Biological and Physical Anthropology Commons^™

Social Identities In Chimu Times: A Bioarchaeological Analysis Of Burials From Chayhuac Walled Complex In Chan Chan Site, Peru, Katya Valladares

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis is a bioarchaeological study of a sample of Chimu individuals from the site of Chan Chan, the capital of the Chimu polity (900-1470 AD) on the north coast of Peru. This study analyzes the funerary treatment, material culture and osteological remains of 30 individuals buried in three different funerary settings within the Chayhuac Walled Complex in Chan Chan, to explore the hypothesis that the individuals were part of a singular social group that shared similar dimensions of identities, and it seeks to understand why they were interred there after the Chayhuac Walled Complex’s original function ended. This thesis …

Keep Calm And Carry On: Infant Carrying Practices And Motor Development, Mariah Clanton, Alyssa Crittenden

AANAPISI Poster Presentations

Increasingly, infants in the post-industrialized west are being diagnosed with conditions such as plagiocephaly or torticollis – which are postural deformities that can be corrected with positioning behavior. While a handful of studies have cursorily explored infant carrying practices, here I provide the first comprehensive cross-cultural literature review that aims to make connections between infant transport style and the timing of infant development in the emergence of sitting, crawling, and walking .Such a synthesis is important, not only in terms of contributing to cross-cultural research, but also for parents in the cultural west to aid in the better understanding of …

The Upright Battle: Morphological Trends Of The Bipedal Pelvis, Nicole M. Webb

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The shift to bipedal locomotion is a distinguishing feature of the human lineage that required substantial remodeling of the postcranium in hominins. The pelvis, due to its important functional role as a stabilizing and weight-bearing structure, has undergone one of the most drastic transformations in the skeleton to accommodate obligate bipedalism, thus making it a valuable region for studying locomotor behavior within the fossil record. Although bipedalism occurs in several mammalian groups, it is rare within primates and the ability to utilize a striding gait with an erect, or orthograde, posture remains unique to hominins. Orthograde posture in this context …

Influence Of The Silk Road Trade On The Craniofacial Morphology Of Populations In Central Asia, Ayesha Yasmeen Hinedi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Large-scale human migrations over long periods of time are known to affect population composition. In the second century B.C the demand for silk threads in the West opened trade opportunities between China and the Europe. This allowed for new pathways to be established and old ones reinforced across the vast region of Central Asia; a network of overland and sea routes linking East with West for sixteen hundred years that became collectively known as the Silk Road. Populations living along these routes were affected by a constant influx of traders, merchants, and invading armies attempting to control the region. Although …

Palynological Investigations Of Agropastoralism And Ecological Change At La 20,000, New Mexico, Anya Gruber

Graduate Masters Theses

How did Spanish colonialism alter the landscape of north-central New Mexico? Agropastoral practices imported by Spanish colonists made indelible impacts on an anthropogenic landscape already shaped by hundreds of years of Pueblo agriculture. However, the precise nature of these changes is poorly understood. This project uses two sets of archaeological pollen data from LA 20,000, a Spanish rancho in New Mexico, to demonstrate how 17th century agriculture and animal husbandry made geographically specific, multifaceted changes to the environment. First, patterns analyzed from a pollen column illuminates fluctuations in plant communities over time, indicating localized ecological shifts. Second, sediments collected from …

Comparison Of Two Ancient Dna Extraction Protocols For Skeletal Remains From Tropical Environments, Maria A. Nieves-Colon, Andrew T. Ozga, William J. Pestle, Andrea Cucina, Vera Tiesler, Travis W. Stanton, Anne C. Stone

Biology Faculty Articles

Objectives

The tropics harbor a large part of the world's biodiversity and have a long history of human habitation. However, paleogenomics research in these climates has been constrained so far by poor ancient DNA yields. Here we compare the performance of two DNA extraction methods on ancient samples of teeth and petrous portions excavated from tropical and semi‐tropical sites in Tanzania, Mexico, and Puerto Rico (N = 12).

