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Engendering The Past: An Archaeological Examination Of The Precontact Lifeways Of Women At Yellowstone Lake, Yellowstone National Park, Cathy J. Beecher

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis examines three lines of evidence within the precontact archaeological record around Yellowstone Lake, focusing on elucidating female-specific lifeways. This work is undertaken as a means to explore concepts of gender within precontact archaeological contexts. This aim is accomplished using statistical analysis of lithic tool distribution patterns, ethnohistoric information on plants found through archaeobotanical assays and the microspatial examination of cultural fire features.

Variation in the use of obsidian and chert for unifacial tool manufacture indicates potential restrictions on the manufacture of gender specific tools as these stone resources become less available. In addition, a frame-of-reference is built by …

It Takes A Village: Placing Middle Rocky Mountain High Altitude Residential Sites Of The Late Prehistoric Firehole Phase Into A Broader Regional Context, Bryon Alan Schroeder

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This dissertation presents three separate articles in different stages of peer-review all focused on late Late Prehistoric (AD 1300 to contact) residential occupations, in the Wind River Range and Shirley Basin of Wyoming. These articles cover survey results in in the Wind River Range of Wyoming, Shoshone ethnic interpretations associated with Late Prehistoric artifact assemblages, and a lithic analysis from the excavated interior of domestic structure at an alpine and basin location of the Firehole Phase. These articles broaden the research agenda of high-altitude sites to downplay the role of ethnicity and include adjacent sites of the Wyoming Basin. In …

A Zooarchaeological Study Of Generational Decision-Making: Modeling Subsistence And Demographic Change In Late-Holocene Occupations Of Housepit 54 At The Bridge River Site (Eerl4), Mid-Fraser, B.C., Matthew Joseph Walsh

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The Bridge River site is a winter pithouse village near the confluence of the Bridge and Fraser Rivers in the Mid-Fraser Canyon that was occupied periodically from as early as 1800BP to the mid-19th century. Prentiss et al. (2008) divide the range of occupations into four Periods: Bridge River (BR) 1, c. 1800-1600BP, BR2, c. 1600-1300BP, a short-lived BR3, c. 1300-1100BP (by the end of this period the village appears to have been largely abandoned), and BR4, a late reoccupation of the site, c. ~500 to 100BP (Prentiss et al. 2008, 2011, 2012). During BR2 and into BR3, between 1500-1100BP, …

July 4, 1865: A Nation In Search Of Itself, Sorn A. Jessen

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The eighty-ninth anniversary of the declaration of American independence from Britain, on July 4, 1865, caught the nation at a critical time in its history. The great national crisis of civil war was over, but the nation had not yet re-united. The thesis argues that in the aftermath of the Civil War, American nationalism could not be reconstituted on neither an ethnic nor a civic model. Rather, on the eighty-ninth anniversary of Independence, the course of American Nationalism fell out along lines decreed by historical memory. The narrative construction of the past in the present constituted the only common thread …

Sacred Zones: Examing Wilderness In Yellowstone, Maine And Russia, Lily S. Vonderheide

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis seeks to examine issues of resource conservation and recreational access in three regions of immense historical and ecological significance: Yellowstone National Park, the North Woods of Maine, and the protected nature reserve system of Siberia. By applying a combination of direct professional experience, current research and ongoing environmental policy action, the thesis attempts to provide an accurate picture of current and future challenges facing the three regions. Part I, “Yellowstone Paradox,” traces the roots of Yellowstone’s restrictions on recreational boating access in a post-WWII discourse of consumer recreation, the development of a sustainability ethic and its deployment as …

Religion, Russo-British Diplomacy And Foreign Policy In Anna Ivanovna’S Russia (1730-1740), Kyeann Sayer

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The reign of Russian empress Anna Ivanovna (1730-1740) has been known primarily for disproportionate “German” influence, Anna’s refusing the “conditions” imposed by the supposedly backward-looking noble faction that engineered her succession, and unflattering court spectacle. Religion and foreign policy have received relatively little attention. Meanwhile, the formalization of Anglo-Russian diplomatic and trade relations during Anna’s reign has been seen as the triumph of “modern” nobility who rose as a result of the Petrine reforms. Examination of the concomitant diplomatic relations has focused on the strategies and personalities of Anna’s “German” advisers and portrays Russia as dependent. Finally, the Russo-Turkish War …

The Drunken Path: Discerning Women's Voices And Participation In The Informal Economy Of Illegal Manufacturing Of Prohibition Alcohol In The Historical And Archaeological Record, Kelli M. Casias

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis puts the Prohibition years in Anaconda and Butte, Montana, into historical, and sociocultural context to discover an engendered narrative of liquor law violators between the years 1923 and 1926 and to investigate the scope of the local informal, illegal, illicit economic systems dictating the distribution of illegal liquor during that era. The transference of the means and modes of production, as envisioned by Karl Marx, and collective social resistance serve as the theoretical frameworks for analysis and examination of three case studies. The first, Poacher Gulch is a remote mining site in western Montana, was the subject of …

