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Holocene Environmental Change In Mainland Southeast Asia: Pollen And Charcoal Records From Cambodia., Andrew Lee Maxwell

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Major Holocene environmental changes in continental Southeast Asia are reconstructed using proxy data derived from analysis of 14C-dated changes in pollen, microscopic charcoal, and organic/inorganic carbon in sediment cores taken from permanent, closed-basin, volcanic lakes in Ratanakiri Province, northeastern Cambodia. Analysis focuses on the history of monsoon climate and land use, inferred from changes in vegetation, fire regime, and lake conditions. These data provide the first well dated palynological record, covering most of the Holocene and continuous up to the present, from an upland site in mainland Southeast Asia. The record from a 15-meter core retrieved from Yeak Kara Lake, …

Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind: A Gis Study Of Changes In Cemetery Locations In Southeastern Louisiana From An Archaeological And Geographical Perspective, 1930--1997., Cindy Ann Nance

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Cemeteries in southeastern Louisiana are in varying stages of use---from presently in use and maintained to no longer visible on the surface. The abandonment of traditional cemeteries in southeastern Louisiana illustrates evolving settlement patterns. Earlier settlement patterns were dependent on physiographic and cultural landscape features. As settlement patterns evolve, the preferred locations of cemeteries change. As a recent participant in the nationwide preference for urban-associated Memorial Parks, is Louisiana in the process of abandoning traditional cemetery landscapes? Six factors that contribute to the abandonment of traditional cemeteries from 1930 to 1997 are presented in this study. Evolving communities, demographic shifts, …

The Performance Of Prekindergarten Children On Representational Tasks Across Levels Of Displacement., Emily Flake Smith

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

This investigation was guided by Nelson's (1996) experiential theory and the Situational-Discourse-Semantic (SDS) model of Norris and Hoffman (1993, 1997, in press) which was used to establish predictions regarding the representational difficulty of each of the task conditions. Subjects were 32 four-year-old children enrolled in four prekindergarten programs located within a small city in southern Louisiana and represented both lower and middle SES populations. The tasks required subjects to represent knowledge of the bedtime routine, ranging from personal enactments with props through generation of stories and event scripts for hypothetical situations. Performances were analyzed for content in terms of event …

The Miskito Settlement Landscape Of Eastern Honduras, With Emphasis On The Moravian Contribution., Benjamin Farr Tillman

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation documents the influence of Moravian missionary activities on the Miskito settlement landscape in eastern Honduras---particularly in the areas of settlement morphology, housing, agriculture, and cemeteries. Upon their arrival to the Mosquito Coast in 1849, the missionaries employed a three pronged approach consisting of proselyting, medical treatment, and education to convert the majority of the indigenous population. The missionaries' resulting influence was a significant component and major cultural force in the development of a distinctive Protestant region within Catholic Central America. Moravian contributions to the settlement landscape in sixty-four Miskito villages of eastern Honduras were documented through field observations …

Community Structure And The Effects Of Experimental Fires On Hardwood Shrub Species In Southeastern Longleaf Pine Savannas., Paul Boguslaw Drewa

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The main objective of this dissertation is to describe and examine how altering fire regimes in southeastern longleaf pine savannas may affect the abundances and distributions of indigenous plant species. In chapter one, I investigate whether herbs, compared to shrubs, have greater utility in delineating communities along elevation gradients of several meters in longleaf pine savannas. Herbaceous and shrub abundance data were analyzed separately for areas in Louisiana and Florida using cluster analysis and ordination. In Louisiana, three plant communities were sharply delineated and strongly correlated with gradients in elevation, surface soil moisture, and other surface soil properties. Herbaceous species …

Holding Back The Waters: Land Development And The Origins Of Levees On The Mississippi, 1720-1845., Jeffrey Alan Owens

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Man's efforts to control flooding on the Mississippi began about 280 years ago, but the first 130 years has been neglected in scholarly literature. In spite of abundant primary sources, most histories of flood control on the Mississippi revolve around hydraulic engineering and the contributions of state and federal levee bureaucracies---factors which had almost no impact on the creation of the levee system. Engineers did install the first levee at New Orleans and levees on their own plantations in the 1720s, but the extension of the levee line thereafter was almost entirely the work of private land developers supervised at …

The Historical And Cultural Geography Of The Grange In Minnesota And Louisiana, 1870-1880., Linda Marie Thorstad

