Anthropology Commons^™

A Litany For Blessed Diversity, Emma De Ramón Acevedo, Marco Enríquez, Jordi Padilla-Delgado, Ammel Sharon

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Silent Testimonies: The Global Evolution Of Grave Marker Art And Meaning, Erik Culley

Bakerman Student Research Awards

Grave markers are more than simple memorials; they are meaningful cultural objects that reflect how societies understand death, identity, belief, class, and community values. The size, material, decoration, and inscriptions of gravestones change over time in response to economic conditions, religious beliefs, social structures, and consumer culture. By studying grave markers across different regions and historical periods—such as early modern Europe, nineteenth-century Germany, and immigrant cemeteries in Australia—archaeologists can trace broader cultural transformations. Research shows that the rise of external grave markers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was closely tied to increased material consumption and a growing emphasis on …

Identifying Intangible And Biocultural Heritage Elements Toward Environmental Understanding: Engaging Stakeholders Through Art, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Grounded in a case study in Barbuda in the Caribbean, this research examines sustainability from the perspective of what arts and heritage can contribute to community engagement and local and broader understandings about the environment. This article documents a growing body of literature recognizing the role of arts and culture, including local knowledge and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), in climate change endeavors. Art and TEK present expansive world views. Contextual information situates research done on the island of Barbuda pre- and post-Hurricane Irma. Visual arts workshops engaged community members in mixed methods research. Results documented cultural elements, particularly intangible and …

Unveiling Legacies: Exploring And Analyzing Cultural Artifacts In The Higbee Collection, Samantha Staller

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Anthropology and the Cummings Center to find ways to properly analyze an archaeological collection's artifacts to understand the overall significance of everything better. Before starting my research, I came up with the following questions: Can any artifacts be considered culturally affiliated? Is everything in the collection authentic? What is the overall background of the collection? Does this collection have any connection to Ohio history? Can anything in the collection be dated? Throughout the research, I will create an Excel inventory list to include qualitative and quantitative data from the artifacts to give insight into what is included in the Higbee …

Heritage And Archaeological Knowledge Dissemination Strategies: A Kurd Qaburstan Case Study, Myli R. Sangria

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This thesis addresses the long-standing absence of community archaeology initiatives in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq by designing and implementing a pilot public archaeology program at the site of Kurd Qaburstan, a large Middle Bronze Age city (ca. 1800 BCE) located on the Erbil Plain. In summer 2024, the author implemented a community archaeology activity designed as a first step toward sustained engagement with the village that partially overlaps the site. The program—a hands-on lesson in archaeological stratigraphy for K–5 students, followed by a guided site visit—was intentionally simple, affordable, and easy to carry out alongside ongoing fieldwork. The activity …

40 Years Passing By In (A) “Heartbeat”, Christopher Janney

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

This article outlines the forty-year history go Christopher Janney’s iconic performance work “HeartBeat.” Trained as an architect and jazz musician, Janney combines these two disciplines to create large interactive light/sound installations and performances. On the one hand, he attempts to make architecture more like music, more “alive” using real-time sensing devices as on his “Harmonic Convergence” installation on the Miami International Airport. On the other hand, he attempts to make music more like architecture, more physical more visual. In his “HeartBeat” performance, a dancer wears a heartbeat device that amplifies his/her heartbeat in “real time.” Over this pulse, live musicians …

Yoga Sūtra Book Four And The Yogabindu, Christopher Key Chapple

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

Four themes from the fourth pāda of Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra are examined here: karma (IV:2-13), individuality (IV:16), humility (IV:20-22), and freedom (IV:29-34). Affirmations and variant interpretations of these four are provided from Haribhadra Virahāṅka’s Yogabindu, most likely composed a century or two later.

Collective Karma: From The Yogasūtra To Taylor Swift, Zoë Slatoff

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

The Indian knowledge traditions speak at length about karma, which is divided into three categories—accumulated (saṃcita), ripe (prārabdha), and future (kriyamāṇa). While much is said about our individual karma and how it affects our repeated reincarnation in cyclic existence, how does this affect others and how do others affect us? In other words, as this paper explores, what is our reciprocal and collective karma?

Painting Liberation: A Visual Ontology Of The Interplay Of Mind And Consciousness In Book Four Of The Yoga Sūtras, Melissa Townsend

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

This presentation explores how artistic practice can illuminate philosophical questions about the nature of mind, consciousness, and liberation as articulated in Book Four of the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali. Through a series of paintings that visually translate these sūtras, I propose that art offers a unique, experiential means of engaging with the complex relationship between citta (mind) and puruṣa (consciousness).