Materials and Methods

All samples were extracted twice, built into double‐stranded sequencing libraries, and shotgun sequenced on the Illumina HiSeq 2500. The first extraction protocol, Method D, was previously designed for …

Allomaternal Care By Conspecifics Impacts Activity Budgets Of Colobus Guereza Mothers, Dominique L. Raboin

Theses and Dissertations

In primate societies, caring for infants involves nursing, protection, provisioning, and carrying - all energetically taxing states for mothers. The cost of holding and carrying clinging infants often constrains mothers from moving and traveling, potentially reducing their food and energy intake. Alternatively, when an infant is physically separated from their mother they are at risk of predation from birds of prey or other large mammals. This requires a high level of vigilance from mothers, often further deterring them from acquiring the food and energy that they need. Allomaternal care (AMC) is hypothesized to provide mothers with a way to safely …

Marital Violence And Fertility In A Relatively Egalitarian High-Fertility Population, Jonathan Stieglitz, Benjamin C. Trumble, Hillard Kaplan, Michael Gurven

ESI Publications

Ultimate and proximate explanations of men’s physical intimate partner violence (IPV) against women have been proposed. An ultimate explanation posits that IPV is used to achieve a selfish fitness-relevant outcome, and predicts that IPV is associated with greater marital fertility. Proximate IPV explanations contain either complementary strategic components (for example, men’s desire for partner control), non-strategic components (for example, men’s self-regulatory failure), or both strategic and non-strategic components involving social learning. Consistent with an expectation from an ultimate IPV explanation, we find that IPV predicts greater marital fertility among Tsimané forager-horticulturalists of Bolivia (n = 133 marriages, 105 women). This …

Using Machine Learning To Classify Extant Apes And Interpret The Dental Morphology Of The Chimpanzee-Human Last Common Ancestor, Tesla A. Monson, David W. Armitage, Leslea J. Hlusko

Anthropology Faculty and Staff Publications

Machine learning is a formidable tool for pattern recognition in large datasets. We developed and expanded on these methods, applying machine learning pattern recognition to a problem in paleoanthropology and evolution. For decades, paleontologists have used the chimpanzee as a model for the chimpanzee-human last common ancestor (LCA) because they are our closest living primate relative. Using a large sample of extant and extinct primates, we tested the hypothesis that machine learning methods can accurately classify extant apes based on dental data. We then used this classification tool to observe the affinities between extant apes and Miocene hominoids. We assessed …

An Analysis Of The Impact Of Birthing Practices On Long-Term Health And Reproductive Outcomes From The 1970 British Cohort Study: Insights From Evolutionary Theory, Elizabeth Turner

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

A wealth of research has been amassed and continues to grow through efforts to understand the complex nature of the relationship between the colonization and development of the human gut microbiota, its influence on the development of the immune system, and its role in both health and disease. Since previous research has demonstrated early life conditions can influence the colonization and development of the human gut microbiota, it is critical to understand how circumstances around the birthing process affect long-term outcomes beginning at this crucial stage in our development. Using the 1970 British Cohort Study, this thesis examines the relationship …

Growing Up In Tell El-Amarna: An Examination Of Growth And Non-Specific Stress Indicators In New Kingdom Children., Ashley Elizabeth Shidner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The health status of the subadult skeletal remains from the South Tombs Cemetery at Tell el-Amarna were assessed by examining fluctuations in childhood growth and rates of skeletal indicators of physiological stress within a biocultural framework. The long bone standardization method outlined by Goode et al. (1993) was used to compare the South Tombs cemetery’s cross-sectional growth data to subadult samples from other cemeteries during which major social, political, and economic changes were taking place. The comparative subadult samples included the HK43 cemetery from Hierakonpolis (Egypt), the African American Cemetery from Cedar Grove (Arkansas), and the St. Martin’s Churchyard from …

Correction To: 'Greater Wealth Inequality, Less Polygyny: Rethinking The Polygyny Threshold Model', Cody T. Ross, Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, Seung-Yun Oh, Samuel Bowles, Bret Beheim, John Bunce, Mark Caudell, Gregory Clark, Heidi Colleran, Carmen Cortez, Patricia Draper, Russell D. Greaves, Michael Gurven, Thomas Headland, Janet Headland, Kim Hill, Barry Hewlett, Hillard Kaplan, Jeremy Koster, Karen Kramer, Frank Marlowe, Richard Mcelereath, David Nolin, Marsha Quinlan, Robert Quinlan, Caissa Revilla-Minaya, Brooke Scelza, Ryan Schacht, Mary Shenk, Ray Uehara, Eckart Voland, Kai Willführ, Bruce Winterhalder, John Ziker, Christopher Von Rueden

ESI Publications

No abstract provided.

