Digital Commons Network^™

Cultural Diversification And Decimation In The Prehistoric Record, William C. Prentiss, James C. Chatters

Anthropology and Museum Studies Faculty Scholarship

The history of human cultures is frequently marked by a distinctive pattern of evolution that paleobiologists term diversification and decimation. Under this process, fundamentally new socioeconomic systems appear during periods of dramatic cultural diversification, typically through cultural cladogenesis. Significant diversification episodes come about under conditions that favor group economic success under effective or geographic isolation. Typically shortlived, they are often followed by abrupt decimation under more competitive economic conditions. Regional archaeological sequences, viewed from this perspective, suggest that (1) cultural evolutionary trends are strongly conditioned by historical contingency, though general evolutionary processes are continuously active; (2) the emergence of new …

The Evolution Of Human Life Expectancy And Intelligence In Hunter-Gatherer Economies, Hillard Kaplan

ESI Publications

The economics of hunting and gathering must have driven the biological evolution of human characteristics, since hunter-gatherer societies prevailed for the two million years of human history. These societies feature huge intergenerational resource flows, suggesting that these resource flows should replace fertility as the key demographic consideration. It is then theoretically expected that life expectancy and brain size would increase simultaneously, as apparently occurred during our evolutionary history. The brain here is considered as a direct form of bodily investment, but also crucially as facilitating further indirect investment by means of learning-by-doing.

Afterword: The Debris, Brij V. Lal

Pacific Studies

This afterword to the collection places the essays in the context of current scholarship and media attention to the 2000 coup. It also provides updated information on the Qarase government and the current political situation in Fiji.

Review: Paul Sillitoe, Social Change In Melanesia: Development And History, Paul B. Wohlt

Pacific Studies

Paul Sillitoe, Social Change in Melanesia: Development and History. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xx, 264, illus., index. US$6S cloth; $24 paperback.

Reviewed by Paul B. Wohlt, Ball State University

Books Noted: Recent Pacific Islands Publications: Selected Acquisitions, July 2001-January 2002, Riley M. Moffat

Pacific Studies

THIS LIST of significant publications relating to the Pacific Islands was selected from new acquisitions lists received from Brigham Young University-Hawai'i, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, Bernice P. Bishop Museum, University of Auckland, East-West Center, University of the South Pacific, National Library of Australia, Melanesian Studies Resource Center of the University of California-San Diego, University of Nijmegen's Centre for Pacific and Asian Studies, and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community Library. Other libraries are invited to send contributions to the Books Noted Editor for future issues. Listings reflect the extent of information provided by each institution.

Postcolonial Politics And Colonial Media Representations In New Caledonia, Alaine Chanter

Pacific Studies

The signing in 1998 of the Noumea Agreement on the political future of New Caledonia was of great significance in conferring a limited form of nationhood on New Caledonia prior to a vote on independence in fifteen to twenty years' time. The agreement itself argues that the emergence of a " new sovereignty" requires affirmation of the formative place of Kanak identity and culture in the society. This requirement is particularly apparent within the European community, which has based its opposition to independence on a denigration of Kanak claims to an affirmative identity and peoplehood. This article interrogates whether there …

A Land Use History Of The Holly Springs National Forest, Michelle R. Mcanally

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis details the land use history of the Holly Springs National Forest. A description of the physical environment and a narrative cultural history of the area from the arrival of people into the North Central Hills are included. Archaeological survey data, soils data and witness tree locations were brought together using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) technology and analyzed in an ecological framework.

