Anthropology Commons^™

Omaha, Nebraska's Costly Signaling At The Trans-Mississippi And International Exposition Of 1898, Courtney L. Cope Ziska

Anthropology Department: Theses

At the close of the nineteenth-century, Omaha, Nebraska hosted the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition of 1898. Despite financial depression, drought, and war, the city chose to allocate its limited financial, time, and energy resources to the Exposition effort with no guarantee of success and little potential for profit. This thesis aims to make sense of this seemingly wasteful or irrational event by exploring its possible function as a costly social signal of Omaha’s qualities to potential residents, businesses, and city partners. Utilizing data from historical, geophysical, and demographic resources, this thesis assesses the Exposition as a costly signal and the …

Review Of Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter And The Politics Of Sight. By Timothy Pachirat., Donald D. Stull

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

In June 2004, political scientist Timothy Pachirat went to work on the killfloor of an unnamed beef slaughterhouse in Omaha, Nebraska. He started out as a "liver hanger" in the cooler. There carcasses hang before being sent to the fabrication floor where "hundreds of handheld knives and saws reinvent chilled half-carcasses as steaks, rounds, and roasts that are then boxed and shipped to distributors and retailers around the world." For four days he worked in the chutes, driving cattle to the knocking box to be stunned, as required by the Humane Slaughter Act, before being turned into meat. Then for …

Review Of White Man's Water: The Politics Of Sobriety In A Native American Community. By Erica Prussing, Paul Spicer

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Epidemiological evidence consistently emphasizes the challenges American Indian tribes of the Great Plains confront through excess alcohol consumption. Until Erica Prussing's recent book, however, we have lacked a detailed analysis of the social and cultural context in which these challenges unfold. With a focus on women's experiences across two generations, White Man s Water provides us with a careful description of the social and cultural world of contemporary Northern Cheyennes, coupled with an understanding of how individual experiences within the milieu vary, especially as a function of history.

White Man's Water is a truly significant book: the first book-length ethnographic …

Review Of Clovis Lithic Technology: Investigation Of A Stratified Workshop At The Gault Site, Texas. By Michael R. Waters, Charlotte D. Pevny, David L. Carlson, Et Al. Foreword By Michael B. Collins., Heather M. Rockwell

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

This volume is a valuable contribution to the growing knowledge of Early Paleoindian behavior in the Southern Plains. It offers a thorough description of excavations and analyses conducted on collections from the Excavation Area 8 ofthe Gault Site in central Texas. The book is organized into ten chapters detailing the site setting, formation processes, Clovis tool manufacture patterns, microwear analyses, faunal analyses, and interpretations of the site's organization and purpose. ... Clovis Lithic Technology is a valuable contribution to researchers interested in the archaeology of the Great Plains, Paleoindian research, lithic analysis, and New World colonization research.

Alternative Individual Cartridge Case Identification Techniques, Curtis H. Sedlacek

Anthropology Department: Theses

Individual cartridge case identification is an essential component of historic battlefield archeology. With individual cartridge case identification archeologists are able to track the movement of the combatants as they move across the battlefield, giving a highly detailed view of the past. While useful, current methods of individual cartridge case identification require expensive equipment and extensive training and time to conduct. In this thesis two alternative methods of cartridge case identification are evaluated in order to determine if recent developments in the areas of 3D scanning and statistical analysis can be utilized to develop new methods of individual cartridge case method. …

Kinect And 3d Gis In Archaeology, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Fabio Remondino, Jim Robersson, Jennifer Von Schwerin, Giorgio Agugiaro, Gabrio Girardi

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

This paper explores the potential of using Microsoft's Kinect to create a low-cost and portable system to virtually navigate, through a prototype 3D GIS, the digitally reconstructed ancient Maya city and UNESCO World Heritage Site of Copan in Honduras. The 3D GIS, named QueryArch3D, was developed as part of the MayaArch3D project (http://mayaarch3d.unm.edu), which explores the possibilities of integrating databases and 3D digital tools for research and teaching on ancient architectures and landscapes. The developed system, based on the Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit (FAAST), controls in a remote and touchless mode the movements in the 3D environment in …

Social Interaction At The Maya Site Of Copan, Honduras: A Least Cost Approach To Configurational Analysis, Heather Richards-Rissetto

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

In this article, I employ least cost paths using GIS to measure the relationship between site configuration and social connectivity at the ancient Maya site of Copan, Honduras. I investigate two questions. First, did people of different social classes experience varying degrees of social connectivity? Second, did people living in different parts of the city experience difference degrees of social connectivity? Ultimately, the goal is modify traditional configurational analysis using least cost analysis (LCA) to identify how social hierarchy was embedded in landscapes and how ancient people may have strategically manipulated landscapes to structure social interaction and community organization.