Greater Wealth Inequality, Less Polygyny: Rethinking The Polygyny Threshold Model, Cody T. Ross, Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, Seung-Yun Oh, Samuel Bowles, Bret Beheim, John Bunce, Mark Caudell, Gregory Clark, Heidi Colleran, Carmen Cortez, Patricia Draper, Russell D. Greaves, Michael Gurven, Thomas Headland, Janet Headland, Kim Hill, Barry Hewlett, Hillard Kaplan, Jeremy Koster, Karen Kramer, Frank Marlowe, Richard Mcelreath, David Nolin, Marsha Quinlan, Robert Quinlan, Caissa Revilla-Minaya, Brooke Scelza, Ryan Schacht, Mary Shenk, Ray Uehara, Eckart Voland, Kai Willführ, Bruce Winterhalder, John Ziker, Christopher Von Rueden

ESI Publications

Monogamy appears to have become the predominant human mating system with the emergence of highly unequal agricultural populations that replaced relatively egalitarian horticultural populations, challenging the conventional idea—based on the polygyny threshold model—that polygyny should be positively associated with wealth inequality. To address this polygyny paradox, we generalize the standard polygyny threshold model to a mutual mate choice model predicting the fraction of women married polygynously. We then demonstrate two conditions that are jointly sufficient to make monogamy the predominant marriage form, even in highly unequal societies. We assess if these conditions are satisfied using individual-level data from 29 human …

A Nearly Complete Foot From Dikika, Ethiopia And Its Implications For The Ontogeny And Function Of Australopithecus Afarensis, Jeremy Desilva, Corey M. Gill, Thomas C. Prang, Miriam A. Bredella, Zeresenay Alemseged

Dartmouth Scholarship

The functional and evolutionary implications of primitive retentions in early hominin feet have been under debate since the discovery of Australopithecus afarensis. Ontogeny can provide insight into adult phenotypes, but juvenile early hominin foot fossils are exceptionally rare. We analyze a nearly complete, 3.32-million-year-old juvenile foot of A. afarensis (DIK-1-1f). We show that juvenile A. afarensis individuals already had many of the bipedal features found in adult specimens. However, they also had medial cuneiform traits associated with increased hallucal mobility and a more gracile calcaneal tuber, which is unexpected on the basis of known adult morphologies. Selection for traits …

Morphological Variation In The Genus Chlorocebus: Ecogeographic And Anthropogenically Mediated Variation In Body Mass, Postcranial Morphology, And Growth, Trudy R. Turner, Christopher A. Schmitt, Jennifer Danzy Cramer, Joseph Lorenz, J. Paul Grobler, Clifford J. Jolly, Nelson B. Freimer

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

Objectives

Direct comparative work in morphology and growth on widely dispersed wild primate taxa is rarely accomplished, yet critical to understanding ecogeographic variation, plastic local variation in response to human impacts, and variation in patterns of growth and sexual dimorphism. We investigated population variation in morphology and growth in response to geographic variables (i.e., latitude, altitude), climatic variables (i.e., temperature and rainfall), and human impacts in the vervet monkey (Chlorocebus spp.).

Methods

We trapped over 1,600 wild vervets from across Sub‐Saharan Africa and the Caribbean, and compared measurements of body mass, body length, and relative thigh, leg, and foot …

The Galleon Cargo: Accounts In The Colonial Archives, Cameron La Follette, Douglas Deur, Esther González

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Much of the debris that has washed up on the shores of the northern Oregon coast for centuries were mainstays of Spanish trade carried as cargo across the world on Manila galleons. Both Native people and Euro-Americans have recovered large beeswax chunks, lending to the lore of the “Beeswax Wreck,” as well as Chinese blue-and-white porcelain fragments. In this article, Cameron La Follette and Douglas Deur describe research findings about cargo on the Santo Cristo de Burgos and similar Manila galleons, including the San Francisco Xavier of 1705, the previous favored candidate for the Oregon wreck. La Follette and Deur …

The Mountain Of A Thousand Holes: Shipwreck Traditions And Treasure Hunting On Oregon's North Coast, Cameron La Follette, Dennis Griffin, Douglas Deur

