Digital Commons Network^™

Storm-Driven Tree Exposure And Geomorphic Change: Predicting The Distribution Of Preserved Late Pleistocene Tree Stumps On The Outer Alabama Continental Shelf, Kelli L. Moran, Kehui Xu, Jeffrey Obelcz, Kristine L. Delong, Kendall Fontenot, Carl A. Reese, Grant L. Harley, Douglas Jones, Alicia Caporaso

Faculty Publications

The Alabama Underwater or Drowned Forest is a well-preserved Late Pleistocene (dated to 72–56 ± 8 ka, 2σ) terrestrial landform on the northern Gulf of Mexico continental shelf that provides geomorphic and ecosystem information rarely preserved during the glacial intervals. Stumps of bald cypress (Taxodium distichum (L.) Rich.) trees were exposed in ∼18 m of water following Hurricane Ivan in 2004. This research investigates geomorphic changes to the Mississippi-Alabama-Florida (MAFLA) sand sheet, which presents as shore-oblique Holocene sand ridges, and the exposure and burial of tree stumps following the passage of Hurricane Sally in 2020 using repeat sidescan and bathymetric …

Community Perspectives Of Heat And Weather Warnings For Pregnant And Postpartum Women In Kilifi, Kenya, Adelaide Lusambili, Veronique Filippi, Britt Nakstad, Julian Natukunda, Cathryn Birch, John Marsham, Nathalie Roos, Peter Khaemba, Sari Kovats

Institute for Human Development, East Africa

Background: Extreme weather is a recognised risk factor for stillbirth and preterm birth, disrupts women’s access to healthcare during pregnancy and childbirth, and negatively affects the care of newborns. Reliable and accessible heat and weather warning systems are key in alerting individuals to undertake protective measures. There is a notable gap in understanding how women and caregivers in rural East Africa perceive and utilize weather information. We investigated community members’ heat and weather warning information-seeking behaviour, identified available sources, assessed their reliability and utility, and examined their influence on behaviour.

Settings: Our research was conducted in rural Kilifi County in …

The Association Between Food Production, Food Security, Household Consumer Behaviour And Waist-Hip Ratio Amongst Women In Smallholder Farming Households In Kilifi County, Kenya, Rosebella Iseme, Eunice Muthoni, Roselyter Riang’A, Felix Agoi, Noveline Khatievi, James Orwa, Beatrice Karembo Karisa, Bibi Abdallah Bakari, Morris Ogero, Mwanamaka Mabruki, Cyprian Mostert, Anthony Ngugi

Population Health, East Africa

Food insecurity disproportionately affects smallholder farming households and within them women, who bear primary caregiving responsibilities and contend with time and resource constraints that heighten their vulnerability to adverse nutrition-related health outcomes. This study cross-sectionally investigates the association between food production practices, household consumer behaviour, and the experience of food insecurity with women's waist-hip ratio (WHR), a key indicator of abdominal obesity, in a coastal community in Kenya. In total, 394 households were randomly selected from a list of farming households in Kaloleni and Rabai sub-counties of Kilifi. Trained enumerators administered questionnaires to adult female family members who play a …

The Identity Of A Gymnast: How Health, Wellbeing, And Injury Become Embodied In The Identity Of Collegiate Gymnasts, Skyler M. Yakes

LSU Master's Theses

Gymnastics scholarship has traditionally focused on the physicality of the sport and what the body can and cannot do. This research expands upon gymnastics scholarship by exploring the individual experiences and histories of college gymnasts in the United States through a series of interviews. The goals of this research are to better understand the gymnastics experience and to explore health and wellbeing in gymnastics as it pertains to the formation of a gymnast’s identity. A combined approach using medical anthropology and anthropology of sport serves as a guiding framework for analyzing interview data. Definitions of health and wellbeing change between …

Mitochondrial Memory: Transgenerational Trauma, Functional Medicine, And Quantum Physics, Rosalynn A. Vega

