Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Sensory Perspective On High-Ranked Women’S Dress In The 8th To 4th Century Bc In The Mediterranean And Central Europe, Karina Grömer, Susanna Harris, Audrey Gouy, Cecilie Brøns

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

In the late 20th century, the study of western science was dominated by a philosophical approach to evidence as text and meaning. In archaeology, material culture was treated like text, to be read through systems of signs, symbols, and indices put together in syntax. For studies of dress, this was influential in understanding dress as a cognitive system compiled to create identities and meaning. In this approach, textiles, fastenings, hairstyles, and gestures are presented as signs and symbols used to form a statement about identity, to be read by others. There was a focus on the visuality of dress and …

Survival Strategies: Human Adaptation To Environmental Change, Julie Lozano

Open Educational Resources

This assignment explores human adaptation to environmental change by examining genetic, physiological, and cultural responses in various populations. Through case studies from geographically diverse regions, the research highlights how genetic adaptations such as metabolic changes, physiological traits like thermoregulation, and cultural practices involving diet and shelter have contributed to human survival in challenging ecosystems. The study compares these adaptations across different populations, analyzing the interplay between environment and evolutionary traits.

An Examination Of Homo Naledi Early Juveniles Recovered From The Rising Star Cave System, South Africa, Juliet K. Brophy, Debra R. Bolter, Marina Elliott, John Hawks, Lee R. Berger

Faculty Publications

Background: Six Homo naledi early juveniles were recovered from U.W. 101 (Dinaledi Chamber), U.W. 102 (Lesedi Chamber), and U.W. 110 in the Rising Star cave system. Aim: This paper develops the information for the H. naledi early juvenile life stage, as defined by a combination of deciduous and permanent dentition, and the eruption of the first permanent molar. Subjects and methods: The growing number of young individuals recovered from the Rising Star cave system allows us to gain a better understanding of their variation, or lack thereof, and provides a basis to estimate broad ranges for age at death of …

Human–Environment Interactions At Ta’Ab Nuk Na, A Submerged Maya Salt Works Site In Belize, Cheryl M. Foster, Heather Mckillop, E. Cory Sills

Faculty Publications

Sea-level rise and settlement are investigated at Ta’ab Nuk Na, an ancient Maya salt works in Belize, by examining samples from wooden posts and marine sediment. The samples included Post 145 of Building B and the Nunavut beam, along with marine sediment columns cut from beside both wooden posts. The sediment columns were sampled at 2 cm intervals. Loss-on ignition confirmed the presence of organic material. Identifying the organic content involved removing nonorganic material from the sediment and sorting the organic material under magnification. This procedure established that most of the organic material was red mangrove (Rhizophora mangle). Red mangroves …

Flooded Mangrove Landscapes Hide Ancient Maya Coastal Sites In Belize, Heather I. Mckillop

Faculty Publications

Evidence of ancient Maya exploitation of salt, other marine resources, settlement, and sea trade is hidden in flooded mangrove landscapes on the cays, mainland, and in shallow offshore locations on the south coast of Belize. This article includes a discussion of the coastal economy from the Middle Preclassic through the Postclassic periods (600 B.C.–A.D. 1500). Data from sites discovered and excavated since 1982 in the coastal area of the Port Honduras and Paynes Creek National Park support a model of coastal reliance on marine resources and tree crops. The need for a regular supply of coastal salt to inland cities …

Dpal-Bert: A Faster And Lighter Question Answering Model, Lirong Yin, Lei Wang, Zhuohang Cai, Siyu Lu, Ruiyang Wang, Ahmed Alsanad, Salman A. Alqahtani, Xiaobing Chen, Zhengtong Yin, Xiaolu Li, Wenfeng Zheng

Faculty Publications

Recent advancements in natural language processing have given rise to numerous pre-training language models in question-answering systems. However, with the constant evolution of algorithms, data, and computing power, the increasing size and complexity of these models have led to increased training costs and reduced efficiency. This study aims to minimize the inference time of such models while maintaining computational performance. It also proposes a novel Distillation model for PAL-BERT (DPAL-BERT), specifically, employs knowledge distillation, using the PAL-BERT model as the teacher model to train two student models: DPAL-BERT-Bi and DPAL-BERT-C. This research enhances the dataset through techniques such as masking, …

Convolution-Transformer For Image Feature Extraction, Lirong Yin, Lei Wang, Siyu Lu, Ruiyang Wang, Youshuai Yang, Bo Yang, Shan Liu, Ahmed Alsanad, Salman A. Alqahtani, Zhengtong Yin, Xiaolu Li, Xiaobing Chen, Wenfeng Zheng

