Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Broadening Our Understanding Of Noble-Wieting: A Langford Tradition Village In Central Illinois, Kristin R. Travis

Theses and Dissertations

The Noble-Wieting site is an Upper Mississippian Langford Tradition village and burial mound, located in east-central Illinois on the outskirts of the Langford Tradition region and distant from other known Mississippian villages. Archaeological excavations at Noble-Wieting during the 1960s and 1970s unearthed features within limited sections of the site, leaving a large portion unexplored. Excavations revealed a higher than average percentage of shell-tempered Middle Mississippian pottery as compared to other Langford villages, giving rise to questions regarding internal changes of cultural identity and suggestions of isolation from contemporary communities. However, the 1976 excavations in the southern portion of the site …

Understanding Community: Microwear Analysis Of Blades At The Mound House Site, Silas Levi Chapman

Theses and Dissertations

Understanding Middle Woodland period sites has been of considerable interest for North American archaeologists since early on in the discipline. Various Middle Woodland period (50 BCE-400CE) cultures participated in shared ideas and behaviors, such as constructing mounds and earthworks and importing exotic materials to make objects for ceremony and for interring with the dead. These shared behaviors and ideas are termed by archaeologists as “Hopewell”. The Mound House site is a floodplain mound group thought to have served as a “ritual aggregation center”, a place for the dispersed Middle Woodland communities to congregate at certain times of year to reinforce …

Everything We Touch Is Touching Us, Molly Markow

Theses and Dissertations

EVERYTHING WE TOUCH IS TOUCHING US

MOLLY MARKOW

22 Pages

Images shape both personal and collective experiences of place in the Anthropocene. I am interested in the relationship of landscape and representation to purity politics, longing, and escape. I am critical of the role of idealized depictions of “nature” and question how images shape our notions of paradise, desire, and fantasy. Who benefits from notions of paradise, and who doesn’t? I ask these questions while searching for a way to embrace impurity and the beauty in contamination. How might we come to an understanding of the post-pure that leaves room …

Sex, Drugs, And Rock-Lined Privies: An Analysis Of Embossed Glass Health Product Bottles From Victorian-Era Brothel And Non-Brothel Archaeological Sites By Socioeconomic Status, Erin Lynn Randolph

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines consumption patterns of Victorian-Era health products once contained in embossed-glass bottles to elucidate trends among different socioeconomic groups during the mid-nineteenth century through the first decade of the twentieth century. The consumption patterns of 20 types of health products from nine different archaeological sites across the United States were analyzed among Victorian-Era brothel residents and the non-brothel population, by socioeconomic class, and then by both socioeconomic status and affiliation with the sex industry. This process was repeated using the ingredients contained within the health products examined above.

Analysis revealed that soda water was exceptionally popular as a …

Construction Of Reality: Symbolic And Social Practice Of Michael Kurzwelly’S Słubfurt And Nowa Amerika, Olga Kostyrko

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis is concerned with the analysis of two long-term community-based socially engaged art projects of German artist Michal Kurzwelly: “Słubfurt” (1999-2018) and “Nowa Amerika” (2010-2018). The research methodology for the analysis is drawn from the fields of art theory and criticism, and sociology. More specifically, in order to evaluate the social impact of long-term social art practices on the local community I borrow the criteria from the sociological discourse of bottom-up community development, while simultaneously, combining it with the insights from art criticism to discuss aesthetic dimensions of the work. I am arguing that Michael Kurzwelly’s projects are good …

Women Of The Future: The Performative Personhood Of Elizabeth Robins, Djuna Barnes, And The Baroness Elsa Von Freytag-Loringhoven, Michelle Feda

Theses and Dissertations

The New Woman is the term used to describe the changing social norms around women's involvement in public life during the fin-de-siècle. New Women were bold and brash, educated and independent, and, importantly young; the term encapsulated any particular woman who stepped outside of her mother's Victorian social norms. The New Woman was as much a construct of the time as it was a description. The playwright and suffragette Elizabeth Robins performs "new womanhood" on the stage, and her play Votes for Women! enacts this struggle between New Women and the older generation. Djuna Barnes started her career as a …