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Building from Karen Barad’s “diffractive methodological approach” (2007, 71), this article combines Mariella Pandolfi’s notion of the female body as a transgenerational “physiological memoir” (1990, 255) with functional medicine perspectives on mitochondria and advances in quantum physics around “entanglement” to explore a new concept—“mitochondrial memory.” Recent findings in biological research depict a communicating collective of mitochondria distributed across different “human” organs and describe how this collective controls many aspects of human health through epigenetic mechanisms. Since exact copies of mitochondria are inherited through the maternal line, I draw from anthropological theory, functional medicine research, and recent discoveries in physics to …

Subjective Well-Being Across The Life Course Among Non-Industrialized Populations, Michael Gurven, Yoann Buoro, Daniel Eid Rodriguez, Katherine Sayre, Benjamin Trumble, Aili Pyhälä, Hillard Kaplan, Arild Angelsen, Jonathan Stieglitz, Victoria Reyes-Garcia

ESI Publications

Subjective well-being (SWB) is often described as being U-shaped over adulthood, declining to a midlife slump and then improving thereafter. Improved SWB in later adulthood has been considered a paradox given age-related declines in health and social losses. While SWB has mostly been studied in high-income countries, it remains largely unexplored in rural subsistence populations lacking formal institutions that reliably promote social welfare. Here, we evaluate the age profile of SWB among three small-scale subsistence societies (n = 468; study 1), forest users from 23 low-income countries (n = 6987; study 2), and Tsimane’ horticulturalists (n = …

Credentialing Care: Covid-19 And The Bureaucratization Of Doulas, Ellen Block, Julie Johnson Searcy, Angela N. Castañeda

Sociology Faculty Publications

Doulas in the United States offer embodied, informational, and continuous one-on-one care to birthing people. Doulas have historically sought certification to gain knowledge through training and to gain legitimacy for healthcare providers and clients. During the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals required doulas to provide proof of certification. The COVID-19 pandemic, and the proliferation of state-sponsored doula programs, has sparked a shift in how doulas are viewed and regulated, enabling new forms of bureaucratic oversight and control. Based on participant observation, surveys, and semi-structured interviews, we examine the connection between certification and care including motivations doulas have for certification, the perceived value …

Credentialing Care: Covid-19 And The Bureaucratization Of Doulas, Ellen Block, Julie Johnson Searcy, Angela N. Castañeda

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty publications

Doulas in the United States offer embodied, informational, and continuous one-on-one care to birthing people. Doulas have historically sought certification to gain knowledge through training and to gain legitimacy for healthcare providers and clients. During the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals required doulas to provide proof of certification. The COVID-19 pandemic, and the proliferation of state-sponsored doula programs, has sparked a shift in how doulas are viewed and regulated, enabling new forms of bureaucratic oversight and control. Based on participant observation, surveys, and semi-structured interviews, we examine the connection between certification and care including motivations doulas have for certification, the perceived value …

Book Review Of, Calling Family: Digital Technologies And The Making Of Transnational Care Collectives, Michele Gamburd

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Book Review: Calling Family: Digital Technologies and the Making of Transnational Care Collectives

Refereed Research - Religiosity And Sociality As Sources Of Resilience For Women Subsistence Entrepreneurs During The Pandemic, Rozina Akther

Subsistence Marketplaces

This study examines challenges faced by subsistence women entrepreneurs during COVID-19, the crisis of 2020, and their resilience in addressing the circumstances. The results of qualitative interviews with 13 subsistence marketplace women entrepreneurs in Bangladesh are presented in this article. In the current study, two themes are found to best capture the experiences and resilience of women business owners in the subsistence marketplaces. Furthermore, the study provides important insights from informant interviews, showing how women business owners navigate their operations during a pandemic. It highlights attributes such as relational strength and faith in a higher power that contribute to their …

Human-Environmental Dynamics In Prehistoric Southwest China: Environmental Change And Chronology At Haimenkou, Yunnan, Kai Su