The paintings function as a form of “visual ontology,” inviting viewers to engage with abstract philosophical concepts in a sensory, tangible way. By depicting the interplay between the mutable processes of the mind and the unchanging awareness of consciousness, these …

Origins Of Art: Demystifying The Scheuring Icon Collection, Mikayla Klemp

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

No abstract provided.

Tiberias: Remains Of An Early Islamic Buff Ware Pottery Workshop, Yardenna Alexandre

Qadum: Journal of Excavation Reports from Israel

A small four-square excavation carried out in an area outside the Ottoman city wall of Tiberias exposed the remains of an Early Islamic pottery workshop, built over earlier Byzantine-period walls. The building remains included parts of small rooms, pits and a tiled-floor installation. The overlying accumulations and thick ashy layers contained numerous sherds of Buff Ware vessels, including glazed bowls, partially fired plain vessels, decorated sherds, clay molds, kiln bars and basalt polishing tools. All these finds indicate that the site was an Abbasid–Fatimid period Buff Ware pottery workshop.

Ḥorbat Ṭurit (South): A Late Pottery Neolithic Ephemeral Site In The ‘Akko Plain, Dmitry Yegorov, Nuha Agha

Qadum: Journal of Excavation Reports from Israel

An ephemeral prehistoric site was recovered south of the multi-period settlement of Ḥorbat Ṭurit, in the section between Yasif Junction and the ‘Akko East interchange. The site revealed an archaeological layer on top of sterile terra rosa soil. According to the analysis of the lithic assemblage, the site dates to the Late Pottery Neolithic period. Despite the limited excavated area and the absence of architectural or other constructed elements, the occupation level of the site yielded a significant number of flint artifacts, some pottery and stone tool fragments, as well as a small collection of faunal remains. The excavation results …

Kefar Veradim: An Intermediate Bronze Age Communal Burial Ground In Western Upper Galilee, Edwin C.M. Van Den Brink

Qadum: Journal of Excavation Reports from Israel

Between 2016 and 2018, three brief salvage excavations conducted northwest of Kefar Veradim uncovered twenty rock-cut shafts leading into multiple burial chambers dating to the Intermediate Bronze Age, as well as five associated rock-cut basins of purportedly mortuary function. These tombs are part of a burial ground extending along a rocky spur overlooking Naḥal Yeḥiʻam. At least ten of the identified underground burial chambers, which were of two different types and originally sealed with flat stone slabs, had been robbed in antiquity. The remaining tombs could not be explored due to significant interference from the ultra-Orthodox burial society Atra Kadisha.

‘En Shaddud: Early Bronze Age Settlement, Middle Bronze And Iron Age Burial Remains And A Hellenistic Farmstead At The Foot Of Tel Shaddud, Karen Covello-Paran, Tali Kan-Cipor-Meron

Qadum: Journal of Excavation Reports from Israel

This study presents findings from excavations at the foot of Tel Shaddud, focusing on settlement and burial patterns across various historical periods. Evidence from the Early Bronze I layer reveals the initial settlement characterized by stone-paved floors and extensive habitation extending towards the nearby spring of ‘En Shaddud. The Middle Bronze I tombs uncovered indicate a cemetery below the tell, containing artifacts that reflect burial practices consistent with warrior traditions in the region. Notably, the analysis of burial offerings indicates continued cemetery use into the Iron Age. Hellenistic remains suggest a transition to agricultural use, with well-constructed farmstead features emerging …

Usa Archaeology Museum Newsletter - October 2024, Archaeology Museum

Archaeology Museum Newsletters

In this edition of the museum's newsletter:

• Fall Semester Exhibitions
• Alabama Archaeological Society, Southwest Chapter Presents
• Alabama Archaeology Day
• Arkhaios Film Festival and Movie Cosplay Contest
• USA By the Bay: Archaeological Studies on the Gulf Coast
• Project Archaeology Educator's Conference
• Legacies of Slavery & the Shared History of the South
• Museum Fall Semester Closures
• Giving to the Archaeology Museum

Archaeology In Space: The Sampling Quadrangle Assemblages Research Experiment (Square) On The International Space Station. Report 1: Squares 03 And 05, Justin St. P. Walsh, Shawn Graham, Alice C. Gorman, Chantal Brousseau, Salma Abdullah