An environmental reconstruction using witness tree locations and soil types served as a platform for the delineation of environmental zones in which presettlement tree cover was estimated and compared with previous environmental studies of the area. Prehistoric …

Medicine Men Of The Anti-Progressive Party : Sacred Sites, Public Lands, And The Construction Of Religious Liberty, Jacob Culbertson

Honors Theses

On December 29, 1890 the United States Seventh Calvary descended upon a group of practitioners of the blossoming Ghost Dance religion and killed more than 300 Indians belonging to multiple Northern Plains nations. The massacre at Wounded Knee Creek was the apex of the United States government's violent campaign to win the American west from its original inhabitants, and it marked a transition in strategy in the young republic's assault on Native America. Having essentially won the land battles to annex the bulk of the economically valuable Native territory, the United States turned its attention away from the physical disposal …

Rice And Tea, Fish And Taro: Sikaiana Migration To Honiara, William W. Donner

Pacific Studies

For the past seventy years, the people from Sikaiana in the Solomon Islands have been migrating away from their atoll. After World War II, most Sikaiana migrants settled in Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands, located on Guadalcanal Island. Several generations of Sikaiana people have matured in Honiara, and, during my stays in the 1980s, the Sikaiana population in Honiara outnumbered the population on Sikaiana. In Honiara, Sikaiana migrants have developed many activities that bring them together as a community, including a residential settlement, funerals, wedding exchanges, and fund-raising events. Sikaiana people living on the atoll form a small …

Geoarcheological Investigations Of Wetland Cell D Within The Dallas Floodway Extension Project Area, Dallas, Texas, David Shanabrook, Duane E. Peter, Steven M. Hunt

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

The Dallas Floodway Extension project is designed to provide flood damage reduction and environmental restoration within the Trinity River flood plain between the Corinth Street Viaduct and Loop 12. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District, contracted with Geo-Marine, Inc., to conduct an archeological assessment of the proposed Wetland Cell D. The archeological assessment was to identify any potential archeological sites that may be eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places and to provide an assessment of the potential for buried landforms in the project area that may have intact archeological resources present. The geoarcheological …

The Caddo, Edward R. Jelks, Timothy K. Perttula

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

Knowledge of early Caddo culture comes from both archaeological and ethnographic sources. Enough archaeological research had been completed by the early 1970s to provide a fairly thorough chronology for the major pre-Columbian developments in the Caddoan area. and archaeological research has been extensive since that time.

Accounts of the DeSoto expedition of 1541-1542 constitute the earliest source of ethnohistoric data on the Caddo. Translations of the De Soto documents may be found in Bourne, Robertson, Varner and Varner, and more recently, Clayton. Some scholars think it likely that Coronado reached the edge of Caddo territory in 1541, but the consensus …

Archaeological Investigations At The Last Spanish Colonial Mission Establised On The Texas Frontier: Nuestra Senora Del Rufugio (41rf1), Refugio County, Texas, Cynthia L. Tennis

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

Between 1998 and 1999, the Center for Archaeological Research, The University of Texas at San Antonio, conducted archaeological investigations at the Spanish Colonial-period Mission Nuestra Señora del Refugio, located in Refugio County, in southern Texas. This project was conducted under Texas Antiquities Permit No. 2025. The initial phase of the excavations concentrated along US 77, in the TxDOT right-of-way, and the subsequent work conducted led to the exhumation of 165 burials, the discovery of the location of the 1796 church and the associated mission compound features.

The excavations and subsequent analyses were guided by several research questions focused on shedding …

Camp Mabry Archaeological Survey And Testing, Travis County, Texas, Richard S. Jones, John J. Leffler

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

In October 2001, the Center for Archaeological Studies (CAS) was contracted by the Adjutant General’s Department of the Texas Army National Guard (AGTX) to perform a 100% systematic archaeological survey on the grounds of Camp Mabry, in Austin. The project was comprised of a pedestrian survey, extensive shovel testing, and the excavation of two backhoe trenches. The survey resulted in the discovery of an 8 x 8-meter prehistoric site, 41TV1954. In addition, two previously recorded archaeological sites (41TV1667 and 41TV1722) were revisited, and shovel tests were excavated in order to reevaluate and document cultural resources and site boundaries. Based on …

Introduction To Endangered Peoples Of Africa And The Middle East : Struggles To Survive And Thrive, Robert K. Hitchcock, Alan J. Osborn

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Endangered Peoples of Africa and the Middle East: Struggles to Survive and Thrive is about human populations residing in Africa and the Middle East, a diverse region that is connected geographically, culturally, and historically. The African continent is vast and covers 11.7 million square miles, or an area slightly larger than the combined area of the United States and South America (Table 1). Today, the African continent is home to some 771 million people distributed within fifty-four separate countries. Of the world's continents, Africa is by far the most diverse culturally. In Sudan, for example, there are over 200 ethnic …

Battlefield Oddities: Explaining Two Minié Balls From Pea Ridge National Military Park, Don Arp Jr.

