Anthropology Commons^™

The Rise Of Native Lordships At Pashash, A.D. 200–600, North Highlands Of Ancash, Peru, George F. Lau, Milton Luján Dávila, Jacob L. Bongers, David Chicoine

Faculty Publications

This article examines the rise of native, segmentary lordships in the highlands of north-central Peru. It reports on new excavations and mapping at the seat of a prehispanic polity, Pashash (Recuay culture), a large hilltop center that developed after the collapse of Chavín civilization. Fieldwork revealed monumental constructions and two special activity contexts radiocarbon-dated to ca. a.d. 200–400: an offering area in a large palatial compound and a room-complex with chambers closed off and sealed with feasting refuse. Multiple lines of evidence help reconstruct a regional picture for the establishment of wealthy local elites. Cultural innovations explicitly link new leaders …

Briquetage And Brine: Living And Working At The Classic Maya Salt Works Of Ek Way Nal, Belize, Heather Mckillop, E. Cory Sills

Faculty Publications

Systematic flotation survey and spatial analysis of artifacts at the submerged salt work of Ek Way Nal reveal evidence of a residence, salt kitchens, and additional activities. Ek Way Nal is one of 110 salt works associated with a Late to Terminal Classic (A.D. 600-900) salt industry known as the Paynes Creek Salt Works. Wooden posts that form the walls of 10 buildings are remarkably preserved in a peat bog below the sea floor providing an opportunity to examine surface artifacts in relation to buildings. Numerous salt kitchens have been located at the Paynes Creek Salt Works by evidence of …

Disparities In Spatial Accessibility Of Primary Care In Louisiana: From Physical To Virtual Accessibility, Fahui Wang, Yutian Zeng, Lingbo Liu, Tracy Onega

Faculty Publications

Telehealth has been widely employed and has transformed how healthcare is delivered in the United States as a result of COVID-19 pandemic. While telehealth is utilized and encouraged to reduce the cost and travel burden for access to healthcare, there are debates on whether telehealth can promote equity in healthcare services by narrowing the gap among diverse groups. Using the Two-Step Floating Catchment Area (2SFCA) and Two-Step Virtual Catchment Area (2SVCA) methods, this study compares the disparities of physical and virtual access to primary care physicians (PCPs) in Louisiana. Both physical and virtual access to PCPs exhibit similar spatial patterns …

A Cyclically Adjusted Spatio-Temporal Kernel Density Estimation Method For Predictive Crime Hotspot Analysis, Ya Han, Yujie Hu, Haojie Zhu, Fahui Wang

Faculty Publications

This paper presents a new method for predictive crime hotspot analysis that further improves the kernel density estimation (KDE) method and the spatio-temporal kernel density estimation (STKDE) method by accounting for temporal crime cycles and is therefore termed the ‘cyclically adjusted STKDE (cSTKDE) method’. The case study on robbery incidents in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, shows a temporal cycle with a 6-month period of statistical significance from January 2010 to May 2018. This identified period is incorporated into the temporal kernel function of the new cSTKDE method. For validation, the Forecast Accuracy Index (FAI) and Forecast Precision Index (FPI) are used …

Exploring The Spatial Autocorrelation In Soil Moisture Networks: Analysis Of The Bias From Upscaling The Texas Soil Observation Network (Txson), Yaping Xu, Cuiling Liu, Lei Wang, Lei Zou

Faculty Publications

Microwave remote sensing such as soil moisture active passive (SMAP) can provide soil moisture data for agricultural and hydrological studies. However, the scales between station-measured and satellite-measured products are quite different, as stations measure on a point scale while satellites have a much larger footprint (e.g., 9 km). Consequently, the validation for soil moisture products, especially inter-comparison between these two types of observations, is quite a challenge. Spatial autocorrelation among the stations could be a contribution of bias, which impacts the dense soil moisture networks when compared with satellite soil moisture products. To examine the effects of spatial autocorrelation to …

Using Solar Radiation Data In Soil Moisture Diagnostic Equation For Estimating Root-Zone Soil Moisture, Olumide Omotere, Feifei Pan, Lei Wang

Faculty Publications

The soil moisture daily diagnostic equation (SMDE) evaluates the relationship between the loss function coefficient and the summation of the weighted average of precipitation. The loss function coefficient uses the day of the year (DOY) to approximate the seasonal changes in soil moisture loss for a given location. Solar radiation is the source of the energy that drives the complex and intricates of the earth-atmospheric processes and biogeochemical cycles in the environment. Previous research assumed DOY is the approximation of other environmental factors (e.g., temperature, wind speed, solar radiation). In this article, two solar radiation parameters were introduced, i.e., the …