Bladelet Polish: A Lithic Analysis Of Spracklen ( 33 Gr 1585 ), An Upland Hopewell Campsite, Tyler R. E. Heneghan

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis builds upon recent investigations at Spracklen (33GR1585), a small upland site in Greene County, Ohio. The presence of non-local cherts, bladelets, and bladelet cores indicates a Middle Woodland Ohio Hopewell occupation. Raw material sourcing, debitage analyses, and a use-wear analysis uncovered that Spracklen functioned as a logistical hunting campsite. Its people utilized bladelets for butchery and hide-working processes. This information provides new insights into Hopewellian life in the uplands and its place within Hopewell community organization.

Pit Features: A View From Grand Island, Michigan, Emily R. Bartz

Theses and Dissertations

Serving a multitude of functions from subterrestrial cavities of storage, basins for cooking, to vessels that securely hold pounds of rice allowing the grains to be danced upon to thresh, pit features are one of North Americas most common archaeological feature. These constructions are dug to fit a diversity of needs based on the people who manufacture them. By understanding the distinct function(s) a pit or group of pit features played at a site-level, the needs of the people who inhabited that landscape are better understood. The nature of a pit feature is to store something or process a food …

Time Does Not Heal All Wounds: Temporal Differences In Spinal Pathology Among Pre-Columbian Sites In West-Central Illinois, Abigail Peeples

Theses and Dissertations

This research sought to examine a co-occurrence of three spinal pathologies, Schmorl’s nodes, osteophytosis, and osteoarthritis, within three temporally contiguous pre-Columbian sites in west-central Illinois. Albany Mounds (200 BCE – CE 400), Kuhlman Mounds (CE 600 - 900), and Dickson Mounds (CE 900 - ~1300), acted as proxies for their respective time periods in order to determine if there were any patterns among the three spinal pathologies present. Individuals with vertebrae present were examined and joints were scored based on criteria listed for each pathology. Overall, highest frequency of individuals affected by Schmorl’s nodes, osteophytosis, and osteoarthritis were located in …

Mortuary Patterns In West-Central Tennessee: Contextualizing Historic Field Data From Nine Mississippian Period Sites, Brooke Adele Wamsley

Theses and Dissertations

Middle Mississippian is a both a cultural and temporal (1200 CE – 1400 CE) archaeological context of Midwestern North America. This cultural tradition is associated with mound building, specific art motifs, arguably stratified societies, intensive agriculture, and specific ritual/mortuary practices. Burial sites can be very valuable to archaeologists because of the purposeful interaction between the living and the deceased and reconstruct cultural elements such as social identity and group membership. While American archaeology continues to be fieldwork-focused, there are a considerable amount of cultural resources housed in museum collections that could provide data for research into pre-Columbian lifeways in North …

Working Women: Agricultural Intensification, Osteoarthritis In Females, And Subadult Health In Illinois Woodland And Mississippian Mortuary Contexts, Paige M. Dobbins

Theses and Dissertations

Temporal variation was examined in female labor associated with subsistence modifications in pre-Columbian human osteological samples from the Mississippi River valley of west-central Illinois related to weaning patterns, diet, and overall health status of subadults. This study was performed on a sample of 173 burials constituting 98 subadults and 75 adult females from temporally sequential Illinois mortuary contexts (Albany [11WT1], Kuhlman [11A163], Schroeder [11HE177], and Dickson [11F10] Mounds) that represent the transition from Middle Woodland hunter gatherers to Mississippian maize agriculturalists. This was accomplished by (1) scoring pattern and degree of dental attrition and dental caries in subadults, (2) identification …

The Role Of Dogs In Prehistoric Illinois: A Study Of Dog Paleopathology At The Range Site In The American Bottom, Allison L. Huber

