Anthropology Commons^™

Summer 1995 Ethnographic Field School: An Overview, Emilia Gonzalez-Clements

Nebraska Anthropologist

A five-week summer field school was conducted in the northern Sierra Oriental of northeast Mexico. Ten social science including anthropology) and one engineering student worked as a field team studying the impacts of new economic development initiatives on a rural ejido and participated in a small-scale irrigationlwater management project. The field school was directed by Emilia Gonzalez-Clements, applied anthropologist, and L. Davis Clements, Professor of Biological Sciences Engineering/Chemical Engineering/ Animal Science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Course requirements included a readings packet, field journal, 6-page paper and 2-page report. Paper topics were selected by students in areas of their professional …

Postmodernism And Anthropology, Elisabeth R. Gaines

Nebraska Anthropologist

Postmodem anthropology questions the authority of the objective participant observer, yet eludes a precise definition. Many different experimental approaches comprise the postmodern stand, and represents a diversion from interpretive anthropology. Deconstructionists peel away the layers of subjectivity from written text derived from observation. The movement presently resides in a whirlwind of conflicting opinions conceming the postmodem style of ethnography. One of these styles, inclusive of anything and everything, conveys a chaotic message, but lacks a truly holistic quality. Some postmodem critics believe the key to fundamental meaning lies in a historical perspective where the subtleties of interpretation and writing are …

Environmental Resources And Range Size: A Study Of Modern And Ancient Hunter Gatherers, George Macdonell

Nebraska Anthropologist

Archaeological surveys should be designed to better understand how past people interacted with their environment. An accurate survey should cover a group's range size in order to get a true representation of the diversity of the group's activities. Range size is defined as the total area of land over which a group moves and procures resources. Past studies of hunter gatherer range have focused on stylistic boundaries of pottery and stone tools. Optimal Foraging Theory has been used to better understand hunter gatherer territoriality and it can be used as a frame of reference for understanding range size as well. …

Cluster Analysis Of The Coprolites From Antelope House: Implications For Anasazi Diet And Cuisine, Mark Q. Sutton, Karl Reinhard

Karl Reinhard Publications

This paper reports on a cluster analysis of 155 coprolites from Antelope House, a prehistoric Anasazi site in Canyon de Chelly, Arizona. The analysis revealed three primary clusters; whole kernel maize, milled maize, and nonmaize, which we believe to represent seasonal- and preference-related cuisine. Protein residue analysis on a subsample of the specimens added depth to the analysis.

Bioarchaeology And Cod Fisheries: A New Source Of Evidence, Thomas Amorosi, Thomas H. Mcgovern, Sophia Perdikaris

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

Archaeological excavations in the North Atlantic basin over the past two decades have recovered large amounts of fishbones from datable deposits extending back over 8000 years in some areas. Coverage of the last 1000 years (with particular emphasis on the climatic cooling of the “Little Ice Age”) is increasingly complete. Recent research makes it possible to reconstruct live lengths from commonly recovered fishbone elements. Preliminary findings indicate that cod of 1 to 1.5 m were being regularly taken in the eleventh to nineteenth centuries throughout the North Atlantic. Changes in fish size and mix of species taken probably reflect technological …

Cultural Considerations In The Experience Of Aging: Two African Cultures, Patricia Draper, Henry Harpending

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

We have three general conclusions to emphasize as well as an observation about aging in these [!Kung and Herero] societies that we believe deserves elaboration:

1. Old people are treated well in both these groups but not because they are scarce. Both the !Kung and the Herero are low-fertility populations so the proportion of the total population that is old is high in both groups.

