Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Winter Counts As Possible Precursors To Writing, Petra Eccarius

Nebraska Anthropologist

Native Americans of the Great Plains did not have a formal system of writing. These groups did, however, have various types of graphical representation. One such example is the Siouan winter counts, pictures recorded once each winter on buffalo hide (or later on cloth) which served as mnemonic devices for a partial oral history and calendar of the group to which it belonged. Scholars often study the subject matter of these counts in order to gain historic or cultural information about Native groups. Despite the facts that only one important or unusual event is depicted each year, and that the …

Domestication Of Dogs And Their Use On The Great Plains, Ruth Callahan

Nebraska Anthropologist

More than 12,000 years ago a bargain was struck between two species that not only benefited both parties, but changed their futures drastically. Whereas wolves and humans had once been independent hunters in competition with each other, now they were partners who shared the kill and helped each other survive in the harsh environment. We will never know which side initiated the pact, but the wolf was the first animal to cast its lot with humans and the evolutionary advantages that came with this choice were tremendous.

Factors Leading To The Uprisings At Wounded Knee In 1890 & 1973: The Other Story, Andrew Amiotte

Nebraska Anthropologist

Throughout history, the American Indians have experienced maltreatment by the invasion of outside cultures and by people with power. As the Indians have been forced to move westward by the U.S. government, many treaties have been drawn up as a promise that the tribes would never again be invaded. These broken promises influenced the placing of the indigenous people onto reservations. Also, the Indians were forced to abandon their native way of life.

This paper discusses why forcing the Lakota Sioux to live on reservations and to adopt an Anglo culture led to great misery. This new way of life …

Human Mate Selection Based On Developmental Stability As Signaled Through Physical Attractiveness: An Assessment Of The Traits Used To Determine Attractiveness And The Evolutionary Mechanisms For Their Development, Erin H. Kimmerle

Nebraska Anthropologist

What are the criteria used to select a mate? Study of this question on non-human subjects has shown many organisms choose mates based on assessments of health, youthfulness, and fertility, as signaled through certain physical characteristics. Investigations into the mating behaviors of humans, cross-cultural studies of attractiveness, and current medical research link features of attractiveness with health and support the evolutionary perspective that beauty is more than an arbitrary cultural creation. The characteristics which males and females find attractive in the opposite sex are largely the results of the evolution of sexual selection and serve to inform potential mates of …

Monogamy Vs. Polygyny In Rwanda: Round 1 - The White Fathers Round 2 - The 1994 Genocide, Clea Koff

Nebraska Anthropologist

The symbiotic relationship between European Christian missionaries and European colonizers in East Africa is well-documented (Opoku 1985:513; Uzukwu 1996:29). However, the colonial history of Rwanda reveals a collaboration between French Roman Catholic missionaries and the coexistent Belgian administration that ensured a profound transformation, not only of indigenous religious practice, but of the marriage pattern - from polygyny to monogamy. The Catholic missionaries in Rwanda, an order called the White Fathers, imported a model of ideal marriage that was an amalgam of Christian theology and their own Western European culture. The model was not immediately embraced by Rwandans and after twenty …

On Two Eras Of African Archaeology: Colonial And National, Clea Koff

Nebraska Anthropologist

This paper examines the role of archaeology in the political agendas of both colonial and post-colonial African governments. Both forms of government have utilized selective interpretations of the archaeological record to further their political goals. The marriage between archaeologists and colonial administrations is examined in light of the temporal coincidence between the international rise of professional archaeology in the 18908 and the zenith of colonial occupation in sub-Saharan Africa. The concurrent nature of these two phenomena resulted in employment within colonial administrations for the majority of professional archaeologists. The archaeology of the post-independenoe era reflects a shift in paradigm, as …

Native Americans And Diabetes, Kristina K. Lee

Nebraska Anthropologist

Type II diabetes has reached epidemic proportions among Native Americans. It Is estimated that 12.2 percent of all Native Americans in the U.S. have Type II diabetes. This compares with 5.2 percent of the general U.S. population (Diabetes Statistics 1997). The highest rate of diabetes in the world is in the Pima Nation. Half of all Pima Indians age 35 and older have diabetes (West 1974). Diabetes causes severe health complications and is a major cause of
death for Native Americans.

Looted Archaeological Sites: Are They Worthy Of Scientific Investigation?, Michelle J. Lundeen

Nebraska Anthropologist

Since the late 1800s, looting of prehistoric and historic Bles has been recognized as a serious threat to archaeological resources throughout the world (Knoll 1991}. Looting destroys both recorded and unrecorded sites in the United states (Ahlstrom 1992, Honeycutt et al. 1985, stuart 1989). With such a great amount of looting taking place, this research paper asks a basic question: Why do archaeologists not investigate looted archaeological sites as they do nonlooted sites and features? This question will be answered by reviewing the literature about looting including the archaeological reaction to looting. Two looted features, potted privies, will be discussed …

Nebraska Anthropologist Volume 14: 1997-1999 Table Of Contents

Nebraska Anthropologist

ARTICLES

01 Domestication of Dogs and Their Use on the Great Plains (Ruth Callahan)

12 Human Responses to Bison Nutritional Variability: An Illustration from the Central Plains (Chris Widga)

34 Winter Counts as Possible Precursors to Writing (Petra Eccarius)

39 Looted Archaeological Sites: Are They Worthy of Scientific Investigation?
(Michelle J. Lundeen)

47 On Two Eras of African Archaeology: Colonial and National (Clea Koff)

58 Factors Leading to the Uprisings at Wounded Knee in 1890 and 1973: The Other Story (Andrew Amiotte)

68 Starbucks vs. Equal Exchange: Assessing the Human Costs of Economic
Globalization (Lindsey M. Smith)

84 Monogamy vs. …

Starbucks Vs. Equal Exchange: Assessing The Human Costs Of Economic Globalization, Lindsey M. Smith

Nebraska Anthropologist

This paper discusses the impact of economic globalization on human populations and their natural environment. Trends leading to globalization, such as multilateral and bilateral trade agreements which reduce trading barriers between countries, are discussed. According to the economic principle of comparative advantage, all countries which specialize in what they can produce most efficiently should benefit equally from fair trade. Developing countries must increasingly rely on cheap labor and low environmental standards to compete for foreign investment and capital in the global economy. Observers argue that the market is not free enough to conect the long-term damage associated with export policies …

Tibetan Fraternal Polyandry: A Review Of Its Advantages And Breakdown, Jeff Willett

Nebraska Anthropologist

The fraternal polyandry marriage relationship of Tibet is widely considered
to be a means of preventing the division of a family's resources among its male heirs. As a family resource preservation strategy, Tibetan polyandry accomplishes the same goal of the European stem family system, but in a very different way. Researchers have suggested that polyandry developed in Tibet, because it provides a household with enough male laborers to fully exploit the marginal agricultural lands in the Himalayas, that it serves as a means of population control, or that it serves as a way of reducing tax obligations to feudal Tibetan …

Human Responses To Bison Nutritional Variability: An Illustration From The Central Plains, Chris Widga

Nebraska Anthropologist

The relation of prehistoric human groups to bison populations in the Central Plains has long been the subject of both speculation and debate. Recent research has shown that bison are relatively sensitive to changing environmental conditions (Bamforth, 1988; Bozell, 1995; Speth and Pany, 1978; Emerson, 1990). This sensitivity is visible in physiological and behavioral adaptations used by bison to deal with change. Ukewise, evidence for these adaptations is present in faunal assemblages from Central Plains archaeological sites. In order to determine the nature of these adaptive charaderistics, a model must be developed which goes beyond traditional presence/absence tabulations of faunal …