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University of New Mexico

2015

Articles 1 - 8 of 8

Full-Text Articles in Anthropology

Mens Life History, Testosterone, And Health, Louis Alvarado Dec 2015

Mens Life History, Testosterone, And Health, Louis Alvarado

Anthropology ETDs

Testosterone is hypothesized to mediate life history trade-offs between reproduction and survival in men, promoting mating effort over other forms of investment, which entails energetic and mortality costs. Sexually dimorphic musculature represents one form of somatic investment in mating. Favorable energy availability is posited to promote preferential investment in mating effort through upregulated testosterone production and augmented musculature, whereas nutritional constraint is predicted to downregulate testosterone to facilitate a diminished, thriftier phenotype. Furthermore, life history trajectories influencing mens testosterone levels have important health implications for androgen-sensitive disease. Here, I examine broad features of men's life history and health, and their …

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Social And Ritual Dynamics At El Cholo: An Upper General Valley Funerary Village Of The Diquís Subregion, Southern Costa Rica, Roberto Herrera Jul 2015

Social And Ritual Dynamics At El Cholo: An Upper General Valley Funerary Village Of The Diquís Subregion, Southern Costa Rica, Roberto Herrera

Anthropology ETDs

This dissertation details the results obtained from investigations conducted at an Aguas Buenas (300 BC-AD 800) to early Chiriquí phase (AD 900-1550) site known as El Cholo (SJ-59ECh), a mound complex located in the Upper General Valley of southern Costa Rica. Using data from surface collection along with horizontal and stratigraphic excavations, this investigation analyzed site formation and associated behavioral processes underlying the construction of a set of interconnected mounds comprising the architectural core of El Cholo. Previous research suggested that mounded sites in the Upper General area were likely seats of emergent elites with monumental constructions occupying a central …

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Identity And Material Practice In The Chacoan World: Ornamentation And Utility Ware Pottery, Hannah Mattson Jul 2015

Identity And Material Practice In The Chacoan World: Ornamentation And Utility Ware Pottery, Hannah Mattson

Anthropology ETDs

The papers that comprise this dissertation all explore the intersection of material culture and social identity. The central theme of these studies is that social identity is actively created and maintained through the production, consumption, and discard of material objects. In the first paper, I examine the distribution of ornament styles and practices of adornment across the prehispanic Southwest in relation to traditionally defined regional and culture-historical boundaries. Jewelry items of similar forms are widely distributed across cultures/groups; however, specific practices in the use and deposition of ornaments are not random within particular sociohistorical contexts. In the second paper, I …

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Speaking In Circles: Interpretation And Visitor Experience At Chaco Culture National Historic Park, Maren Else Svare Jul 2015

Speaking In Circles: Interpretation And Visitor Experience At Chaco Culture National Historic Park, Maren Else Svare

Anthropology ETDs

This study treats Chaco Culture National Historic Park (CCNHP) as a museum space with the National Park Service (NPS) as the head curator. As a museum space and a World Heritage site, Chaco is a place of knowledge production and consumption, with interpretation structured to relay a narrative of Chaco as a thriving prehistoric civilization and to foster an environment where visitors can create idiosyncratic relationships with the space. Trail guides, Wayside Exhibits, and Park ranger interaction constitute formal interpretive resources for visitors to interact with sites in the canyon. These processes are both easily available and easily avoidable for …

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New Deal Navajo Linguistics And Language Documentation, Char Peery May 2015

New Deal Navajo Linguistics And Language Documentation, Char Peery

Anthropology ETDs

This dissertation explores how with the New Deal, the US government committed itself to the construction of a Navajo ethnonation or a democratic polity that could interface with the US federal government. For my research methodology I used archival research and examined the papers of linguist Robert Young, a linguist and BIA employee who throughout his decades of work with the Navajo Tribe compiled some of the most extensive documentary material on the Navajo language, as well as his published works. I examined documents including correspondence between linguists Robert W Young and J.P. Harrington, dictionaries and other linguistic materials for …

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Cultural Interaction And Biological Distance Among Postclassic Mexican Populations, Corey Steven Ragsdale May 2015

Cultural Interaction And Biological Distance Among Postclassic Mexican Populations, Corey Steven Ragsdale

Anthropology ETDs

Human population structure is influenced by cultural and biological interactions. Little is known regarding to what extent cultural interactions effect biological processes such as migration and genetic exchange among prehistoric populations. In this study, I draw upon archaeological and ethnohistoric research to investigate the interaction of biology and culture among Postclassic period (AD 900-1519) Mexican populations. The central question for this project is: how did processes of economic exchange and political expansion affect genetic exchange among Postclassic period Mexican populations? To address this question, various biological distance analyses derived from dental morphological traits were employed to investigate inter- and intra-regional …

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From Rural Street Theater To Big City Extravaganza: The Meaning Of The Manaus Boi-Bumbá In An Urbanizing Brazil., Margaret Kathleen Watson May 2015

From Rural Street Theater To Big City Extravaganza: The Meaning Of The Manaus Boi-Bumbá In An Urbanizing Brazil., Margaret Kathleen Watson

Anthropology ETDs

This is an ethnographic study of the boi-bumbá festival of Manaus, capital of the Brazilian state of Amazonas. I examine this traditional Brazilian folkloric performance as it is being reworked to express a modern, global identity for urban Amazonians. Long seen as a key site to understand racial relations in Brazil, the boi-bumbá festival tells the story of the death and resurrection of a ranchers beloved bull. The earliest recorded versions of the Brazilian bull festival portray the economic and social relations on an 18th century colonial cattle ranch in the country's northeast. When the festival came to be performed …

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Explanations For Morphological Variability In Projectile Points: A Case Study From The Late Paleoindian Cody Complex, Cheryl Fogle-Hatch May 2015

Explanations For Morphological Variability In Projectile Points: A Case Study From The Late Paleoindian Cody Complex, Cheryl Fogle-Hatch

Anthropology ETDs

This dissertation examines morphological variability (differences in qualitative attributes and metric dimensions) that is observed when comparing assemblages of projectile points. My archaeological case study is an evaluation of cultural historical types' of projectile points that have been assigned variously to the Alberta, Cody, or Firstview Complexes of the early Holocene from approximately 10,000 B.P. to 8,200 B.P. This analysis includes both quantitative and qualitative observations of 361 complete and fragmentary projectile points from 13 archaeological sites located in New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Nebraska. My analyses showed that qualitative attributes and metric dimensions of projectile points vary more through …

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