Nebraska Anthropologist

Two minié ball bullets, each with a different caliber and similar longitudinal lines were recovered at Pea Ridge National Military Park during the fieldwork conducted there in March 2001. Thefunction of these lines was unknown. Several hypotheses were advanced to explain the Irfarkings. However, through detailed mathematic and microscope analysis, it has been determined that the lines were made by the same process and machine and may have served as a point of attachment for an experimental cartridge made of either metal, cloth, or paper. The bullets may have been part of a pre-Civil War experiment and found action in …

The Mythological Role Of Gender Ideologies: A Cross-Cultural Sample Of Traditional Cultures, Richard Owens

Nebraska Anthropologist

Hunting and gathering along with horticultural societies provide a basis for understanding contemporary ideologies. Such groups are generally labeled as egalitarian societies from their status and treatment of females. A survey of traditional hunters-gatherers and horticultural societies compared their mythological charters on gender ideologies to the dally interactions of gender roles in order to determine their level of influence on the culture. Traditional societies are thought to be a basis to observe gender stratification among all known societies. The division of labor is in all cultures, as a means to limit control economic resources, often favoring men. In this paper …

A Most Sacred Place: The Significance Of Crater Lake Among The Indians Of Southern Oregon, Douglas Deur

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Discusses the Native American view of Crater Lake, Oregon, as a place of religious significance and the misunderstandings with whites as to its importance to Oregon's Indian tribes. Created some 6,500 years ago by volcanic eruption, Crater Lake has long been seen by Indians as a sacred place. Their hunting, berry gathering, and vision quests in the lake area were tied to their religious view of the lake. Since the 1850's, whites have treated the lake with a lack of understanding of its significance to the Klamath tribes. The National Park Service restricted hunting and charged Indians fees to pass …

Grief And Burial In The American Southwest: The Role Of Evolutionary Theory In The Interpretation Of Mortuary Remains, Douglas H. Macdonald

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Evolutionary theory, in consort with Marxism and processualism, provides new insights into the interpretation of grave-good variation. Processual interpretations of burial sites in the American Southwest cite age, sex, or social rank as the main determinants of burial-good variation. Marxist theorists suggest that mortuary ritual mediates social tension between an egalitarian mindset and an existing social inequality. Evolutionary theory provides a supplementary explanatory framework. Recent studies guided by kin-selection theory suggest that humans grieve more for individuals of high reproductive value and genetic relatedness. Ethnographic examples also show that individuals mourn more intensively and, thus, place more social emphasis on …

Darkness In Anthropology, Peter Van Arsdale

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An essay covering Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon by Patrick Tierney. New York: W.W. Norton, 2000. 417 pp. and related documents.

Books Noted: Recent Pacific Islands Publications: Selected Acquisitions, January-June 2001, Riley M. Moffat

Pacific Studies

This list of significant publications relating to the Pacific Islands was selected from new acquisitions lists received from Brigham Young University– Hawai‘i, University of Hawai‘i at Mânoa, Bernice P. Bishop Museum, University of Auckland, East-West Center, University of the South Pacific, National Library of Australia, Melanesian Studies Resource Center of the University of California–San Diego, and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community Library. Other libraries are invited to send contributions to the Books Noted Editor for future issues. Listings reflect the extent of information provided by each institution.

