Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Identified Flying Objects: A Multidisciplinary Scientific Approach To The Ufo Phenomenon, Dr. Michael P. Masters

Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences Books

Identified Flying Objects cautiously examines the premise that ‘UFOs’ & ‘Aliens’ are simply our distant human descendants, returning from the future to study their own hominin evolutionary past. This text challenges readers to consider new possibilities while cultivating conversations about our ever-evolving understanding of time & time travel.

Show Me A Sign: How Signs Embedded Within Social Media Shape And Influence Outdoor Recreational Tourists' Decision-Making Processes At Colorado State Parks, Sarah Marie Norlin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this project was to determine the ways in which signs within social media posts on Instagram and Facebook frame the way that outdoor recreational tourists make decisions about Colorado state parks' locations, services and activities. Surveys were conducted at 6 Colorado state parks in the 2018 spring, summer, and fall months. These surveys asked respondents to answer multiple choice and open ended questions about their social media habits, their outdoor recreation habits, and their opinions about images displayed on Colorado Parks and Wildlife's social media pages.

A total of 93 surveys were collected during the research period. …

Gender, Social Networks, And Labor Disputes: Household Archaeology At The Industrial Mine Camp, Laura Gwynne Vernon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Industrial Mine at Superior, operating from 1895 to 1945, was one of many coal mines situated within a region known as the Colorado Northern Coal fields. It is exceptional only in that it was one of the largest coal producers in the area and because it was the sole mine in the region with both a company town and company store. Through comparative analysis with the previously investigated mine camp in the southern Colorado coal fields at Berwind, this thesis examines how camp housing structured the lives of women living at the Industrial Mine, as well as how women's …

Archaeological Computer Modeling Of Florida's Pre-Columbian Dugout Canoes: Integrating Ground-Penetrating Radar And Geographic Information Science, Brandon Ackermann

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The focus of this research is the application of two computational methods in modeling pre-Columbian dugout canoe use on Florida's ancient transportation network. Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) was used to locate what appear to be multiple unexcavated canoes inundated in the lake-bottom of Lake Santa Fe, a lake in close proximity to Newnans Lake, which contains the largest number of ancient canoes in the world. The identification of multiple canoes in Lake Santa Fe supported the recent idea that this lake may have served as a transit point within Florida's pre-Columbian transportation network. A Geographic Information System (GIS) was then used …

The Medieval Borderland: Geophysical Analysis Of A Later Medieval Deserted Settlement And Cultural Landscape From Western Ireland, Andrew Ryan Bair

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the archaeological remnants of an early 14th century settlement at Ballintober, Roscommon County, Ireland. An innovative methodology combining ground-penetrating radar, magnetic gradiometry, and archaeological excavations is utilized to reconstruct the medieval built environment, which was comprised of a masonry castle, nucleated settlement and wider arable agricultural landscape. By integrating the archaeological and historical records, I pose hypotheses related to the differential statuses of people at the settlement, their domestic and agricultural practices, and a timeline of their occupation and abandonment of the site. The Ballintober settlement offers a unique case study to investigate the colonial dynamics of …

Storytelling And Self In Public Broadcast: A Visual Ethnography Of Rocky Mountain Pbs, Emily Baker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Embodied storytelling in Denver's public broadcast media establishes how the intersectional identities of storytellers influence narrative practices in Denver's public sphere. Five approaches to communicating identity informed my theoretical background: embodiment, visual anthropology, the public sphere, practice theory, and phenomenology. Rocky Mountain PBS, a 60-year-old broadcast institution, served as my research site during the summer of 2018. In my thesis, I overviewed the history of RMPBS and observations of production activities performed by the creators of the show Colorado Memories. Using a phenomenological methodology, the research design and data collection included filmed participant observations, semi-structured interviews guided by a …

Transgender Experience Depicted Through Memes: An Ethnographic Investigation Of Minority Stress And Resilience, Ashley Lorraine Blewitt-Golsch