Reference Database Of Teeth Images From The Family Bovidae, Juliet K. Brophy, Gregory J. Matthews

Faculty Publications

Researchers typically rely on fossils from the Family Bovidae to generate African paleoenvironmental reconstructions due to their strict ecological tendencies. Bovids have dominated the southern African fauna for the past four million years and, therefore, dominate the fossil faunal assemblages, especially isolated teeth. Traditionally, researchers reference modern and fossil comparative collections to identify teeth. However, researchers are limited by the specific type and number of bovids at each institution. B.O.V.I.D. (Bovidae Occlusal Visual IDentification) is a repository of images of the occlusal surface of bovid teeth. The dataset currently includes extant bovids from 7 tribes and 20 species (~3900). B.O.V.I.D. …

The Uneven Reaction To Combat The Covid-19 Pandemic: Geovisualizing Of Fever Clinics In Mainland China, Guoqi Li, Zhuoshi Lv, Fahui Wang, Gang Chen, Wenjie Sun, Yuting Shi, Sijing Liu

Faculty Publications

The COVID-19 pandemic has exerted unprecedented impacts on the world. Since its onset, China has established a network of fever clinics as an effective strategy to aggressively isolate and screen possible patients with COVID-19 symptoms. This study presents two fever clinic maps that visualize the uneven responses to the COVID-19 pandemic at the city level in mainland China. The maps highlight more resources in the southwest, northwest, east, and south China, and paucity in the far west parts of southwest and northwest China and in the north and northeast China.

Multiscale Analysis Of Cancer Service Areas In The United States, Changzhen Wang, Tracy Onega, Fahui Wang

Faculty Publications

The purpose of delineating Cancer Service Areas (CSAs) is to define a reliable unit of analysis, more meaningful than geopolitical units such as states and counties, for examining geographic variations of the cancer care markets using geographic information systems (GIS). This study aims to provide a multiscale analysis of the U.S. cancer care markets based on the 2014–2015 Medicare claims of cancer-directed surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. The CSAs are delineated by a scale-flexible network community detection algorithm automated in GIS so that the patient flows are maximized within CSAs and minimized between them. The multiscale CSAs include those comparable in …

Monitoring Asbestos Mine Remediation Using Airborne Hyperspectral Imaging System: A Case Study Of Jefferson Lake Mine, Us, Yongsik Jeong, Jaehyung Yu, Lei Wang, Huy Hoa Huynh, Hyun Cheol Kim

Faculty Publications

This study investigated an asbestos mine restoration project using Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) hyperspectral data. The distribution of an abandoned asbestos mine (AAM) and treatment area were analyzed before and after the remediation based on the spectral indices for detecting naturally occurring asbestos (NOA) indicators and encapsulation. The spectral indices were developed for NOA, host rock, and encapsulation by logistic regression models using spectral bands extracted from the random forest algorithm. The detection models mostly used VNIR spectra rather than SWIR and were statistically significant. The overall accuracy of the detection models was approximately 84%. Notably, the detection accuracy …

Household Salt Production By The Late Classic Maya: Underwater Excavations At Ta'ab Nuk Na, Heather Mckillop, E. Cory Sills

Faculty Publications

Salt is an essential commodity; archaeological remains around the world attest to the importance of its production, exchange and consumption. Often located in coastal locations, many production sites were submerged by rising seas, including the Paynes Creek Salt Works on the southern Belize coast. Survey and excavation of these sites has identified 'kitchens' for brine boiling, as well as Terminal Classic residential structures at Ek Way Nal. The authors report the discovery of an earlier residential building alongside salt kitchens at the nearby site of Ta'ab Nuk Na. This finding indicates that surplus household production began during the Late Classic, …

Effect Of Lateral Outflow On Three-Dimensional Flow Structure In A River Delta, M. Kifayath Chowdhury, Kory M. Konsoer, Matthew Hiatt

Faculty Publications

Spatial and temporal patterns in three-dimensional flow structure are linked to channel processes and morphology in many environments. However, there is not yet an understanding of how the flow structure is influenced by channelized and gradually distributed lateral outflows that are often prevalent in river deltas. This study presents an analysis of three-dimensional flow structure data collected from Wax Lake Delta, a naturally developing river-dominated delta in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Three hydrographic surveys were conducted using a boat-mounted acoustic Doppler current profiler at two sites: a channelized outflow zone and a distributary channel experiencing unchannelized lateral outflow. The …