Theses and Dissertations

Archaeological investigations at the Range site (11S47) in the American Bottom region of Illinois resulted in the recovery of over 3,300 domestic dog (Canis familiaris) remains. Fifty-two dog burials associated with the Late Woodland Patrick phase (A.D. 650-900) and Terminal Late Woodland Period (A.D. 900-1050) were identified in the assemblage. The well-preserved nature of these remains allowed for the examination and interpretation of pathology and trauma, providing insight into the role and treatment of dogs at the site. The data obtained from the Range assemblage indicate the most common pathologies present are antemortem tooth absence, periodontal disease, cranial trauma, rib …

The Snozzle Factory, Jeremy Michael Lampe

Theses and Dissertations

The "Snozzle Factory" is a sculptural installation that includes glass, clay, metal, wood and cast paper. It is a representation of an imaginary factory that produces objects that are to be determined by the viewer. The portrayal of time, decay and movement are the primary goals of this installation. It is my attempt to transport the viewer to a different world.

“Sparks Fly ”: Connecting Midwestern Historic Forts Through A Comparative Study Of Gunflints, Jeffrey A. Spanbauer

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will outline the temporal changes and choices of colonial powers and individuals as expressed at historic frontier posts in the Midwest between 1683 and 1779 as expressed through their supply and usage of gunflints. Gunflints exist as persistent artifacts at historic sites, and especially so at fortifications like Fort de Chartres, Fort St. Joseph, Fort Michilimackinac and Fort Ouiatenon. These sites exist within the same chronological timeframe, from 1690-1780, and saw occupation by both the French and British, with nearby indigenous groups, and should serve as instructive means to investigate the factors involved in the supply, selection, and …

Out The Window: The Coalescence Of Internal And External Space, Micah Allen Zavacky

Theses and Dissertations

Out the Window: The Coalescence of Internal and External Space is a supportive statement for an exhibition of prints, drawings, and paintings that begin with direct observation. Building on Yi-Fu Tuan’s distinctions of space and place, I examine how these terms reflect my subjective interpretations of objective subject matters. Landscape, still life in domestic interiors, and garden subjects, as observed and interpreted in the prints, drawings, and paintings, not only reveal the shifting roles of space and place but also the ongoing processes of change occurring both externally in the observed environment and internally in my response to it.

Woodland Period Rockshelter Use In The Upper Great Lakes: A Multiscalar Perspective From Grand Island, Michigan, Kelsey Hanson

Theses and Dissertations

Despite the integral role that caves and rockshelters have traditionally played in archaeological inquiry throughout North America, they have largely been neglected as a focus of study and recorded examples have been poorly integrated into regional discourse in the Upper Great Lakes region. Most rockshelters in the Upper Great Lakes region formed as sea caves during higher lake level stages and became increasingly terrestrial as lake levels receded, resulting in an abundance of rockshelters and other shoreline features that are now inland from the current shoreline, very few of which have been subjected to archaeological investigation.

To address this disparity, …

Spatial Organization Of Lithic Technology At The Mather-Klauer Lodge Site: A Terminal Woodland Occupation On Grand Island, Michigan, Andrew L. Mallo

Theses and Dissertations

The Mather-Klauer Lodge site is a Terminal Woodland (c.a. AD 600- AD 1600) occupation of the west side of Grand Island, Michigan, where Echo Creek empties into Lake Superior. Excavations by Illinois State University field schools and the Commonwealth Cultural Resources Group identified a buried, compact, greasy living surface containing four hearth features, a storage pit, and over 20,000 pieces of lithic debitage. Analysis of the lithic assemblage shows that the organization of lithic technology at the Mather-Klauer Lodge site utilized the bipolar reduction technique to reduce locally available quartz cobbles with the goal of producing flakes of various shapes …

Using A Visitor Based Framework To Observe Engagement In A Children's Museum Makerspace, Sara Mccubbins

