Digital Commons Network^™

Dorothy M. Mcewen: An Appreciation, Peter Bleed

Nebraska Anthropologist

Over the past 18 years, the University of Nebraska-Uncoln Department of Anthropology has seen many changes. We have moved, changed leadership, become computerized, added and lost faculty, and recruited, registered and graduated hundreds of students. Through all of those changes, the department has been blessed with a very steady hand at the helm of our office. Dorothy McEwen has been a dependable rock in a sea of change.

Dorothy came to the department as a temporary worker in the "Division of Archeological Research." In 1978 Dale Henning needed some help producing reports and brought Dorothy in to crank out pages …

Humankind's Greatest Gift: On The Innateness Of Language, Tina Brown

Nebraska Anthropologist

Although the environment has an effect on the quality of language development, the fact that language is limited to the human species, that neurological structures of the brain specialize in language functions, and that universal characteristics of language and language development occur independently of environmental factors suggests that human language has a definite biological component.

Busy Corporations: The Effects Of Corporations On The Environment And The Public, Markus Craig

Nebraska Anthropologist

This paper is the result of one semester's research into the external costs of corporate structure, detailing some of the corporate business practices, their inherent implications, and effects on the environment and on people. This paper helps unravel the adversarial relationship between modem corporations and the environmental and labor movements in the US, concentrating on a survey of the literature of the last two decades and isolates some major themes fundamental to an understanding of this important debate.

Circular Or Rectangular Ground Plans: Some Costs And Benefits, Arwen L. Feather

Nebraska Anthropologist

Architecture, as a technological strategy, provides shelter from the environment with the minimum possible cost in construction and maintenance of dwellings. There is a significant cross-cultural relationship between ground plan shape and settlement permanence. Circular ground plans are associated with impermanent settlements and rectangular ground plans with permanent settlements. The structural strengths and weaknesses that exist in the dwellings with either circular or rectangular ground plans contrast with each other and affect selection. Architectural design, then, is determined by choices between the needs of people in a given environment and what costs adapting to that will incur.

Reservoirs And Reservations, Karen M. Griffin

Nebraska Anthropologist

In the late 1930s and 1940s. the Army Corps of Engineers was heavily involved in the development plans for a number of large dams located throughout the country. Many of these dams, and the reservoirs they created, have either been situated on Native American reservations or have had direct impact on reservations. This paper proposes that while the original intent of these dams was to benefit a number of people, there may have been those who saw dams as a convenient tool in the fight to terminate and assimilate the Native American population. Evidence regarding two of these projects, the …

Length Of Widowhood: According To The Grave, Charles Geisel

Nebraska Anthropologist

Widows have outlived their husbands in every society for thousands of years, but medical advances have almost doubled people's life-spans in the last century. This growing longevity could affect the spouse survivorship. as average life expectancy for females increases more quickly than for males. Lengths of survivorship for the last 150 years and tendencies of age groups for husbands and wives show that widows are adapting to this life-span. Demographic research at Wyuka Cemetery in Lincoln. Nebraska. provided data for a statistical test of changes in survivorship.

Overgrazing: Is A Solution Available?, Brian Osborn

Nebraska Anthropologist

Overgrazing is a growing problem which results in land degradation and a loss of habitat for local wildlife. This paper reviews overgrazing and reviews the degradation it causes, comparing the Sahel region in Africa to the Great Plains of the United States. Both areas have an enormous problem with overgrazing, a problem unlikely to be solved by technology. The only solution lies in a change of attitude and practice by the human population.

White Robes For Worship: The Umnazaretha Of The Nazareth Baptist Church In South Africa, Karen H. Brown

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

South-eastern Africa was a major locus of Christian missionary activity during the 19th and early 20th century and some dozen or more denominations took to the mission field among the Zulus.¹ A Zulu man, Isaiah Shembe (c. 1879-1935) was one of many attracted to the Christian faith. His independent and questioning nature, however, did not allow him to fit into the structure of the white-led missions. Shembe founded his own church, the Nazareth Baptist Church (lbandla lamaNazaretha), around 1910. Its beliefs and practices are based on a unique synthesis of Christian, largely Old Testament, dogma and Zulu …

The Reproduction And Ceremonial Offering Of Sacred Textiles And Apparel In Ise Jingu's Shikinen Sengu, Rosemarie Bernard

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper addresses the reproduction and ceremonial offering of sacred textiles and apparel on the occasion of the vicennial transfer rituals (Shikinen Sengu), which take place once in twenty years in Ise Jingu. The most recent performance of the 1300-year old ritual tradition took place in 1993. The ritual climax of the Shikinen Sengu consists of the ceremonial transfer of the "body" of the deity Amaterasu Omikami (a sacred mirror) from the 20-year old sanctum to an identical structure constructed in an adjacent area. Along with the body of the deity, thousands of magnificent treasures, textiles and apparel are ceremonially …