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the environmental dynamics and chronological developments at Haimenkou, Southwest China, providing a nuanced understanding of human-environment interactions from the late Pleistocene through the Holocene. Utilizing geoarchaeological surveys, particle size analysis, loss-on-ignition, and diatom analysis, this research delineates shifts in landscape and settlement patterns in relation to climatic changes and human activities. The results indicate that adaptation to the wetland environment was gradual, with the extent of landscape modification intensifying over time. This modification involved forest clearance, leading to severe soil erosion on mountain slopes, which subsequently destroyed and buried neighboring settlements to Haimenkou. Through rigorous stratigraphic and …

Human-Environmental Dynamics In Prehistoric Southwest China: Environmental Change And Chronology At Haimenkou, Yunnan, Kai Su

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the environmental dynamics and chronological developments at Haimenkou, Southwest China, providing a nuanced understanding of human-environment interactions from the late Pleistocene through the Holocene. Utilizing geoarchaeological surveys, particle size analysis, loss-on-ignition, and diatom analysis, this research delineates shifts in landscape and settlement patterns in relation to climatic changes and human activities. The results indicate that adaptation to the wetland environment was gradual, with the extent of landscape modification intensifying over time. This modification involved forest clearance, leading to severe soil erosion on mountain slopes, which subsequently destroyed and buried neighboring settlements to Haimenkou. Through rigorous stratigraphic and …

“Forget The Rest ...”: Notes On Magnetic Tape And Other Antiquated Media As Archives Of Afro-Atlantic Liturgy, David Font-Navarrete

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

The virtuosic complexity of Afro-Cuban orisha music has led scholars and artists to enshrine it as a “classical” tradition, and it has become one of most iconic and closely-studied sacred music traditions of the historical Afro-Atlantic. This essay traces the legacies of several analog-era multimedia technologies in orisha music traditions: reel-to-reel and cassette tapes; limited edition and out-of-print books and phonograph discs; ephemeral texts such as album liner notes; and photographic negatives, prints, and slides. The tapes and photos — along with a vast body of informal, unpublished, and out-of-print documents of Afro-Cuban orisha liturgy — are seldom archived by …

Sexual Dimorphism And Divergent Evolutionary Pathways In Primate Cranial Biomechanics: Insights From A Theoretical Morphology Framework, Z. Jack Tseng, Claire E. Terhune

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

he mammalian order Primates is known for widespread sexual dimorphism in size and phenotype. Despite repeated speculation that primate sexual size dimorphism either facilitates or is in part driven by functional differences in how males and females interact with their environments, few studies have directly assessed the influence of sexual dimorphism on performance traits. Here, we use a theoretical morphology framework to show that sexual dimorphism in primate crania is associated with divergent biomechanical performance traits. The degree of dimorphism is a significant covariate in biomechanical trait divergence between sexes. Males exhibit less efficient but stiffer cranial shapes and significant …

Reporting On Racial Violence: A Content Analysis Of Local & National Coverage Of Jacksonville, Florida’S Dollar General Shooting, Carter Mudgett

PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas

This study investigates how local and national news media outlets — particularly the Associated Press, CNN, the Florida Times-Union, and News4Jax — presented the “Dollar General Shooting” in Jacksonville, Florida on and after August 26, 2023. Far-reaching expectations for journalists call for “objective” observation and reporting, an ideal that is nearly impossible given that collective and individual experience inform perceptions and understandings. Nonetheless, the original definition of objectivity — as described by Kovach and Rosenstiel (2014, p. 10) — outlined a transparent approach to evidence, a process to remove personal bias from reporting, with the goal of a stronger journalistic …

Digital Twinning For Resilient Global Supply Chains: Three Case Studies, Gawon Yun, Douglas N. Hales, Leo Hong

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

Global supply chains have vulnerabilities, and these escalate in crisis times like pandemics or wars. Digital twinning of supply chains can provide early alerts and timely interventions. We examined three companies in different industries using Digital Twin (DT) technology to improve their supply chain performance. We found that while DT successfully enhanced performance indicators, the dollar and time costs were significant, creating barriers to wider DT adoption. We conclude by outlining the positives and negatives of implementing Digital Twins in global supply chains.