Indigenous Feminist Approaches To Archaeology: Building A Framework For Indigenous Research In Pre-Colonial Archaeology, Kristen D. Barnett

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This PhD focuses on several interrelated archaeological problems in identification of individuals, agency, and understanding the indigenous past as it was lived; through an indigenous and feminist perspective. The dissertation is comprised of three articles that have either been accepted in peer-review publications or are in the process of being reviewed for publication. The articles focus on the following subjects: 1) an indigenous spatial analysis of a Fur Trade era semi-subterranean pithouse within a larger village context; 2) reanalysis of the three small peripheral houses located in the village of Keatley Creek in the Mid-Fraser region of British Columbia; and …

Cultural And Ecological Relationship Between The Nisqually Indian Tribe And Plants Of Mount Rainier National Park, David Alan Hooper

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Throughout the history of the National Park Service, the question of whether Native AmericanÆs still have rights to traditionally used natural resources found within park lands has been debated. This debate is largely held in political, legal, and philosophical arenas, but there are ethnographic and ecological questions that need to be addressed in order for policy makers to make informed decisions. Addressing these questions also provides insight into how cultures develop sustainable harvesting practices. One of the parks that has been addressing traditional plant harvesting is Mount Rainier National Park, which has been working with the Nisqually Indian Tribe to …

Missoula Historic Underground Project: Urban Archaeology, Landscape, And Identity, Nikki Manning

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The American West’s urban undergrounds are laced with mystique and lore. Well-known historic undergrounds exist throughout the American West in cities such as Portland, Pendleton, Seattle, Boise, and Butte. Tales exist of secret underground passages to houses of prostitution, Chinese opium dens, and Prohibition-era alcohol smuggling operations. While in some cases these stories can be based in fact, it appears that many underground spaces were less nefarious than imagination might suggest. In Missoula, Montana, a local, urban archaeological survey was conducted to see what evidence remained of the puzzling historic underground landscape. This study of Missoula’s subterranean archaeological features included …

Historic Inscriptions Of The Northern Plains: Identity And Influence In The Residual Communication Record, Timothy Rostov Urbaniak

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

During the 19th and 20th centuries, emigrants on the Northern American Plains engaged in a communication behavior that left messages carved, incised, and painted onto the physical landscape. Often mingling with indigenous pictographs and petroglyphs known as "rock art," the emigrants' messages are called "historic inscriptions" and exist in the form of names, dates, text, and ideographs. This information referred to here as "residual communication" represents archaeological evidence of individuals and groups who influenced and transformed environments and histories in the American West. The goal of this dissertation is to examine historic inscriptions on the Northern Plains to explore how …

Demographic And Epidemiological Changes On The Flathead Reservation 1887-1935, Christina Joy Heiner

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This dissertation examines the patterns of health among the Salish, Pend d’Oreille, and Kootenai tribes living on the Flathead Reservation in the late 19th and early 20th century. Previous research on early Native American demographic and epidemiological patterns has essentially focused on patterns following European contact to the pre-reservation era, ignoring that Native populations continued to struggle with ill-health and disease under the control of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. This research found while large infectious disease epidemics did not occur after the 1900s, infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and pneumonia were the leading causes of death for all ages …

Ties That Bind On The Northwestern Plains: Contexts For Prehistoric Trade And Travel, Sara Alicia Scott

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This PhD dissertation focuses on several interrelated archaeological problems in Northwestern Plains and Intermountain prehistory. The dissertation is comprised of three articles that have been either accepted for publication in peer-reviewed regional or international archaeological journals or are in the process of being reviewed for publication. The articles focus on the following subjects: 1) radiocarbon dating and analysis of Late Prehistoric period perishable items from Pictograph and Ghost Caves in south-central Montana; 2) radiocarbon dating of lower cultural levels in Pictograph Cave to assess the accuracy of the chronology established by William Mulloy in 1958; and 3) an analysis of …

The Effects Of The Fur Trade On Aboriginal Households In The Middle Fraser Region Of British Columbia, Lisa Michelle Smith

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Ethnographic literature of First Nations groups in the Middle Fraser region of British Columbia describe communities that were hierarchically organized with elite, commoner, and slave classes, underwritten by elite ownership of keystone resources, and perpetuated by competitive feasting events used to maintain debt relations, unequal distribution of food and raw materials, and possibly elite control over trade networks. Narratives of the ethnographic present are commonly utilized to describe cultural patterns of the deeper past, despite the fact that we lack knowledge of the effects of European colonialism and the role it may have had in shaping the socioeconomic and political …