Heirloom And Hierarchy. The Sacred Lawo Butu Cloth Of The Lio Of Central Flores, Willemijn De Jong

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The most sacred ceremonial cloth of the Lio on the island of Flores in eastern Indonesia is an heirloom called lawo butu, a tubular skirt or sarong traditionally worn by high-ranking women at the most important fertility ceremony. This beaded sarong is only found in one of the main cultural centres of the Lio, the weaving village of Nggela on the south coast of Central Flores, a village of almost 1300 inhabitants. Until Indonesian independence in 1945 this village was more stratified by a rank system of nobles (ata ria), commoners (anafai walu) and slaves …

Ritual Cloth As Emblem Of Socio-Religious Values In Indonesia, Rens Heringa

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Recent anthropological studies of Indonesian textiles have reported in detail on the important ritual role of locally-made heirloom cloths among a range of ethnic groups throughout the archipelago. Moreover, the few extant studies with a local comparative bias have shown how the function of one particular textile may vary between people living in different villages or belonging to different social groups. Geirnaert has pointed out that, obviously, this indicates that textiles may form part of a wider geographical or symbolical system (Geirnaert 1992:xxviii). It has also been shown that this type of comparative effort can be taken beyond the archipelago …

Analytical Perspectives On A Protohistoric Cache Of Ceramic Jars From The Lower Colorado Desert, James Bayman, Richard Hevly, Boma Johnson, Karl J. Reinhard, Richard Ryan

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

A cache of hermetically sealed ceramic jars found in the Lower Colorado Desert was examined using chronometric dating, pollen and macrofossil extraction, design analysis, and water retention experimentation. The cache apparently dates to the protohistoric fifteenth through seventeenth centuries. Findings from these studies contribute to knowledge in four problem areas: (1) ceramic jar function and use-history; (2) storage technology and caching behavior; (3) ceramic dating and chronology; and (4) symbolic iconography. Biotic remains from inside the jars document their use for transporting a variety of riverine and desert plants, before they were finally filled with flowers and seeds, and placed …

Costs And Benefits Of Monogamy And Polygyny For Yanomamö Women, Raymond B. Hames

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

In this paper I analyze some of the economic costs and benefits of monogamy and polygyny for Yanomamö women. The evolutionary ecological model of resource defense polygyny predicts that when female choice is operative females will choose those males who control resources that will maximize a female’s reproductive success. A female will choose a polygynous strategy (i.e., become a co-wife) if a currently married male has more resources to offer than other unmarried males or monogamous males. This model has been successfully used to predict polygynous mating in tribal societies where males are stratified in terms of their ownership or …

Ams Dating Of Plain Weave Sandals From The Central Colorado Plateau., Phil R. Geib

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

AMS radiocarbon dates on plain-weave sandals from caves of the central Colorado Plateau are reported. The sandals range in age from about 6900 to 3200 B.P. (ca. 5700-1450 cal. B.C.). The findings strengthen a case for both population and cultural continuity during the Archaic period, and support a related argument that middle Archaic break in the occupancy of several important shelters such as Cowboy Cave resulted from settlement pattern change and not regional abandonment. The dates demonstrate that living accumulations within some shelters of lower Glen Canyon resulted from Archaic foragers and not Puebloan farmers as previously claimed. Benchmark Cave, …

Joan Huber, Irving Louis Horowitz, And The Ideological Future Of Objectivity In American Sociology, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The occasion of this essay is an unsolicited but welcome invitation to comment on Irving Louis Horowitz's (1993) most recent book, The Decomposition of Sociology, a work that is generating considerable discussion (e.g., Bauer Mengelberg 1995; Chriss 1994; Goldman 1994; Horowitz 1994, 1995; Pizzorno 1994; Wagner 1994). An invitation to discuss a book by Horowitz in a public forum-to which he is invited to respond-is a genuine honor eagerly accepted here with what is undoubtedly a too small twinge of apprehension, a twinge of the minimally regarded kind that allows proverbial fools to rush into intellectual tight spots from which …

Women, Polygyny And Power, Michelle J. Lundeen

Nebraska Anthropologist

This paper focuses on the power possessed by polygynous women within the domestic sphere. comparing women in wealth increasing polygynous societies (represented by the Swazi of Africa and the Mormons of North America) with women in sororal polygynous societies (represented by the Mardudjara of Australia and the Achuar of South America) in an effort to determine which of these patterns is related to greater domestic power for women.