Faculty Publications

This study addresses the limitations of Transformer models in image feature extraction, particularly their lack of inductive bias for visual structures. Compared to Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), the Transformers are more sensitive to different hyperparameters of optimizers, which leads to a lack of stability and slow convergence. To tackle these challenges, we propose the Convolution-based Efficient Transformer Image Feature Extraction Network (CEFormer) as an enhancement of the Transformer architecture. Our model incorporates E-Attention, depthwise separable convolution, and dilated convolution to introduce crucial inductive biases, such as translation invariance, locality, and scale invariance, into the Transformer framework. Additionally, we implement a …

Afbnet: A Lightweight Adaptive Feature Fusion Module For Super-Resolution Algorithms, Lirong Yin, Lei Wang, Siyu Lu, Ruiyang Wang, Haitao Ren, Ahmed Alsanad, Salman A. Alqahtani, Zhengtong Yin, Xiaolu Li, Wenfeng Zheng

Faculty Publications

At present, super-resolution algorithms are employed to tackle the challenge of low image resolution, but it is difficult to extract differentiated feature details based on various inputs, resulting in poor generalization ability. Given this situation, this study first analyzes the features of some feature extraction modules of the current super-resolution algorithm and then proposes an adaptive feature fusion block (AFB) for feature extraction. This module mainly comprises dynamic convolution, attention mechanism, and pixel-based gating mechanism. Combined with dynamic convolution with scale information, the network can extract more differentiated feature information. The introduction of a channel spatial attention mechanism combined with …

Geophysical Survey And Archaeological Investigations At The Jeremiah Lee Mansion And Brick Kitchen, 2022 Marblehead, Massachusetts, Christa M. Beranek, John M. Steinberg, Carolyn Mikowski

Andrew Fiske Memorial Center for Archaeological Research Publications

In spring and summer of 2022, students and staff from the Fiske Center for Archaeological Research at UMass Boston completed a geophysical survey and test excavations at the Jeremiah Lee property at 157 and 161 Washington Street in Marblehead, Massachusetts. These were the first known archaeological investigations of the property. Work in 2022 focused on the area between the house and the Brick Kitchen and the eastern part of the yard behind the house. The Lee property, now owned by the Marblehead Museum, is a large, complex urban lot. Our work in 2022 showed that the archaeological preservation of deposits …

Preliminary Report Of The Hasp 2023 Field Season: Coring And Excavations At Efri-Ás, Laufskálaholt, Brekkukot, Grafarkot, Kálfsstaðir, Kjarvalsstaðir, Nautabú, Ingveldarstaðir, Skúfsstaðir, Garðakot, Hringver, Hólakot, And Viðvík In Hjaltadalur With Additional Geophysics At Skúfsstaðir, Guðný Zoëga, John M. Steinberg, Chiara M. Torrini, Trace J. Podder

Andrew Fiske Memorial Center for Archaeological Research Publications

This report outlines the 2023 work, including Geophysical survey, Coring, and Excavations at Efri-Ás, Laufskálaholt (on the Efri-Ás land of the Ásholt summer house), Brekkukot, Kálfsstaðir, Kjarvalsstaðir, Nautabú, Ingveldarstaðir, Skúfsstaðir, Garðakot (part of Víðines) Grafarkot (part of Víðines), Hringver, Hólakot (part of Viðvík), and Viðvík) in Hjaltadal as part of the Hjaltadalur Archaeological Survey Project (HASP). This is the third year of a scheduled three-year project. The purpose of the project is to outline the settlement sequence and regional development in Hólar and around Hjaltadal and compare them with similar studies that have been carried out in Skagafjörður. The 12 …

Unveiling Spanish Language Attitudes In A Los Angeles School And A Third-Generation Multigenerational Mexican-American Family, Eric Alvarez

International Journal of the Linguistic Association of the Southwest

This chapter unearths some of the diverse attitudes towards Spanish of a third-generation child in Los Angeles (L.A.), California, her family members, and school personnel. L.A. is a tension-ridden contact zone (Pratt, 1991) where Spanish has traditionally been subjugated and is still a lesser-taught language (LTL) despite decades of research showing that bilingual education positively impacts student attitudes (Potowski & Muñoz-Basols, 2020). Lack of continuity (Caloi & Torregrossa, 2021) in formal instruction and inconsistent heritage Spanish use in the home may entail divergent attitudes towards Spanish, possibly hindering multigenerational transmission. Decades-long turbulent California language policies (CLP) (Macias, 2001) have consistently …