Art Faculty Articles and Research

Between January and March 2022, crew aboard the International Space Station (ISS) performed the first archaeological fieldwork in space, the Sampling Quadrangle Assemblages Research Experiment (SQuARE). The experiment aimed to: (1) develop a new understanding of how humans adapt to life in an environmental context for which we are not evolutionarily adapted, using evidence from the observation of material culture; (2) identify disjunctions between planned and actual usage of facilities on a space station; (3) develop and test techniques that enable archaeological research at a distance; and (4) demonstrate the relevance of social science methods and perspectives for improving life …

Imperial Architecture And Absolute Chronology In The Inka State: The View From Northern Chile, Beau G. Murphy

Anthropology ETDs

Scholars often evaluate the political aspects of imperial architecture in terms of the symbolism of specific buildings, leaving a gap in our understanding of the political calculations of overall site layouts. This study of the architecture of the Inka provincial capital of Turi, located in the Atacama of northern Chile, identifies aspects of planning in the site’s layout that extend our knowledge of the use of architecture by past empires to communicate political messages. In so doing, the study addresses multi-scalar issues of a neglected Inka chronology, including the chronology of Turi itself, of Inka rule of the Upper Loa …

Korean Newspapers And The “Irish Problem”: Japanese Censorship In Colonial Korea, 1920-1930, Jaehyun Kim

Student Work

Jaehyun Kim’s thesis, “Korean Newspapers and the ‘Irish Problem’: Japanese Censorship in Colonial Korea, 1920-1930,” touches upon a subject that scholars of colonial Korea have given insufficient attention to. Kim asks why there featured so many colonial Korean run newspaper articles on the Irish Independent movement in the 1920s and 1930s when the Japanese colonial government actively censored Korean newspapers. Indeed, in the wake of the March First Independent Movement, the colonial authorities shifted its harsh military rule to a more conciliatory cultural policy, allowing Koreans to vent their nationalistic sentiments within the confines of state control. However, the level …

The One-And-A-Half Chinas’ Problem: Taiwan And The Origins Of Peaceful Reunification, 1978–1988, Lucas Miner

Student Work

Lucas Miner’s thesis, “The One-and-a-Half Chinas’ Problem, Taiwan and the Origins of Peaceful Reunification, 1978–1988,” deals with attempts by the Chinese Communist Party and the Guomindang to achieve unification between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Taiwan during the early phase of China’s reform era. The thesis seeks to update our interpretation of Cross-Strait relations by exploring the origins of peaceful reunification, tracing its early evolution from 1978 to 1985. Primary sources from both sides of the strait—especially from the rich repository at the Academia Historica in Taipei—allows Miner to construct a nuanced and significant narrative that uniquely incorporates …

Aita O Paul Gauguin I Ite I Te Parau I Te Reo Tahiti: The Colonial Implications Of Paul Gauguin’S Incorrect Tahitian, Elise Hatch

Pacific Studies

No abstract provided.

Forbidden Fruit: Mary Cassatt’S Mural Of “Modern Woman” At The World’S Columbian Exposition, Chicago 1893, Tricia Cusack

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

This paper considers a large mural of “The Modern Woman” painted in France by the American artist Mary Cassatt for the Woman’s Building at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. It focuses in particular on the large central panel of the mural titled Young Women Plucking the Fruits of Knowledge or Science that depicts women and girls apple-picking. Cassatt’s mural drew on various traditions and myths. Apple harvesting was a common sight in America. Cassatt’s title though points to the story of Eve and forbidden fruit, in which Eve seeks knowledge, but is severely punished for it. Cassatt …

Knowledge Production And The Unthinkable: Weaving Stories Of Art, Gender, And Land, Christin Huntsman

Master's Theses

Colonialism is deeply and violently embedded in Western knowledge formation—dominant power structures produce epistemes that uphold and perpetuate colonial narratives. This kind of knowledge production forecloses other possibilities. Western discourse of truth becomes universalized to the point that other worldviews, other knowledges that do not conform to hegemonic norms, are suppressed or silenced. This thesis examines three areas of hegemony and erasure: art, gender, and land. First, the history of art clearly marks a delineation between Western elitist artistic masterpieces and non-Western ethnographic artifacts. Eurocentrism of art in the academy determines what counts as art and how art is categorized. …

The Question Of Design In The Context Of The First Australian Nations: Designing Reparations Through Decolonial Architecture, Eli Abamonte