Transactions Of The Nebraska Academy Of Sciences Table Of Contents: Volume 23 (1996)

Transactions of the Nebraska Academy of Sciences and Affiliated Societies

Editorial Contents

Nebraska Academy of Sciences Officers, Policy Committee .................... ii

Editorial Board .................... iv

Membership Objectives and Friends of the Academy .................... v

Nebraska Association of Teachers of Science .................... vi

Preparation of manuscripts .................... inside back cover

Papers

Environmental impacts in the vicinity of Spencer Hydropower Dam during sluicing activities in the Niobrara River, Nebraska (Michael P. Gutzmer, Justin W. King, and David P. Overhue) .................... 1

Inventory and floristics of Sandhills fens in Cherry county, Nebraska (Gerald Steinauer, Steven Rolfsmeier, and Joyce Phillips Hardy) .................... 9

Xylem pressure potential of two perennial grasses, Bromus inermis and Andropogon …

Analytical Perspectives On A Protohistoric Cache Of Ceramic Jars From The Lower Colorado Desert, James M. Bayman, Richard H. Hevly, Boma Johnson, Karl J. Reinhard, Richard Ryan

Karl Reinhard Publications

A cache of hermetically sealed ceramic jars found in the Lower Colorado Desert was examined using chronometric dating, pollen and macrofossil extraction, design analysis, and water retention experimentation. The cache apparently dates to the protohistoricfifteenth through seventeenth centuries. Findings from these studies contribute to knowledge in four problem areas: (1) ceramic jar function and use-history; (2) storage technology and caching behavior; (3) ceramic dating and chronology; and (4) symbolic iconography. Biotic remains from inside the jars document their use for transporting a variety of riverine and desert plants, before they were finally filled with flowers and seeds, and placed in …

Hopewell Archeology: Volume 1, Number 2, December 1995, Mark J. Lynott

United States National Park Service: Publications

1. Editorial Policy and Numbering Procedure

This newsletter is intended to provide an informal forum for distributing and exchanging news about research, data, interpretation, public education, and events relating to Hopewell archeology in the Ohio River valley. It will promote the study of Hopewell archeology, cooperation between researchers, and public education about Hopewell archeology. The Newsletter is a joint effort of the Midwest Archeological Center in Lincoln, Nebraska and Hopewell Culture National Historical Park in Chillicothe, Ohio. Hopewell Archeology is published twice a year.

2. From the Editor, Mark J. Lynott

As I write this, I have just returned from …

Review Of Economic Adaptation: Alternatives For Nonmetropolitan Areas By David L. Barkley, Richard L. Meile

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

The purpose of David L. Barkley's edited work is to examine critically the policy and practice of rural economic development in the United States during the last quarter century. To that end Barkley has brought together leading economists, regional scientists, and several sociologists to review and evaluate the current status of rural economic development.

Many of the contributors to the volume, especially Professors Lobao and Summers, allude to the significance of a globalized economy to development in non-metropolitan areas of the country. The volume shows, to paraphrase Lobao, that strategies focusing on recapitalizing rural communities do not work everywhere or …

Evolving Ethnicity In South Asia With Particular Reference To India, Joseph E. Schwartzberg, Robert Stoddard

Geography Program: Faculty Publications

This presentation considers the various historical processes that have shaped ethnic identities in South Asia, concentrating, because of limitations of time and space, on India and on the postindependence period. It also discusses specific bases for establishing ethnic identities and the periods, situations, and locales in which they assumed importance. It also notes the means by which ethnic groups seek to advance their interests and by which governments respond to such efforts. I shall not, however, strive for completeness -- the topic is simply too vast. Omitted from consideration here is any discussion of ethnic relations in Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, …

Review Of Aboriginal Peoples In Urban Centres: Report Of The National Round Table On Aboriginal Urban Issues By Royal Commission On Aboriginal Peoples, Russel Lawrence Barsh

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Months after Canada's most violent modern-day confrontation with Aboriginal peoples, the month-long standoff between Mohawk "Warriors" and Canadian troops at Kahnesatake, Quebec, in August 1990, the Conservative Government of Brian Mulroney announced the appointment of a Royal Commission to make recommendations for the complete overhaul of Aboriginal policy. Five years, hundreds of hearings and academic studies, and $C60 million later, the Royal Commission has yet to make its report. Jean Chretien's Liberal Government has already announced that it has its own program for Aboriginal "self-government," hinting that the long-awaited Royal Commission findings will be dead-on-arrival. The corpse will not be …

Review Of Skeletal Biology In The Great Plains: Migration, Warfare, Health And Subsistence By Douglas W. Owsley And Richard L. Jantz, Luann Wandsnider

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

This volume reports the results of studies on skeletal remains throughout the Great Plains from early to recent times. Skeletons from the W. H. Over Museum Collection in South Dakota, excavated by Over, William Bass, and W. R. Hurt, form the volume's analytic core, with other collections providing necessary context. Portions of the Over skeletal collection have been reported on previously. When the collection was mandated for reburial in 1985, however, Owsley and Jantz arranged for comprehensive osteological analysis by numerous specialists, resulting in this volume.

