Digital Commons Network^™

“Speed-Faithing” Engages “Big Questions” And Builds Bridges Of Empathy And Connection, Bonnie Glass-Coffin

Interfaith Initiative Research

An article about how various Interfaith activities can help campus become a safer place for students in the wake of the 2016 Presidential Election.

Rock Art Management And Landscape Change: Mixed Field Assessment Techniques For Cultural Stone Decay, Kaelin M. Groom

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As tourism continues to grow as one of the world’s most ubiquitous markets, the development and promotion of non-invasive techniques for cultural stone decay analysis and landscape change are vital to establishing conditional base-lines to best aid cultural heritage management (CRM) efficacy. Using rock art as a medium, this dissertation presents three independent case studies employing the Rock Art Stability Index (RASI) and repeat photography to explore the merits of mixed rapid field assessment techniques in relation to CRM and heritage tourism. While rock art is only one example of irreplaceable world heritage resources, examining how they decay and what …

The Spatial Ordering Of Nabataea: An Integrated Analysis Of The Geography, Architecture, And Morphology Of Nabataean Petra, Christopher Clifton Angel

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Nabataean city of Petra is well known for its sandstone architecture and rock-hewn funerary landscape. Over the last few decades, numerous studies examined their history, culture, art, and architecture. The few studies that assessed the urban space of Petra focused on the functional properties of individual architectural forms and their nominal placement within the overall landscape. This study focused on the spatial configurations of architecture as relational to the dynamics of Nabataean politics and ritual where shifts in social order manifested similar shifts in spatial order which in turn produced and reproduced forms of social order. The production of …

Do Non-Human Primates Have Gender?, Aaron Pelchat

Senior Honors Projects

As activism for trans rights and gender equality becomes ever more prevalent in the current American political discourse, so too has there been a rise in questions about gender. Are sexuality and gender linked? Aren’t there only two genders? What is the difference between gender and sex? Is there a difference? How does one DO gender? Isn’t gender just something you are born with? Helping the public understand these questions is important to transgender and gender non-conforming individuals in a time when more people are “coming out of the closet” and identifying as genders other than cisgender. As an anthropologist, …

Please Forget To Floss: Developing An Assay For Identifying Tuberculosis In Dental Calculus From The Smithsonian’S Huntington Collection (1893-1921), Soleil Young

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Tuberculosis is one of the most ubiquitous diseases in human history. Despite the long history of human interactions with the disease, tracking it retroactively is difficult because of its low rate of associated, diagnostic bony changes. Ancient DNA, also called aDNA, is a novel method for examining the presence of disease in the past. Currently, the only way to isolate tuberculosis aDNA is to drill and section bone, a method that is both invasive and expensive, limiting its use in the archaeological record. This capstone examines new ways of tracking and understanding tuberculosis in the past, utilizing the DNA trapped …

Sacral Variability In Tailless Species: Homo Sapiens And Ochotona Princeps, Robert G. Tague

Faculty Publications

Homo sapiens is variable in number of sacral vertebrae, and this variability can lead to obstetrical complication. This study uses the comparative method to test the hypothesis that sacral variability in H. sapiens is associated with absence of a tail. Three species of lagomorphs are studied: Ochotona princeps (N = 271), which is tailless, and Lepus californicus (N = 212) and Sylvilagus audubonii (N = 206), which have tails. Results show that O. princeps has (1) higher diversity index for number of sacral vertebrae (0.49) compared to L. californicus (0.25) and S. audubonii (0.26) and (2) significantly higher percentage of …

Drawing Lessons From A Catastrophe At “The Roof Of The World”, Shaun Krause Mcgillis, Jeremy Spoon

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

In the wake of the 2015 earthquakes, Dr. Jeremy Spoon traveled to Nepal to study the ways natural disasters reshape social-ecological systems. What he and his team learned could improve the future of disaster preparedness, relief, and recovery efforts.

Impact Of High-Resolution Topographic Mapping On Beach Morphological Analyses Based On Terrestrial Lidar And Object-Oriented Beach Evolution, Xuelian Meng, Xukai Zhang, Rodolfo Silva, Chunyan Li, Lei Wang

Faculty Publications

This research applied terrestrial LiDAR for laboratory beach evolution experiments to quantify the impact of resolution on topographic mapping and change analyses. The multi-site registration and multi-Temporal scanning processes produced high accuracy (-0.002 - 0.003 m) topographic models in a wave tank environment. Morphological analyses based on surface change and profiles showed that models of all resolutions were capable of capturing major sediment changes in relatively smooth areas. However, higher resolution models were necessary in areas with rough surfaces and sudden elevation changes, while coarser resolution models smoothed the roughness and underestimated feature height (e.g., peaks and troughs). Decreasing resolutions …

Public Ritual Sacrifice As A Controlling Mechanism For The Aztec, Madeline Nicholson

