Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Characterization Of Human Burial Signatures Using Spectroscopy And Lidar, Katie Ann Corcoran

Doctoral Dissertations

This study is an analysis of terrestrial remote sensing data sets collected at the University of Tennessee’s Anthropology Research Facility (ARF). The objective is to characterize human burial signatures using spectroscopy and laser scanning technologies. The development of remote human burial detection methodologies depends on basic research to establish signatures that inform forensic investigations. This dissertation provides recommendations for future research on remote sensing of human burials, and for investigators who wish to apply these technologies to case work.

Data used in this study include terrestrial spectra, aerial hyperspectral imagery, satellite multispectral imagery, terrestrial light detection and ranging (LIDAR), and …

Understanding Population-Specific Age Estimation Using Multivariate Cumulative Probit Regression For Asian Skeletal Samples, Ji Eun Kim

Doctoral Dissertations

For many years, the field of anthropology has encouraged anthropologists to assume that population variation exists in skeletal aging although interpretations of population specificity in skeletal aging have been inconsistent. This project investigates age progressive changes in modern East and Southeast Asian populations, and attempts to quantify the magnitude of differences or similarities in skeletal aging between different Asian groups as a first step to develop a more inclusive age estimation method for Asian populations. Specifically, this study explores the utility of currently available age estimation methods for Asian populations, asks whether a population-specific aging method should be region-specific (Thai …

Modeling Prehistoric Health In The Middle Cumberland Region Of Tennessee: Mississippian Populations On The Threshold Of Collapse, Christina Laiz Fojas

Doctoral Dissertations

This research explores differences in mortality and survivorship resulting from factors associated with the abandonment of the Middle Cumberland Region (MCR) of Tennessee during the Mississippian period (ca. 1000-1500 AD). My dissertation investigates whether individuals from the Late Mississippian period had a greater risk of death than individuals from the Early Mississippian period. Adult age-at-death estimates (n=545) were calculated using Transition Analysis, a Bayesian maximum likelihood method. Gompertz and Gompertz-Makeham hazard models were utilized to reconstruct the mortality profile of the MCR as they model human adult mortality and generate robust parametric mortality profiles. Rather than recount the prevalence of …

The Evaluation And Refinement Of Nonmetric Sex And Ancestry Assessment Methods In Modern Japanese And Thai Individuals, Sean D. Tallman

Doctoral Dissertations

Effective biological profiles in forensic anthropology and bioarchaeology depend on the development, validation, and refinement of population-specific methods. However, most methods were developed in North America on individuals of African and European descent, and it is unlikely that such methods can generate accurate biological profiles for Asian individuals. Moreover, Native Americans have served as biological proxies for Asians due to their distantly shared genetic history, resulting in largely untested assumptions that Native Americans and Asians are homogenous and share nonmetric sexually dimorphic skeletal features and a unique suite of cranial traits that can be used in ancestry assessment.

This study …

New Perspectives On The Seventeenth-Century Protohistoric Period In East Tennessee: Redefining The Period Through Glass Trade Bead And Ceramic Analyses, Jessica Nicole Dalton-Carriger

Doctoral Dissertations

The Protohistoric period in East Tennessee is poorly understood in the archaeological record and is defined as the intermediate period between the Late Mississippian and Historic periods in the seventeenth century. Earlier research focused on depopulation, population replacement, and the rise of Overhill Cherokee settlements in the eighteenth century, with little attention to the transitional Protohistoric period. The goal of this dissertation is to examine new fields of evidence and employ new dating methods in order to fully understand the Protohistoric period in East Tennessee

This dissertation does this in three ways. It explores three hypotheses concerning the habitation of …

Evaluating Differential Nuclear Dna Yield Rates Among Human Bone Tissue Types: A Synchrotron Micro-Ct Approach, Janna Michelle Andronowski

Doctoral Dissertations

Molecular human identification has conventionally focused on DNA sampling from dense, weight-bearing cortical bone tissue from femora or tibiae. A comparison of skeletal elements from three contemporary individuals demonstrated that elements with high quantities of cancellous bone yielded nuclear DNA at the highest rates, suggesting that preferentially sampling cortical bone is suboptimal (Mundorff & Davoren, 2014). Despite these findings, the reason for the differential DNA yields between cortical and cancellous bone tissues remains unknown.

