Archaeological Anthropology Commons^™

Beads And Pendants From The Tumuli Cemeteries At Wadi Qitna And Kalabsha-South, Nubia, Joanna Then-Obłuska

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

More than 500 beads and pendants were excavated by a Czechoslovakian team in the early 1960s at two sites in Lower Nubia. The beads were associated with 40 tumuli in the Wadi Qitna cemetery and two tumuli in the Kalabsha-South cemetery. These 4th-century cemeteries are related to the Blemmyes, the Eastern Desert dwellers whose pottery has been commonly recognized in the region between the Nile Valley and the Red Sea coast at a time of intensive overseas trade contacts. The bead assemblage, stored at the Naprstek Museum in Prague, was recently restudied and its materials and parallels could be more …

Bead Netting And Plaiting Techniques In The Peranakan World, Valerie Hector

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

It has long been recognized that the Peranakan Chinese peoples of Southeast Asia were expert bead embroiderers. As it happens, they were also expert bead netters and plaiters. After establishing a conceptual framework for discussing bead netting and plaiting techniques in general, this article discusses 14 pieces of Peranakan Chinese (or Minangkabau) beadwork and various techniques. The techniques likely derived not just from Europe, as early researchers tended to assume, but from island Southeast Asia and China as well. Knowledge of these and other needleworking techniques helped Peranakan beaders devise radically new permutations, some of them highly complex. Additional factors …

3d Tool Evaluation And Workflow For An Ecological Approach To Visualizing Ancient Socio-Environmental Landscapes: A Case Study From Copan, Honduras, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Shona Sanford-Long, Jack Kerby-Miller

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Architectural reconstructions are the centerpieces of ancient landscape visualization. When present, vegetation is relegated to the background, resulting in underutilized plant data—an integral data source for archaeological interpretation—thus limiting the capacity to take advantage of 3D visualization for studying ancient socio-environmental dynamics. Our long-term objective is to develop methods of 3D landscape visualization that have value for examining changes in land use and settlement patterns. To begin to work toward this objective, we have (1) identified 3D tools and techniques for vegetation modeling and landscape visualization, (2) evaluated the pros and cons of these tools, (3) investigated biological and ecological …

The Western Stemmed Point Tradition: Evolutionary Perspectives On Cultural Change In Projectile Points During The Pleistocene-Holocene Transition, Lindsay D. Scott

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In this thesis I analyze the cultural techniques of Paleoindians in North America by examining the diversification and fusion of stemmed projectile point traditions using an evolutionary analysis. The Western Stemmed Point tradition has an extensive regional and temporal distribution throughout the Intermountain West and High Plains during the Paleoindian period. In an effort to determine how stemmed projectile point technologies relate to each other, I applied a phylogenetic approach to construct heritable patterns of projectile point histories. By measuring the physical traits of those points and using a macro-evolutionary theoretical approach, changes in artifact form can be acquired and …

The Early Pottery Of San Antonio, Department Of Chinandega, Nicaragua, Kelsey I. Willis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

I analyzed the potsherds (n=732) recovered from the 2009 archaeological excavations at the site of San Antonio in Chinandega, Nicaragua. I classified the pottery in accordance with the Type: Variety-Mode system that is used almost exclusively in Mesoamerica and the Greater Nicoya Sub-Region. Identifications of known ceramic wares, groups, types, and varieties were made through comparisons with reference specimens from type collections housed at several institutions. New taxa were defined as needed in accordance with the established protocols of the Type: Variety system (e.g., Smith et al. 1960) and as subsequently amended (e.g., Rice 1976). In the thesis, I describe …

Pre-1900s Chinese Placer Mining In Northeastern Washington State: An Archaeological Investigation, Lindsey M. Evenson

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

"The lack of organized historical and archival documentation regarding the pre-1900s Chinese placer miners in northeastern Washington has left the historical and archaeological records fragmented. Documentation of the Chinese placer mining activities in the region is poor, at best, and the scars left on the landscape by these miners are often inundated by the damming of the Columbia River (and other major waterways), or the sites are heavily eroded and damaged. The available historic and archival data has been organized and synthesized to create an historical context regarding the pre-1900s Chinese placer miners in the region. Furthermore, archaeological sites previously …