2. Old people do not appreciate what appears to be the good (!Kung) and superb (Herero) social support that they receive. They have nothing good to say about being old. While we perceived very positive …

Trade, Contact, And Female Health In Northeast Nebraska, Karl Reinhard, Larry Tieszen, Karin L. Sandness, Lynae M. Beiningen, Elizabeth Miller, A. Mohammad Ghazi, Christiana E. Miewald, Sandra V. Barnum

Karl Reinhard Publications

Most scholars are understandably preoccupied with the impact of Europeans on native peoples who were passive, unwilling, or resistant participants in that contact. We present in this chapter a different case. The Missouri River tribes, including the Omaha and Ponca, willingly engaged in relations with Euramericans, especially in the fur trade that dominated interaction in this region. The time frame for this study is 1780- 1820, a period when interaction between individual traders and Native Americans was replaced by the dominance of the American Fur Company in organized exploitation of the Missouri River lands and peoples. This involvement later contributed …

Sanitation And Parasitism At Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, Karl J. Reinhard

Karl Reinhard Publications

One focus of historical archaeology at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, West Virginia, is tracing the development of sanitation at the town through the 1800s and 1900s. Historical documentation indicates that there was a degree of resistance to the modernization of village sanitation. This study attempts to verify this resistance through examination of privy soils for parasites indicative of fecalborne disease, specifically the helminth species Ascaris lumbricoides and Trichuris trichiura. The presence of these parasites in the early 1900s would indicate that fecal-borne disease due to poor sanitation continued to be an aspect of town life. The analysis revealed the …

Otitis Media, Mastoiditis, And Infracranial Lesions In Two Plains Indian Children, Robert W. Mann, Douglas W. Owsley, Karl J. Reinhard

Karl Reinhard Publications

One disease condition that is common to nearly all children is otitis media, also known as middle ear disease. Although most people speak of it as a middle ear "infection," other causes such as neoplasm (tumor) can result in manifestations and symptoms mimicking an infectious process. This paper presents findings related to osseous lesions in two Indian children, approximately three to five years of age, who died with otitis media and infracranial lesions. Through macroscopic and radiographic analysis, it is possible to show that one child probably suffered from tuberculosis and the other from histiocytosis X. From an epidemiological and …

Further Evidence Of Lead Contamination Of Omaha Skeletons, A. Mohamad Ghazi, Karl J. Reinhard, Mary Anne Holmes, Eric M. Durrance

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

A previous analysis of Omaha skeletons dating between A.D. 1780 and 1820 revealed the presence of lead in all skeletons with high concentrations in children and adult males (Reinhard and Ghazi [1992] Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 89: 183-195). Two likely explanations for the high lead levels were presented: 1) metabolic absorption of lead and 2) diagenetic uptake of lead by the bones from postmortem application of pigments to the corpse. Two types of lead were available to the Omaha tribe: 1) Mississippi Valley type, and 2) non-Mississippi Valley type. It has been suggested that red-lead pigment mixed with mercury sulfide …

Behavioral Sex Differences In Children Of Diverse Cultures: The Case Of Nurturance To Infants, Carolyn P. Edwards

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

This chapter draws on the data from the Children of Different Worlds study (Whiting & Edwards, 1988) to consider the origin of sex differences in children’s behavior worldwide, in particular: (1) how different kinds of social behavior are elicited by different contexts of socialization (defined by the sex, age, status, and kinship of social interactants, ongoing activities, and other potent dimensions of setting); (2) how these contexts of socialization are distributed across cultures and associated with various adult subsistence strategies, family structures, household patterns, and forms of social networks; and (3) how boys and girls of each age in diverse …

Review Of The Origins Of Agriculture And Settled Life By Richard S. Macneish. Norman And London: University Of Oklahoma Press, 1992. 433 Pages., Alan J. Osborn

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Excerpt:

Following a brief review of the "environmentalist's" (e. g., Ratzel, de Candolle, Childe, Braidwood, and Flannery) and the "materialist's" (e. g., Marx, Vavilov, D. Harris, Binford, and Cohen) accounts, MacNeish presents his "trilinear theory." It consists of "three hypothetical models and three hypotheticaI sets of causes" for the development of plant domestication and sedentism. This "trilinear theory" is a world culture history similar to the multilinear developmental frameworks proposed "by Julian Steward (The Theory of Culture Chtange: The Methodology of Multilinear Evolution, 1955). MacNeish's multilinear scheme is cross-cut by three developmental stages, i. e., food collectors, transitional …