The primary goal of this research is to ascertain whether differences in bone microstructure can be used to explain differential nuclear DNA yield among bone tissue …

The Effect Of Social And Environmental Stresses Among The Historic Arikara Native Americans, Jocelyn Diana Minsky-Rowland

Doctoral Dissertations

The Arikara Native Americans from the Anton Rygh, Mobridge, Larson and Leavenworth sites, inhabited the Great Plains of western North America (AD 1600-1832). The Arikara experienced climatic changes, warfare, interactions with novel groups of people and disease epidemics and therefore represent an opportunity to assess differential risk of death in a stressful context. The overarching question of this project is, in the historic context of environmental and social stresses, do these environmental and social stresses (as indicated by specific skeletal markers that occur during childhood) increase the risk of death from later infectious disease or warfare related trauma experienced in …

An Analysis Of Skeletal Trauma Patterning Of Accidental And Intentional Injury, Shauna Lynn Mcnulty

Doctoral Dissertations

The ability to determine the cause of skeletal trauma – i.e. an injury produced by blunt, sharp, or ballistic forces - is critical in assessing the manner of death. The purpose of this study is to examine the patterns of injury between known accidental and intentional trauma cases while considering demographics, fracture features, and the location of injuries in individuals of varying ages, sexes, and ancestries. The current literature has identified a pattern for intentional injuries that is focused on the head, neck, and face, while accidental trauma tends to be more dispersed throughout the skeleton with more injuries found …

A Quantitative Genetic Analysis Of Limb Segment Morphology In Humans And Other Primates: Genetic Variance, Morphological Integration, And Linkage Analysis, Brannon Irene Hulsey

Doctoral Dissertations

Limb segment lengths (and, by extension, limb proportions) are widely studied postcranial features in biological anthropology due to the seemingly consistent phenotypic patterning among human and fossil hominin groups. This patterning, widely presumed to be the result of adaptation to thermoregulatory efficiency, has led to the assumption among biological anthropologists that limb proportions in humans are phenotypically stable unless long periods of extreme environmental conditions force adaptive change. Because these traits are considered stable, they have been used to inform multiple areas of anthropological inquiry, including investigations of phylogenetic relationships and fossil species identification, locomotor behavior and the evolution of …

Technological Adaptations At Dust Cave, Alabama (1lu496): An Evaluation Of Organizational Strategies From The Late Paleoindian To The Middle Archaic, Katherine Elizabeth Mcmillan

Doctoral Dissertations

Stone tools are one of the most common and lasting classes of artifacts in the archaeological record. Through the application of appropriate theoretical frameworks to the study of lithic assemblages, we may seek invaluable insights into the nature of human behavior in the past. In this study, I present a detailed analysis of the chipped stone tool assemblage from Dust Cave (1LU496), a stratified rockshelter site in northwestern Alabama. This site has preserved a record of nearly 7,000 years of human occupation, spanning the Pleistocene- Holocene transition, a period of great climatic and cultural change in North America.

Through the …

A Biologically Informed Structure To Accuracy In Osteometric Reassociation, Kyle Mccormick

Doctoral Dissertations

Commingled assemblages present a common situation in osteological analysis where discrete sets of remains are not readily apparent, thereby hindering biological profile construction and the identification process. Of the methods available for resolving commingling, osteometric reassociation is considered a reliable and relatively objective technique. Traditional osteometric sorting methodologies is a decision-making, error-mitigation approach, where possible matches are eliminated if the calculated pvalue exceeds an analyst-defined threshold. This approach implicitly assumes that all bone comparisons are equally accurate as long as the threshold is attained. This assumption, however, is not based in biological reality. This study tests a hypothetical structure of …

Advancing Social Justice Through Conflict Resolution Amid Rapid Urban Transformation Of The San Francisco Bay Area, Amanda Jo Reinke

Doctoral Dissertations

Since the 1970s, communities throughout the United States have been enthusiastically adopting dispute resolution mechanisms outside the formal legal system. Emerging from the reparative turn in sociolegal studies and widespread social critique in the 1960s and 70s, alternative justice models have been theorized, developed, and implemented by scholars and affected communities. In particular, alternative justice – forms of conflict resolution outside the formal legal system – seek to subvert the formal legal system’s disproportionate impact on marginalized communities by providing accessible, non-criminalizing, and inclusive conflict resolution. Advocates claim such models advance social justice by uplifting restoration rather than retribution, emphasizing …