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Articles 1 - 4 of 4
Full-Text Articles in Archaeological Anthropology
From Sacred To Profane: European Materials Integration Into Mississippian Cosmology, Campbell Walker
From Sacred To Profane: European Materials Integration Into Mississippian Cosmology, Campbell Walker
Anthropology Undergraduate Senior Theses
Interpreting the significance of materials used by southeastern Native Americans to express their cosmological beliefs reveals certain trends that reflect changes in culture over time. We recognize that, for many hundreds of years within the Mississippian period, artifacts fashioned from specific materials reflected the relationship between these materials and their place in native cosmology. In the post-Mississippian period, nontraditional materials became available that were used to fashion these same traditional artifact forms. I present research on how Native Americans integrated these new materials into their cosmology by drawing analogies and distinctions between uses of traditional and nontraditional materials in relation …
Resource Scarcity Drives Lethal Aggression Among Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers In Central California, Mark W. Allen, Robert Lawrence Bettinger, Brian F. Codding, Terry L. Jones, Al W. Schwitalla
Resource Scarcity Drives Lethal Aggression Among Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers In Central California, Mark W. Allen, Robert Lawrence Bettinger, Brian F. Codding, Terry L. Jones, Al W. Schwitalla
Social Sciences
The origin of human violence and warfare is controversial, and some scholars contend that intergroup conflict was rare until the emergence of sedentary foraging and complex sociopolitical organization, whereas others assert that violence was common and of considerable antiquity among small-scale societies. Here we consider two alternative explanations for the evolution of human violence: (i) individuals resort to violence when benefits outweigh potential costs, which is likely in resource poor environments, or (ii) participation in violence increases when there is coercion from leaders in complex societies leading to group level benefits. To test these hypotheses, we …
Tracking Trajectories: Charting Changes Of Late Archaic Shell Ring Formation And Use, Martin Peter Walker
Tracking Trajectories: Charting Changes Of Late Archaic Shell Ring Formation And Use, Martin Peter Walker
Masters Theses
For the past fifty years the shell rings of the North American, southeastern, Late Archaic period, have been a continuous object of archaeological research. They have been studied within contexts of the initial creation and use of ceramics in North America, mounding and monumentality of hunter-gatherers, early sedentism and social complexity, forager feasting, ritual, and ceremonialism, and human-environment interactions. The aim of this project was to bring together the cumulative data generated by this continuous research focus and centralize it within a single database, the Late Archaic Shell Rings Repository. In utilizing this consolidated data set, it is possible to …
The Western Stemmed Point Tradition: Evolutionary Perspectives On Cultural Change In Projectile Points During The Pleistocene-Holocene Transition, Lindsay D. Scott
The Western Stemmed Point Tradition: Evolutionary Perspectives On Cultural Change In Projectile Points During The Pleistocene-Holocene Transition, Lindsay D. Scott
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
In this thesis I analyze the cultural techniques of Paleoindians in North America by examining the diversification and fusion of stemmed projectile point traditions using an evolutionary analysis. The Western Stemmed Point tradition has an extensive regional and temporal distribution throughout the Intermountain West and High Plains during the Paleoindian period. In an effort to determine how stemmed projectile point technologies relate to each other, I applied a phylogenetic approach to construct heritable patterns of projectile point histories. By measuring the physical traits of those points and using a macro-evolutionary theoretical approach, changes in artifact form can be acquired and …