Microscopic Examination Of Rib Heads: A Useful Adjunct In The Investigation Of Infant Deaths, Walter Loren Kemp

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The purpose of this study was to examine infant rib heads microscopically, document clefts in the anterior portion of the metaphysis and other findings including metaphyseal lesions, and statistically analyze these clefts and various features about the child, including circumstances of death (e.g., SIDS, bed sharing, or suspicious for abuse), whether or not CPR was performed, birth method, age in months at death, estimated gestational age at birth, and various socioeconomic factors (e.g., married or unmarried mother, biological father or boyfriend involved with care of child). The glass slides with microscopic sections of rib head, neck and variable amounts of …

Language Socialization, Revitalization And Ideologies In The Salish-Pend D'Oreille Community, Rebecca Jo Wood

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The goal of this thesis is to examine the language socialization practices and ideologies of the Salish-Pend d’Oreille community in order to understand language and cultural change in this community. This cultural group has become predominately monolingual in the non-traditional language, English; yet as my research demonstrates, the traditional language, Salish, continues to convey important epistemological perspectives valued in traditional society. By analyzing instances of Salish language use and non-use, I define some of the social factors that influence language use, as well as how children are socialized to use the language in culturally significant ways. When Salish is used, …

Visual And Geometric Analysis Of Maxillary Sinus Region Variability For Identification Of Unknown Decedents, Kelsey Michelle Collins

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Positive identification of unknown individuals is highly important in the medicolegal field. Comparison of antemortem and postmortem radiographs is a popular and successful method of making a positive identification, but these methods are often extremely limited due to a lack of antemortem records. A positive identification method utilizing a type of radiograph that is more common in the antemortem record would be very useful for forensic anthropologists and other medicolegal professionals and could increase the likelihood of the individual in question being identified. Panoramic dental radiographs are commonly included in the standard dental exam and provide a clear view of …

Right Of Possession: A Comparative Legal Analysis Of Nagpra, Jaclyn Lee Schmidt

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Repatriation attempts to reconcile opposing values regarding human skeletal remains. Repatriation has sometimes been contentious because it raises the question of which aspect of human remains is more important, cultural or scientific values. Repatriation is also an issue of power. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) provides a procedural framework with which to negotiate power relationships between scholars, tribes, and the U.S. government. Property rights are integral to power, as the holder controls the use of and access to and interpretation of indigenous skeletal remains. Property rights concerning Native American human remains are an integral part of …

The Causes And Consequences Of Migration: How Displacement And Change Affect The Well-Being Of Humli Tibetans In Katmandu, Ruth Ann Guthrie

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Humla, one of the most remote regions in the Himalayan nation of Nepal, has undergone tremendous upheaval due to the Maoist insurgency of 1996-2006. As a result, numerous groups from rural Nepal such as those from Humla, have been displaced or chosen to migrate to urban areas, seeking to improve their lives or simply to survive. Pressure from Maoists has caused the displacement of many individuals who make up the community of Humlis now living in Kathmandu. This study aims to understand these causes of displacement and migration, as well as its consequences for Humlis. As a consequence of displacement …

Evaluating Morphoscopic Trait Frequencies Of Southeast Asians And Pacific Islanders, Melody Dawn Ratliff

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

When assessing ancestry in a forensic context, individuals are generally classified into one of four categories: belonging to European, African, Asian, or Native American ancestry. With only these four assessments, individuals from Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands are usually phenotypically classified as Asian. While the oceanic regions of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands will most likely have trait frequencies similar to those of mainland Asia because of their shared ancestral lineages, there is still a great deal of variability in this region that could cause these trait frequencies to differ. To address this variability, sixteen morphoscopic traits were …

Lithic Design And Technological Organization In Housepit 1 Of The S7istken Site, Middle Fraser Canyon, British Columbia, Matthew Mattes

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Archaeological research of Housepit 1 at the S7istken site in the Middle Fraser region of the British Columbia Plateau has been ongoing since the summer of 2010. Housepit 1 is one of eight housepits at the site, and to date it has been excavated in near entirety. This has provided a large faunal assemblage mostly comprised of stored salmon remains, and also a lithic assemblage that has proven to be a useful measure of late prehistoric lifeways from the perspective of technological organization and lithic design strategies. Housepit 1 was occupied twice between about 350-300 B.P., which is the proto-historic …

Ecology And Engagement: The Importance Of Direct Experience Of Nature In Culture And Scholarship, Chris Baldwin Humm

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Our culture is becoming increasingly detached from nature. We spend more of our time indoors than ever. While the indoors may offer certain benefits, it’s becoming increasingly clear that our alienation from nature has serious downsides. We depend upon nature for our physical, mental, and spiritual well-being and without it. The opposite of detachment is engagement. Engagement involves direct experience of nature, whether in national parks, wilderness, backyard woods, or unkempt vacant lots. If we want to reverse the problems associated with detachment, we need to encourage engaged alternatives. Only through a culture of engagement, one that recognizes and values …