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

This study uses historical and geographical inquiry to examine postbellum agrarian social, political and economic unrest that in 1868 led to the formation of the first national, secret and ritualistic, fraternal agricultural society known as the Grange. The Grange was created to unite farmers through cooperative buying and selling, to promote agricultural education, and to create a social organization that encouraged both women and men to acquire and refine leadership skills. It also sought to address concerns over monopolies and promoted state regulation of railroad rates. Although Grange membership peaked in 1875 and sharply declined through 1880, it forged the …

Extratropical Storms Of The Gulf Of Mexico And Their Effects Along The Northern Coast Of A Barrier Island: West Ship Island, Mississippi., Phillip Lynn Chaney

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The north-facing, estuarine shores of barrier islands along the northern Gulf of Mexico are experiencing severe shoreline erosion. This erosion process is related to storm events that occur when cold fronts pass along the coast. These cold fronts are associated with the migration of extratropical (mid-latitude) cyclones and anticyclones across the region in winter. Wind data collected by a NOAA weather buoy over the period 1981--1997 were used, in conjunction with daily weather maps, to evaluate winter storm activity. Seven synoptic weather patterns that produced extratropical storm events along the northern Gulf Coast were identified. Statistics were computed for the …

Biological Diversity And Cultural Survival: Mopan Maya Traditional Culture And Environmental Change In Southern Belize., Michael Kenneth Steinberg

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation is a study of the causal relationship between the decline of cultural diversity and environmental diversity. My study investigates the larger-scale economic, political, and social factors that result in the rejection of traditional land use strategies and how these changing strategies ultimately lead to an overall decline in environmental diversity in the Mopan Maya landscape in southern Belize. Five Mopan Maya cultural biogeographic case studies are presented, including the management of maize diversity, the species composition and variability of kitchen gardens, swidden-fallow agroforestry practices, traditional bee keeping, and hunting game and habitat preferences. These topics were chosen because …

Tennessee Williams And New Orleans: Rewriting The Playwright, Rewriting The City., Mark D. Zelinsky

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Vieux Carre (1978), Suddenly Last Summer (1958), and A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) are among the many Tennessee Williams' plays and short stories that take New Orleans as their setting; they demonstrate how the city offered an appropriate and complex metaphor to explore his themes. This study centers on Tennessee Williams and New Orleans and explores how the two are linked in a mutually advantageous relationship, how the city informed his work, how his works reflect/re-create the city, and how the combination has passed into popular culture. This work examines the themes and images prevalent in Williams, work that also …

Tourism And Place In Treasure Beach, Jamaica: Imagining Paradise And The Alternative., Michael J. Hawkins

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The tourism production system has been generating images of the Jamaican landscape and culture since the mid-nineteenth century. This system consists of those individuals and corporate entities who produce and market the product itself, including travel writers, airlines, advertising agencies, hotel owners and government agencies; and the people, their culture, and elements of the landscape which are commodified as tourist attractions. The tourist gaze has traditionally focused on an idealized Caribbean landscape. Because of a shift in Western patterns of consumption, the focus of the gaze has shifted to emphasize the culture and people who inhabit the landscape. As the …

"A Perfect War": Politics And Parties In Louisiana, 1824--1861., John Michael Sacher

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

My dissertation explores Louisiana's political development from 1824 to 1861. Many antebellum state studies have been written, but none focus specifically on Louisiana. While sharing the rest of the South's commitment to slavery and cotton, Louisiana possessed atypical attributes including: a unique ethnic composition, a sugar cane crop dependent upon a protective tariff, and the presence of New Orleans, the South's foremost commercial city. Louisiana's antebellum political situation resulted from the interaction of these distinctive traits with the characteristics that Louisiana shared in common with the rest of the United States. The primary focus of this political narrative is the …

Organizing The *South: Railroads, Plantations, And War., Steven Gedson Collins

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

This work examines the emergence of organizational and bureaucratic ideas in the 19th-century South. It shows that organizational thinking took root in the antebellum South and grew during the Civil War. Many Southerners accepted the modern precepts of time, system, and bureaucratic control. They created of modern view of the world while incorporating slavery within this outlook. These same organizational ideals helped create a New South. The first section of this work examines how southern railroad managers introduced modern bureaucratic structures into their operations. At the same time, they incorporated slavery within this modern corporate structure. The second section examines …

