Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons^™

Burning Libraries: A Community Response, Thomas H. Mcgovern

Publications and Research

Archaeology is increasingly seen as a global change science as well as a provider of community heritage resources. Rapid climate change is destroying archaeological sites at an unprecedented rate, and community- based response is urgently needed.

Life In Lincoln: Deciphering The Archaeological Material Culture Of A Turn Of The 20th Century Neighborhood, Amy Neumann

Anthropology Department: Theses

In June 1999, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) conducted a two-week salvage archaeology project during the early construction phase of the Kauffman Residential Center, an honors dormitory on campus. Nineteen archaeological features were discovered and fourteen were excavated from this historically residential area covering approximately one city block. The excavated archaeological materials include a large number of glass bottles, ceramics, metal artifacts, faunal remains, and personal items dating to the turn of the 20th century.

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Lincoln, Nebraska experienced substantial population growth. The city thrived on manufacturing and purchasing goods allowing the economy …

Human Settlement And Mid-Late Holocene Coastal Environmental Change At Cape Krusenstern, Northwest Alaska, Shelby Anderson, James Jordon, Adam Freeburg

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Archaeologists hypothesize that mid-late Holocene environmental variability played a role in several significant western Arctic cultural developments including population fluctuations, the evolution of Arctic maritime adaptations, and Arctic-wide migrations. Further evaluation of these hypotheses requires higher resolution archaeological and paleoecological datasets than are currently available. In response, we undertook an interdisciplinary study at Cape Krusenstern, a large coastal site complex in northwest Alaska, which was occupied over the last ca. 5000–6000 years. Our goals were to refine local cultural and paleoenvironmental chronologies and to explore the question of how local environmental change may have influenced local settlement history. The resulting …

Curating A Nation: The Role Of Asia’S Twenty-First Century Museums In Constructing National Narratives, Lee Nelson

Pac Rim Posters

Museums of the modern world act to preserve and promote cultural heritage, science, and art. Within the continent of Asia, museums have been crucial foci for various nations’ cultural ministries. By analyzing the missions of specific museums with a critical lens, the objective of national identity and narrative building becomes exposed in the decisions of museums’ exhibits and curations. With having used ethnographic methods and scholarly research concerning national museums in the countries of Mongolia, Japan, China, Thailand, and India, I argue that museums serve as mediums of communication for higher political and cultural institutions to foster, construct, and manipulate …

Rural Sense: Value, Heritage, And Sensory Landscapes: Developing A Design-Oriented Approach To Mapping For Healthier Landscapes, Judith Van Der Elst, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Lily Díaz-Kommonen

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Landscape design needs a novel value system centred on human experience of the landscape rather than simply on economic value. Design-oriented research allows us to shift the focus from mechanistic paradigms towards new sensemaking approaches that value both the sensual and the cognitive in human experience. To move in this direction, we investigate cultural and natural aspects of sensory experience in rural landscapes, arguing that: (1) rural (non-urban) regions offer diverse sensory experiences for optimising human health; and (2) spatial interconnectedness between rural and urban areas means that healthy rural regions are critical for urban development. Our key argument is …

Memory And History In South Eleuthera: A Report To The People Of South Eleuthera, Elena Sesma

Archaeological Project Reports

Over the past 5 years, archaeologists from the University of Massachusetts Amherst have made several short-term trips to South Eleuthera to research the history of this portion of the island. Our main interests have been in understanding how the landscape has changed over the past 150 years, and especially in the past few decades as tourism has fallen off in the south. Through a combination of ethnographic research and pedestrian survey of the South Eleuthera landscape, we have gained a clearer understanding of the history of this region, and of contemporary life today. This report offers a summary of findings …

Rural Sense: Value, Heritage, And Sensory Landscapes: Developing A Design-Oriented Approach To Mapping For Healthier Landscapes, Judith Van Der Elst, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Lily Díaz-Kommonen

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Landscape design needs a novel value system centred on human experience of the landscape rather than simply on economic value. Design-oriented research allows us to shift the focus from mechanistic paradigms towards new sense-making approaches that value both the sensual and the cognitive in human experience. To move in this direction, we investigate cultural and natural aspects of sensory experience in rural landscapes, arguing that: (1) rural (non-urban) regions offer diverse sensory experiences for optimising human health; and (2) spatial interconnectedness between rural and urban areas means that healthy rural regions are critical for urban development. Our key argument is …

Data Management In Anthropology: The Next Phase In Ethics Governance?, Igor Boog, J. Henrike Florusbosch, Zane Kripe, Tessa Minter, Peter Pels, Metje Postma, Margaret Sleeboom-Faulkner, Bob Simpson, Hansjörg Dilger, Michael Schönhuth, Anita Von Poser, Rena Lederman, Heather Richards-Rissetto

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Recent demands for accountability in ‘data management’ by funding agencies, universities, international journals and other academic institutions have worried many anthropologists and ethnographers. While their demands for transparency and integrity in opening up data for scrutiny seem to enhance scientific integrity, such principles do not always consider the way the social relationships of research are properly maintained. As a springboard, the present Forum, triggered by such recent demands to account for the use of ‘data’, discusses the present state of anthropological research and academic ethics/integrity in a broader perspective. It specifically gives voice to our disciplinary concerns and leads to …

Using Virtual Reality And Photogrammetry To Enrich 3d Object Identity, Cole Juckette, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Hector Eluid Guerra Aldana, Norman Martinez

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

The creation of digital 3D models for cultural heritage is commonplace. With the advent of efficient and cost effective technologies archaeologists are making a plethora of digital assets. This paper evaluates the identity of 3D digital assets and explores how to enhance or expand that identity by integrating photogrammetric models into VR. We propose that when a digital object acquires spatial context from its virtual surroundings, it gains an identity in relation to that virtual space, the same way that embedding the object with metadata gives it a specific identity through its relationship to other information. We explore this concept …

Constructing Rock Cairns: Modifying And Signifying The Alpine Landscape Of Southeast Alaska, Ralph J. Hartley, Amanda Renner, William J. Hunt Jr.

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

The existence and variability of human-made rock cairns in subalpine and alpine settings of Southeast Alaska is increasingly well documented. Whete these features were constructed prehistorically and prorohistorically is a fundamental component to assessing the socioecological role of these modifications to a landscape that is, for the most patt, devoid of other physical manifestations of past human activities. Based on information compiled from investigations in the northern portion of Baranof Island and vicinity, we explore the physical and social environmental conditions that may underlie decisions to create the cairns, some of which are estimated to have been built approximately 500 …

Solar Alignment And The Irish Passage Tomb Tradition, Frank Prendergast

Book/Book Chapter

A succinct and very useful, illustrated, explanatory guide to the phenomenon of solar alignment in the irish Passage Tomb tradition. Includes a listing of where to visit the 15 known astronomically aligned passage tombs in the 32 counties.

Written by Dr Frank Prendergast who is now Emeritus at the Dublin Institute of Technology, where he researches Irish prehistoric monuments and their landscapes from a cultural astronomy perspective. His current interests and publications are on the meaning of the dark sky in the prehistoric past and on the conservation of archaeological landscapes from light pollution.

Heritage Guides are included free with …