Theses and Dissertations

Many challenges still exist in finding ways to measure the impact of informal learning environments. Much of the research that does exist is anecdotal in nature and examines engagement by intuition or informal feedback. The purpose of this concurrent mixed methods study was to better understand engagement and learning by converging both quantitative and qualitative data. In the study, an observation protocol was used to measure the engagement levels of children in a museum makerspace, and field notes were collected to explore the context in which this engagement takes place. The observation protocol used in this dissertation was the Visitor …

Betwixt: Temporality And Comfort, Laura Newman

Theses and Dissertations

I push against traditions of ceramics by purposefully inviting breakage within my work. Destruction expresses fragility, temporality, and impermanence. I consider themes of frugality, familial relations, collections and nostalgia through my investigations of clay, steel, and glass.

Resistance, The Church, And A Comparison Of Ceramics From Sixteenth-Century Caluco, El Salvador, Alison Denise Hodges

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines ceramics from the church of San Pedro y San Pablo, Caluco, El Salvador, to investigate the pressures of Spanish evangelization during the Colonial Period. It compares the church's ceramic assemblage to two privately-owned houses, also within Caluco. Examining choices in ceramic styles for serving food and drink is one way to examine the colonial policies of reducción, which were to instill a regular, commonplace Christian order in everyday life. The materials in question were a large number of Spanish majolicas, as well as 300 locally-made vessels, and form, decoration, and ware was noted for each. The relative …

Frontier Respectability To Gilded Age Splendor: Women And Consumerism In The Cultural Development Of Bloomington, Illinois, 1839-1900, Kera B. Storrs

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the importance of late nineteenth century gender ideals and consumer practices in the development of the city of Bloomington in McLean County, Illinois. Most histories of not only Bloomington, but the greater Midwest, have focused on the rise of industry and business, and their effect on the development of the region. This study instead places women's social and cultural activities at the center of the story, and explains the significance of feminine consumption to the community's growth from a small frontier village to a Gilded Age city. While all of Bloomington's classes played a role in this …

Subsistence Strategies In The Upper Illinois River Valley: The Kuhne Site Case Study, Autumn Beyer

Theses and Dissertations

Stuart Struever's excavation of the Kuhne site, located in the Upper Illinois River Valley occurred during the start of archaeological interest in the region. The faunal remains recovered during this excavation offer a unique opportunity to understand subsistence strategies in the area during the Middle Woodland period. Using standard zooarchaeological methods, these remains were analyzed to better understand which animal species were targeted by Middle Woodland people in this region, which season(s) the site was occupied, and how bones were modified for utilitarian and other purposes. These findings were then compared to faunal assemblages from Middle Woodland sites in the …

Implications Of Vertebral Degenative Disease And Vertebral Ligamentous Ossification In Native Populations Of The Lower Tennessee River Valley, Sarah Ann Boncal

Theses and Dissertations

Cervical vertebrae are an effective biomechanical proxy for understanding physical activities of a populace due to the osteological reactivity of nuchal muscle use to extensive weight and pressure. Differentiation in the distribution of osteophytosis (OPL), osteoarthritis (OA), and ossification of the ligamentum flavum (OLF) along the cervical vertebrae may indicate particular biomechanical stresses and/or burden-bearing differences between subsistence strategies.

A collection of 287 pre-Columbian Native American individuals (N = 854 vertebrae) was analyzed for presence and severity of OPL, OA and OLF. The sample consists of remains from six archaeological sites located in the lower Tennessee River Valley: three sites …

The Effects Of Cold Adaptation On The Growth And Development Of The Neandertal Cranial Base, Sarah Caldwell

Theses and Dissertations

Neandertals and modern humans possess very different craniofacial shapes. Some recent work has attributed these contrasting shapes specifically to differences in brain development, which are extrapolated to mean differences in cognitive function. However, this may not necessarily be the case. In this paper, it is suggested that a size increase in the cranial base and rapid cranial growth are due not to cognitive differences, but environmental factors, specifically Neandertal adaptation to cold. Adaptation to cold would not only explain the more rapid growth of the Neandertal cranium, but also elongation of the cranial base via elongation of the nasopharynx for …