Knife River Flint Distribution And Identification In Montana, Laura Evilsizer

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

An examination of the spatial, temporal, and functional distribution of Knife River flint in Montana, and a study in misidentification of Knife River flint in archaeological assemblages. Lithic sourcing has the potential to provide a plethora of information to archaeologists: resource procurement strategies, mobility patterns, trade networks, and the preferencing of particular lithic material types. However, without proper identification it is impossible to study the distribution of lithic materials from their source. Knife River flint, a brown chalcedony, is a particularly fascinating material, geologically occurring in a small area, but culturally distributed over a large area. I analyze the distribution …

German Pows Make Colorado Home: Coping By Craft And Exchange, Christopher Michael Morine

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

From 1943 to 1946, the U.S. government held over 3,000 German POWs at Camp Trinidad in southern Colorado. In 2013 and 2014, archaeological fieldwork, interviews, and archival research were conducted in order to better understand the daily lives of those incarcerated at the camp. The information gathered about artifacts, environmental features, and personal narratives, reveals insights into the lesser known details of the prisoners' lives. Despite the U.S. military rules and regulations and efforts by American personnel within camp, prisoners created goods they wanted or needed. Acquiring the necessary goods was accomplished through modification of available goods, through scavenging the …

Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project Annual Report, 2015, Michael S. Nassaney

Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

This year the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project (hereafter the “Project”) established new standards in research, teaching, and public outreach in the study of the fur trade and colonialism in southwest Michigan. The Project continues to collaborate in the generation and dissemination of knowledge under the auspices of the Fort St. Joseph Archaeology Advisory Committee (FSJAAC), Western Michigan University (WMU) faculty and students, interested stakeholders, supporters, members, and community volunteers. Highlights of 2015 include:

• Fort St. Joseph was featured in the exhibit “Evidence Found” at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum in 2015, enjoyed by some 60,000 visitors.
• The Register of Professional …

The Painted Motifs Of Cypriot Ceramic Art: A Study Of Iconography & Identity, Paige Bockman

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The aim of this master’s thesis is to explore the iconography of Chalcolithic (c. 3900-2300 cal. BC) Cyprus using ceramic motifs and identify their potential use in revealing differences between the cultural identity present at archaeological sites, as well as the possible causes of such variation. By exploring the existence and origins of subtle differences between the iconographic repertoires of related sites, the study seeks a better understanding of the movement of both ideas and symbols, and how the meaning of symbols developed within the context of a site.

Currently, Cypriot Chalcolithic sites are believed to be largely homogeneous in …

Picrolite And The Cypriot Neolithic: An Experimental Study, Forrest Dayton Jarvi

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Picrolite, a fibrous green stone originating in the Troodos mountains on the island of Cyprus, appears in the archaeological record almost from the very earliest sites on the island. Thus far, few publications have addressed the material from anything but a descriptive perspective. Research at the Aceramic Neolithic site of Kritou Marottou Ais Giorkis has uncovered a wide variety of picrolite artifacts since excavations began in 1997. Preliminary experimental studies have begun to explore the ease of both obtaining and manipulating the material using only local materials and unassisted manpower. This thesis presents a three-part investigation into the place of …

A Localized Approach To The Origins Of Pottery In Upper Mesopotamia, Elizabeth Gibbon

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

Archeological Investigation At Yanaguana Garden In Hemisfair Park, San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas, Ross C. Fields, Aaron R. Norment, Amy E. Dase

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

This report describes archeological efforts done under six work orders for the development of Yanaguana Garden at HemisFair Park in downtown San Antonio, Texas. All of the projects were done by Prewitt and Associates, Inc. (PAI), for Adams Environmental, Inc. (AEI), and the City of San Antonio, Transportation and Capital Improvements (CoSA-TCI), under Texas Antiquities Permit No. 6846 (issued April 14, 2014). As described below, the Yanaguana Garden project is the first phase of a planned redevelopment of HemisFair Park for mixed-use purposes. Planning for how to deal with cultural resources during this redevelopment began in 2012 when PAI prepared …