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

“Euro-Americans in coastal communities conflated and amplified Native American oral traditions of shipwrecks in Tillamook County, increasingly focusing on buried treasure,” write authors Cameron La Follette, Dennis Griffin and Douglas Deur. In this article, the authors trace the Euro-American blending of Native oral tradition with romances and adventure tales that helped create the “legends contributing to Neahkahnie [Mountain]'s reputation as Oregon's treasure-seeking haven.” They also examine the history of treasure-seeking in the area and describe the escalating conflict between Oregon's treasure-hunting statute and cultural resources protection laws, which led finally to statutory repeal that ended all treasure-hunting on state lands. …

Oregon's Manila Galleon, Cameron La Follette, Douglas Deur, Dennis Griffin, Scott S. Williams

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

For two centuries, physical evidence of a vast shipwreck, including beeswax and Chinese porcelain, has washed ashore in the Nehalem Spit area on the north coast of Oregon. The story of the wreck has been “shrouded by time, speculation, and surprisingly rich and often contradictory Euro-American folklore.” In this introduction to the Oregon Historical Quarterly's special issue, “Oregon's Manila Galleon,” authors Cameron La Follette, Douglas Deur, Dennis Griffin, and Scott S. Williams summarize the rich archival findings and archaeological evidence that points to the Santo Cristo de Burgos, a Manila galleon owned by the kingdom of Spain and bringing …

The Galleon's Final Journey: Accounts Of Ship, Crew, And Passengers In The Colonial Archives, Cameron La Follette, Douglas Deur, Esther González

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Through archival research, Cameron La Follette and Douglas Deur document the history of the Santo Cristo de Burgos — the ship thought to be the Beeswax Wreck of Oregon — and its crew and passengers. The Santo Cristo “drew together a multiethnic crew of Spanish, Spanish Basque, Philippine, Mexican, and possibly African men in the most sprawling global trade network of their day.” Research conducted in the Archives of the Indies in Seville, Spain, the National Archives of the Philippines in Manila and the Archivo General de la Nación of Mexico in Mexico City shows that the galleon left the …

Views Across The Pacific: The Galleon Trade And Its Traces In Oregon, Cameron La Follette, Douglas Deur

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

From 1565 to 1815, Manila galleons such as the Santo Cristo de Burgos — the ship now thought to be the seventeenth century “Beeswax Wreck” that sank or ran aground near Nehalem Spit in Oregon — followed a 12,000-mile route from the Philippines through the stormy North Pacific, sometimes passing parallel to what is now the north Oregon coast, before reaching their destination in Acapulco, Mexico. The galleons were a central part of Spain's complex international commerce system, transporting people and Asian goods around the world. In this article, Cameron La Follette and Douglas Deur discuss the Spanish empire and …

Kinship And Religious Identities In Medieval Central Asia (8th-13th C. Ce): Tracing Communities Of Mortuary Practice And Biological Affinity, Elissa Anne Bullion

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ethnic, political, and religious upheaval has cascading impacts on social identity. Kinship and religious ritual are two sources of social identity that are particularly salient in periods of change. Their practice provides access to and protection of important social, economic, and ideological resources that help groups negotiate times of uncertainty. During the medieval period (8th-13th c. CE), Central Asia saw the invasion of Arab armies, the rise of Turkic political dynasties, and the spread of Islam. This period yielded a Turko-Islamic culture that pervades modern dialogues on Central Asian history and culture. The local and regional social systems that sustained …

Wild Primates In Documentary Films: Biodiversity, Behavior, And Pedagogical Applications, Crystal Marie Riley Koenig

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The representation of wild primates in the nature documentary genre could have important implications for conservation and education. However, no prior research has looked at the content of this genre or its use in education. To fill this gap, the current research included a content analysis of all available documentaries focused on wild primates (n = 210) and a survey of 219 college-level anthropology instructors, with an emphasis on determining how primate biodiversity was portrayed, whether primate behavior was realistically depicted in documentaries, whether mistakes and inaccuracies were common, and how college instructors use primate documentaries as resources in their …

A New Estimate For Neanderthal Energy Expenditure, Stephen J. Venner

Theses and Dissertations

This study presents a new estimate for Neanderthal total energy expenditure through the use of a constrained energy model. The new estimates for Neanderthal are considered within the context of some recent analyses investigating Neanderthal life history traits, genetics, and the archaeological record.

