Anthropology Commons^™

Accounts Of Engagement: Conditions And Capitals Of Indigenous Participation In Canadian Commercial Archaeology, Joshua Dent

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Indigenous engagement in Canadian archaeology encompasses jurisdictional variances, microcosmic colonial/resistance implications and the promise of mutually-beneficial heritage management practices. Drawing from literature commentary, primary document review, surveys and interviews, this dissertation explores consistency and uniqueness in the relationship between commercial archaeology and Indigenous peoples in Canada. Four Conditions of engagement and four Capital properties of engagement emerge and are theorized as constituting a framework capable of considering the diversity of engagement practice in Canada.

Conditions include: Regulation, Capacity (Developer and Community) and Relationships. The regulatory heritage regimes governing engagement are considered across provincial/territorial boundaries together with a host of legislation, …

Use Of Drones And Gis To Identify Geoglyphs In The Sihuas Valley, Peru, Felipe Gonzalez-Macqueen

GIS Day

Geoglyphs are anthropogenic features built onto the landscape by either removing a layer from the ground to expose the soil underneath or adding layers on top to create a relief. The most well-known examples of this are in the Nazca Valley, Peru where features can measure up to 400m long and have a variety of shapes. However not all geoglyphs are as big and complex as these, as is the case of the Sihuas Valley, Peru where geoglyphs are smaller and less elaborate in comparison. To identify and map these geoglyphs and other features, we used a combination of satellite …

Cultural Diversity In Artificial Societies: Case Studies Of The Maya Peoples, Roberto Ulloa

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The existence of cultural diversity in a connected world is paradoxical given that all individuals constantly interact and share information, and that individuals are all part of one giant network of connections. In the long term, it seems logical to assume that everybody should hold the same cultural information and, therefore, the same culture. Yet cultural diversity is still manifest around the globe. Cultural diversity as a phenomenon becomes even more puzzling when we take into account how it survives catastrophic events which regularly befall societies, such as invasions, natural disasters, and civil wars. In this thesis, agent-based computer simulations …

There Is More Than One Way To Do Something Right: Applying Community-Based Approaches To An Archaeology Of Banks Island, Nwt, Laura Elena Kelvin

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation explores how historical knowledge is produced and maintained within the Inuvialuit (Western Arctic Inuit) community of Sachs Harbour, NWT, to determine how archaeological research can best complement and respect Inuvialuit understandings and ways of knowing the past.

When archaeologists apply Indigenous knowledges to their research they often have limited understandings of how these knowledges work, and may apply them inadequately or inappropriately. I employ an archaeological ethnographic approach to help Ikaahukmiut (people with ties to Banks Island, NWT) articulate to archaeologists how they construct their knowledge of Banks Island’s past. Inuvialuit understandings of the past are experiential and …

Paleoepidemiological Analysis Of Trauma In A Roman Period Population From Kellis, Egypt, Circa 50-450 Ad, Isabella A. Graham

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis analyzes human skeletal trauma in a large well-preserved sample (n =268) from the Roman period Kellis site in the Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt. Prevalence was determined for both infracranial and cranial skeletal trauma. The null hypothesis tested was that there are no differences in trauma when stratified by sex and by age cohorts (i.e., 18-35, 36-50 and 51+). Despite the overall trauma prevalence being similar between the sexes when not differentiated by age, the null hypothesis was rejected. Key differences that occurred between the sexes were that males suffered greater malintent and occupational traumas, whereas osteoporosis was the major …

A History Of Violence: 3000 Years Of Interpersonal And Intergroup Conflicts From The Initial To The Early Colonial Periods In The Peruvian Central Coast. A Bioarchaeological Perspective, María Del Carmen Vega Dulanto

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The purpose of this study is to test research questions about the development of violence on the Peruvian central coast during the pre-Hispanic and Early Colonial times. This is the first study to provide a diachronic analysis of violence on the central coast. One null hypothesis was tested and falsified: that there are no differences in the prevalence and pattern of trauma over time on the central coast of Peru. Two complementary questions were also addressed: 1) Is there a relation between sociopolitical changes, natural catastrophes, competition for resources and violence? and 2) How did violence affect specific segments of …

Prohibited Practice: Drug Use, Harm Reduction And Benefit Enhancement In Toronto Rave Culture, Hilary Agro

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Based on fieldwork in Toronto, ON, I use ethnographic methods and analysis to answer the question of why people at electronic music events (‘raves’) and festivals use legal and illegal psychoactive drugs, exploring how the subjective effects of consciousness alteration factor into individual and group experiences of affective change. I examine the effects of stigma on the lives of these ‘drug practitioners’, as well as how the structures of prohibition shape the ways in which recreational substances are able to be consumed safely, resulting in a moral economy of trust and a culture of interreliance in the rave scene. Finally, …

Buried Dreams: Refitting And Ritual At The Mount Albert Site, Southern Ontario, Kyle D. Forsythe

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Few intact Middle Archaic sites have been investigated in Southwestern Ontario and attention has focused on large, multicomponent sites, which are difficult to interpret. This thesis focuses on recent work that has been conducted on an undisturbed, single-component Brewerton site in Mount Albert south of Lake Simcoe, where the lithic assemblage presents an unprecedented view of lifeways in the Middle Archaic (ca. 5000-4500 B.P.). Notable is the presence of high numbers of fragmented formal flaked stone tools - moreso than is consistent with solely tool production activities. The thesis evaluates the possibility that the artifacts were intentionally destroyed as part …

Limiting The Impact Of Destructive Analytical Techniques Through Sequential Microspatial Sampling Of The Enamel From Single Teeth, Alexis E. Dolphin, Mathew A. Teeter, Christine D. White, Fred J. Longstaffe

Earth Sciences Publications

A fundamental research concern within contemporary bioarchaeology is the sensitive balance between the preservation of human remains and the use of destructive techniques to collect information. Here we describe one example of how multiple microspatial destructive/semi-destructive techniques may be carried out in sequence using only the enamel of a single tooth. With careful planning of both sample preparation strategies and sequencing of sampling methods, it is possible to produce multiple datasets, and yet to retain material for future analyses.

