individuals as examples for discussing how grammatical rules work within the language, which also provides helpful examples of the subtleties, complexity, and flexibility used by Arapaho speakers that differ from other Algonquian languages.

Although it is clear that this book is written primarily …

Book Review: Not A Drop To Drink: America’S Water Crisis (And What You Can Do) By Ken Midkiff, Ann Bleed

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Midkiff presents his case with the clear purpose of raising our awareness and concerns. In some instances, however, he exaggerates the problem. He claims that the North Platte and South Platte Rivers at their confluence are perennially dry and that it is now possible to cross the Platte River in central Nebraska without one’s toes getting wet. Yet as I write this review streamflow in the central Platte River at Overton is about 500 cubic feet per second. He correctly observes that in many areas the Ogallala Aquifer will be dry in 30 to 100 years, but he also asserts …

Near-Surface Soil-Water Monitoring For Water Resources Management On A Wide-Area Basis In The Great Plains, K. G. Hubbard, J. You, V. Sridhar, E. Hunt, S. Korner, G. Roebke

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

In the Great Plains, soil water is one of the most critical factors related to sustainable production on cropland and rangeland, while the need for better water management grows in the face of increasing water demand during dry years. Soil water is also an important factor related to flood modeling and quantification of the boundary conditions in atmospheric models such as global circulation models. The objectives of this study were to install a wide-area automated soil-monitoring network, determine effective calibration procedures, and develop new products to illustrate the status of soil water. Soil-monitoring sensors were established at 51 sites across …

Book Review: Owls Of The United States And Canada: A Complete Guide To Their Biology And Behavior By Wayne Lynch, Paul A. Johnsgard

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Although the text is partly written as a first-person narrative, most of it is a succinct, interesting summary of comparative owl biology, rather than a series of individual species accounts, which tend to repeat already available information. In-text literature citations aren’t used, but the authors of major research findings are identified and their work referenced in a literature section with nearly 300 citations, some published as recently as 2005.

I have more than a dozen owl books on my office bookshelves, a testimony to their popularity among both biologist-authors and the reading public, but probably none is so attractive and …

Book Review: The Allen Site: A Paleoindian Camp In Southwestern Nebraska Edited By Douglas B. Bamforth, Daniel S. Amick

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Douglas Bamforth and his colleagues demonstrate in this edited volume the valuable role in modern archaeology for thoughtful reinvestigation of previously studied site locations and archaeological collections. Containing 14 chapters by 11 contributors, The Allen Site includes comprehensive paleoenvironmental research and detailed reanalysis of cultural materials recovered from renowned excavations conducted in the Medicine Creek Basin between 1947 and 1949, deposits that hold a series of human occupations ranging from 10,550 to 8,000 radiocarbon years in age. These new studies provide valuable improvements to our understanding of environmental change and early human adaptations during the Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene …

Book Review: Buffalo Inc.: American Indians And Economic Development By Sebastian Felix Braun, Ken Zontek

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Swiss-born University of North Dakota anthropologist Felix Sebastian Braun focuses on the recent development of the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation’s bison herd program by tracing the origins, implementation, and demise of Pte Hca Ka, a corporation designed to establish a sizeable bison presence on the reservation for a variety of sociocultural and economic reasons. Buffalo Inc.’s 14 chapters roughly divide into three parts, each of which includes a chapter specifically focused on Pte Hca Ka along with contextualizing commentary chapters.

Book Review: Rebuilding Native Nations: Strategies For Governance And Development Edited By Miriam Jorgensen, Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Rebuilding Native Nations is a powerful restatement and reconsideration of American Indian self-determination, a federal policy approaching five decades in age. Its essays draw upon more than a decade of tribal success stories collected and celebrated by the Harvard Project. Individual chapters focus on particular subject areas such as tribal economic development, intergovernmental relations, and tribal constitutional and tribal court development. The authors draw out commonalities about successful nation building in tribal communities, theorizing an underlying basis, and leading readers to understand how to replicate that success. The chapter on tribal courts by Judge Joseph Thomas Flies-Away, Judge Carrie Garrow, …

