Anthropology Commons^™

Book Review Of, Mark Whitaker. Learning Politics From Sivaram: The Life And Death Of A Revolutionary Tamil Journalist In Sri Lanka, Michele Ruth Gamburd

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Reviews the book "Learning Politics from Sivaram: The Life and Death of a Revolutionary Tamil Journalist in Sri Lanka," by Mark Whitaker.

Habitat And Distribution Of The Ruffed Lemur, "Varecia", North Of The Bay Of Antongil In Northeastern Madagascar, Evon R. Hekkala, Marius Rakotondratsima, Natalie Vasey

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Here we present information on the conservation status of ruffed lemurs (Varecia) north of the Bay of Antongil in northeastern Madagascar. Two contiguous protected areas were recently established that traverse this region via blocks of forest connected by narrow forest corridors: the Masoala National Park, which expands further to the east, and the Makira Protected Area, which expands further to the west and northwest. The two extant ruffed lemurs, Varecia variegata and V. rubra, overlapped in this region historically and, on rare occasions, hybridized. As such, land north of the Bay of Antongil is a critical part …

The "Visions Of Pele" Competition And Exhibit At Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, Jeremy Spoon

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The article provides an overview of the "Visions of Pele" competition and exhibit at Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park.

Late Glacial Landscape Ecology In Central North America, Christopher L. Hill

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The transition from full glacial to interglacial conditions along the southern margin of the Laurentide ice sheet resulted in dramatic changes in landscapes and biotic habitats. Strata and landforms resulting from the Wisconsin Episode of glaciation in the area directly west of Lake Superior indicate a context for late Pleistocene biota (including human populations) connected to ice margins, proglacial lakes, and postglacial drainage systems. Late Glacial landscape features that have the potential for revealing the presence of Paleoindian artifacts include abandoned shorelines of proglacial lakes in the Superior and Agassiz basins and interior drainages on deglaciated terrains. The linkage between …

Geologic Framework And Glaciation Of The Eastern Area, Christopher L. Hill

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Late Pleistocene landscapes in glaciated eastern North America include changing ice margins, fluctuating lake and sea levels, and deglaciated physical settings that were inhabited by a variety of extinct (Rancholabrean) fauna. The glaciated East of North America consists of the mid-continent from Hudson Bay to south of the Great Lakes and extends eastward to the Atlantic coast. Glaciers were present along the Atlantic coast from southern New York north to Labrador.

Geologic Framework And Glaciation Of The Central Area, Christopher L. Hill

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

During the Late Pleistocene, the Laurentide ice sheet extended over the western interior Plains and Great Lakes region in the central of North America. This central area generally encompasses the northwestern interior Plains of North America, extending from the Rocky Mountains in the west to the western Great Lakes and Hudson Bay in the east (figs. 1-2). It includes parts of the Mackenzie River, Missouri River, and Mississippi River systems. Deglaciation of this region led to the development of landscape that were inhabited by Rancholabrean faunal communities including human groups.

Geologic Framework And Glaciation Of The Western Area, Christopher L. Hill

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The geological framework for western North America consists of physical landscapes (geomorphic features) and stratigraphic sequences that can be used to provide a basis for understanding the chronologic and environmental context for Late Pleistocene human populations. The Western Area includes the region of North America from the Pacific coast to the Rocky Mountains and parts of the Great Basin and Colorado plateau (figs. 1-2).

Late Tertiary To Quaternary Geology And Landscape Evolution Along The Snake River Plain, Southwestern Idaho, Christopher L. Hill

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The geology of the Snake River Plain in the vicinity of Melba and Murphy, in southwestern Idaho, provides evidence for changes that have occurred over the last several million years, during the late Cenozoic. Here, the local and regional geology is described and interpreted within the context of events that have contributed to the present-day landscape.

