Anthropology Commons^™

Going Polynesian In Hawai’I: Natural And Cultural Landscapes Of The Big Island, J. Christopher Gillam

Faculty & Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

A Bird Cannot Fly With One Wing: A Study Of Women's Responses To And Attitudes Toward Sexual Infidelity In Montego Bay, Jamaica, Dana Renae Foster

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This research focuses on women's emotional and behavioral responses to men's sexual infidelity in Montego Bay, Jamaica. Sexual infidelity can be defined as extradyadic sex within a monogamous relationship that threatens the stability of the relationship (Mark et al., 2011). Since the ultimate reproductive constraint for women is access to resources, this study explores how a woman's education level (as an indicator of her socioeconomic status) affects her response to her partner's sexual infidelity. The Caribbean region is largely absent from the literature on sexual infidelity, with the exception of one study in Trinidad (Flinn, 1988) that focuses on mate …

Update On Mars Bluff Navy Yard/Css Pee Dee Cannons Investigations, James D. Spirek

Faculty & Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Bird Bone Taphonomy In The Tse-Whit-Zen Site, Marielle Lara Orff

Senior Honors Projects

Tse-whit-zen is a large well preserved archaeological site that was discovered in August 2003 in the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. By 2004 an archaeological dig crew was working tirelessly on the site, which turned out to be one of the largest Native American villages ever found in the Pacific Northwest. This village was shown to have been inhabited by the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe, whose descendants still continue to live in the region. The site was occupied for thousands of years, with the oldest material dated at 2,700 years ago and the youngest at 100 years ago when the …

Considering Kranzhügeln: An Exploration Into The Structural Variation And Environmental/Spatial Distribution Of The Third Millennium "Kranzhügel" Sites, Elise Jakoby

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

First named by von Oppenheim over a century ago, the distinctive third millennium BC kranzhügeln, or "wreath-mound," sites of the Syrian Desert remain a poorly understood phenomenon. While archaeological investigations have been undertaken at a handful of kranzhügel-like sites including Tell Chuera, Tell al-Rawda, and Tell Beydar, the overall number, geographic distribution, and morphological variation of so-called "kranzhügel" sites remains largely unexplored.

1960s-era CORONA satellite imagery available through the CORONA Atlas Project (http://corona.cast.uark.edu/) now enables more systematic documentation of the kranzhügel sites and the production site-scale visual and quantitative analysis. Analysis of kranzhügel distribution and morphology …

Site Location Modeling And Prehistoric Rock Shelter Selection On The Upper Cumberland Plateau Of Tennessee, Lucinda M. Langston

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Using data collected from 2 archaeological surveys of the Upper Cumberland Plateau (UCP), Pogue Creek Gorge and East Obey, a site location model was developed for prehistoric rock shelter occupation in the region. Further, the UCP model was used to explore factors related to differential site selection of rock shelters. Different from traditional approaches such as those that use (aspatial) logistic regression, the UCP model was developed using spatial logistic regression. However, models were also generated using other regression-based approaches in an effort to demonstrate the need for a spatial approach to archaeological site location modeling. Based on the UCP …

Reassessing The Myth Of The Irish Channel: An Archaeological Analysis, Blair Alexandra Bordelon

Senior Honors Theses

The purpose of this paper is to uncover the history of New Orleans’s Irish Channel and, through the use of archaeological evidence from two household privies, to trace the social processes involved in the formation of ethnicity and social identity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Despite its name and the annual St. Patrick's Day celebrations that take place in its streets, the Irish Channel was never an ethnic enclave of Irish identity. With an equal number of Germans, along with some English and French immigrants, and certain streets comprised fully of African-Americans, the Irish Channel was home …

Late Prehistoric Technology, Quartzite Procurement, And Land Use In The Upper Gunnison Basin, Colorado: View From Site 5gn1.2, Jonathan Mitchell Peart

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis presents the results from archaeological test excavations at site 5GN1.2. The focus of this research is to evaluate Stiger’s Late Prehistoric settlement-subsistence hypothesis. According to Stiger, post-3000 B.P. occupations of the Upper Gunnison Basin were limited to big-game hunting forays originating from base camps located outside of the basin. Test excavations at 5GN1.2 documented archaeological deposits reflecting aboriginal occupation during the Late Prehistoric between about 3000 and 1300 years ago. Archaeological features include four hearths associated with abundant small-mammal remains, burnt plant seeds, stone tools and stone tool manufacturing debris.