Do Osteon Morphotypes Identified In The Mid-Diaphysis Of Human Femurs Indicate The Same Torsional Load History As Chimpanzees?, Bailey A G Colohan

Theses and Dissertations

Skedros’s (2009) osteon morphotype scoring (MTS) scheme is employed to identify if humans have the same torsional load-bearing history as chimpanzees at the femoral mid-diaphysis. Humans show to have no significant difference between quadrants of this area’s MTS, congruent with what is expected in a torsional load-bearing area of bone.

An Investigation Of The Phylogenetic Affinities Of Sivaladapidae Within Adapoidea, Kathleen Rust

Theses and Dissertations

This study presents a phylogenetic analysis incorporating 82 dental characters to clarify the evolutionary relationships of Sivaladapidae within the broader context of Adapoidea. Results suggest that sivaladapids share a close evolutionary relationship with European adapoids.

Handedness And The Oldowan Tool Industry: Is Preferential Right-Handedness A Relic From Our Evolutionary Past?, Jessica Dymon

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Although there is literature on psychological, anthropological, and biological reasons for global preferential right-handedness, there has yet to be literature studying the connection among these three disciplines. The goal of this pilot study is to shed light on the correlation of handedness and Oldowan tool manufacturing in order to provide direction for future study. By taking a cross-disciplinary perspective on evolutionary advantages, genetics, and brain lateralization, it is believed researchers may be able to understand why 90% of the human population is preferentially right-handed. This study concludes that there is a correlation between handedness and toolmaking efficiency, and that further …

Playing It Cool: Characterizing Social Play, Bout Termination, And Candidate Play Signals Of Juvenile And Infant Tibetan Macaques (Macaca Thibetana), Kaitlin R. Wright, Jessica A. Mayhew, Lori K. Sheeran, Jake A. Funkhouser, Ronald S. Wagner, Li-Xing Sun, Jin-Hua Li

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

Play behaviors and signals during playful interactions with juvenile conspecifics are important for both the social and cognitive development of young animals. The social organization of a species can also influence juvenile social play. We examined the relationships among play behaviors, candidate play signals, and play bout termination in Tibetan macaques (Macaca

thibetana) during juvenile and infant social play to characterize the species play style. As Tibetan macaques are despotic and live in groups with strict linear dominance hierarchies and infrequent reconciliation, we predicted that play would be at risk of misinterpretation by both the individuals engaged in the play …

Reconstructing Landscape Use Patterns Using Strontium Isotope Ratios, Marian I. Hamilton

Anthropology ETDs

This dissertation uses modern habitats and fauna to model the variability and predictive power of strontium isotope ratios in identifying dispersal patterns in primates and habitat preference in primate and non-primate fauna. It concludes that there are significant isotopic differences between gallery forest and xeric grassland habitats in the same area and that these differences are reflected in fauna with habitat preferences for one or the other. It also identifies the most reliable methodological approaches for identifying the philopatric and dispersing sex in primate communities. Finally, it applies this methodological recommendation to strontium isotope data from South African hominins, concluding …

A Forensic Investigation Into The Possible Origins Of Three Human Skeletons, Jefferson P. Sinnott

Forensic Science Theses

The Anthropology Department at Buffalo State has three human skeletons that have been part of the department’s collection for several years. The origin of the skeletons is currently unknown. Modern DNA techniques coupled with forensic anthropological techniques may now allow us to determine with some certainty the geographic origin of the skeletons. Ancestry, sex, age, and stature were assessed using current anthropological techniques. Afterwards, one tooth from each of the three skeletons was extracted, pulverized and DNA was isolated. Y-STR fragment size analysis of the DNA samples can provide information about the patrilineage of male individuals. Mitochondrial DNA sequencing analysis …

Missing The Point: Identifying Perishable Projectiles In The Archaeological Record From Bone Damage, Sara R. Wingert

Honors Student Research

For decades, archaeologists have used replicative studies to develop a better understanding of prehistoric technology. Many replicative studies have focused on the manufacture and use of stone projectiles, resulting in a detailed understanding of the design of hunting weapons in relation to various features of the environment and, in turn, elegant explanations for technological change over time. Yet if ethnographic accounts are any indication, lithic technology was only one (perhaps minor) part of many prehistoric technological systems. It is likely, then, that the technological changes archaeologists commonly document through their morphometric analysis of stone projectile points occurred against a backdrop …