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Articles 1 - 16 of 16
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Analyzing Pre-Inhumation Breakage Ceramics At Lamanai, Belize: A Conjunctive Approach, Ryan Enger
Analyzing Pre-Inhumation Breakage Ceramics At Lamanai, Belize: A Conjunctive Approach, Ryan Enger
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
During the Terminal Classic period (9th-10th centuries A.D.), the ancient Maya at Lamanai, Belize, began to practice pre-inhumation breakage of ceramics in mortuary contexts. Previously, the custom had been to bury whole vessels with the deceased. This conspicuous shift in behavior suggests important changes in beliefs regarding the role of ceramics in death and interment at a pivotal moment in ancient Maya culture history. Despite this significant change, there has been no published research conducted specifically on these vessels. In fact, there has been no clearly delineated set of characteristics for what qualifies as a pre-inhumation breakage vessel (PBV). This …
Mirrors As Portals: Images Of Mirrors On Ancient Maya Ceramics, Julie Rogers
Mirrors As Portals: Images Of Mirrors On Ancient Maya Ceramics, Julie Rogers
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The Maya believed there were multiple worlds in addition to the human world. Portals connected these worlds and allowed active engagement between the Maya and their gods. Without portals and the ability to communicate between the worlds the Maya belief system could not function. Evidence suggests the Maya believed reflective surfaces – mirrors and water surfaces – were portals to spiritual worlds. In this thesis, I examine the portrayal of mirrors as portals in Maya art, focusing on mirrors in scenes painted on ceramics. Combining archaeological, iconographical, and linguistic data I argue that mirrors functioned in service to ritual as …
Reflectance Transformation Imaging: Documenting Graffiti In The Maya Lowlands, Rachel Gill
Reflectance Transformation Imaging: Documenting Graffiti In The Maya Lowlands, Rachel Gill
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
In the late 19th century, explorers identified graffiti etched in stucco walls of residences, palaces, and temples in the Maya Lowlands. By the mid-20th century, scholars acknowledged that the ancient Maya produced these incised images. Today, archaeologists struggle with documenting these instances of graffiti with precision and accuracy, often relying solely on to-scale line drawings to best represent the graffitied image they see before them. These images can be complex, multilayered, and difficult to see so identifying the sequence of creation of the incisions can be challenging. Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) is a method that uses a moving light source …
Reproductive Rights And Justice Advocacy In Central Florida: Who Is Represented?, Mary Hager
Reproductive Rights And Justice Advocacy In Central Florida: Who Is Represented?, Mary Hager
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This thesis examines the racial understanding and social relationships of Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida staff and volunteers. As well, this research explores how Planned Parenthood supporters organize and promote diverse advocacy work to promote reproductive justice in social media and volunteer education. Planned Parenthood has been at the forefront of reproductive rights campaigns for over a century, and their work has often tied into contemporary feminist and political issues. Of note, feminists of color have called for a shift from advocacy for "reproductive choice" to "reproductive justice" as a way to identify the needs and predicaments of …
Cafeteria Culture: An Anthropological Approach To Lunchtime In A Central Florida Elementary School, Emily Herrington
Cafeteria Culture: An Anthropological Approach To Lunchtime In A Central Florida Elementary School, Emily Herrington
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Public school cafeterias are used by nearly 51 million children (ages 4-17) in the United States every day. With over 40% of the approximately 73 million children (ages 0-17) participating in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), public school lunches carry resounding nutritional, social, and educational significance for their consumers. This fact, coupled with frequent media attention to school lunch food, notwithstanding, a notable lack of social scientific engagement with both students' perspectives and NSLP operators persists. Divided into two studies, this research utilizes ethnographic methods to explore students' lunchtime experiences within a Central Florida public elementary school cafeteria. Both …
Gis Analysis Of Obsidian Artifacts Distribution At Holtun From The Preclassic Through The Classic Periods., Melvin Guzman Piedrasanta
Gis Analysis Of Obsidian Artifacts Distribution At Holtun From The Preclassic Through The Classic Periods., Melvin Guzman Piedrasanta
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The nature of social organization at an archaeological site can be interpreted from many types of material remains. Exotic goods are particularly useful for making inferences about social organization because of their scarcity, utilitarian demand, and symbolic characteristics. Obsidian artifacts are some of the most abundant exotic goods among the Lowland Maya. The acquisition of these artifacts was the result of a wide net of commerce from the highlands of Guatemala and central Mexico into the Maya lowlands. The patterns of consumption and distribution of obsidian artifacts vary according the time and location. This variation is seen as the result …
Navigating Sociotechnical Power Structures: Dynamics Of Conflict In World Of Warcraft's Player Versus Player Events, Rachael Root
Navigating Sociotechnical Power Structures: Dynamics Of Conflict In World Of Warcraft's Player Versus Player Events, Rachael Root
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
As a result of technological advancement and exponential increases in global access, cross-disciplinary research has recently turned to digital online video games. Most anthropological research within this area has centered around player self-identification, gender construction, and gaming communities. Yet many interactions occur at nodes of dynamic conflict where agentic players navigate intersections of power, which are unaddressed in the scholarly corpus. By utilizing ethnographic methods in World of Warcraft's player versus player events, I examine resources, relationships, and tools that underpin player actions and understandings. My findings reveal layered and dynamic patterns of sociotechnical conflict. Players' geographical location impacts access …
The Crossed Bands Motif: What Does It Mean?, Brittany Luther
The Crossed Bands Motif: What Does It Mean?, Brittany Luther
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The crossed bands motif is an iconographic symbol that appears among many Mesoamerican cultures' art including Olmec, Izapan and Maya spanning from the Early Pre-Classic to the Classic periods in Mesoamerica. Pierce explains in his theory on signs that icons, symbols and indices all contain meaning. This meaning was given to the signs by the one who commissioned the medium on which the sign is placed; therefore it is important to understand the meaning of these signs to learn more about the person or people who built them. The crossed bands motif has previously been studied based on individual pieces …
