Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

An Exploratory Study Of Burial Identification Using Historic Human Remains Detection Dog Alerts And Inorganic Soil Analyses, Britt Schlosshardt

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

One point at which forensic science and historical archaeology intersect, and the focus of this thesis, is using the decidedly forensic avenues of trained dogs, probing, and chemical analyses of soils, informed by archaeological survey, to locate burials. Human remains detection dogs have proven to be a nonintrusive and effective method for identifying or confirming historic unmarked burial locations. Inorganic soil analyses have been demonstrated in prior research to show variations in grave soil. For this research, the hypothesis that is explored is that a corpse will chemically alter the soil in or on which it is placed to a …

The Comet Mine: An Engendered Study Of Victorian Consumption Practices And Material Culture On A Small Mining Landscape, Ryan E. Wendel

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The Comet mine is an early 20th-century, largely undocumented mining

community that existed along the periphery of the Coloma Mining District in the Garnet Range of western Montana. During the summer of 2010, archaeological excavations occurred at multiple features at the site. Through an analysis of cultural material found in deposits at the Comet, this study interprets the way in which patterns of refuse can reveal information about consumption behavior and evolving gender roles in mining communities in Montana, during late Victorian era.