Rates Of Future Climate Change In The Gulf Of Mexico And The Caribbean Sea: Implications For Coral Reef Ecosystems, A. E. Lawman, S. G. Dee, K. L. Delong, A. M.S. Correa

Faculty Publications

Rising temperatures and ocean acidification due to anthropogenic climate change pose ominous threats to coral reef ecosystems in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) and the western Caribbean Sea. Unfortunately, the once structurally complex coral reefs in the GoM and Caribbean have dramatically declined since the 1970s; relatively few coral reefs still exhibit a mean live coral cover of >10%. Additional work is needed to characterize future climate stressors on coral reefs in the GoM and the Caribbean Sea. Here, we use climate model simulations spanning the period of 2015–2100 to partition and assess the individual impacts of climate stressors on …

Rural-Urban Differences In Breast Cancer Surgical Delays In Medicare Beneficiaries, Ronnie J. Zipkin, Andrew Schaefer, Changzhen Wang, Andrew P. Loehrer, Nirav S. Kapadia, Gabriel A. Brooks, Tracy Onega, Fahui Wang, Alistair J. O’Malley, Erika L. Moen

Faculty Publications

Background: Delays between breast cancer diagnosis and surgery are associated with worsened survival. Delays are more common in urban-residing patients, although factors specific to surgical delays among rural and urban patients are not well understood. Methods: We used a 100% sample of fee-for-service Medicare claims during 2007–2014 to identify 238,491 women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer undergoing initial surgery and assessed whether they experienced biopsy-to-surgery intervals > 90 days. We employed multilevel regression to identify associations between delays and patient, regional, and surgeon characteristics, both in combined analyses and stratified by rurality of patient residence. Results: Delays were more prevalent among …

Impacts Of Ocean-Atmosphere Teleconnection Patterns On The South-Central United States, Robert V. Rohli, Gregg A. Snedden, Elinor R. Martin, Kristine L. Delong

Faculty Publications

Recent research has linked the climate variability associated with ocean-atmosphere teleconnections to impacts rippling throughout environmental, economic, and social systems. This research reviews recent literature through 2021 in which we identify linkages among the major modes of climate variability, in the form of ocean-atmosphere teleconnections, and the impacts to temperature and precipitation of the South-Central United States (SCUSA), consisting of Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. The SCUSA is an important areal focus for this analysis because it straddles the ecotone between humid and arid climates in the United States and has a growing population, diverse ecosystems, robust agricultural …

Using Multidisciplinary Analysis To Develop Adaptation Options Against Extreme Coastal Floods, Xinmeng Shan, Jun Wang, Jiahong Wen, Hengzhi Hu, Lei Wang, Jie Yin, Mengya Li

Faculty Publications

Long-term flood risk adaptation and decision making are complex because the future is full of deep uncertainties. Flexibility and robustness can be used to deal with future uncertainty. This study developed an integrated modeling framework that extends previous studies to the spatial domain to assess the future flood risks and the cost and benefit of three adaptation measures for four types of buildings in Shanghai. Real options analysis (ROA) and dynamic adaptive policy pathways (DAPP) were integrated to develop a dynamic adaptation pathway and identify robust adaptation options. The results show that: (1) Sea level rise and land subsidence will …

Sexual Stature Difference Fluctuations In Pre- And Post-Black Death London As An Indicator Of Living Standards, Emily J. Brennan, Sharon Dewitte

Faculty Publications

Objectives: The degree of sexual stature difference (SSD), the ratio of male to female height, is argued to be an indicator of living standards based on evidence that physical growth for males is more sensitive to environmental fluctuations. In a resource-poor environment, the degree of SSD is expected to be relatively low. The aim of this study is to comparatively assess SSD in medieval London in the context of repeated famine events and other environmental stressors before the Black Death (BD) and the improved living conditions that characterized the post-Black Death period.