The Evolution Of The Red River Valley Settlement System, 1714--1860., Keumsoo Hong

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Since the first European settlement was established in the middle of Indian territory in 1714, the Red River Valley had experienced a dramatic transformation until the end of the antebellum period. The trajectory of the evolution can be divided into five vertical cross sections. The formative phase (1714--1803) features the colonial regimes in political arena, less-specialized regional economies, nascent urban units laden heavily with defensive functions, and coerced labor system. The settlement system resembled a semi-primate pattern with Natchitoches on the summit. The period of the Territory of Orleans (1804--1812) corresponded to the transition phase. During this interim, traditional staples …

Another New South: Patterns Of Continuity In The Southern Naval Stores Industry., Robert Boone Outland Iii

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Analysis of southern naval stores production, an industry in many respects more representative of southern economic development than cotton textiles, reveals a pattern of continuity between the antebellum and post-war South. Naval stores manufacturing began in the colonial era but languished as a marginally-profitable business until the 1830s when new uses for spirits of turpentine resulted in increased demand and higher prices. Large turpentine operations developed almost exclusively in eastern North Carolina and the slaves, who performed most of the work, experienced distinct work patterns. By the 1850s, destructive gum-harvesting methods led to the depletion of North Carolina's longleaf pine …

A 4,000 Year Pollen Record Of Vegetation Changes, Sea Level Rise, And Hurricane Disturbance In Atchafalaya March Of Southern Louisiana, Xinyu Zhou

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Sediment cores from the Atchafalaya Marsh in southern Louisiana were intensively studied by means of pollen and loss-on-ignition analyses to reconstruct the history of late-Holocene environmental changes and hurricane strikes in the area. The data indicate that the coring site was occupied by a fresh marsh about 4000 years ago. Afterwards, the fresh marsh was replaced by a brackish marsh in the following 400 years. The marsh became a salt marsh in response to sea level rise beginning 3250 yr BP. During 2800-1200 yr BP, the study site became an estuarine environment inundated by sea water as a result of …

The Mentawai Of Siberut Island, Indonesia: A Case Study Of Indigenous Land Use And Conservation Areas, Stacy Crevello

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Indonesia has been blessed with the second most ecologically diverse rain forests in the world. The Indonesian government has recognized the importance of preserving these natural resources as they are in jeopardy of extinction with wide spread logging in direct competition for forest resources. These forests are also home to most of Indonesia's 1.5 million indigenous people who rely on natural resources for survival.

This study analyzes the natural resource use and exploitation of the indigenous Mentawai of Siberut Island, Indonesia. The Mentawaians are atypical as they have historically practiced conservation by following strict taboos and "Adat", the customary law. …

Lumières, Spring 1998, Louisiana State University And Agricultural & Mechanical College

Friends of the LSU Libraries

The bi-annual newsletters from the Friends of the Library contain information about upcoming and recent events, descriptions of new collections, a list of members, and occasional obituaries, which inform members of the news and needs of the LSU Libraries.

The Tiger And The Pangolin: Cultural Ecology, Landscape Ecology, And Nature Conservation In China's Southeast Uplands., Christopher Reed Coggins

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The Wuyi-Daiyun Mountains, which form the core of China's Southeast Uplands Region, support a mosaic of subtropical forest, grassland, and cropland habitats, with some 1,620 species of plants and 326 species of terrestrial vertebrates. Forty-two animal species are officially protected, including the highly endangered South China tiger (Panthera tigris amoyensis). This study, based on one year of field research, examines relationships between village land use, landscape change, and wildlife management in the Meihuashan Nature Reserve of Southwest Fujian. It includes comparative studies of reserves in Longxishan and Wuyishan, further north, and Daiyunshan, to the east. Over 500 local gazetteer records …

The Evolving Landscape: Homer Aschmann's Geography, Andrew Sluyter

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

From Archive To Map To Pastoral Landscape: A Spatial Perspective On The Livestock Ecology Of Sixteenth-Century New Spain, Andrew Sluyter

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Favored Place: San Juan River Wetlands, Central Veracruz, Ad 500 To The Present. By Alfred H. Siemens, Andrew Sluyter

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Tectonic Controls On Sedimentation And Diagenesis In The Tonga Trench And Forearc, Southwest Pacific, P. D. Clift, C. J. Macleod, D. R. Tappin, D. J. Wright, S. H. Bloomer