Frugal Consumer Behavior, Rabia Bayer

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

The purpose of this paper is to bring renewed attention to frugality and advance the discussion of frugal consumer behavior. It makes an initial attempt to explore the dimensions of frugality and provides a contextual map of frugal consumer behavior that can be empirically tested and used for future predictions.

Diverse Global Palette: From South Asia To Middle East To Europe, Nikhilesh Dholakia, Deniz Atik, Delphine Godefroit-Winkel

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

No abstract provided.

Physiology Of Pe'a And Malu: Biocultural Case Studies Of Endocrine And Immune Responses To Samoan Tatau, Christopher D. Lynn, Tomasz Nowak, Courtney Manthey, Michael Muehlenbein

Pacific Journal of Health

Tattooing has become a prominent form of body modification worldwide since the 20^th century, leading to a revival of traditional hand-tap techniques, especially those from Samoa. The Samoan traditional pe’a (male tattoo) and malu (female) are distinctive, as they are administered by hand-tap tools in open-air bungalows and are to be completed in a short period of time, usually 1-2 days for the malu and a week to a month for the pe’a. This study involved systematically collecting saliva samples from participants undergoing traditional Samoan tattooing practices facilitated by Sulu’ape Tatau in Apia, Samoa. The Sulu’ape Tatau lineage …

Usa Archaeology Museum Newsletter - October 2024, Archaeology Museum

Archaeology Museum Newsletters

In this edition of the museum's newsletter:

• Fall Semester Exhibitions
• Alabama Archaeological Society, Southwest Chapter Presents
• Alabama Archaeology Day
• Arkhaios Film Festival and Movie Cosplay Contest
• USA By the Bay: Archaeological Studies on the Gulf Coast
• Project Archaeology Educator's Conference
• Legacies of Slavery & the Shared History of the South
• Museum Fall Semester Closures
• Giving to the Archaeology Museum

Ontogenetic Biomechanics Of Tufted (Sapajus) And Untufted (Cebus) Capuchin Mandibles, Taylor A. Polvadore, Caitlin B. Yoakum, Parker M. Taylor, Megan A. Holmes, Myra F. Laird, Janine Chalk-Wilayto, Claudia Misue Kanno, Jose Americano De Oliveira, Claire E. Terhune

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Objectives

Cortical bone geometry is commonly used to investigate biomechanical properties of primate mandibles. However, the ontogeny of these properties is less understood. Here we investigate changes in cortical bone cross-sectional properties throughout capuchin ontogeny and compare captive versus wild, semi-provisioned groups. Tufted capuchins (Sapajus spp.) are known to consume relatively hard/tough foods, while untufted capuchins (Cebus spp.) exploit less mechanically challenging foods. Previous research indicates dietary differences are present early in development and adult Sapajus mandibles can resist higher bending/shear/torsional loads.

Materials and methods

This study utilized microCT scans of 22 Cebus and 45 Sapajus from early …

Dogs As Proxies For Forager-Farmer Interactions Along The Missouri River, North And South Dakota, Abigail Fisher

Anthropology Theses and Dissertations

This research explores the interaction between hunter-gatherer and farmer populations through time on the northern Great Plains of North American, a frontier both in the past and today. Here, the first introduction of farming products, specifically corn, can be tracked archaeologically, by mapping changes in the presence of maize in the diet of dogs recovered from human settlements. Dog diets are used in this study as a proxy for maize availability following the assumption that domesticated canines consume foods like their owners, be it by direct provisioning or scavenging. Of specific interest is the strategies Indigenous foraging populations employed after …

Subterranean Medicinal Bottles Are Treasures That Reveal The Growth Of Lincoln's Early Drug Stores, Mark Griep, June Weber, Erik Schulz, Effie Athanassopoulos

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Archeologists unearthed medicine bottles embossed with the names of nine early Lincoln (Nebraska) drug stores, giving insight into the rapid growth of pharmacies and health care from the 1880s up to the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.