Book Review: Ecology And Behavior Of Chickadees And Titmice: An Integrated Approach Edited By Ken A. Otter, Charles R. Brown

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Deriving from a workshop held in 2005, this book brings together much of the work being done on chickadees and titmice in North America. Seventeen chapters by leading North American parid biologists address the neurobiology and endocrinology of spatial behavior and food caching, photoperiodism, timing of reproduction, phylogeography, hybridization, demography, dominance and fitness, vocalizations, landscape ecology, and winter social behavior. The chapters, in general well written and clearly presented, offer something to anyone interested in these topics (although most authors rarely draw parallels to taxa beyond the other parids). Those who study this group of birds or even other temperate …

Book Review: It’S A Long Way From Llano: The Journey Of A Wildlife Biologist By James G. Teer, Fred S. Guthery

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

The book has eleven chapters. Subject matter includes biography (he had a deadbeat dad), commentary, philosophy, and natural history. The biography will be fascinating to those of us who know Teer and worked under or with him. The national and international conservation issues—buck-only harvest, great cats, saiga antelope, wildlife management in Africa— will appeal to a more general audience. Teer aims the book at university students in wildlife conservation and management; his experiences and commentary certainly will be useful and informative to this audience.

Great Plains Research: A Journal Of Natural And Social Sciences Volume 19, Number 1 (Spring 2009): Table Of Contents

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Socioeconomic Impacts of Developing Wind Energy in the Great Plains (F. Larry Leistritz and Randal C. Coon) .............. 3

Archeological Interpretation of the Frontier Battle at Mud Springs, Nebraska (Peter Bleed and Douglas D. Scott) .............. 13

Natural Sciences

Causes and Impacts of Salinization in the Lower Pecos River (Christopher W. Hoagstrom) .............. 27

Near-Surface Soil-Water Monitoring for Water Resources Management on a Wide-Area Basis in the Great Plains (Hubbard, You, Sridhar, Hunt, Korner, and Roebke) .............. 45

Precipitation Event Size Controls on Long-Term Abundance of Opuntia Polyacantha (Plains Prickly-Pear) in Great Plains Grasslands (Lauenroth, Dougherty, and Singh) …

Ecology Of Small Mammals, Vegetation, And Avian Nest Survival On Private Rangelands In Nebraska, Kent A. Fricke, Silka L.F. Kempema, Larkin A. Powell

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Small mammals can be an important bioindicator of ecosystem health. They serve as both predator and prey in many ecosystems. By means of live trapping and nest monitoring, we studied the ecological relationships between small mammals, avian nest survival, and vegetation composition and structure on six private ranches in the Sandhills of Nebraska during 2004. Our study documented six species (132 captures) of small mammals, and we monitored 139 bird nests. Pastures with high small-mammal populations did not suffer higher nest mortality, indicating that small-mammal abundance does not predict avian productivity. We found several vegetation characteristics that influenced small-mammal abundance …

Causes And Impacts Of Salinization In The Lower Pecos River, Christopher W. Hoagstrom

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

River salinization is a byproduct of water resource development that results from cumulative impacts of flow-regime modifications and crop irrigation. However, historical salinization in the Lower Pecos River is often attributed to natural, high-salinity groundwater. Here, evidence from literature and U.S. Geological Survey gaging stations is reviewed to summarize historical changes associated with water development that potentially contributed to Pecos River salinization. A suite of hydrological changes, initiated in the 1880s, likely contributed to streamflow salinization: (1) reduced flood frequency and magnitude, (2) diminished streamflow, (3) increased evapotranspiration, and (4) increased prevalence of natural, high-salinity groundwater. Salinization is presently highest …

Precipitation Event Size Controls On Long-Term Abundance Of Opuntia Polyacantha (Plains Prickly-Pear) In Great Plains Grasslands, William K. Lauenroth, R. L. Dougherty, J. S. Singh

