Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Facing The Past: Engendering The Study Of Iron Age Celtic Human Imagery In Continental Europe, Christopher Ray Allen

Theses and Dissertations

Iconography is an important tool in understanding the past because it may express apeople’s understanding of the world through representations of stories or figures, including human beings. The continental early Iron Age Celts left behind no written sources but did leave iconographic representations of humans in the form of full bodies as well as heads. How the Celts saw their world and how they perceived and gendered other humans or anthropomorphic beings can be partially accessed via these representations. This thesis examines a representative sample of statues and figures from Iberia, Gaul, and Central Europe from an intersectional perspective focused …

Archaeological Representation In Speculative Fiction: The Image Of The Archaeologist In Star Wars, Karissa A. Annis

Theses and Dissertations

The public presentation of archaeology in various media, especially fictional representations in print, film, TV, and video games, is a complex and slippery subject that has been an issue since the field’s inception. This thesis compares analyses of popular representations of archaeology in conventional media such as feature films to new examples of such representations that have not yet been studied. The focus of the analysis is how archaeology and archaeologists are represented in the Star Wars franchise in products that were published or released on or after 2014. These texts and images are analyzed through the multiple lenses of …

German-American Wpa Murals At The Milwaukee Public Museum And National Socialist Schultafeln: A Comparative Analysis, Katherine J. Santell

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this thesis was to systematically examine and compare the themes and styles present in the Works Progress Administration (WPA) paintings housed in the Milwaukee Public Museum to a selection of National Socialist Schultafeln in Germany. The research conducted on the WPA paintings concentrated on pieces from the A.O. Tiemann collection and other works by painters who emigrated from Germany in the early 20th century or were of German descent. This was further narrowed to an in-depth analysis of pieces that depict lake dwelling sites of the European Neolithic and Bronze Ages in both US Museums and selected …

Gender Reflections: A Reconsideration Of Pictish Mirror And Comb Symbols, Traci N. Billings

Theses and Dissertations

The interpretation of prehistoric iconography is complicated by the tendency to project

contemporary male/female gender dichotomies into the past. Pictish monumental stone sculpture

in Scotland has been studied over the last 100 years. Traditionally, mirror and comb symbols

found on some stones produced in Scotland between AD 400 and AD 900 have been interpreted

as being associated exclusively with women and/or the female gender. This thesis re-examines

this assumption in light of more recent work to offer a new interpretation of Pictish mirror and

comb symbols and to suggest a larger context for their possible meaning. Utilizing the Canmore

database, …

Head And Shoulders Above The Rest: Birch-Bark Hats And Elite Status In Iron Age Europe, Cara Melissa Reeves

Theses and Dissertations

As competition between Celtic elites increased in Iron Age continental Europe (c. 800-25/15 BC), ornamentation of the head figured prominently in status displays across the Celtic world. Mortuary and iconographic contexts reveal that headgear made of both metal and organic materials marked elite status, but materials varied regionally by gender and age throughout the Iron Age. The purpose of this project was to capitalize on the rare opportunity provided by birch-bark hats from west-central European elite burials to investigate organic headgear and the possibility that different types of headgear may have marked different social positions within the elite class. Birch-bark …