Faculty Publications

Sedimentation in the Tonga forearc is dominated by the redeposition of volcaniclastic sediment from the arc volcanic front by mass flows and turbidity currents onto the adjacent Tonga Platform, the shallowest, flattest part of the forearc region. The greatest sediment thicknesses accumulate in debris aprons close to the volcanic front. Collision of seamounts, notably the Capricorn Seamount and the Louisville Ridge, with the forearc radically shortens and steepens the adjacent modern trench slope, allowing sediment to be redeposited deep into the trench. Rotation, usually arcward, of existing basins on the midslope during collision generates angular unconformities, while synchronous uplift of …

Sympatric Sea Shells Along The Sea's Shore: The Geography Of Speciation In The Marine Gastropod Tegula, Michael E. Hellberg

Faculty Publications

Uncertainty and controversy surround the geographical and ecological circumstances that create genetic differences between populations that eventually lead to reproductive isolation. Two aspects of marine organisms further complicate this situation: (1) many species possess planktonic larvae capable of great dispersal; and (2) obvious barriers to movement between populations are rare. Past studies of speciation in the sea have focussed on identifying the effects of past land barriers and on biogeographical breakpoints. However, assessing the role such undeniable barriers actually play in the initial divergence leading to reproductive isolation requires phylogenetic studies of recent radiations living in varying degrees of sympatry …

Genetic Evidence For The Proto-Austronesian Homeland In Asia: Mtdna And Nuclear Dna Variation In Taiwanese Aboriginal Tribes, Terry Melton, Stephanie Clifford, Jeremy Martinson, Mark Batzer, Mark Stoneking

Faculty Publications

Previous studies of mtDNA variation in indigenous Taiwanese populations have suggested that they held an ancestral position in the spread of mtDNAs throughout Southeast Asia and Oceania (Melton et al. 1995; Sykes et al. 1995), but the question of an absolute proto-Austronesian homeland remains. To search for Asian roots for indigenous Taiwanese populations, 28 mtDNAs representative of variation in four tribal groups (Ami, Atayal, Bunun, and Paiwan) were sequenced and were compared with each other and with mtDNAs from 25 other populations from Asia and Oceania. In addition, eight polymorphic Alu insertion loci were analyzed, to determine if the pattern …

The Pulses Of The Body Romantic Vegetarianism And Its Cultural Contexts, Timothy Morton

1650-1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era

No abstract provided.

Three Necessary Drugs, Simon Varey

1650-1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era

No abstract provided.

Living Arrangements Of The Elderly In The United States: Comparing Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, And Asians' Households., Kiyomi Ando

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

My dissertation analyzed the living arrangements of the elderly, focusing on differences across gender and racial/ethnic lines. Drawing upon rational choice and family solidarity theoretical perspectives. I derived hypotheses dealing with the effects of individual resources, cultural characteristics, and geographic context on the elderly's living arrangements. These hypotheses were empirically tested using logistic regression models to estimate the odds of the elderly choosing from among three options of living arrangements--independent living, joint living, and dependent living. Separate models were applied to non-Hispanic white, African American, Hispanic, and Asian subsamples. Data were from the 1990 Census Public Use Sample (PUMS-L). The …

American Medusa, American Sphinx: The Female Gaze And Knowledge In Modern Fiction And Film., Janet Clare Wondra

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Two major arguments define this study, the first being that the gaze, a concept borrowed from film theory, provides a productive approach to many literary texts, whether central to the canon, like The Sound and the Fury and The Great Gatsby, or relatively new to critical attention, like Nella Larsen's Passing. Locating and following the gaze enables literary critics to bring into focus the power relations within narratives and the scopic negotiations by which hierarchies of privilege are established and maintained. Second, the study both argues and demonstrates that feminist film theory has prematurely closed important avenues of investigation by …

Marginal Employment In The United States: 1971-1993., Nicole Thomson Flynn

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

In this dissertation, I examine trends in production and the concomitant demographic transformation of the labor force, in the context a series of economic cycles since 1969. Using these three forces as a backdrop, I first consider changes in employment hardship and the forces contributing to underemployment during periods following economic recessions. Then, I examine differences between men and women for employment outcomes. Next, to explain hardship during these periods, I include important demographic and geographic factors related to underemployment. Finally, I examine the impact of labor market context on individual outcomes. Based on the transformation of work, I explain …