The Bear In The Footprint: Using Ethnography To Interpret Archaeological Evidence Of Bear Hunting And Bear Veneration In The Northern Rockies, Michael D. Ciani

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Archaeological evidence of prehistoric bear hunting and bear veneration in the northern Rocky Mountains and northwestern Plains is presented. Ethnographic documents and the writings of trappers, traders, and explorers are assessed in order to establish an interpretative framework to help decipher archaeological contexts in the region that include bear remains and rock art depicting bears. Examining prehistoric archaeological contexts in Montana and Wyoming within this framework suggests evidence of bear hunting and veneration similar to the regional ethnographic record. Data trends imply there may be a relationship between such sites and variables like site location, seasonality, function, and age. Contexts …

Assessing The Determinants Facilitating Local Vulnerabilities And Adaptive Capacities To Climate Change Impacts In High Mountain Areas: A Case Study Of Northern Ladakh, India, Kimiko Nygaard Barrett

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Climate change is increasingly redefining the dialectic exchange between human systems and ecological processes. While the rhetoric of climate change is articulated within broad arenas of governance and policy, the realities of climate change are experienced at the local scale. Effective adaptation measures must therefore be commensurate with local resources, needs and objectives while remaining aligned with larger decision-making efforts. The impacts of climate change are heterogeneous and vary with geographic context. Biophysical parameters interface with socioeconomic and political forces to greatly influence the outcome of climate-related risks at the local level. In the high mountains of the western Himalayas …

A Treatise On The Assault On Language Sovereignty In The United States: History, Education, And Implications For Policy, Annie Thornburg Oakes

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This dissertation examines the revitalization of endangered Indigenous languages in the United States in relation to the concept of sovereignty. I investigate historical reasons for language destruction in the United States as a means of understanding the mechanism used in conquest and the long-range effects on the educational system. I use the term "language sovereignty" to reflect the right of tribal organizations in the US to assert the use of traditional languages as a means of self-identifying as distinct sovereign nations. I draw from initiatives in Hawaii and Europe to demonstrate how regional and linguistic minority languages have been revitalized …

Poisons In The Basement: An Analysis Of X-Ray Fluorescence Tests For Heavy Metal Pesticides In The University Of Montana’S Ethnographic Collection, Alexis Berger

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis focuses on the X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) testing that was performed on the University of Montana’s (UM) ethnographic collection. This collection is housed in a repository in the UM Anthropological Curation Facility (UMACF). The main concern over the artifacts and the reason behind the decision to perform such testing was to determine if any hazardous pesticides were used as part of past conservation treatments on the collection over the course of its history at the University of Montana. The XRF tests were performed during the winter of 2011-2012 on over 350 artifacts. The results had been previously unanalyzed. The …

Brigham City, Brenden Clark Oliva

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

A novel set in Brigham City, Utah.

Juvenile Age Estimation Using Cranial Ratios, Rachel Lucille Fife

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Age estimation of juvenile crania can be accomplished with accuracy from dentition. In the absence of dentition there is not a sufficient substitute for reliably establishing age. I offer an alternative means of age estimation using cranial ratios, which are informative because of the differential growth rates of the orbits, facial bones, and cranial vault. I took 40 measurements from 76 crania and statistically analyzed ratio relationships among them to produce equations for age estimation. Accuracy of age estimation using cranial ratios increases with the number of measurements used. Ratios reduce the effect of size differences due to sex, but …

Supplementing Society: A Sociocultural Analysis Of Recreational Drug Use And Supplement Consumption Within The American Collegiate Environment, Kelli M. Bradley

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In the United States, reports within the last decade indicate college students are using dietary supplements at rates well above those reported for adult populations. Despite this prevalence, however, there continues to be a dearth of information examining behaviors related to this health phenomenon. This is problematic for many reasons, but especially because some research has found associations between use of these products and use of recreational drugs among this population.

Employing an integrated theoretical approach utilizing concepts from critical-interpretive medical anthropology (CIMA) and emerging adulthood, this research examined the ways in which supplement use related to sociocultural factors present …

The Comet Mine: An Engendered Study Of Victorian Consumption Practices And Material Culture On A Small Mining Landscape, Ryan E. Wendel

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The Comet mine is an early 20th-century, largely undocumented mining

community that existed along the periphery of the Coloma Mining District in the Garnet Range of western Montana. During the summer of 2010, archaeological excavations occurred at multiple features at the site. Through an analysis of cultural material found in deposits at the Comet, this study interprets the way in which patterns of refuse can reveal information about consumption behavior and evolving gender roles in mining communities in Montana, during late Victorian era.