Geology Of Centennial Valley And Stratigraphy Of Pleistocene Fossil-Bearing Sediments, Christopher L. Hill

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper is based on stratigraphic studies conducted at the Merrell Locaility and other locations in Centennial Valley. The Merrell Locality is situated in southwest Montana, on the western end of Centennial Valley (Figure 30). It is notable for containing the fossil vertebrate remains of mammoth (Mammuthus cf. M. columbi), scimitar cat (a member of the sabretooths, Homotherium serum), horse (Equidae) and Yesterday's camel (Camelops cf. hesternus), as well as other plant and animal fossils of Pleistocene age (Dundas 1990; Dundas, Hill, and Batten 1996). Summaries and reports of research conducted at the locality include …

Geochronology Of Merrell Locality Strata And Regional Paleoenvironmental Contexts, Christopher L. Hill

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

An assessment of the age of the deposits and the fossils incorporated within them at the Merrell Locality is based on radiocarbon measurements from bone and tusk collagen and organic sediments (Table 3 and Figures 75-76), and luminescence measurements on sediments (Feathers, this report). Nine radiocarbon dates are available from the site; seven are finite and two are infinite. The finite dates range from ca. 49,000 to 19,000 ¹⁴C yr. B. P. (Figure 75).

Spatial Distribution Of Pleistocene And Holocene Faunal Remains, South Block Excavations, Christopher L. Hill, David C. Batten

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The fossil remains of mammoth and other Pleistocene fauna found along and near the escarpment of the west shore of Lima Reservoir in Centennial Valley have been the subject of field investigations since the 1980s. Summaries or earlier studies conducted at the locality are presented in various published and unpublished sources including Albanese, Davis, and Hill (1995), Bump (1995), Davis and Batten (1996), Dundas (1989, 1990, 1996), Hill and Albanese (1996), and Hill, Davis, and Albanese (1995).

Where Have All The Native Fish Gone? The Fate Of Fish That Lewis And Clark Encountered On The Lower Columbia River, Virginia L. Butler

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

As part of a special issue of the 'Oregon Historical Quarterly,' discusses the native species of fish in the lower Columbia River described by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in 1805-06. They identified red charr, salmon trout, sturgeon, anchovy, skeet, and other fish that Indians caught and used as trade items with the Corps of Discovery. However, editors of the Lewis and Clark journals have often erred in identifying the fish Lewis and Clark described; the challenge in identifying anadromous fish lies in changing coloration, markings, and examination of habitat. There has been a drastic decline of native fish since …

Money That Burns Like Oil: A Sri Lankan Cultural Logic Of Morality And Agency, Michele Ruth Gamburd

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

New labor opportunities have drawn Sri Lankan women to work as domestic servants in the Middle East. Many migrants complain that their remittances "burn like oil," disappearing without a trace. The gendered discourse on burning remittances both draws on and contradicts an older cultural system that fetishizes money. The emerging logic provides symbolic resources for women to spend their remittances on advancements for the nuclear family, distancing themselves from other kin. (Migration, remittances, fetishism, Sri Lanka, Middle East)

Nonmarket Cooperation In The Indigenous Food Economy Of Taimyr, Arctic Russia: Evidence For Control And Benefit, John Ziker

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Empirical data on food sharing in native Dolgan, Nganasan, and Nenets communities in Siberia provide evidence for hunter control over big game and fish, as well as likely benefits of inter-household sharing. Most food sharing occurs with kin and, thus, kin-selection-based nepotism cannot be ruled out. Reciprocal inter-household sharing at meals occurs less often. Social context is discussed.

The Scale Of Pottery Manufacture During The Old Kingdom, Sarah L. Sterling

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The existence of specialized craftsmen — including stonemasons, coppersmiths, carpenters, jewelers and potters — in ancient Egypt arises in part from the general industries spawned from the elaborate monumental constructions that characterize the Old Kingdom (ca. 2600-2100 BCE). Pottery vessels in particular are one of the most abundant kinds of artifacts known from ancient Egypt, with functions ranging from formal presentation to baking bread, to grains and olive oil storage. While not all pottery is associated with monumental architecture, the emergence of specialized or semi-specialized potters is likely due to the same socioeconomic factors that gave rise to such famous …

Book Review Of, Plants Of Haida Gwaii, Douglas Deur

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Reviews the book "Plants of Haida Gwaii" by Nancy J. Turner.