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Forget about tourist postcards and picture-perfect landscapes. Australia's true heart beats in the ancient stories of the Indigenous communities that tell them, their vibrant cultural tapestry woven beneath the surface. My research dives into this tapestry, not as an Architect with blueprints imposing my own vision, but as a student with an open ear and collaborative spirit. Australia’s vastness holds countless stories, but my research led me deep into the heart of East Arnhem Land, where ancient legends whisper in the wind and the Yolngu people dwell. Anthropologists like Bruno Descola shattered my singular view of the world, revealing a …

Picturing Consumer Culture, Cultural Hybridity, And Womanhood: Farah Al Qasimi’S Photographs From 2012 To 2020, Minji Lee

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines Farah Al Qasimi’s 2012-2020 color photographs, arguing that this work presents a distinctive and salient critique of domesticity, material culture, and womanhood in the UAE. Through her lens as a woman and a culturally hybrid subject, Al Qasimi explores the tensions of modernization, globalization, consumerism, and gender.

Loyalitas Masyarakat Jawa Kuno Kepada Raja Berdasarkan Data Prasasti Abad Xiii–Xv Masehi, Victoria Geraldine, Andriyati Rahayu

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

The sima inscription is an edict issued by the king as a gift given to certain parties. One of the reasons for its bestowment is as a reward to those who have shown him loyalty. This paper studies the forms of loyalty shown by the Ancient Javanese People to the king and the factors that influenced it. The study aims to give an understanding of the relationship that existed between the Ancient Javanese people and the king in the XIII–XV Centuries AD. The results of this research provides new insight for the effort to reconstruct the life of the Ancient …

Persepsi Pemerintah Dan Masyarakat Dalam Pelestarian Cagar Budaya: Studi Kasus Kawasan Cagar Budaya Pusat Pemerintahan Kesultanan Siak Sri Indrapura, Agi Ginanjar

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

This article discusses the importance of government and community collaboration in the preservation and potential use of Siak Sri Indrapura Cultural Heritage Area. It is not easy to carry out preservation as mandated by the law, because in practice various problems may arise, especially those related to the area’s use. The purpose of this study is to integrate interpretations concerning the importance of government and community collaboration in the preservation of cultural heritage areas and those concerning their potential use by taking into account socio-cultural and economic values. This study was designed using a convergent qualitative and quantitative approach (convergent …

A Material History Of The Early Eighteenth-Century Cod Fishery In Canso, Nova Scotia, Adrian Lk Morrison

Northeast Historical Archaeology

In the early eighteenth century, Canso, Nova Scotia housed an influential Anglo-American fishing and trading community with far-reaching connections across Europe and the Americas. The islands were inhabited by a small permanent population joined each year by hundreds of migratory workers who established seasonal operations along their shores. Despite high hopes for long-term development, success would be short lived. Canso was a volatile space: the islands were contested territory and existed within a tense and turbulent frontier. The settlement was attacked multiple times and was destroyed in 1744. This paper draws upon new research and previous archaeological studies to discuss …

Monitoring Of Caucasus Heritage Sites Facing Cultural Genocide, Peyton Edelbrock

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

No abstract provided.

Document Productivity Cycle (Study Case Of Samudera Raksa Ship Museum), Ciwuk Musiana Yudhawasthi, Lydia Christiani

Proceedings from the Document Academy

The study aims to discuss document productivity in the case of the Samudera Raksa Ship Museum. To answer this, the researchers made a productivity document study based on (1) Blasius Sudarsono's axiom, which states that "In the beginning, it was the human will to express what he thought and/or felt;" (2) Sudarsono's thoughts regarding documents as processes and products; (3) Lund’s concept of document creation; (4) Sabine Roux's thoughts on the rhizome concept in the document productivity process; and (5) the concept of museum communication by Yudhawasthi. Based on these theoretical frameworks, an analysis of the document productivity in the …

The Regenarrative: How To Change The Story In Order To Change The Future, S. Rose Bigheart O'Leary

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Abstract

In the era of Climate Change, many are concerned that the end of the Anthropocene, or the end of the era of human life on Earth, is upon us. Western European colonialism and its subsequent systems (settler-colonialism, colonial-capitalism, and globalization - sometimes termed “neocolonialism”) have all been implicated in contributing to unsustainable behaviors linked to accelerating climate change. In searching for possible solutions, some have called for listening to Indigenous Peoples, citing ethics of sustainability found among many Indigenous cultures. However, the cultural products of settler-colonialism are still dominant in ways that do not allow for Indigenous worldviews to …