Run Boys Run: Historical Markers Of Sherman's March To The Sea, Whitley A. Gatch

Honors College Theses

Georgia's historical markers highlight significant events in Georgia's history in the location where they happened– they are meant to be understood and consumed by the general public. Due to the widespread development of the Lost Cause narrative in the post-Confederate South, particularly during the 1950s and 1960s, historical markers concerning Sherman's March to the Sea contain many false notions about General Sherman and his Union soldiers. Focusing on historical markers in Georgia's Coastal Plain and Low Country, this study analyzes the memorialization of the march and the impact of an invented mythico-history on the narrative portrayed as such falsehoods perpetuate …

The Past As A Colonialist Resource, Deepa Das Acevedo

Faculty Articles

Originalism’s critics have failed to block its rise. For many jurists and legal scholars, the question is no longer whether to espouse originalism but how to espouse it. This Article argues that critics have ceded too much ground by focusing on discrediting originalism as either bad history or shoddy linguistics. To disrupt the cycle of endless “methodological” refinements and effectively address originalism’s continued popularity, critics must do two things: identify a better disciplinary analogue for originalist interpretation and advance an argument that moves beyond methods.

Anthropology can assist with both tasks. Both anthropological analysis and originalist interpretation are premised on …

Cultivating Attentiveness To Law In India Through Legal Anthropology, Deepa Das Acevedo, Jahnavi Chamarthi

Faculty Articles

This Article reviews and analyses scholarship at the intersection of anthropology and law. The first half of the Article provides context for understanding the boundaries, animating concerns, and tensions that have characterised the anthropology of law as an area of interdisciplinary inquiry. We focus especially on the subdiscipline’s Anglo-American history and show how a promising early period of engagement dissipated as both anthropologists and legal scholars lost enthusiasm for each others’ insights and methods. Then, we expand our analysis outward. Because legal anthropology belongs within, and is increasingly attentive to, the broader field of law and society scholarship, we explore …

ความเป็นผู้ประกอบการเชิงผัสสะและการก่อร่างทางวัฒนธรรมของความสมดุลในการทำงาน - ใช้ชีวิต: การศึกษาเปรียบเทียบระหว่างคนที่ทำงานในองค์การแนวระนาบกับคนทำงานไร้องค์การในกรุงเทพมหานคร, สุรเชษฏ์ คงเสงี่ยมวงศ์

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

วิทยานิพนธ์ฉบับนี้ศึกษาความเป็นผู้ประกอบการเชิงผัสสะและการก่อร่างทางวัฒนธรรมของความสมดุลในการทำงาน-ใช้ชีวิต (Work-Life Balance) ผ่านการเปรียบเทียบประสบการณ์ของคนทำงานในองค์การแนวระนาบ (Heterarchical Organization) และคนทำงานไร้องค์การ (Freelancers) ในกรุงเทพมหานคร งานวิจัยใช้แนวทางชาติพันธุ์วรรณนาเชิงผัสสะ (Sensory Ethnography) และทฤษฎีปฏิบัตินิยมฝรั่งเศส (French Pragmatism) เพื่อวิเคราะห์ว่าผัสสะในสถานที่ทำงานมีส่วนต่อการตระหนักรู้และจัดการตนเองอย่างไร นำไปสู่การสร้าง Work-Life Balance แบบเฉพาะบุคคล ผู้วิจัยเสนอแนวคิด “ผู้ประกอบการเชิงผัสสะ” เพื่ออธิบายรูปแบบของแรงงานที่ไม่ได้มุ่งแต่ผลกำไร แต่ใช้ความรู้สึก อารมณ์ และสัญชาตญาณในการบริหารชีวิตการทำงาน วิทยานิพนธ์เสนอว่าสภาพแวดล้อมขององค์การและความยืดหยุ่นของฟรีแลนซ์ต่างมีผลต่อรูปแบบการสร้างสมดุลในชีวิตในเชิงวัฒนธรรม ผลการศึกษานี้มีนัยสำคัญต่อการออกแบบนโยบายและสภาพแวดล้อมการทำงานในภาคเศรษฐกิจสร้างสรรค์ของกรุงเทพมหานคร ในศตวรรษที่ 21

Affective Infrastructure And The Chilean Memorial Museum, Diego Borgsdorf Fuenzalida

Pitzer Senior Theses

The civic-military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) represented a period of unprecedented political violence in Chile — a time in which the government of the socialist president Salvador Allende was overthrown in a bloody coup d’etat, army and police forces detained and tortured people suspected of affiliation with leftist activism, and hundreds of thousands of people were exiled from national territory. Post-dictatorship transitional governments have materialized a contested apparatus of institutions with the purpose of memorializing the victims of such violence, principal among them being the memorial museum. Based on ethnographic and collections research as a worker in the Museo …

A Bioarchaeological Overview Of The Late Woodland Period Gooden Mound Group, Fulton County, Illinois, Aaron M. Durchholz

Theses and Dissertations

Extensive research in paleopathology has documented adverse effects accompanying a shift in subsistence strategy from largely nomadic, hunting and gathering lifestyles to those of more sedentary, agrarian systems. Comparative assessment of the human skeletal remains of early foragers and later farmers recovered from archaeological sites around the world have consistently demonstrated a decrease in average age at death in the latter.