Archaeological evidence rules out site 5GN1.2 as a …

Cypriot Religion Of The Early Bronze Age: Insular And Transmitted Ideologies, Ca. 2500-2000 B.C.E., Donovan Adams

Anthropology

The Early Bronze Age of Cyprus is not a very well understood chronological period of the island for a variety of reasons. These include: the inaccessibility of the northern part of the island after the Turkish invasion, the lack of a written language, and the fragility of Cypriot artifacts. Many aspects of protohistoric Cypriot life have become more understood, such as: the economic structure, social organization, and interactions between Cyprus and Anatolia. Despite this improvement in some areas, religion is still largely not understood. With the arrival of new animals and symbols, there is clearly a shift in reverence. However, …

Molecular Actions Of The Vitamin D Receptor In Mammary And Skin Carcinogenesis, Samantha L. Chu

Anthropology

Vitamin D has been linked to breast cancer risk in animal and human studies, suggesting that the active metabolite 1,25-Dihydroxyvitamin D (1,25D) might protect breast cells from transformation. In human mammary epithelial (HME-hTERT) cells, which express vitamin D receptor (VDR), 1,25D exerts anti proliferative and pro-differentiating effects, but the molecular mechanisms that mediate these actions are unknown. In previous studies we used genomic profiling to classify 1,25D regulated networks in HME-hTERT cells that may contribute to the anti-cancer effects of vitamin D. Through this approach we detected a 60-fold increase in the cytokine CD14 in HME-hTERT cells treated with vitamin …

Implications Of Tanzanian Culture On Nutrition And Their Effects In People Living With Hiv/Aids, Jennifer Pollard

Anthropology

Many Africans living with HIV/AIDS also suffer from malnutrition. Together, HIV and malnutrition greatly compromise the immune system of an individual, with each condition increasing the effects of the other. This field study examines Maasai in the Arusha region of Tanzania where approximately 5.6% of the population is infected with HIV/AIDS and 45% of children exhibit stunted growth, indicating chronic malnutrition within the population. Cultural factors including gender inequality, knowledge levels, and traditions associated with Maasai (the predominant tribe in the Arusha region) were analyzed in their contributions to malnutrition and HIV. The study was conducted over three months in …

Agricultural Production And Stability Of Settlement Systems In Upper Mesopotamia During The Early Bronze Age (Third Millennium Bce), Tuna Kalayci

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the relationship between rainfall variation and rain-fed agricultural production in Upper Mesopotamia with a specific focus on Early Bronze Age urban settlements. In return, the variation in production is used to explore stability of urban settlement systems. The organization of the flow of agricultural goods is the key to sustaining the total settlement system.

The vulnerability of a settlement system increases due to the increased demand for more output from agricultural lands. This demand is the key for the success of urbanization project. However, without estimating how many foodstuffs were available at the end of a production …

The Impacts Of Colonial And Environmental Processes On Ceramic Plainware At Salinas Province, New Mexico, Lindsey Elizabeth Daub

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis investigates whether Spanish demands on native time, labor and diet resulted in changes to the plainware ceramics used by the Salinas Pueblo Indians of New Mexico from the early 1600s to the 1670s. Increased pressures on native women's time may have resulted in a decline in the quality of the ceramic pastes, an increase in the presence of mend holes, changes in household size and composition that may have resulted in changes in the sizes of cooking vessels, and a decrease in food availability that may have resulted in decreased sizes or quantities of storage jars. While the …

Chronologies Of Pain And Power: Violence, Inequality, And Social Control Among Ancestral Pueblo Populations (Ad 850-1300), Ryan Patrick Harrod

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Analysis of human remains in the Greater Southwest offers important insights into mechanisms underlying cultural processes, human adaptability as well as behavioral flexibility and resilience in the face of change. Data collected from human remains from several sites throughout the Four Corners region of the Greater Southwest provides information on the ways that violence and social inequality were used to maintain a regional complex between AD 850 to AD 1300. Human remains were used to provide empirical data on biological (age, sex, stature, and robusticity) and cultural (mortuary context, burial practice, and site layout) identity. Skeletal remains provided information on …

An Examination Of Chipped Stone From Two Middle Holocene Archaeological Sites In The East Central Great Plains, Christine A. Nycz