Honors Scholar Theses

For decades, archaeologists have researched the fascinating finds of Aztec sacrifice. Evidence of their sacrifices are seen on temple walls, stone carvings, bones, and in Spanish chronicler drawings. Although public ritual sacrifice was practiced before the Aztecs, with evidence from the Olmec civilization (1200-1300 BCE) and Maya (200-900 BCE), Aztec sacrifices are among the most extensively documented. How does such a practice survive in different civilizations through different rulers? This thesis will analyze the phases of Aztec public ritual sacrifice (specifically the location, length, and number of sacrifices) and the close relationship to their origin myths, or founding stories. It …

“The Golden Rule”: A Portable Escape Room Designed To Promote Empathy And Playfulness In Challenging Social Contexts, Isabella Gomati

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

The development of a Portable Escape Room (PER) board game aims to promote empathy as one of the key skills that, for a society in constant change, is necessary to face and solve complex social challenges. The development of a PER is a way of addressing the need for both innovative and accessible tools that can be used in different sectors of the economy. The PER not only encourages creative collaboration, but it also introduces the possibility of playfulness as a bridge for learning and problem-solving in a variety of scenarios. The product itself encompasses an excellent example of a …

Spatial Patterning And Human Behavior In Level "F" At Lapa Do Picareiro., Brandon K Zinsious

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Spatial analysis at the site level offers unique perspectives and has become increasingly more accessible as advances in technology allow rapid 3-dimensional mapping and rigorous statistical analysis. This project focused on the geological stratigraphic level “F”, at Lapa do Picareiro; a shallow cave in the Estremadura region of Portugal. This level, dated to 14,000 years ago calibrated BP, experienced multiple human occupations between the Last Glacial Maximum and the Younger Dryas. This work examines the recovered material from a period of Upper Magdalenian occupations and sheds light on how enclosed space was used in Estremadura Portugal. Distinct distributions of lithic …

Activity Patterns And Division Of Labor At A Southeastern Tennessee Late Mississippian Site: Toqua, Dustin Lloyd

Theses and Dissertations

Entheseal changes (EC), formally musculoskeletal stress markers, are the recordation of osteophytic change at an enthesis (any muscular origin or insertion). Study of EC is valuable in decoding past life activities, social dynamics, and health through the quantification of reactive osseous changes at entheses. The current study assesses EC to ascertain activity patterns at the Late Mississippian Dallas Phase (~1300-1550 AD) site of Toqua, aboriginally located in the lower Little Tennessee River Valley of East Tennessee. Toqua was a multiple mound, palisaded settlement of maize-intensive agriculturalists. The subsistence strategy may have required intense and possibly specialized labor of the upper …

Nowhere To Go : Informal Settlement Eradication In Kigali, Rwanda., Emily E Benken

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

Following the new world order of the post-Cold War era, the rise of developmentalism stressed the moral necessity of installing capitalist models of growth in the global south. The reproduction of narratives of modernity and teleological progression were reproduced in numerous African cities and actualized in policies related to urban development. The consequent trend of urbanization has been the systemic eradication of informal settlements and large-scale displacement to make way for modern, productive urban areas.

One site of this pattern is Kigali, Rwanda. Since the turn of the century, official “vision projects” released by the Rwandan government have reimagined the …

Cross-Cultural Investigation Of Birth Experience : A Comparison Between Mexico And The United States., Alice J Darling

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

This study investigates the maternal birth experience through a cross-cultural lens. While the field of medical anthropology has researched birth practices of many cultures, few cross-cultural studies have been performed and no recent studies have suggested a transition in birthing. Ethnographic interviews with women and practitioners in Yucatán, Mexico and with women in Kentucky, United States allowed for a better understanding of the respective birthing environments. Grounded theory was then employed to develop a birth transition theory explaining changes occurring when society transitions from traditional birth practitioners to allopathic birth practitioners. The themes of knowledge, expectation and power were isolated …

Narrating The French National Story: The Role Of Discourse In The Production Of Frenchness, Sarah Quinn Dickshinski

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

At the center of the question of alterity today lies a debate on the role ethnicity, race, religion, and culture each play in the context of multicultural societies. In France the social contract claims to extend equal rights to all of its citizens by simple virtue of their presence in the collective, yet members of minority populations living in France often do not have access to these rights. Arab Muslim immigrants in particular are treated differently than citizens who represent the white, catholic, bourgeois population whose ancestry is seen as being "rooted" in France. While Arab Muslim immigrants are legally …