Across the pre-Columbian North American Midwest, the transitional period between the Late Woodland and Mississippian periods, sometimes referred to as the terminal or Mississippian Acculturated Late Woodland, portended establishment of semi-permanent to permanent hamlets, increasingly reliant upon the adoption …

"Ruskiy Mir" And "Ukrainskyi Svit": Ontological And Anthropological Antagonists, Liudmyla Fylypovych, Oksana Horkusha

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The article focuses on a crucial issue of global interest--attempts of the Russian Federation to reformat the world according to the worldview model of the "Ruskiy mir." The paradigm of the "Ruskiy mir" assumes a system of values (ontological, anthropological, theological, and historiographical ideas and behavioral models) programmed by the entire russian history, as defined by russian culture, traditions, and the russian worldview. According to the "Russian worldview," the world should have a different structure, and the global international system should have a different format: Moscow (the Russian Empire and the Russian Federation) should be at the center of the …

An Archaeological Investigation Of Communities Of Practice Among Coastal Georgia Potters, Elizabeth Straub

Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology

The Mission period in the southeastern United States (beginning around 1565 AD) was characterized by dramatic social and demographic change. Coastal tribes, which include the Guale, Mocama, Orista, and Yamasee, among others, were simultaneously faced with the challenge of negotiating new relationships with Europeans and the global economy, the spread of new diseases, an influx of refugees displaced by violence, and the threat of increasingly prevalent slave raiding. Since most historical documents about this region were written by Spanish men, the experience of Native American women has been neglected. This project addresses this disparity by focusing specifically on one of …

Diachronic Demographic Patterns Of Enslaved People At Mulberry Hill, Quincey Urban

Longwood Senior Thesis Proposal

No abstract provided.

My Body As A Journey Accessing Pre-Colonial Identity For Healing Intergenerational Transgender Shame, Jennifer Lagman

Art Therapy | Master's Theses

A graduate student in art therapy wrote this heuristic paper to explore shame's role as both a negative internal feeling and a cultural and social tool for evaluating and regulating behavior. As a transgender woman, she examines what it is like to be labeled as Filipino and deal with being transgender. Tiny advances have been made in the understanding of shame within the context of minority transgender self-research. Using art to expose those feelings associated with shame, balance them with affirmations, and ground them in native identity are key aspects of this process. Consequently, meeting one's shadow becomes a necessity …

Settlement Scaling In The Northern Maya Lowlands: Human-Scale Implications, Scott R. Hutson, Adrian S. Z. Chase, Jeffrey B. Glover, William M. Ringle, Travis W. Stanton, Walter R. T. Witschey, Traci Ardren

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Settlement scaling theory predicts that higher site densities lead to increased social interactions that, in turn, boost productivity. The scaling relationship between population and land area holds for several ancient societies, but as demonstrated by the sample of 48 sites in this study, it does not hold for the Northern Maya Lowlands. Removing smaller sites from the sample brings the results closer to scaling expectations. We argue that applications of scaling theory benefit by considering social interaction as a product not only of proximity but also of daily life and spatial layouts.

Mind, Body, And Farmland: The Agricultural Revolution Of Regenerative Agriculture And The Social Construction Of Sustainability., Amanda C. Pennett

Honors Theses

An agricultural revolution has begun to take place in light of the growing awareness of environmental issues that impact crop production on farms. In the beginning of the fall of 2022, I began to study the culture of regenerative agriculture in rural Pennsylvania using anthropological methods, including participant-observation and semi-structured interviews, working alongside local farmers. I was also interested in uncovering the flaws in our current industrial agricultural system and how farming could be reimagined to benefit farmers’ mental health, soils, and ecosystems while privileging the voices of those farmers committed to regenerative farming. The ongoing evolution of regenerative farming …