Methods: To test the hypothesis that a poor …

Planetary-Scale Change To The Biosphere Signalled By Global Species Translocations Can Be Used To Identify The Anthropocene, Mark Williams, Reinhold Leinfelder, Anthony D. Barnosky, Martin J. Head, Francine M.G. Mccarthy, Alejandro Cearreta, Stephen Himson, Rachael Holmes, Colin N. Waters, Jan Zalasiewicz, Simon Turner, Mary Mcgann, Elizabeth A. Hadly, M. Allison Stegner, Paul Michael Pilkington, Jérôme Kaiser, Juan Carlos Berrio, Ian P. Wilkinson, Jens Zinke, Kristine L. Delong

Faculty Publications

We examine three distinctive biostratigraphic signatures of humans associated with hunting and gathering, landscape domestication and globalization. All three signatures have significant fossil records of regional importance that can be correlated inter-regionally and help describe the developing pattern of human expansion and appropriation of resources. While none have individual first or last appearances that provide a globally isochronous marker, all three signatures overlap stratigraphically, in that they are part of a continuum of change, with complex regional patterns. Here we show that during the later stages of globalization, late nineteenth to twentieth century records of species translocations can be used …

Southwest Pacific Tropical Cyclone Development Classification Utilizing Machine Learning And Synoptic Composites, Rupsa Bhowmick, Jill C. Trepanier, Alex M. Haberlie

Faculty Publications

This study evaluates the ability of machine learning algorithms to classify tropical depressions (TDs) and tropical storms (TSs) in the western region of the southwest Pacific Ocean (SWPO). Decision rules are generated to predict the environment required for a depression to fully develop into a mature storm, and the most influential predictors in the classification decision are ranked. TD and TS are discriminated based on a maximum sustained wind speed threshold (≥17 ms−1). Various aerosol, thermodynamic, and dynamic parameters are extracted closest to the initiation point of each non-developing and developing sample. The covariates associated with each labelled sample are …

An Assessment Of The Extremes And Impacts Of The February 2021 South-Central U.S. Arctic Outbreak, And How Climate Services Can Help, Rebecca A. Bolinger, Vincent M. Brown, Christopher M. Fuhrmann, Karin L. Gleason, T. Andrew Joyner, Barry D. Keim, Amanda Lewis, John W. Nielsen-Gammon, Crystal J. Stiles, William Tollefson, Hannah E. Attard, Alicia M. Bentley

Faculty Publications

In February 2021, a widespread cold-air outbreak, with two associated winter storm systems, impacted the South-Central United States. After a comprehensive summary of the synoptic setup and a day-by-day analysis of the event, we assess the significance of the storm from a climatological perspective. Concerning winter precipitation, there were isolated instances of record snowfall accumulations. While freezing rain and freezing drizzle both occurred, total freezing precipitation accumulations did not exceed a one-in-50 year event. The duration of the cold was notable — many stations across the region broke records for the highest number of consecutive days below freezing. When analyzing …

Delineation Of Cancer Service Areas Anchored By Major Cancer Centers In The United States, Changzhen Wang, Fahui Wang, Tracy Onega

Faculty Publications

Defining a reliable geographic unit pertaining to cancer care is essential in its assessment, planning, and management. This study aims to delineate and characterize the cancer service areas (CSA) accounting for the presence of major cancer centers in the United States. We used the Medicare enrollment and claims from January 1, 2014 to September 30, 2015 to build a spatial network from patients with cancer to cancer care facilities that provided inpatient and outpatient care of cancer-directed surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. After excluding those without clinical care or outside of the United States, we identified 94 NCI-designated and other academic …

Macroarchaeology, Epistomology, And The Quality Of The Archaeological Record, James R. Allison

Faculty Publications

Perrault (2019) combines a critique of current archaeological practice with a call to re-center research on questions of culture history as well as “macroarchaeology”, or the search for large-scale patterns of human behavior and cultural development. His arguments for what archaeologists should do (and stop doing) are driven by the way the quality of the archaeological record underdetermines the answers to questions that archaeologists often seek to answer. There is much to like in Perrault’s arguments, but there also are some problematic aspects. I agree that something like Perrault’s macroarchaeology should receive greater focus within the discipline, and that archaeologists …

Megaliths And Monumental Architecture At Coal Bed Village, An Ancestral Pueblo Site In Southeastern Utah, James R. Allison, Fumi Arakawa, Marion Forest, Katie K. Richards, David T. Yoder

Faculty Publications

Worldwide, megaliths are a common form of monumental architecture in Neolithic and later societies. Archaeologists in western Europe, and other parts of the world where megalithic monuments occur, have often discussed the meanings of megalithic features as well as their associations with ritual, territoriality, and social organization. In the Pueblo Southwest, most monumental architecture takes the form of large, unusually tall buildings (“great houses”), oversized ritual architecture (“great kivas”), or landscape features (roads and berms), all of which are most commonly associated with the Chaco system. Ancestral Pueblo people also occasionally built with ostentatiously large rocks, but megalithic features and …

Final Thoughts And Observations, James R. Allison, Heidi Roberts, Jerry D. Spangler

Faculty Publications

This chapter addresses three topics inspired by the discoveries made during Jackson Flat’s archaeological investigations. The first topic examines the implications of the discovery of early maize agriculture in the Far Western region. Our data suggest that the Far Western Basketmaker tradition developed on a trajectory separate from the Western Basketmaker groups associated with the White Dog Phase in the Four Corners region.