The Bioarchaeology Of Inequality During The Middle Bronze Age In Central Anatolia, Cheryl Anderson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation research study focused on the bioarchaeology of Kaman-Kalehöyük and the goal was to provide baseline data for investigating the effects of social inequalities on rural communities during the Middle Bronze Age (MBA) (ca. 2000-1750 years Before Current Era) in central Anatolia (present-day Turkey). In particular, this project addresses the impact of the political landscape during the MBA on population health at the village site Kaman-Kalehöyük using multiple lines of evidence. This is accomplished through the thorough documentation and analysis of human skeletal remains at Kaman-Kalehöyük. More specifically, all MBA skeletal remains from this site were examined for health …

The Plight Of Undocumented Female Migrants: Identifying Structural Factors That Contribute To The Proliferation Of Sex Trafficking And The Failings Of International Law, Hannah K. Valles

International and Global Studies Undergraduate Honors Theses

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the conditions at two specific border zones, the United States-Mexico border and the Mexico-Guatemalan border, that render undocumented female migrants vulnerable to abduction or recruitment into sexual exploitation. In addition to exploring the factors that expose women to trafficking networks, the study scrutinizes the legal failings of the international law-making community with regards to the safeguarding of women whose socio-economic conditions and environment of perpetual violence prompt their extralegal international movement. The paper provides an overview of the social, economic, and historical factors that underpin the flourishing of sex trafficking operations in …

The 5th Of May: Trajectory, Reappropriations And Possibilities Of A Mexico-American Tradition, Antonio Sánchez, Julieta Altamirano-Crosby

Anthropology and Museum Studies Faculty Scholarship

This paper is aimed at to analyze the historical significance of the date of 5th of May for Mexico and the United States. The Documental Argumentative Research method was used for this research, and it is concluded that this victory had a profound historical significance and relevance not only for Mexico but also for the United States, representing an important symbol of national patriotism. This date was forming a path of the new Chicano, the new Latino, a new future strategically minded, as an opportunity to educate, inform and inspire the public good, to reexamine Mexico and the Mexico-American history, …

Andrew Lang: A World We Have Lost, William Donaldson

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses the career and wide-ranging accomplishments of the Scottish essayist, poet and critic Andrew Lang (1844-1912), author of Myth, Ritual and Religion (2 vols., 1887), arguing that Lang was "an original thinker with a powerful oppositional streak;" reviews his significance for late Victorian anthropology and the studies of religions (including psychical research), and on his work as a translator and classicist, reviewer, ballad scholar, biographer, and Scottish historian, as well as his contribution to children's literature; includes an assessment of a new 2-volume selection of Lang's writing; and concludes that Lang's "virtuosic range" and "slashing keenness of intellect" "contributed significantly …

Spangle Lakes: An Investigation Of Late Archaic Human Land-Use Within The Sawtooth Mountains, Kaitlyn Mansfield

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Recent high altitude archaeological research has provided evidence for seasonal utilization of high mountain landscapes during the Late Archaic era. Sites in the Western United States display varying patterns of land use suggesting that during the Late Archaic, mountain landscapes were used differently based upon unique environmental conditions. Hypotheses about land-use in the Spangle Lakes area of the Sawtooth Mountains, Idaho, were compiled from regional Late Archaic high elevation sites, regional ethnographic data, and a Binfordian database that utilizes environmental and ethnographic measurements to develop projections on hunter-gatherer behavior. Through a reinvestigation of the Spangle Lakes area, it was determined …

“A Theoretical Model For Critical Geographies Of Gentrification: A Comparative Analysis Of Globalization In Two Gay Villages”, Spencer Nelson

Geography Honors Projects

Abstract: The role of gay villages in gentrification has long been contemplated yet their relationship to the global circulation of capital is understudied. This thesis sheds light on this phenomenon through an urban political ecology of gentrification and provides a new model of critical geographies of gentrification. The model is illustrated through ethnographic research in the two gay villages of De Waterkant in Cape Town, South Africa, and Loring Park in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The relationship between gentrification and globalization is analyzed through the four lenses that bring flows of financial capital, culture, technology, and ideology into focus and offers a …

Late Magdalenian Lithic Technological Organization At Lapa Do Picareiro, Central Portugal., Melissa Jean Holst

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Lapa do Picareiro, a cave located in Portuguese Estremadura, contains continuous deposits dated to the Late Pleistocene. As one of the highest elevation Upper Paleolithic sites currently known in Portugal, questions are raised about the function of the site during this time. This thesis presents a comprehensive analysis of the lithic assemblage recovered from the Late Magdalenian layer of F/G (13,442 to 14,011 cal BP). The data generated from this study, when looked at in conjunction with the previously analyzed faunal assemblage, helps to provide a broader understanding of the site’s function during the Late Magdalenian. The analysis focuses on …

Jurisdiction, Privacy, And Ownership: Dna Technology And Field Dynamics In Conflict-Related Mass Fatalities, Stefan Schmitt, Dallas Mazoori