Temporal And Spatial Dietary Variability In The Prehistoric Lower And Middle Osmore Drainage: The Carbon And Nitrogen Isotope Evidence, Karin L. Sandness

Department of Anthropology: Theses and Student Research

Skeletal material from six sites representing human occupation in the Osmore drainage of southern Peru, circa A.D. 50 to 1400, was analyzed for carbon and nitrogen isotopes. The δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N values observed in the study indicate-spatial and temporal variability in diet. Specimens from the lower valley are, in general, more positive in both carbon and nitrogen than those of the middle valley, with the most positive values being present in specimens from the coastal Chiribaya site, San Geronimo. The data suggest, however, that all populations in the drainage experienced shifts in diet through time. Samples …

The Character Of Surface Archaeological Deposits And Its Influence On Survey Accuracy, Luann Wandsnider, Eileen Camilli

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Survey is one of the primary methods of data collection in archaeology today. Survey data often constitute the sole conserved record of the prehistoric use of an area and are used as the foundation for culture historical, demographic, and economic reconstructions. Given the fundamental nature of survey data in relation to other archaeological pursuits, identification of biases inherent in this type of data are important and have been the subject of a number of stimulating studies. Analyses reported here focus on the accuracy of results produced through intensive survey. Using data from several siteless surveys in the American West, the …

Remembering The Past: !Kung Life History Narratives, Patricia Draper

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

This chapter will examine the social and economic changes that !Kung women have experienced in the last seventy or so years by means of life history narratives collected from five older !Kung or "Zhun/wa" women, as the !Kung call themselves. The women whose stories form the basis of this report were all living in the western Kalahari Desert of Ngamiland, Botswana in 1987-88 when the author was carrying out anthropological field work. Many changes have affected the !Kung in the last several decades. A brief discussion of these changes is given below to provide a background for the interpretation of …

Parasitology As An Interpretive Tool In Archaeology, Karl J. Reinhard

Karl Reinhard Publications

Parasitological studies of archaeological sites can be used to interpret past behavior and living conditions. During the 1980s problem-oriented research into prehistoric- and historical-period parasitism developed and resulted in thefield of archaeoparasitology. Archaeoparasitology attempts to integrate parasite data into archaeological theory and interpretation. Within the last decade, four major archaeoparasitological laboratories emerged. They developed interpretive frameworks that apply parasitological data to a remarkable variety of prehistoric behaviors. Parasite remains can be used to reconstruct aspects of diet, health, and other behaviors such as transhumance and trade. Finally. analysis of the distribution of parasite remains can be used to interpret aspects …

The Spatial Dimension Of Time, Luann Wandsnider

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Archaeological research depends on the temporal structural of archaeological deposits. Temporal structure includes deposit age and the sequencing or the relative temporal order of one deposit to another. Another aspect is the temporal scale and resolution, or the degree of contemporaneity shared by deposits, Archaeology is also concerned with ethnographic time, that domain in which formation events occur, i.e., the temporal characteristics of activities with respect to the piece of land on which those activities occur. This chapter explores the issue of temporal resolution or deposit grain is it relates to the tempo of use witnessed by a locale.

Vertebral Pathology In Prehistoric And Historic Skeletons From Northeastern Nebraska, Karin L. Sandness, Karl J. Reinhard

Karl Reinhard Publications

Vertebral pathology has long been a useful criterion for anthropologists in the assessment of activity patterns, stress, and general health of extinct peoples. This method of analysis, however, has never been applied to the peoples of the Nebraska Great Plains. This study is the first to concentrate on the indigenous Native Americans of this region, examining the spinal pathology present in the prehistoric and historic skeletal remains. Pathology present in the form of spondylolysis, Schmorl's nodes, osteophytosis (degenerative disc disease), and osteoarthritis (degenerative joint disease), provides evidence to suggest differing activity patterns and levels of stress in Plains groups before …

Coprolite Analysis: A Biological Perspective On Archaeology, Karl J. Reinhard, Baughn M. Bryant Jr