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Opuntia polyacantha Haw. (plains prickly-pear) is a common cactus in the Great Plains of North America. We used two data sets, from Montana and Colorado, to test the hypothesis that there is a range of precipitation event sizes upon which O. polyacantha specializes. Events smaller than this range (>2 to ≤6 mm) do not moisten sufficient soil to be utilized, and larger events have negative effects on the status of O. polyacantha because they favor the development of taller and denser grass canopies. Multiple regressions of either green cladode density (northern mixed prairie) or O. polyacantha frequency (shortgrass steppe) …

Socioeconomic Impacts Of Developing Wind Energy In The Great Plains, F. Larry Leistritz, Randal C. Coon

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Wind energy has been growing rapidly in the Great Plains because of the region’s favorable wind resources and because it has been stimulated by a federal production tax credit and by state renewable portfolio standards. Wind energy installations also offer economic development opportunities for rural areas. The purpose of this study was to determine the socioeconomic effects of the recent development of a wind energy center on nearby communities. Project construction occurred over a six-month period, with the workforce peaking at 269. Project operation supports 10 permanent jobs and expenditures to local businesses and households totaling $1.4 million annually. These …

Great Plains Research: A Journal Of Natural And Social Sciences Volume 19, Number 1 (Spring 2009): News And Notes

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

News and Notes

Conferences

Lecture Announcement

Call for Papers

Charles E. Bessey Award

Leslie Hewes Award

Marginal Value Of Irrigation Water Use In The South Saskatchewan River Basin, Canada, Antony Samarawickrema, Suren Kulshreshtha

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

The allocation of water is part of water management. In order to achieve maximum benefits to society, water should be allocated toward uses that have the highest value, followed, as an alternative, by the next highest level or one with equal value. Such decisions require knowledge of water value at the last unit of use. Within agriculture, irrigation is important. Irrigation water must be allocated to various crops; therefore, producers require knowledge of the marginal value of water among alternative crops. This study estimates marginal value product for irrigation water within the southern areas of the Canadian Prairie Provinces using …

Historical Changes In The Occurrence And Distribution Of Freshwater Mussels In Kansas, Robert T. Angelo, M. Steve Cringan, Eva Hays, Clint A. Goodrich, Edwin J. Miller, Mark A. Vanscoyoc, Bryan R. Simmons

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

The surface waters of eastern and central Kansas once supported an impressive variety of native freshwater mussels, but a widespread decline in species richness accompanied the urban, industrial, and agricultural development of this region. Statewide mussel surveys implemented during the past two decades have shed new light on the scope and severity of this decline. Of the 48 mussel species originally known from Kansas, six are now extirpated, one lacks reproductively viable populations (i.e., faces imminent extirpation), and 38 others have suffered evident range reductions or a widespread thinning of former populations. Soil erosion and stream siltation, other forms of …

Book Review: Forced Federalism: Contemporary Challenges To Indigenous Nationhood By Jeff Corntassel And Richard C. Witmer Ii, Ezra Rosser

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Rather than having the exclusive U.S.-tribal relationship respected, Indian nations are wrongly forced to deal with state governments that are often hostile to Indian interests. This is the provocative thesis of Forced Federalism. For the last 20 years, from 1988 to the present, tribes have been increasingly seen as emerging contenders vying for resources and playing an expanding role in state economies and politics. The gaming success of some tribes has also subjected Indians to what the authors call “rich Indian racism” that relies upon stereotyping and the categorization of tribes as interest groups rather than independent nations. Though …

Book Review: A Grammar Of Crow: Apsáalooke Aliláau By Randolph Graczyk, Rose Chesarek

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

On my desk is an old, unbound manuscript, a hand copy of a Crow grammar written by a Jesuit missionary in the late 1800s. Randolph Graczyk’s A Grammar of Crow: Apsáalooke Aliláau is the first extended grammar of my language since that time. That alone makes it an important contribution to American Indian linguistics and to the study of Crow. It is also a first-class effort. His work is based on a prize-winning dissertation at the University of Chicago, but has been revised and expanded into a general descriptive format to make it accessible to any language scholar interested in …

Book Review: The Great Sand Hills: A Prairie Oasis Text By Rebecca L. Grambo, Bram Noble

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

The Great Sand Hills region of southwestern Saskatchewan is among the largest and, unfortunately, last intact native prairie ecosystems in the Great Plains. The Great Sand Hills: A Prairie Oasis is thus a fitting title. Filled with spectacular photography alongside narrative text telling the story of the prairie’s past, present, and future, this 124-page book was a finalist for the 2007 Saskatchewan Book of the Year Award as well as in the nonfiction and scholarly writing categories.