"What We Eat Matters": Perspectives On Food And Health In The Mexican Im/Migrant Farmworker Communities In Indian River County, Florida, Hugo Puerto
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The dramatic increase of type-2 diabetes within the Latino community is of great concern in the U.S., especially among Mexican im/migrant farmworkers. Anthropological scholarship shows that health issues within im/migrant groups in the U.S. are poorly understood from a sociocultural and local perspective. In Indian River County, Florida, farmworker leaders created a community garden in response to health problems in this community. This initiative was launched to educate families about the health and economic benefits of growing their own food. The Indian River County Health Department and the local leaders are working collaboratively to inform the community about the risks …
Catholic Healing Masses: Intersections Of Health And Healing In Yucatan, Suzanne Draper
Catholic Healing Masses: Intersections Of Health And Healing In Yucatan, Suzanne Draper
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The conception of illness and healing in contemporary Mexican Catholic discourse highlights both particular and ubiquitous instances of a health experience perceived locally and widespread. Catholic healing masses are utilized as supplemental methods of individual health restoration coupled with Western medicinal techniques in Catholic dramas. Aside from the spiritual and religious significance of this practice, the use of healing masses as an additional means to achieving an optimal health status implies that something is lacking in current biomedical models. The purpose of my research is to explore the humanistic terms under which healing masses operate and translate these terms into …
Speaking With The Orishas: Divination And Propitiation In The Lukumi Religion, Kristi Marrero
Speaking With The Orishas: Divination And Propitiation In The Lukumi Religion, Kristi Marrero
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The Lucumi religion was born in Cuba from African and European religious systems. The enslaved Yoruba were brought to the New World through the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. They were taken from their homes, family, language, and religion and brought to countries like Cuba to provide free labor to growing agricultural markets that benefited European colonizers of the Americas. The Yoruba would hold on to their religion, but in order to keep it alive, they would have to make it into a new religion. This new religion would become the religion known as Lucumi. In Cuba, Lucumi practitioners would hide their …
A Sense Of Place Ethnographic Reflection On Two Palestinian Life Histories, Patrick H. Barrett
A Sense Of Place Ethnographic Reflection On Two Palestinian Life Histories, Patrick H. Barrett
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
There is a labyrinth of complex social connections between people and places that deserves careful anthropological reflection. People do not simply occupy places; they experience them, infusing them with life and social meaning. Basso (1996:53) argues that ethnography has reported little about the complex ways in which people are “alive to the world around them.” Anthropology is currently experiencing a resurging emphasis on place that seeks to account for its remarkably social features. Rather than primarily thinking about place when determining a location for fieldwork, emerging anthropological reflection shows the discipline is repositioning itself to explore the complex and often …
Ethnographic Reflection On Group Formation In Blizzard's "World Of Warcraft", John Christopher Spottke
Ethnographic Reflection On Group Formation In Blizzard's "World Of Warcraft", John Christopher Spottke
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Cyberanthropology or the anthropology of cyber space/culture is an emerging subfield of cultural anthropology that deals with the varied integration of human beings and technology. This specialized area of study focuses on topics ranging from new technologies used in ethnographic research to information and communication technologies utilized by specific societal groups. Communication technology encompasses the World Wide Web, email, and online multiperson interactive spaces such as chatrooms and video games. In this work, I ethnographically investigate human social interactions in the online gaming realm of World of Warcraft. On the whole, the expanding numbers of virtual communities in existence today …
Discerning Migration In The Archaeological Record: A Case Study At Chichã©N Itzã¡, Andrea Slusser
Discerning Migration In The Archaeological Record: A Case Study At Chichã©N Itzã¡, Andrea Slusser
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Migration, as a theory to explain aspects in the archaeological record, has fallen out of favor in Mesoamerican archaeology, possibly due to a lack of a standard definition or description of migration. Migration as an explanation of change in Maya civilizations has been around since the 1950's and the culture-history era of American archaeology. Since the early 1990's, migration has been treated as a process, one that can be discerned in pre-literate cultures as well as historical ones. Models of the migration process are being developed and tested. One type of migration, elite dominance migration, is a particularly suitable process …
Alternative Epigraphic Interpretations Of The Maya Snake Emblem Glyph, Christopher Tyra Savage
Alternative Epigraphic Interpretations Of The Maya Snake Emblem Glyph, Christopher Tyra Savage
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This thesis seeks to demonstrate that the Maya snake emblem glyph is associated with religious specialists, instead of geographic locations, as emblem glyphs are typically understood to be. The inscriptions and the media on which the snake emblem glyph occurs will be analyzed to determine the role or function of the "Lord of the Snake." Temporal and spatial data has also been collected to aid in understanding the enigmatic glyph. The snake emblem glyph has recently been identified as originating from a broad area containing the sites of El Peru and La Corona in Guatemala, and Dzibanche, Mexico, a departure …
Ancient Maya Afterlife Iconography: Traveling Between Worlds, Mosley Dianna Wilson
Ancient Maya Afterlife Iconography: Traveling Between Worlds, Mosley Dianna Wilson
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The ancient Maya afterlife is a rich and voluminous topic. Unfortunately, much of the material currently utilized for interpretations about the ancient Maya comes from publications written after contact by the Spanish or from artifacts with no context, likely looted items. Both sources of information can be problematic and can skew interpretations. Cosmological tales documented after the Spanish invasion show evidence of the religious conversion that was underway. Noncontextual artifacts are often altered in order to make them more marketable. An example of an iconographic theme that is incorporated into the surviving media of the ancient Maya, but that is …