Fremont Smoke Mixtures: Botanical Analyses Of Pipes From Wolf Village, Goshen, Utah, Michael T. Searcy, Hannah Stefffensen, Scott Ure

Faculty Publications

Over several field seasons, ceramic and stone pipes were recovered from the Fremont site of Wolf Village (AD 1000-1100). Nine of the more complete pipes included residue and burned dottle that were analyzed for macrobotanical and microbotanical remains. Three were subjected to FTIR. These analyses represent the first Fremont pipes ever analyzed for botanical remains, and the results reported in this paper provide conclusions regarding possible smoke mixtures used by the Fremont. Contents of the pipes included remains of tobacco, plants from the Amaranthaceae family, maize fragments, grasses, and various fuel woods.

Book Review Of Early Farming And Warfare In Northwest Mexico (Robert Jarratt Hard And John R. Roney), Michael T. Searcy

Faculty Publications

Like many archaeologists working in northern Mexico and the US Southwest, I have eagerly anticipated this volume and its reporting of the Early Agricultural (Middle-Late Archaic) occupation in northwestern Chihuahua. Primarily, it documents the research conducted by the coauthors over several years at sites known as cerros de trincheras, or terraced hills. These were massive construction projects resulting in habitational terraces built by early maize farmers who began to settle in the Casas Grandes River Valley and surrounding areas more than 3,000 years ago.

Sr. Ciencia And El Mago: A Legacy Of Archaeological Discovery And Lifelong Learning, Michael T. Searcy

Faculty Publications

As partners in the pursuit of archaeological discovery, Paul Minnis and Michael Whalen developed an enduring professional relationship that resulted in productive careers marked by multiple field projects and numerous scholarly publications. While engaged in academic archaeology, they also fostered a new generation of archaeologists along the way. An integral part of their pedagogy was carried out in the field where students worked alongside Mike and Paul, learning not only how to carry out an archaeological project from beginning to end, but also how to collaborate in a field of study that has become increasingly interdisciplinary. This paper presents my …

A Reanalysis Of Population Dynamics In The Casas Grandes Region Of Northern Mexico Using Mitochondrial Dna, Meradeth Snow, Michael T. Searcy

Faculty Publications

The Casas Grades region in northwest Chihuahua, Mexico, is ideally situated to explore the notion of contact between the Southwest/Northwest and Mesoamerica, as it lies geographically in the borderlands where traditions of both culture areas were practiced. In order to explain these ties, past researchers have suggested the flourishing Casas Grandes population in the thirteenth century AD was caused by migrants from Mesoamerica, as first suggested by Di Peso in his pochteca hypothesis. Others, such as Lekson and his Chaco Meridian hypothesis, suggest migration from the north. Mitochondrial genetic data from earlier and later time periods provides the ability to …

Gis-Automated Delineation Of Hospital Service Areas In Florida: From Dartmouth Method To Network Community Detection Methods, Changzhen Wang, Fahui Wang

Faculty Publications

Since the Dartmouth Hospital Service Areas (HSAs) were proposed three decades ago, there has been a large body of work using the unit in examining the geographic variation in health care in the U.S. for evaluating health care system performance and informing health policy. However, many studies question the replicability and reliability of the Dartmouth HSAs in meeting the challenges of an ever-changing and a diverse set of health care services. This research develops a reproducible, automated, and efficient GIS tool to implement Dartmouth method for defining HSAs. Moreover, the research adapts two popular network community detection methods to account …

Redating Paquimé And The Convento Site Sixty Years After The Joint Casas Grandes Expedition In Northwestern Mexico, Samuel Jensen, Michael T. Searcy, Meradeth Snow

Faculty Publications

Debates continue regarding the rise of the Late Prehistoric (post-AD 1200) city of Paquimé in northwestern Chihuahua, Mexico. Unfortunately, the established chronology of the site was flawed due to incorrect interpretations of dendrochronological samples that lacked cutting dates (i.e., outer rings). While Dean and Ravesloot (1993) were able to determine this mistake through a reanalysis of the original chronological sequence, no attempts have been made to revise the chronology using new dates. This poster reports the results of new radiocarbon dates analyzed from samples of human remains found at Paquimé during the Joint Casas Grandes Expedition from 1958 to 1961. …