A Comparative Study Of Upper Limb Mechanical Stress In The Pre-Colombian Tennessee River Valley, Deborah Lyn Neidich

Theses and Dissertations

This investigation establishes the presence of rotator cuff disease (RCD) within human skeletal samples from a prehistoric North American context and evaluates the subsistence based (hunter-gatherer an agricultural) differences of the pathological and non-pathological osseous reactive change. The skeletal sample as recovered as a part of an archaeological salvage project from the western Tennessee River Valley prior to the 1944 completion of the Kentucky Lake Dam. The sites consist of three Middle and Late Archaic (4500-1000 BCCE) period hunter-gatherers and one Mississippian (1050-1450 CE) period agriculturalist sample. These sites are now submerged in the Kentucky Late Reservoir.

The bone elements …

In Search Of Ubuntu: An Examination Of Enslaved African Domestic And Labor Environments On St. Eustatius, Deanna Lynn Byrd

Theses and Dissertations

The discovery of dry stone rock features in the northern hills on the Dutch island of St. Eustatius presented a unique opportunity to investigate an enslaved African environment during the time of enslavement. Abandoned after emancipation, the area has remained virtually undisturbed by eco-tourism, making it an archaeological gem. The intact nature of the sites held potential to add significantly to our understanding of choices enslaved Africans made in slave village design, orientation, and the construction of their dwellings, as well as the labor activities of daily life. In doing so, this investigation attempted to detect whether higher levels of …

A Sequence Of French Vernacular Architectural Design And Construction Methods In Colonial North America, 1690 -- 1850, Wade Terrell Tharp

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines published and unpublished historical archaeological research, historical documents research, and datable extant buildings to develop a temporal and geographical sequence of French colonial architectural designs and construction methods, particularly the poteaux-en-terre (posts-in-ground) and poteaux-sur-solle (posts-on-sill) elements in vernacular buildings, from the Western Great Lakes region to Louisiana, dating from 1690 to 1850. Such a sequence is needed to provide a basis for scholarship, discovery, and hypotheses about prospective French colonial archaeological sites. The integration of architectural material culture data and the historical record could also further scholarship on subjects such as how the French in colonial North …

Identifying The Visible: A Look At How Economic Class And Ethnicity Influence Women's Visibility Within A Household, Cori Elise Rich

Theses and Dissertations

Archaeology has allowed for underrepresented, often invisible, groups of people within history to become visible and have their stories told. Minority groups such as women, African Americans, and those occupying the lower class are just some of these underrepresented groups who have been identified through cultural remains. Despite archaeologists' best efforts in identifying these groups; there is still much work yet to be conducted. There is a lack of information from the eighteenth-century, and even less work done on the way ethnicity and class impact women's visibility within the archaeological record.

This paper utilizes seven site reports, from households of …

All Systems Go, Harry William Sidebotham

Theses and Dissertations

Just like nature and life, my work is made up of many smaller parts working synergeticly in order to function properly. The systems I use are increasingly more complex, involving layers of interacting information competing for attention, giving rise to emergent qualities that could not

exist without the interaction. Paraxial imaging and emergent shapes could not exist without the systems or the chromophobic choices.

Tammy Rae Carland's Queer Riot Grrrl Zine"I ( Heart ) Amy Carter": A World Of Public Intimacy, Annah-Marie Rostowsky

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes Tammy Rae Carland's queer Riot Grrrl zine I (heart) Amy Carter as a counterpublic sphere engendered by acts of public intimacy that make visible the intersectional complexities of gender, sexuality, class, and race that insidious traumas continually work to conceal. It looks to Ann Cvetkovich's inquiries into the positive aspects of public cultures in the book An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Cultures (2006) as well as Mimi Thi Nguyen's investigation of the Riot Grrrl race crisis in the article "Riot Grrrl, Race, and Revival" (2012) as frameworks to critique Carland's visual and textual …