Department of Anthropology: Theses and Student Research

This study examines aspects of movement and mobility of hunter-gatherer groups in the east central Great Plains during the Middle Holocene, between 8500 cal and 5000 cal B.P. Few published reports detail archaeological assemblages or address features of prehistoric mobility in this subregion of the Great Plains. Current research on the Great Plains emphasizes bison procurement and low regional bison mobility. This thesis presents interpretations of hunter-gatherer mobility based on examination of chipped stone assemblages from two Middle Holocene archaeological deposits (the Hill and Simonsen sites) in western Iowa. The resulting analysis demonstrates restricted hunter-gatherer mobility within this subregion, with …

Spanish Missionization And Maya Social Structure: Skeletal Evidence For Labor Distribution At Tipu, Belize, Lara Kristen Noldner

Anthropology ETDs

The cultural and human biological outcomes of Spanish colonization of the Americas were diverse. This dissertation examines the effects of Spanish colonization on Maya social structure using skeletal evidence for the distribution of labor at Tipu, a mission site in west central Belize. Skeletal remains of indigenous Maya buried in the context of a church, and in accordance with European Catholic burial customs, were examined for enthesis development and the cross-sectional morphology (CSG) of upper and lower limb long bones. Nothing besides burial placement in relation to the church (inside or outside the walls) denotes social status among individuals. Bone …

Botanical Resource Use In The Bronze And Iron Age Of The Central Eurasian Mountain/Steppe Interface: Decision Making In Multiresource Pastoral Economies, Robert Nicholas Spengler

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

This dissertation examines botanical resources as components of Central Asian economies in the Bronze: ca. 2500 - 800 B.C.) and Iron Ages: ca. 800 B.C. - A.D. 500) using a paleoethnobotanical data set from four archaeological sites, Begash, Mukri, Tasbas, and Tuzusai. These sites are located in the Semirech'ye region of eastern Kazakhstan, and they occupy distinctive microenvironmental zones along the mountain and steppe boundaries; furthermore, they show a great deal of material cultural similarity and are placed into the same culture groups by researchers. The introduction of macrobotanical studies to Central Asian archaeology allows for a critique of former …

The Spatial And Temporal Ecology Of Seed Dispersal By Gorillas In Lopé National Park, Gabon: Linking Patterns Of Disperser Behavior And Recruitment In An Afrotropical Forest, Marc Steven Fourrier

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Western lowland gorillas: Gorilla g. gorilla) consume large quantities of fruit and disperse a great number of seeds. The majority these seeds are dispersed intact and viable in the dung. Dung is often deposited around the rim of a night nest or at a nest-site. Gorillas often construct nests in areas that have a sparse canopy, flattening the ground vegetation. These locations can be beneficial to the growth and survival of the seed species they disperse. Thus, not only are gorillas effective in terms of depositing seeds great distances from parent plants, away from the highest seed rain densities, they …

Moving Targets: Meanings Of Mobility In Metropolitan Nairobi, Meghan Elizabeth Ference

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

This dissertation is an ethnographic and historical study of the urban transportation system in Nairobi, Kenya and the large youth workforce who operate it. Currently, the informal mini-bus taxi system made up of vehicles called matatus, carries nearly 80% of the urban population in Nairobi on a daily basis. It is, by far, the most popular form of transportation in the country and employs the largest number of young people, as well. This type of transportation is not unique to African countries as mini-bus: 14-32 passengers) and midi-bus: 32-48 passengers) taxis are common in Turkey, Jamaica, Philippines, Russia and Chile …

Artists In Residence - Boyd County (Fa 611), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 611. Project conducted in Boyd County, Kentucky to identify and utilize local folk artists in a county elementary school. Project coordinator Julia Morgan interviewed local folk artists and performers. Afterwards she made presentations in schools about the information she collected and invited some of the artists to perform and/or demonstrate.

Filling A House With Meaning: The Construction Of A Chicago Housing Cooperative, Laura Hones

Honors Projects

A housing cooperative is a non-profit form of housing tenure that has been a feature of American university campuses since the 1930s. Living in a co-op allows members the benefits of low rent, a close-knit social group, and democratic control of their living space. Unlike communes, however, members do not typically share income or unite around a particular ideology. This paper is the result of ethnographic research of one such house, Haymarket House of Qumbya Housing Cooperative in Hyde Park, Chicago. In 1988 the founders of Haymarket established its methods of structuring everyday life on principles of socialism, egalitarianism, and …

Anthropology In The Real World: Year Vii, William Torres B.A., Nicole Benigno B.A.

Petersheim Academic Exposition

No abstract provided.