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This article explores the dynamics and challenges of undertaking human identifications in states experiencing armed conflict or emerging therefrom. It emphasises the integral role of the State in human identifications and the need for the legal acts of the State in identifying an individual and confirming their death to be integrated into any humanitarian response to repatriating the dead. Conflict-related mass fatalities occur in uncontrolled circumstances, making DNA-based human identifications necessary. In states lacking the necessary forensic infrastructure, the promise of expedited human identifications through outsourcing DNA work can lead to the State abdicating the necessary jurisdiction and scientific transparency …

The Old Deery Inn & Museum: An Ethnographic Case Study, Rebecca J. Proffitt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis uses qualitative ethnographic research methods to present a case study that explores the multiplicity of meanings and representations that are attached to the Old Deery Inn & Museum in Blountville, Tennessee. Within the community, the Inn functions as a center for cultural memory, with the physical structure itself acting as an artifact that holds community identity. This community narrative contrasts with the official narrative used by tourism entities that markets the Inn as a part of the Appalachian region, situating the Inn within a complex and intricately constructed identity of place that is shaped by lived experiences as …

"Some Things Grew No Less With Time:" Tracing Atu 510b From The Thirteenth To The Twentieth Century, Rachel L. Maynard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides a comparative analysis of seven different variants of the fairy tale commonly known as “Donkeyskin,” classified in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther folktale motif index as ATU 510B. By comparing so many different iterations of one fairy tale, it is easier to recognize the inherent attitudes concerning women and their place in society contained in this tale. Additionally, reading multiple variants from different centuries lends a perspective on the way that these attitudes changed over the centuries. Each of the thirteenth century texts considered end with their heroines trapped in loveless marriages, much like the seventeenth-century fairy tale, “Donkeyskin,” their …

Progressive Education In Appalachia: East Tennessee State Normal School And Appalachian State Normal School, Holly Heacock

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In this thesis, I am examining how East Tennessee State Normal School in East Tennessee and Appalachian State Normal School in Western North Carolina interpreted progressive education differently in their states. This difference is that East Tennessee State began as a state funded school to educate future teachers therefore their school and their curriculum was more rounded and set to a structured schedule. Appalachian State Normal School was initially founded to educate the uneducated in the “lost provinces” therefore, curriculum was even more progressive than East Tennessee State’s – based strongly on the practices of farming, woodworking, and other practical …

Aging And Fermentation As Adaptive Food Management Strategies In The Arctic, Celeste Giordano

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation is composed of three papers: one published article, one article under review for publication, and one published commentary. Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the dissertation as a whole – a work that investigates food aging and fermentation techniques in an indigenous Yup’ik Alaskan community, proposes an adaptive explanation for these strategies in the circumpolar north, and explores the potential importance of them cross-culturally and evolutionarily. Chapter 2 is a paper that describes the seal poke storage system – an indigenous food preservation and storage technique that Yup’ik Alaskans used to manage food security up until approximately one …

The Impact Of High School Extracurriculars: Similarities And Differences In Sense Of Community Among Competitive, Performance, And Participatory Activities, Erica M. Hawvermale

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Extant research links high sense of community in adolescence to adaptive outcomes such as enhanced motivation, self-efficacy, and coping ability (Battistich, Solomon, Watson, & Schaps, 1997; Vieno, Perkins, Smith, & Santinello, 2005; Henry & Slater, 2007), as well as reduced stress, anxiety, and depression (Chipuer, Bramston, & Pretty, 2002). In light of these findings, the present study was designed to assess the relationship between high school students’ participation in extracurricular activities and their perceptions of sense of community, enjoyment, and commitment, as well as the aspects of these organizations that help to facilitate feelings of community. Study 1 participants (N= …

Modeling Early Archaic Mobility And Subsistence: Evaluating Resource Risk Across The South Carolina Landscape, Joseph E. Wilkinson

Theses and Dissertations

Previous models predicting Early Archaic mobility and subsistence strategies in South Carolina have evaluated behavioral negotiations of specific resource distributions. A new model is presented using empirical datasets that quantify and evaluate the quality and geographic distributions of lithic raw materials and drainage systems in the state. By utilizing datasets from private collections and landscape elevation data, this model is generated using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software in order to produce a "Risk Landscape" from which predictions of site density, artifact density, lithic raw material diversity, and the condition of lithic toolkit assemblages can be generated based on landscape location. …

Violence Against Central American Unaccompanied Minors: From Home To United States Border, Katherine A. Owens

Senior Honors Projects

In the past four years, there has been a significant increase in apprehensions of unaccompanied minors from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras at the Southwest Border of the United States: an estimated 207,000 since 2013. This paper researches the sexual and physical abuse the minors (aged 5 to 17) are subjected to while in their home country, on their journey north and upon arrival at the United States border. Data was collected through a literature review of federal investigations of human trafficking in Central America, Mexico, and Texas, along with federal publications on border apprehensions and unaccompanied minors. United Nations …