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work identifies transgender oriented image memes as a dataset that reflects transgender lived experience, minority stress, and resilience. In this analysis of transgender memes, four themes were identified: Community, Bodies, Transgender Experience, and The Broken System of Gender. Memes about bodies dealt not only with medical transition, but discussed the distinction between euphoria and dysphoria, as well as cisgender expectations of transgender bodies and bodily narratives. Memes about community included depictions and acts of validation, discussions of reclamations of power, and the queering of media to form senses of community representation. Transgender experience memes discussed the ways being transgender …

Museum To Museum Collaboration: Exploring The Relationships Between Museums And Cultural Organizations In Denver, Colorado, Leah Zavaleta

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Collaboration has become a cornerstone of contemporary museum practice. In the United States, the anthropological literature on collaboration and museums has tended to be dominated by discussions on collaboration between museums and Indigenous communities in the course of implementing the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990. To date, little has been written on how collaboration is enacted among museums. This thesis explores the relationships among four museums in Denver, Colorado. By exploring how collaboration is defined, what a collaboration between museums looks like, and identifying the benefits and challenges of inter-museum collaboration, this study attempts to provide …

An Archaeological Investigation Into Social Organization And Political Reform In The Reserve Area Of New Mexico, A.D. 1000–1350, Cameron D. Benton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes archival data from archaeological sites with great kivas in the Reserve region of west-central New Mexico dating to A.D. 1000-1350 and examines sociopolitical organization and reform between the dynamic Reserve (A.D. 1000-1100) and Tularosa (1100-1350) Phases. Specifically, studies in this thesis compare great kiva architecture and ceramic types present between sites using methods of descriptive statistics and quantitative analysis, which allowed for interregional variation and change to be identified between those time periods. The results of those analyses are correlated with the archaeological histories of the Mimbres and Chaco societies that bordered the Reserve area in prehistory …

Human Vs. Non-Human Bone: A Non-Destructive Histological Method, Haley N. O'Brien

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Species identification is one of the first steps in the analysis of bone fragments in both forensic and archaeological contexts. Current methods for human vs. non-human taxa identification include morphoscopic, histological, and DNA analyses in order to determine forensic significance and assess what is present in an assemblage. This study will use an MA1000 AmScope camera microscope to examine the longitudinally fractured surface of cortical bone fragments to gauge if non-destructive taxa identification is possible from fragmentary remains without morphologically identifying features. This method is testing for a notable difference in human vs. bovid vs. cervid endosteal cortical bone without …

Sexual Dimorphism In Skeletal Trauma Associated With Intimate Partner Violence (Ipv), Keith Biddle

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Once known as “Domestic Violence”, Intimate Partner Violence, or IPV, is a problem as old as humanity. Even in our modern era, it continues to plague even the most “enlightened” or “advanced” cultures and societies. Much has been written about the issue from Sociological and psychological aspects and while there is some consensus in the medical field regarding the patterns of injury associated with IPV, that consensus has yet to reach the field of forensic anthropology. It is to this end that this study has been conceived.

The proposed project has three parts. The first part is a validation study …

Cultural Models Of Democracy Among Burmese Residents In Chicago, Illinois, And Fort Wayne, Indiana, John Hillory Hood

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This thesis examines implicit assumptions about democracy among Burmese residents in Chicago, Illinois and Fort Wayne, Indiana. A major focus of the research is the durability of foundational cultural models – basic, simple, widely-shared modes of thought – that may or may not change over time, measured in this study through length-of-residency. As such, I examined three distinct sample groups: temporary residents, immigrants, and adult offspring of immigrants. This research comprised methods of ethnography, semi-structured interviews, as well as a free-listing memory task. A key point of inquiry is intracultural variation occurring between sample groups. Particular attention was paid to …