Book Review: The State Of The Native Nations: Conditions Under U.S. Policies Of Self-Determination By The Harvard Project On American Indian Economic Development, Gavin Clarkson

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

If ever a text should be required for a foundational American Indian Studies course, The State of the Native Nations is such a book. The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development has produced a remarkably comprehensive yet eminently accessible description of Indian Country in the 21st century. This book stands in stark contrast to much of the scholarship in American Indian Studies, which seems intellectually paralyzed by a sense of victimhood. While the authors fully acknowledge the centuries of mistreatment, cultural suppression, disenfranchisement, and deleterious federal policies that left many tribes dependent on a paternalistic federal government, the main …

Book Review: The Ordinary Genius: A Life Of Arnold Platt By Ken Hoeppner, Sterling Evans

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Arnold Platt, the Canadian plant breeder, farmer, and farmers’ union president in the mid-twentieth century, was probably not a very likable person due to his abrasive and pushy personality. But Ken Hoeppner’s book about his life and works shows clearly that Platt should be recognized as one of the most important figures in the agricultural history of western Canada and perhaps the entire Great Plains region. I am sometimes skeptical of anyone taking on biography, but Hoeppner’s is a model in resurrecting someone not well known outside the world of Canadian horticulture and agricultural politics. This well-conceived, carefully researched, and …

Book Review: Crisis & Opportunity: Sustainability In American Agriculture By John E. Ikerd, Paul B. Thompson

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Although Ikerd’s philosophy is quite perceptive in its instincts, one could enumerate many internal contradictions in execution. In fact, the primary value of Crisis & Opportunity may be that it is a collection of speeches that encouraged and emboldened small farmers and advocates of alternative agriculture throughout the Midwest. As such, it documents the perceptions, values, and myths, inconsistent as they might be, that animated and motivated a group of rural Midwesterners not unjustly laboring under the self-image of an oppressed and victimized minority during a critical period in the formation of the sustainable agriculture movement.

Book Review: Breeding Major Food Staples Edited By Manjit S. Kang And P.M. Priyadarshan, Paul Scott

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

This book will be primarily of interest to plant breeders and people interested in global food security. As Virmani and Ilyas-Ahmed point out in their chapter on rice breeding, in order to meet the global demand, we will need to produce as much food in the next 50 years as we have produced in the 10,000 years since agriculture began. Plant breeding is clearly part of the solution to this problem. Breeding Major Food Staples is a guide to the improvement of the crops humanity depends on most to meet its nutritional needs. Its strength is its global perspective, which …

Book Review: Hard Road West: History And Geology Along The Gold Rush Trail By Keith Heyer Meldahl., Harmon D. Maher Jr.

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

The dust jacket of Hard Road West promises familiar pleasures to John McPhee lovers, and so I picked the book up with great anticipation. McPhee’s works have greatly heightened the interest of writers and readers in the genre of creative nonfiction, and while for me, Keith Meldahl’s work does not quite reach McPhee’s stratospheric heights, for the right audience it is definitely a very good read.

The book is organized from east to west, forward in time, following in detail the wagon trail journey to the California gold fields. That human migration, driven by the search for geologic riches, provides …

Book Review: Dirt: The Erosion Of Civilizations By David R. Montgomery, Mark S. Kuzila

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

The book provides an understanding of the role that soil management has played in the success or failure of civilizations. It documents the fact that soil erosion in the 1930s in the Great Plains was part of a succession of soil erosions resulting from poor management that began thousands of years before. Unfortunately, lessons learned from the Great Plains in the 1930s have not been heeded, and major outbreaks of soil erosion have occurred since that time. The book provides an insight into the reasons why we should continue to strive for sustainable use of our soil resources. It is …