Native American Projectile Points: What Stories Can They Tell Us?, Katelyn S. Scott

Honors Projects

Native American Projectile Points are ubiquitous throughout the United States and have been an important icon of indigenous peoples of North America and their past. This paper explores what projectile points can tell us about the people who made and used them, the history of collecting projectile points, and the challenges associated with projectile point research and collection management. The focus of this research is a collection of Native American projectile points in the Tate Archives and Special Collections in The Ames Library at Illinois Wesleyan University. In addition, the paper also describes the process used to catalog the collection, …

The Biomechanics Of Spear Throwing: An Analysis Of The Effects Of Anatomical Variation On Throwing Performance, With Implications For The Fossil Record, Julia Marie Maki

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Accurate, high velocity throwing is a skill unique to humans among living species. It likely provided an adaptive advantage for our hominin ancestors, either in the context of hunting, or protection from predators. Thus, understanding how variation in body form and anatomy influences throwing ability may provide insight into the evolution of human morphology. Research has been done on various forms of ball and javelin throwing, yet the biomechanics of spear throwing were completely unknown. Moreover, it has been suggested that early modern humans had lesser effective mechanical advantage: EMA, the ratio of moment arm to load arm) than Neandertals, …

Growing Up Tamarin: Morphology, Reproduction, And Population Demography Of Sympatric Free-Ranging Saguinus Fuscicollis And S. Imperator, Mrinalini Watsa

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

The Callitrichidae are family of small New World primates with a suite of distinctive morphological and behavioral adaptations that set them apart from other primates. Of primary interest is their reproductive system that includes compulsive twinning: ≥80% of births) and cooperative care of offspring by individuals other than biological parents: termed alloparenting). Further, hematopoietic tissues in callitrichids display signals of both self and sibling DNA, due to an exchange of stem cells early in gestation that renders twin callitrichids as cellular mosaics of each other. This phenomenon is known as genetic chimerism, which increases genetic relatedness between individuals and is …

Artists In Residence - Bourbon County (Fa 610), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 610. Project conducted in Bourbon County, Kentucky to identify and utilize local folk artists in a county elementary school. Project coordinator Sue Massek conducted interviews with local folk artists and performers. She then presented information about them at the school and asked some of the folk artists and performers to perform or demonstrate.

Anthropology In The Real World: Year Ix, Angela Ashman B.A., Catherine St. James B.A.

Petersheim Academic Exposition

No abstract provided.

Risking It: An Examination Of Risk Perception Amongst Obstetricians And Certified Professional Midwives In Missouri, Allison R. Horan

Undergraduate Theses—Unrestricted

The concept of risk is pervasive in contemporary discussions of childbirth –both amongst professionals and consumers. While risk is often presented as an objective entity, in reality it is an elusive concept to define, particularly within the context of maternity care. Since the nineteenth century, obstetricians and midwives have conceptualized the risks of birth differently. This thesis examines how two groups of practitioners in Missouri, obstetricians (OBs) and certified professional midwives (CPMs), perceive risk in pregnancy and childbirth. By combining archival investigation techniques with original qualitative research, I hope to demonstrate that risk in maternity care is far from a …

Addressing The Elephant In The Room: Understanding The Daily Life Of Undocumented High School Youth, Sylvia Rusin, Meghan Burke, Faculty Advisor

John Wesley Powell Student Research Conference

The 1.5 generation are the undocumented students who were born abroad and were brought to the United States by their parents at an early age. Many of these children came here during the population boom in the 1990’s and are now teenagers or in their mid 20’s. As they are finishing high school, nearly all of them are confused about their post-secondary options because of their undocumented status. The IL Dream Act, passed in 2011, qualifies undocumented youth to pay in-state tuition when attending public universities in Illinois and provides counselors who are aware of the college options and post-secondary …

Snapped Into Focus: Addressing The Challenges Faced By Undocumented Mexican Immigrants In The United States, Nora Peterson, Rebecca Gearhart, Faculty Advisor

John Wesley Powell Student Research Conference

Utilizing collaborative research methods and visual media, this poster provides an insider's perspective of the experience of someone who has lived as an undocumented immigrant in the United States. Examined through the lens of Jennifer Carrillo, who immigrated to the United States with her family at the age of 10, this research focuses on the difficult process of immigration and the consequences for those who are unable to become legal residents. This poster also explores the moral responsibility felt by immigrants who have successfully navigated the immigration system to actively try to improve the status of undocumented immigrants in the …