Book Review Of, Women In Post-Independence Sri Lanka, Michele Ruth Gamburd

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Reviews the book "Women in Post-Independence Sri Lanka," by Swarna Jayaweera

In The Wake Of The Gulf War: Assessing Family Spending Of Compensation Money In Sri Lanka, Michele Ruth Gamburd

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Between 1997 and 2000, the United Nations Compensation Commission delivered US$ 4000 apiece to roughly 87,000 Sri Lankan citizens who suffered displacement and loss of employment due to Iraq’s military actions in Kuwait during the Gulf War. Using qualitative ethnographic data, this essay examines eleven case studies of Kuwait returnees in the village of Naeaegama, in southern Sri Lanka. Like the majority of Sri Lankans caught in the Gulf War, these returnees are women from poor rural families who worked as domestic servants in Kuwait. The essay compares how the eleven households have spent compensation money and migrants’ remittances. Spending …

Identification Of Immunoreactive Material In Mammoth Fossils, Mary Higby Schweitzer, Christopher L. Hill, John M. Asara, William S. Lane, Seth H. Pincus

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The fossil record represents a history of life on this planet. Attempts to obtain molecular information from this record by analysis of nucleic acids found within fossils of extreme age have been unsuccessful or called into question. However, previous studies have demonstrated the long-term persistence of peptides within fossils and have used antibodies to extant proteins to demonstrate antigenic material. In this study we address two questions: Do immunogenic/antigenic materials persist in fossils? and; Can fossil material be used to raise antibodies that will cross-react with extant proteins? We have used material extracted from a well-preserved 100,000-300,000-year-old mammoth skull to …

Rethinking Precolonial Plant Cultivation On The Northwest Coast Of North America, Douglas Deur

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast of North America are widely believed to have been true “hunter-fisher-gatherers,” lacking plant cultivation of any kind. This depiction of the region's indigenous inhabitants emerged within early colonial accounts and was perpetuated within the literatures of geography, anthropology, and archaeology. Still, there is ample evidence of plant cultivation available from archival, archaeological, and ethnographic sources. In particular, the peoples of coastal British Columbia created large gardens of edible estuarine plants, using sophisticated indigenous technologies. The oversight of these practices in written representations of the region reveals consistent patterns of bias, emanating from the …

A Most Sacred Place: The Significance Of Crater Lake Among The Indians Of Southern Oregon, Douglas Deur

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Discusses the Native American view of Crater Lake, Oregon, as a place of religious significance and the misunderstandings with whites as to its importance to Oregon's Indian tribes. Created some 6,500 years ago by volcanic eruption, Crater Lake has long been seen by Indians as a sacred place. Their hunting, berry gathering, and vision quests in the lake area were tied to their religious view of the lake. Since the 1850's, whites have treated the lake with a lack of understanding of its significance to the Klamath tribes. The National Park Service restricted hunting and charged Indians fees to pass …

Contested Lands, Contested Identities: Revisiting The Historical Geographies Of North America's Indigenous Peoples, Douglas Deur

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

In my work with the tribes and First Nations of western North America, I am told the same stories again and again. In intricate and sometimes gruesome detail, I am told how the white world, in its efforts to occupy and claim the western half of the continent over the last two centuries, employed myriad strategies—strategies of conquest—to separate indigenous peoples from their lands. And in these stories, tribal members, no matter their levels of education or backgrounds, recognize that the military conflicts, genocide, territorial dispossession and displacement, and enforced marginalization that has characterized Indian-white relations over this period cannot …

Traditional Land Use As Starting Point Opening Cross-Cultural Dialogue At Crater Lake And Lava Beds, Douglas Deur, Steven Mark

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Kennewick Man: Cultural Affiliation Report, Chapter 2: Review Of The Archaeological Data, Kenneth M. Ames

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Portland State University Professor Kenneth M. Ames was one of 18 distinguished scholars chosen to investigate and report on the cultural affiliation of the Kennewick human remains. This report reviews the extant archaeological record for the Southern Columbia Plateau.