Karl Reinhard Publications

The most remarkable dietary remains recoverable from archaeological contexts are coprolites. Coprolites are desiccated or mineralized feces that are preserved in sheltered and open sites in arid regions, primarily in the New World. These dietary remains are remarkable from several perspectives. They typically contain a variety of macroscopic and microscopic remains that form interrelated data sets for the reconstruction of diets. Because contexts containing coprolites are typified by excellent preservation, the remains coprolites contain tend to be in better states of preservation than dietary remains recovered from nonfecal deposits. Coprolites also contain the well-preserved remains of intestinal parasites and pathogens …

Dan Canyon Burial: A Piii Burial In Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Steve Dominguez, Karl Reinhard, Kari L. Sandness, Cherie A. Edwards, Dennis Danielson, F. A. Calabrese, Chris Kincaid

Karl Reinhard Publications

The Dan Canyon burial was discovered at a time when the philosophy, ethics, and legislation concerning the study of human remains are in a state of flux. A number of important sensitive issues germane to managers, archeologists, and American Indians are discussed in the introduction. The subsequent analysis provides a detailed scientific account of these remains and a glimpse of a segment of a people's past lifeway while remaining sensitive to the wishes of the American Indians.

The burial and associated grave goods of site 42SA21339 were exposed by wave action in a location frequented by boaters at the Glen …

Review Of The Archaeology Of Regions: A Case For Full-Coverage Survey By Suzanne K. Fish And Stephen A. Kowalewski, Eds., Luann Wandsnider

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

The goal of this volume is “to expand the explicit rationale for [full-coverage survey], to affirm it as a practicable technique, and to illustrate its superiority as a basis for archaeological inference” (p. 2). Full-coverage survey (FCS) involves “the systematic examination of contiguous blocks of terrain at a uniform level of intensity” (p. 2), but stipulates no minimum areal extent and no special intensity of coverage. This volume argues that justification for expending limited resources on FCS lies in its potential to capture settlement patterns, which somehow reflect settlement systems and which cannot be approached by sample survey.
S. Fish …

Use Of Pollen Concentration In Paleopharmacology: Coprolite Evidence Of Medicinal Plants, Karl Reinhard, Donny L. Hamilton, Richard H. Hevly

Karl Reinhard Publications

Nearly 2,400 plant species have been documented ethnographically as having medicinal value among Native Americans. Therefore, it is not surprising that evidence of medicinal plants appears in some of the over 1,000 coprolites analyzed from the southwestern U.S. Three medicinal species identified in pollen analysis of coprolites are discussed. Willow (Salix) is the most common analgesic in the Native American pharmacopoeia. Prehistoric use of this plant is documented in coprolites from Bighorn Cave in the Black Mountains of Arizona and also in a burial from the Mimbres Valley, New Mexico. Historically, Mormon tea (Ephedra) served as …

An Isolated Storage Vessel At Site 42sa20779 In Glen Canyon National Recreation Area: Adaptive Storage And Caching Behavior In The Prehistoric Southwest, Anne M. Wolley, Alan J. Osborn

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

This report documents the excavation and analysis of a large, isolated ceramic vessel discovered in the spring of 1988 in the Hite Marina area of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Utah Project #89-NA-051N. Several college students from Western State College in Colorado (Dean Brian, Matt How, Cathy Arvey, and Mike Donaldson) were hiking in the area when Dean Brian discovered the pot. Aware of the possible significance of such a find, Matt How immediately contacted Park Archaeologist Kris Kincaid and informed her of the vessel's location. Matt later returned with his family, Micky and JoNell How, when archaeologists Kincaid and …

Dietary And Parasitological Aanalysis Of Coprolites Recovered From Mummy 5, Ventana Cave, Arizona, Karl J. Reinhard, Richard H. Hevly

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Four coprolites were excavated with Burial 5 at Ventena Cave, a partially mummified five-year-old child. Two coprolites were granular and dark in color and two were fibrous and light in color. The coprolites are remains of the child's intestinal contents and were submitted for dietary and parasitological analysis. No parasites were found. The fibrous coprolites proved to be remains of highly masticated mesquite pods (Prosopis). The granular coprolites consist of seeds of saguaro cactus (Carnegiea gigantea). Pollen analysis reveals two dietary pollen types, both derived from cactus. No evidence of cultivated plants except for a trace …