The Archaeology Of Hassanamesit Woods: The Sarah Burnee/Sarah Boston Farmstead, Stephen Mrozowski, Heather Law Pezzarossi, Dennis Piechota, Heather Trigg, John M. Steinberg, Guido Pezzarossi, Joseph Bagley, Jessica Rymer, Jerry Warner

Andrew Fiske Memorial Center for Archaeological Research Publications

Between 2003 and 2013 the Fiske Center for Archaeological Research at the University of Massachusetts Boston conducted an intensive investigation of the Sarah Burnee/Sarah Boston Farmstead on Keith Hill in Grafton, Massachusetts. The project employed a collaborative method that involved working closely with the Town of Grafton, through the Hassanmesit Woods Management Committee, and the Nipmuc Nation, the state recognized government of the Nipmuc people. Yearly excavation and research plans were decided through consultation with both the Nipmuc Tribal Council, their designated representative, Dr. D. Rae Gould, and the Hassanamesit Woods Management Committee. Dr. Gould also played a continuous and …

Project 400: The Plymouth Colony Archaeological Survey, Report On The 2014 Field Season, Burial Hill Plymouth, Massachusetts, Christa M. Beranek, Justin A. Warrenfeltz, Richie Roy, David B. Landon, Alexandra Crowder, Katie Wagner

Andrew Fiske Memorial Center for Archaeological Research Publications

In May and June of 2014, a field school from the University of Massachusetts Boston, in partnership with Plimoth Plantation, undertook a second season of work in Plymouth, Massachusetts, as part of Project 400: The Plymouth Colony Archaeological Survey, a site survey and excavation program leading up to the 400th anniversary of New England’s first permanent English settlement in 1620, the founding of Plymouth Colony. This work was conducted under permit #3384 from the State Archaeologist’s office at the Massachusetts Historical Commission. The 2014 work focused on the eastern edge of Burial Hill along School Street in downtown Plymouth and …

Origins Of An Unmarked Georgia Cemetery Using Ancient Dna Analysis, Andrew T. Ozga, Raúl Y. Tito, Brian M. Kemp, Hugh Matternes, Alexandra Obregon-Tito, Leslie Neal, Cecil M. Lewis, Jr.

Human Biology Open Access Pre-Prints

Determining the origins of those buried within undocumented cemeteries is of incredible importance to historical archaeologists and in many cases, the nearby communities. In the case of Avondale Burial Place, a cemetery in Bibb County, Georgia, in use from 1820 to 1950, all written documentation of those interred within it has been lost. Osteological and archaeological evidence alone could not describe, with confidence, the ancestral origins of the 101 individuals buried there. In the present study, we utilize ancient DNA extraction methods to investigate the origins of Avondale Burial Place through the use of well-preserved skeletal fragments from 20 individuals …

Deep Coring, Viking Age Accumulation Rates And Household Wealth In Skagafjörður, Northern Iceland, Eric D. Johnson

Graduate Masters Theses

Discerning and explaining social and economic differences is a fundamental task of archaeology, but a fine-tuned measure of household wealth is often obfuscated by the inability to account for time or demographics in the archaeological record. This project tests the ways that Iceland, settled by Norse populations between A.D. 870 and 930, provides a temporally-sensitive mode of measuring household income through average rates of deposition of architectural material and fuel refuse while also providing a context for studying the emergence of inequality in a previously uninhabited landscape. In 2014, a deep-coring survey of 11 occupational sites was conducted in the …

Ubiquitous And Unfamiliar: Earthenware Pottery Production Techniques And The Bradford Family Pottery Of Kingston, Ma, Martha L. Sulya