Lgbtq+ Heritage In Kittitas County, Washington, Tiernan Vansuetendael

All Master's Theses

We know that LGBTQ+ people lived, loved, worked, and made history in Kittitas County—but you would never know that if you visited a local historical site or museum. LGBTQ+ histories exist, yet they are not always visible within the landscape, and this is particularly true for rural communities like Kittitas County. Meanwhile, representation of marginalized communities within local history can contribute to a sense of belonging, of knowing one’s place and the people who came before. This thesis addresses this gap in LGBTQ+ history by conducting archival and ethnohistorical research for the purposes of documenting LGBTQ+ history. Utilizing input from …

Late Holocene Fire History Reconstruction Of Beaver Lake In The Northwest Lowlands Of The Olympic Peninsula, Grace Mckenney

All Master's Theses

Fire is an essential component of the landscapes and forests of the Pacific Northwest, including the temperate rainforests of the Olympic Peninsula. Previous fire history reconstructions from the peninsula show that fire return intervals varied throughout the postglacial period, primarily in response to climatic changes and corresponding shifts in vegetation. However, much less is known about the fire history of the low-elevation forests of the Olympic Peninsula and the role of cultural fire regimes in these environments. The purpose of this study was to reconstruct the paleoenvironmental history of a low-elevation study site, Beaver Lake, located in the northwestern part …

Comparing The Prevalence Of Stereotypic Behaviors And Enrichment Use In Rhesus (Macaca Mulatta) And Japanese Macaques (M. Fuscata), Jesscia Oscavich

All Master's Theses

To improve captive nonhuman primates’ welfare, particularly those utilized in biomedical and behavioral research, it’s important to understand their behavior. Rhesus (Macaca mulatta) and Japanese macaques (M. fuscata) are two closely related species that are commonly utilized in biomedical and behavioral research. In this study, I compared the frequency of stereotypic behaviors, which are abnormal repetitive behaviors that are apparently non-functional, and enrichment use among four groups of each species. Stereotypic behaviors were divided into motor, which the animal performed while active, and self-directed stereotypies, which the animal performed towards themselves. Enrichment use was divided into …

Hypothetical Mistakes: Hedging Wrong Answers With Conditional Language., Jessica Sujata Chandras

UNF Faculty Research and Scholarship

This article analyzes American high school students hedging incorrect responses to teacher-initiated questions in IRE (Initiation-Response-Evaluation) format using conditional language and hypotheticals in ways that facilitate an affiliative stance between students and their teacher. Scholarship on hedging details its use to approximate responses as a shield against doubt and criticism or as collaborative communication, whereas stance is a grammatically encompassed expression of attitudes related to the content of a message. This study brings together theories of stance, hedging, and conditional language use to outline how errors can be a student-initiated pedagogical tool to deepen explanations and engagement. To broaden understanding …

Conceptualizing Language Ideologies About Education: Exploring Perceptions Of Multilingualism Among Marathi Speakers From India, Priya M. Dabak, Jessica Sujata Chandras

UNF Faculty Research and Scholarship

Perceptions of multilingualism have an impact on the educational choices of urban Indians and larger policy decisions around language in education in the Indian state of Maharashtra. By surveying 150 speakers of Marathi, the official language of the state and mother tongue, or first language of survey respondents, perceptions of multilingualism reveal conceptual assumptions and biases that can be uncovered through cognitive-linguistic analysis. Unprompted, survey respondents drew connections between multilingualism and education, underscoring language ideologies, or beliefs about languages which motivate urban Maharashtrians' educational decisions. Education is the stage upon which multilingual speakers in India express their aspirations and anxieties …

The Impacts Of Identity On Perceptions Of Safety On A Predominately White Campus, Rebecca Delrosso

Honors Theses

This quantitative study examines the relationship between students’ marginalized identities of race, gender, and sexuality and their perceptions of safety at a predominantly white institution (PWI). Survey data collected from undergraduates at a small liberal arts university reveal associations between minority identities and feelings of discomfort, insecurity, discrimination, and vulnerability on campus. The findings highlight the need for PWIs to prioritize secure and inclusive environments through policies, practices, and support systems.

Shifting Grounds: Movement And Continuity In Mustang, Nepal, Lauren Carter

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the socio-cultural and economic transformations in the Mustang region of Nepal. Drawing from fieldwork conducted over a month, this study examines how traditional economic activities, particularly yak herding, are being replaced by tourism and agriculture due to shifting socio-economic conditions and global influences. The concept of 'adaptive traditionality' is introduced to describe how the community in Mustang actively engages with both internal pressures and external changes to reshape their socio-cultural landscape. This adaptability is evident in the transition from nomadic pastoralism to more sedentary agricultural practices and tourism, which not only reflects a survival tactic but also …