Recent Geographical Research On Indians And Inuit In The United States And Canada, Robert Rundstrom, Douglas Deur, Kate Berry, Richard Winchell

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

A geographical survey on Indians and Inuit in the United States and Canada..

The Experimental Reduction Of Rock In A Camas Oven: Towards An Understanding Of The Behavioral Significance Of Fire-Cracked Rock, Douglas C. Wilson, David V. Delyria

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The selection and management of rock for roasting ovens, hearths, and sweat lodges were not trivial concerns for prehistoric households. The results of replicating a camas roasting oven are used to address the use-life and use-stages of fire-cracked rock. We concluded that the industry associated with the procurement and management of fire-cracked rock in the Pacific Northwest required significant quantities of labor and expertise to manage the raw materials and camas roasting byproducts. Recording the technological performance characteristics of fire-cracked rocks, including composition, size, and durability, is a necessary step to interpret and compare fire-cracked rock features at archaeological sites.

Archaeological Investigations At 45cl1 Cathlapotle (1991-1996) , Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge Clark County, Washington: A Preliminary Report, Kenneth M. Ames, Cameron M. Smith, William L. Cornett, Elizabeth A. Sobel, Stephen C. Hamilton, John Wolf, Doria Raetz, United States. Department Of The Interior, U.S. Fish And Wildlife Service, Region 1, Portland State University. Department Of Anthropology

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This is the preliminary report, one in a series on the archaeology of the Wapato Valley region of the Lower Columbia River. Most of the reports discuss aspects of the excavations and archaeology of two sites, the Meier site (35CO5) and Cathlapotle site (45CL1). Other related topics are also treated.

Archaeological investigations at site 45CL1, Clark County, Washington, demonstrate that the locality is a very large (c 1.5ha), deeply stratified (2-4m) town site with an occupation spanning at least 1000 years (c. AD 1000 to 1840). Six large, complex depressions have been mapped. Test excavations show that these depressions represent …

Strategies Of Indian Burning In The Willamette Valley, Robert T. Boyd

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This chapter, included in Indians, Fire and the Land in the Pacific Northwest, published by the Oregon State University Press in 1999, explores fires set by the aboriginal inhabitants of the Willamette valley.

In 1971, geographer Carl Johannessen and colleagues at the University of Oregon published an article, "The Vegetation of the Willamette Valley," which proposed that, prior to European contact, the Willamette Valley, though surrounded by dense forests of Douglas-fir, was an open oak.savanna grassland. They also presented historical evidence to show that these prairie grasslands were maintained by annual fires set by the aboriginal inhabitants of the …

Class Identity And The International Division Of Labor: Sri Lanka's Migrant Housemaids, Michele Ruth Gamburd

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

In 1996, 408,000 Sri Lankan women, nearly 10% of the country’s working-age women, worked abroad, many of them in the oil producing countries of the Persian Gulf. In this paper I compare the influence of international migration on local hierarchies of class and gender in two villages in southern Sri Lanka: a Sinhala-speaking Buddhist village where I did my doctoral dissertation research in 1992-4, and a Tamil-speaking Muslim village where I spent some time during the summer of 1997. I discuss the challenges of using ‘class’ as a unit of analysis in a non-Western setting where gender identities, family ties, …

Wearing A Dead Man's Jacket: State Symbols In Troubled Places, Michele Ruth Gamburd

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

A village rumor concerning the attempted theft of a uniform from the corpse of a Sri Lankan army soldier supplies the subject matter for this paper. In May 1993, soon after the assassination of President Ranasinghe Premadasa, a spectacular local funeral for a Low Country Sinhalese soldier killed in the civil war near Trincomalee provided a space for the display of state symbols, the voicing of patriotic rhetoric, and the exhibition of the precision and discipline of the national army. Military pageantry legitimated the use of force by the government, while the funeral ritual as a whole produced a catharsis …