Exploring The Social Dimensions Of Grog-Temper Use At The Ink Bayou Site (3pu252): A Plum Bayou Culture Site In Central Arkansas, Eric Chadwick Drake

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the social implications involved with the technological decision to use grog (crushed potsherds) as a ceramic tempering agent by potters affiliated with the Plum Bayou culture of central Arkansas. The analytical technique of point-counting ceramic thin sections is used to search for patterns of grog-temper use at a single Plum Bayou culture site, the Ink Bayou site (3PU252). While the thermal properties of grog-temper may help to explain the variability of use observed at the Ink Bayou site, the social implications of producing grog-tempered pots are best illuminated by the sequence of productive operations employed by the …

Terrorism: Local Government Response, Richard T. Boswell

Theses & Honors Papers

Every community in America has the potential to be the target of a terrorist attack. When this attack occurs it is the responsibility of local government agencies to combat the problem. These agencies lack many of the resources needed to successfully deal with these types of attacks. Furthermore, many local governments are under the illusion that the federal government and all of its resources will quickly arrive and assume control of the operation.

“Quixotic And Utopian”: American Adventurers In The Southwest Pacific, 1897–1898, Hugh Laracy

Pacific Studies

The islands of the Pacific have long attracted escapists and adventurers from abroad. Mostly they have gone to Polynesia, and the bulk of scholarly commen- tary on the topic is concerned with that region. Even so, others have been tempted by Melanesia. Two such expeditions were those of the Percy Edwards and the Sophia Sutherland, which left San Francisco for New Guinea and the Solomons, respectively, in 1897. They involved 116 fortune seekers and were very well publicized at the time but have hitherto escaped the notice of historians. Yet, although they were total failures, they are not without considerable …

Review: The Lost Drum: The Myth Of Sexuality In Papua New Guinea And Beyond, David Lipset

Pacific Studies

Book review of "James Weiner, The Lost Drum: The Myth of Sexuality in Papua New Guinea and Beyond" by David Lipset

Review: An Introduction To The Anthropology Of Melanesia: Culture And Tradition, Roger Ivar Lohmann

Pacific Studies

Paul Sillitoe, An Introduction to the Anthropology of Melanesia: Culture and Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp. xxiii, 254, illus., bib., index. US$22.95 paperback.

Reviewed by Roger Ivar Lohmann, Western Oregon University

Texas In The Year 1000: What It Was Like Then In East Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

This paper summarizes the native history of the Caddo peoples who lived in East Texas in the Year 1000. Of particular focus are the origins and early developments of the Caddoan tradition, regional diversity, subsistence changes and agricultural intensification, and socio-political dynamics.

Archaeological Investigations At A Spanish Colonial Site, (41ka26-B) Karnes County, Texas, Cynthia L. Tennis

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

In July, 1998, the Center for Archaeology Research (CAR) at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) was awarded a contract by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) for artifact analysis and report composition on archaeological investigations at a Spanish Colonial period site in Karnes County in south Texas. The data for this analysis and interpretation was recovered during 1985 TxDOT excavations at site 41KA26.

Forty-five test units and seven shovel tests were excavated resulting in the recovery of approximately 4000 artifacts including over 1000 peives of animal bone, 445 Native American pottery sherds, 404 pieces of Spanish ceramics, …

Book Review: Jürg Wassmann, Ed., Pacific Answers To Western Hegemony: Cultural Practices Of Identity Construction, Laurence Marshall Carucci

Pacific Studies

Jürg Wassmann, ed., Pacific Answers to Western Hegemony: Cultural Practices of Identity Construction. Oxford: Berg, 1998. Pp. 449, bib., index. £44.99 cloth; £17.99 paperback.

Reviewed by Laurence Marshall Carucci, Montana State University

Santa Elena/Charlesfort Excavations, Spring 2000, Chester B. Depratter, Stanley South, James B. Legg

Faculty & Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Vol. 23 No. 1/2 (2000): Pacific Studies Full Issue, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Pacific Studies is published two times a year by The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies, Brigham Young University Hawai‘i #1979, 55–220 Kulanui Street, Lāʻie, Hawai‘i 96762, but responsibility for opinions expressed in the articles rests with the authors alone. Subscription rate is US $40.00 yearly, payable to The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies. The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies (formerly The Pacific Institute) is an organization funded by Brigham Young University Hawai‘i. The Center assists the University in meeting its cultural and educational goals by undertaking a program of teaching, research, …