Thirty-two chapters by 39 authors are offered on the topics of Great Plains disease …

Review Of Accidental Archaeologist: Memoirs Of Jesse D. Jennings By Jesse D. Jennings, Ralph J. Hartley

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

The history of twentieth-century archaeology as told by its early practitioners is finding an appreciative audience in a generation of anthropological archaeologists that has matured under the regulatory eye of federal environmental protective legislation. This book is the story of the life of one of the discipline's foremost practitioners. Although autobiographical in its organization, many of the book's chapters can be read as stand-alone accounts of Jesse Jennings's reflections on conducting archaeological investigations in the southeast, Plains, and desert west of North America, as well as in Polynesia and Guatemala.

A man who considers himself to have been "a minority …

What Kind Of Woman Would Work In Meatpacking, Anyway? World War Ii And The Road To Fair Employment, Deborah Fink

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

World War II accelerated the movement of rural and small town Iowa women into manufacturing industry. Scholars have debated the significance of World War II for gender relations, but the recent consensus is that only focused studies of particular localities can address the complexity of the changes effected by the War. This study looks at Iowa women in meatpacking plants. Assessing the economic background, their prior efforts to enter packing plants, and the resistance they met in the plants makes their limited gains understandable. Women of rural and small town wage earning households had always been workers, usually in the …

Instrumentalist Policymaking: Policy Criteria In A Transactional Context, F. Gregory Hayden

Department of Economics: Faculty Publications

As an extension of my recent policymaking chapter, Institutionalist Policymaking [Hayden 1993, 283-331], this paper deals with policy criteria in an instrumentalist or pragmatist framework. The works of Charles Peirce and Thorstein Veblen emphasized criteria-Peirce with explicit discussion of their character and Veblen with active application in his evaluations of various economies and institutions. Few scholars have continued in their tradition; Seymour Melman [1983], with his excellent Veblenian application of criteria in industrial policy studies, is a notable exception. Interest in the subject of criteria, except by individualist philosophers, has been scarce in the twentieth century until recently. Thirty years …

Hopewell Archeology: Volume 1, Number 1, May 1995, Mark J. Lynott

United States National Park Service: Publications

1. Editorial Policy and Numbering Procedure

This newsletter is intended to provide an informal forum for distributing and exchanging news about research, data, interpretation, public education, and events relating to Hopewell archeology in the Ohio River valley. It will promote the study of Hopewell archeology, cooperation between researchers, and public education about Hopewell archeology. The Newsletter is a joint effort of the Midwest Archeological Center in Lincoln, Nebraska and Hopewell Culture National Historical Park in Chillicothe, Ohio. Hopewell Archeology is published twice a year, and is numbered consecutively.

Hopewell Archeology publishes short news items, book reviews, short research papers and …

Creating Bicultural Identities: The Role Of School-Based Bilingual Paraprofessionals In Ontemporary Immigrant Accommodation (Two Kansas Case Studies), Edmund T. Hamann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This study locates the professional and informal practices of school-based bilingual paraprofessionals (paras) in the context of the larger social phenomenon of acculturation, cultural brokerage, and identity construction. It demonstrates how the paras in two Kansas communities transform an assimilationist mandate into something quite different, the promotion of bicultural identities, as part of a process called “additive biculturalism.” Additive biculturalism incorporates Weiss’s characterization of paras as cultural brokers (1994), but expands upon it significantly. As the first part of additive biculturalism, bilingual paras model and promote bicultural identities among the English-Learner students and parents they work with. As the second …

Review Of Buffalo By John Foster, Dick Harrison, And I. S. Maclaren, Edmonton, Alberta, 1992, University Of Alberta Press, Alan J. Osborn

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

This volume contains 12 contributions that deal with North American bison in relation to paleontology, archaeology and cultural resource management, the fur trade, portrayal in art and literature, disease and population ecology, and Native American land tenure.

There are two general themes that dominate this book. First, two articles by Jack Brink and Ed Sponholz discuss the role of Native Americans in the interpretation and preservation of cultural resources. Both authors focus on the spectacular prehistoric Head-Smashed-In bison jump in southwestern Alberta. Head-Smashed-In is a United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization World Heritage site that has been developed in …

News And Notes - Volume 5, Number 1, February 1995

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Contents:

Great Plains Research Science Award

Calls for Papers

Conferences

Reports on Past Conferences