In this case, enamel from the teeth of 27 individuals who lived during the early medieval period (AD 1170-1198) in Bergen, …

The Model Minority Myth: (Benevolent) Racism Against (Asian) Americans, Angel Leung

2016 Undergraduate Awards

Asians and Asian Americans are considered the most well-to-do racialized groups in twenty-first century U.S. Their identity and ontology are incontrovertibly influenced by the model minority myth, a stereotype that envelops them as successful and as overcoming racial discrimination. This paper argues that the model minority myth exemplifies how putatively benevolent racial tropes are nonetheless racist against all communities of colour. Thus, Asian Americans are positioned as the ‘model minority’, as opposed to certain ‘problem minorities’, in order to further subjugate Black and Brown bodies. The myth is also problematic for Asian Americans themselves, demonstrating that to exist as an …

A Revised Feminist Analysis Of Disordered Eating And Weight Preoccupation, Angel Leung

2016 Undergraduate Awards

Eating disorders (EDs) are often emblematized by the upper-class young white woman anorexic or bulimic, an archetype that constructs disordered eating as pathological and depicts it in a singular and comprehensible manner. Personal narratives of body dissatisfaction (rooted in both literature and qualitative research), as well as my own subjectivity as a poor East Asian-Canadian woman, will equip me with the theoretical frameworks and insights by which I problematize the homogenization of problematic eating. Subscribing to the tradition of interjecting first-person perspectives into research that is so characteristic to feminist theory, I demonstrate how a subject as visceral and commanding …

A Western Concept Of Honour: Understanding Cultural Differences, Realizing Patriarchal Similarities, Rebecca Meharchand

2016 Undergraduate Awards

The term ‘honour’ is surrounded by ample amounts of cultural anxiety. First appearing in mainstream news media in the early 2000’s, ‘honour’ is a term that has come to be associated with the ‘other’, the ‘third world’, the ‘backwards’ and ‘barbaric’ societies. Perhaps the most important thing about the term ‘honour’ is that it automatically places any honour-related incident in the context of culture. In this paper, I will draw attention to the way in which the West hypocritically cries ‘honour’, pointing a finger at the ‘Third World’, while claiming to have absolved itself of any conceptual form of honour. …

Stable Isotopes And Selective Forces: Examples In Biocultural And Environmental Anthropology, Christine D. White, Fred J. Longstaffe

Earth Sciences Publications

No abstract provided.

Isotopic Anthropology Of Rural German Medieval Diet: Intra- And Inter-Population Variability, Karyn C. Olsen, Christine D. White, Fred J. Longstaffe, Frank J. Rühli, Christina Warinner, Domingo S. Salazar-Garcia

Earth Sciences Publications

This study investigates the diet of an 11th century CE parish community located in northwestern Germany. We assessed the isotopic compositions of human (n = 24) and faunal (n = 17) bone collagen (δ¹³C_col, δ¹⁵N_col) and human structural carbonate (δ¹³C_sc) using skeletal material recovered from the Dalheim cemetery. Traditional interpretation of the isotopic data indicates that Dalheim residents likely relied on a C₃ plant-based diet and consumed some terrestrial animal products without evidence of marine resource input in the diet. Bivariate and multivariate models used as an additional …

Early Horizon Camelid Management Practices In The Nepeña Valley, North-Central Coast Of Peru, Paul Szpak, David Chicone, Jean-François Millaire, Christine D. White, Rebecca Parry, Fred Longstaffe

Earth Sciences Publications

South American camelids (llamas and alpacas) were of great economic, social and ritual significance in the pre-Hispanic Andes. Although these animals are largely limited to high-altitude (>3500 masl) pastures, it has been hypothesised that camelids were also raised at lower altitudes in the arid coastal river valleys. Previous isotopic studies of Early Intermediate Period (c. 200 BC - AD 600) and Middle Horizon (c. AD 600 - 1100) camelids support this argument. Here, we utilise carbon and nitrogen isotopic analyses of camelid bone collagen from the Early Horizon (c. 800 - 200 BC) sites of Caylán and Huambacho on …

Maize Provisioning Of Ontario Late Woodland Turkeys: Isotopic Evidence Of Seasonal, Cultural, Spatial And Temporal Variation, Zoe Morris, Christine D. White, Lisa Hodgetts, Fred J. Longstaffe

Earth Sciences Publications

The isotopic composition (δ¹³C, δ¹⁵N) of bone collagen from Ontario Late Woodland archaeological turkeys was compared with that of modern Ontario wild turkeys, and archaeological turkeys from American Southwestern, Mexican and other Woodland sites to determine whether Late Woodland Ontario peoples managed wild turkeys by provisioning them with maize, the only isotopically distinct horticultural plant at that time. Despite the fact that humans from Late Woodland Western Basin and Iroquoian traditions consumed equal amounts of maize, wild turkeys utilized by the two groups exhibit different diets. Western Basin turkeys reflect a C₃-only diet, …