Graduate Masters Theses

Redware ceramic sherds are frequently found in New England historical archaeological sites; however, detailed data has not always been published regarding excavated New England earthenware pottery production sites. The goal of this thesis is to contribute to the small body of research on New England redware production through the study of the life and ceramic production techniques of the Bradford family pottery. Their workshop operated in Kingston, Massachusetts, from the 1780s to the 1870s, a time when stoneware production and industrial scale ceramics manufacturing took hold in America. Documentary study of the Bradford family and the ceramics industry shows that …

Native Interactions And Economic Exchange: A Re-Evaluation Of Plymouth Colony Collections, Kellie J. Bowers

Graduate Masters Theses

This research furthers our understanding of colonial-Native relations by identifying and analyzing artifacts that indicate interaction between Native Americans and English settlers in Plymouth Colony archaeological collections. This project explores the nature of these interactions, exposing material culture's role in both social and economic exchanges. Selected 17th-century collections were excavated in modern Plymouth, Massachusetts, and nearby Marshfield and Kingston. My examination includes identifying materials exchanged between the Wampanoag and English settler groups in archaeological collections through scholarly literature and comparative 17th-century sites. This project draws on the documentary resources to provide contextualized insights on the relationships formed by and around …

Study Of Prestige And Resource Control Using Fish Remains From Cathlapotle, A Plankhouse Village On The Lower Columbia River, J. Shoshana Rosenberg

Dissertations and Theses

Social inequality is a trademark of Northwest Coast native societies, and the relationship between social prestige and resource control, particularly resource ownership, is an important research issue on the Northwest Coast. Faunal remains are one potential but as yet underutilized path for examining this relationship. My thesis work takes on this approach through the analysis of fish remains from the Cathlapotle archaeological site (45CL1). Cathlapotle is a large Chinookan village site located on the Lower Columbia River that was extensively excavated in the 1990s. Previous work has established prestige distinctions between houses and house compartments, making it possible to examine …

Pressing: Where The Objective Meets The Subjective, Mariana Parisca

Undergraduate Theses—Unrestricted

Through this essay I describe the theoretical and anthropological ideas that led to the creation of the Cushing Series. An interest in the obsession with photography in popular culture leads to an understanding of the permeation of structured reasoning beyond scientific research and into everyday life. Taking evidence from photography, and philosophy of science I establish the limitations of structured reasoning, both as a way of perceiving the world and as an understanding of identity, and define surface and frame as its physical representation. Using Sartre’s existential theory and phenomenological anthropology I then describe the infinite subjective existence of …

Landscape Visibility And Prehistoric Artifact Distribution At Pea Ridge National Military Park, Jake Lee Mitchael

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Pea Ridge National Military Park, in the north east corner of Benton County, Arkansas, is the 4,300 acre site of a crucial Civil War Battle. Human occupation of the Ozark Highland landscape, however, extends far into pre-history. A 2005 report to the National Park Service details the findings of a four year cultural resource survey of the park. The sampling strategy employed in the research design (random sample site selection and 2.5% park coverage) provides an excellent dataset to assess prehistoric land use. This dataset is not dependent on artificially defined sites, representing singular activity in a limited geographical space. …

Architectural Hardware, Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

Panel 6. Eighteenth Century Architectural Hardware

Storage Structures, Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

Panel 2. Military and Commercial Storage Buildings

Domestic Structures - 2, Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

Panel 5. Eighteenth Century Domestic Architecture in the St. Joseph River Valley

Domestic Structures - 1, Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

Panel 5. Eighteenth Century Domestic Architecture in the St. Joseph River Valley

Military Fortifications, Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

Panel 4. Fortifications and Military Buildings in New France

Special Purpose Structures, Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

Panel 3. Special Purpose Structures: Places of Rituals and Daily Practice

Structures Introductory Panel, Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project, Michael S. Nassaney

Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

Panel 1. Seeking Shelter from the Storm; Architecture in Eighteenth Century New France

The Rock Abides, Mike James

Indian Head Rock Project

Article published by Mike James of the Ashland Daily Independent on March 30, 2015 on the storage of the Indian Head Rock at the Greenup County garage.