Dietary And Parasitological Analysis Of Coprolites Recovered From Mummy 5, Ventana Cave, Arizona, Karl Reinhard, Richard H. Hevly

Karl Reinhard Publications

Four coprolites were excavated with Burial 5 at Ventana Cave. a partially mummified five-year-old child. Two coprolites were granular and dark in color and two were fibrous and light in color. The coprolites are remains of the child's intestinal contents and were submitted for dietary and parasitological analysis. No parasites were found. The fibrous coprolites proved to be remains of highly masticated mesquite pods (Prosopis). The granular coprolites consist of seeds of saguaro cactus (Carnegiea gigantea). Pollen analysis reveals two dietary pollen types, both derived from cactus. No evidence of cultivated plants except for a trace amount of …

Personality Development In Evolutionary Perspective, Patricia Draper, Jay Belsky

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

A relationship between personality processes and evolution can be seen when behaviors associated with sexual maturation, mating, and parenting are examined This article stipulates the types of proximal cues implicated in the shaping of personality variables that become important in the development of the individual's reproductive behavior

Review Of Early Prehistoric Agriculture In The American Southwest, By W. H. Wills. Santa Fe, New Mexico: School Of American Research Press, 1988. 196 Pages., Alan J. Osborn

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Last paragraph:

Wills's book provides archeologists with an innovative account of why and how past hunter-gatherers initially expanded their food-getting activities to include the cultivation of domesticated crops. His study makes use of a variety of subjects including r- and K-selection, density-dependent responses, risk minimization, the forager-collector continuum, maize phenology, Holocene environments, technological change, stylistic variation, social boundaries, and mating networks. Wills also offers new information and reassessments of the archeological record at Bat, Tularosa, Cordova, and Cienega Creek caves in the Mogollon highlands. He approaches the archeological literature for the American Southwest with healthy skepticism. And he challenges many …

From The Gulf To The Rio Grande: Human Adaptation In Central, South, And Lower Pecos Texas, Thomas Hester, Stephen L. Black, D. Gentry Steele, Ben W. Olive, Anne A. Fox, Karl Reinhard, Leland C. Bement

Karl Reinhard Publications

The South Texas area, Region 3 of the Southwestern Division, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is synthesized from archeological and bioarcheological perspectives. Three distinct geographic units within Region 3 are treated in detail: Central Texas Plateau Prairie, South Texas Plains, and Lower Pecos Canyonlands. More than 11,000 years of human adaptation are chronicled for this area, stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Rio Grande along the border with northeastern Mexico. Particular attention is devoted to a consideration of the region's prehistoric record; significant problems and data gaps are outlined. For the first time, a compilation has been done …

African Marriage Systems: Perspectives From Evolutionary Ecology, Patricia Draper

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

There are many characteristics of contemporary African societies that puzzle demographers and others concerned with economic and social modernization. One of the most prominent is that the birth rate remains in both urban and rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa in spite of the presence of several factors that supposedly promote lowering of fertility (McNicoll 1980). Some of these factors are increased survivorship of children into adulthood, increased availability of education and levels of educational attainment (for both sexes), increased urbanization, and increased monetarization of the economy via migratory wage labor and cash cropping. Each of these is normally thought to …

A Mimbres Burial With Associated Colon Remains From The Nan Ranch Ruin, New Mexico, Harry J. Shafer, Marrianne Marek, Karl J. Reinhard

Karl Reinhard Publications

The skeletal remains of an adult male associated with desiccated tissue and a coprolite were recovered from an apen-air midden deposit at the NAN Ranch Ruin (LA15049)) a large Mimbres site in Grant County) New Mexico. The find dates to about A.C. 1000-1100. Identifiable macroscopic elements in the caprolite consist offi nely fragmented corn and tiny seed fragments of an unknown plant. High amounts of willow (Salix) and mustard (Brassicaceae) pollen may indicate the ingestion of medicinal plants to combat a deteriorating health condition. The individual was approximately 35 -40 years old at the time of death and suffered from …