Tracing Life Histories Through Biological Manifestations In A 19th-20th Century Midwestern Poor Farm: Asymmetry, Robusticity, And Adaptive Response At The Milwaukee Poor Farm, Samantha Zahn-Hiepler

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

A life history is comprised of many elements and events: memories, migration, beliefs, wealth, status, health, and even death. Of these life history elements, health is one of the significant traits to trace in bioarcheological studies. Biological variation is an observable trait in skeletal remains, especially that of limb asymmetry, stature, robusticity, and sexual dimorphism. These characteristics, depending upon the extent seen, can provide an insight into sociocultural and environmental practices that may have affected the person and/or population’s quality of life. The Milwaukee County Poor Farm skeletal collection is comprised of a historical population spanning one hundred years and …

Household Variation, Public Architecture, And The Organization Of Fremont Communities, James R. Allison, Katie K. Richards, Lindsay D. Johansson, Richard K. Talbot, Scott M. Ure

Faculty Publications

In the far-northern reaches of the greater American Southwest, diverse groups of small-scale agriculturalists, labeled “Fremont” by archaeologists, spread across the northern Colorado Plateau and eastern Great Basin. During the long history of Fremont archaeology, most projects have focused on the excavation of only one or a few residences even in large village sites. Until recently, there has been little effort to understand Fremont social organization or Fremont communities and nothing that could be called household archaeology (but see Hall 2008; Hockett 1998; Janetski and Talbot 2000, 2014; Simms 2008). In fact, for many years the prevailing view has been …

Whose Community Museum Is It? Collaboration Strategies And Identity Affirmation In The Amache Museum, Ting-Chun (Regina) Huang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Amache Museum is a preservation project that has multiple communities involved in preserving Amache history. It represents Japanese American as well as American history and is owned and maintained by the Amache Preservation Society (APS), which is comprised of local Granada High School students. By approaching the Amache Museum as a community museum and noticing its distinct collaborative strategy, this thesis investigates the community collaborations and the identity affirmations within the museum, and addresses the question of whose community museum the Amache Museum represents. My research explores the overlapping conceptual models of the Amache Museum: community museum and ecomuseum, …

Children During The American Steamboat Era - A Museum Exhibit, Emily Ruoff

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

“Children During the American Steamboat Era” is a portion of the submitted Alternative Paper Plan (A.P.P.) in partial fulfillment Emily Ruoff’s Master of Science in Applied Anthropology at Minnesota State University, Mankato in Mankato, MN in 2019. Discussions in this paper include a summary of the new exhibit, “Children During the Steamboat Era” at the Arabia Steamboat Museum (Kansas City, MO) and the reasons as to why this topic was chosen as the theme for this display. Goals and reasons for topic choice are: to create a sense of connectivity and inclusion for the thousands of children that visit the …

(In)Difference To Survivors: The Anti-Violence Comics Project, Henry Solares

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Sexualized violence prevention at the university level can sometimes leave out the perspectives and needs of marginalized groups. Ethics should always serve to temper any endeavors to work with marginalized groups. Any endeavor into the field requires methods and frameworks that serve not only the needs of the researcher but also the knowledge builders involved. Postmodern ethnography articulates a need for contesting a positivist understanding of knowledge through use of alternative methods like novelized fiction, autobiography, documentary, and visual art. In conjunction, intersectional theory forces us to consider our place as researchers and the larger power dynamics within our culture. …

A Comprehensive Case Report For The University Of Montana Forensic Anthropology Laboratory Case #18-188, Elizabeth Rose Valentine

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This report consists of the skeletal remains, assessment of the minimum number of individuals, a biological profile analysis and a literature review on pathology analyses for forensic anthropology case reporting. The human remains are consistent with a MNI of one. The individual is likely an adult male of European ancestry with an estimated age range of 30 to 50 years at time of death. This individual has a probable forensic stature of 5’3’’ to 5’4’’. This individual may be identified by the burr hole or trepanation located on the frontal bone as there are likely medical records for this procedure.