Spatiotemporal Climatology Of Georgia Tropical Cyclones And Associated Rainfall, Reilly Corkran, Jill Trepanier, Vincent Brown

Faculty Publications

Tropical cyclones (TCs), often characterized by high wind speeds and heavy rainfall, cause widespread devastation, affecting millions of people and leading to economic losses worldwide. TC-specific research in Georgia is scarce, likely due to the minimal geographical extent of its coast and the infrequency of direct landfalls. Research on Georgia TCs does not account for storms that make landfall in other southeastern states (e.g., Florida) and continue north, northeast, or northwest into Georgia. This study used the North Atlantic Basin hurricane database (HURDAT2) to quantify the spatiotemporal patterns of direct and indirect landfalling of Georgia tropical cyclones (>16 ms−1) …

Scene Classification Of Remote Sensing Image Based On Multi-Path Reconfigurable Neural Network, Wenyi Hu, Chunjie Lan, Tian Chen, Shan Liu, Lirong Yin, Lei Wang

Faculty Publications

Land image recognition and classification and land environment detection are important research fields in remote sensing applications. Because of the diversity and complexity of different tasks of land environment recognition and classification, it is difficult for researchers to use a single model to achieve the best performance in scene classification of multiple remote sensing land images. Therefore, to determine which model is the best for the current recognition classification tasks, it is often necessary to select and experiment with many different models. However, finding the optimal model is accompanied by an increase in trial-and-error costs and is a waste of …

October 31, 2024 Nagpra And Tribal Relations Commitee Meeting Minutes, Bryan Morey

University NAGPRA and Tribal Relations Committee

Minutes from the October 31, 2024 meeting of Western Kentucky University's NAGPRA and Tribal Relations Committee. The meeting was conducted via Zoom.

Saraqib Thobe Identification In The May Weber Ethnographic Collection, Gretchen Rojewski

Department of Anthropology

The artistic tradition of embroidery in communities across the Arabian Peninsula has long served as a means of expressing local identity, values, and craftsmanship through the decoration of garments. Distinctive patterns, stylistic choices, and color palettes allow for the regional identification of embroidered clothing. This research examines a Syrian thobe housed in the May Weber Ethnographic Collection at Loyola University Chicago, using physical analysis and comparative study to identify its origins. By analyzing the garment’s embroidery patterns, construction techniques, and aesthetic details, this study not only determines the likely regional provenance of the thobe but also explores the broader cultural …

A Magical Symbiosis: The Advent Of Witchcraft In The Age Of Social Technology, James Dryden

University Honors Theses

This paper investigates the relationship between social media and witchcraft practitioners in online communities. After providing a landscape of how other researchers have studied similar phenomenon, interviews with anonymous witches who utilize online platforms such as TikTok and Instagram were conducted by the author. Using these testimonies in conjunction with the research of others, the author identifies trends and similar stories between American witches regarding Wicca, the commodification of the craft, and how witchcraft practice continues in the modern day.

Assessing The Accuracy, Validity, And Application Of A New Method For Sex Estimation Using Isotopic Ratios Of Fe, Cu, And Zn In Human Bone, Elizabeth Anne Wakefield

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation evaluates the accuracy, validity, and application of a novel sex determination method based on isotopic variations in copper (Cu) and iron (Fe) within human bone, initially developed by Jaouen et al. (2012). The primary aim of this research was to test the reproducibility of the method, expand the sample to include a broader age range and ethnically diverse groups, and assess its applicability in forensic contexts using contemporary skeletal samples. Bone samples were collected from 60 individuals across two curated skeletal collections: the George S. Huntington Skeletal Collection and the Texas State Forensic Anthropology Donated Skeletal Collection. The …

Editor's Introduction, Michael D. Pante

Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints

No abstract provided.