Archaeological Anthropology Commons^™

The House Of Our Ancestors: New Research On The Prehistory Of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, A.D. 800–1200, Carrie Heitman

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

In a paper honoring the career of archaeologist Gwinn Vivian presented at the Society for American Archaeology 70th annual meeting, Toll and others (2005) discussed the still often-overlooked role of small house sites in Chacoan prehistory. They pointed out that many of the attributes we reserve for the category of “great house” are in fact present at some small house sites and that both the diversity and overlapping characteristics across this dichotomy require greater attention if we are to understand “how Chaco worked.” In this chapter, I present contextual data from 12 house assemblages through a comparative theoretical and ethnographic …

Revisiting The Nelson Site: Recent Archeological Investigations And Material Analysis, Jason Reichel

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The Nelson Site (21BE24) is situated on a low terrace along the southern boundary of the Blue Earth River, approximately 2 miles west of the city of Mankato, Minnesota (Appendix A, Figures 1 and 2). Initial survey of the site in 1973 identified the site as a single component Terminal Woodland habitation site associated with cultural entities centered in the Mississippi River Valley of Iowa and Wisconsin. However, subsequent analysis and additional archaeological investigations conducted in 2011 and 2013 identified additional components of the site and recognized variations in decorative elements from pottery recovered from previous surveys, which differed from …

The Relevance Of Maize Pollen For Assessing The Extent Of Maize Production In Chaco Canyon, Carrie C. Heitman, Phil R. Geib

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Opinion is hardly unanimous, but many authors endorse the idea that Chaco Canyon is and was a marginal place for growing corn (Zea mays), a chief source of food energy for Puebloan groups in the Southwest. Poor soils with “toxic” levels of salts, inadequate and unpredictable precipitation, and a short growing season have all been identified as contributing to the agricultural marginality of the place (Benson 2011a; Bryan 1954; Force et al. 2002; Judd 1954:59–61). Benson has been the most vocal proponent of this view of late, and his research has culminated in the conclusion that “the San Juan Basin, …

Saffron Cod (Eleginus Gracilis) In North Pacific Archaeology, Megan A. Partlow, Eric Munk

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

Saffron cod (Eleginus gracilis) is a marine species often found in shallow, brackish water in the Bering Sea, although it can occur as far southeast as Sitka, Alaska. Recently, we identified saffron cod remains in two ca. 500-year-old Afognak Island midden assemblages from the Kodiak Archipelago. We developed regression formulae to relate bone measurements to total length using thirty-five modern saffron cod specimens. The archaeological saffron cod remains appear to be from mature adults, measuring 22–45 cm in total length, and likely caught from shore during spawning. Saffron cod may have been an important winter resource for Alutiiq people living …

Eastern Iowa Lithics And Their Effects On Oneota Culture, Caitlin Mary Kelly

Honors Program Theses

This research focuses on the experimentation and exploration of heat treatment used on chert by the Native Americans located in eastern Iowa after the Late-Woodland Period. In conjunction with my research advisor, Dr. Chad Heinzel, the geoarchaeologist in the UNI Department of Earth Science, I have heat treated chert from eastern Iowa in order to examine its physical and chemical changes. These experiments took place both in a controlled laboratory setting and in a semi-controlled field setting, comparing the difference between the two different methodologies. Chemical analysis was also performed to assess differences in trace chemicals between raw and heated …

Constructing The World's Largest Prison: Understanding Identity By Examining Labor, Hubert J. Gibson

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

ABSTRACT

A Civil War prison camp operated by the Confederacy known as Camp Lawton was once considered the largest prison in the world. This label was attributed to the fact that Lawton’s stockade enclosed 42 acres. The historical record does not have a clear picture of who built it. Newspaper interviews claim the construction was carried out by 500 impressed slave laborers and 300 Union POWs, but these lack the credibility of official orders. Unfortunately, many Confederate documents were lost when Sherman’s army came through Millen, GA. This study archaeologically examines construction techniques utilized for building stockades in an effort …

Corrugated Ware Function And Use As Identity Markers At The Harris Site, Danielle Romero

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis examines the function of corrugated vessels and addresses pithouse and group identity through the differences in technological and design style at the Harris site (LA 1867), a Late Pithouse period (550-1000 CE) Mimbres Mogollon pithouse village. Corrugated wares have long been defined as utilitarian cooking vessels. The goal of this research is to shed more light on corrugated wares as a ceramic type that served a variety of functions outside of cooking, including a presence in ritual spheres. This research also explores the use of technological and design styles of corrugated wares to discuss individual and group identity. …

A Mediterranean Mosaic: The Archaeological Evidence For Ethnic Diversity At Pithekoussai, Rachel Dewan

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

In A Bind: Artificial Cranial Deformation In The Americas, Aaron Fehir

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

Liminal River: Art, Agency And Cultural Transformation Along The Protohistoric Arkansas River, Leslie Walker

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

For nearly a century, ceramic vessels looted from Protohistoric Native American Graves in the Central Arkansas River Valley have raised questions about the ethnic identity of the inhabitants of the region and their relationship to their neighbors in time and space. This analysis combines careful documentation of 1198 of these vessels with excavated sherds and other data from the Carden Bottoms site (3YE0025) and adjacent rock art sites in the Arkansas River Valley to provide a context for these vessels and, in so doing, defines the Dardenne Style of artistic production. Comparing motifs, and the manner in which they are …

Conversations Between Communities: Umass Boston Archaeology For And With The Nipmuc Nation & The Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation, Stephen A. Mrozowski, Stephen W. Silliman

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Community-engaged scholarship, learning, and service are becoming important parts of university missions, ensuring that academic projects do not just “take” but also give back in meaningful ways. For Native American communities and archaeologists who come from and work with them, this kind of research sensitivity and community accountability is fundamentally important. Archaeological projects with, by, and for Native American communities vary as much in their structures and goals as the communities themselves. In order to meet the desires and needs of each community, two archaeological field schools at UMass Boston – Hassanamesit Woods (Grafton, Massachusetts) and Eastern Pequot (North Stonington, …

An Historical Archaeological Investigation Of The Indianola Prisoner Of War Camp In Southwestern Nebraska, Allison Marie Young

Department of Anthropology: Theses and Student Research

Second World War military operations resulted in the capture of thousands of prisoners of war. This led to the creation of internment facilities by both the Axis and the Allies. Archaeologists have begun to examine these facilities. The United States government established a POW program with numerous camps all over the country. This study provides the results of historical archaeological research at the Indianola prisoner of war camp in southwestern Nebraska. A goal of this research is to determine if the archaeological record reflects adherence to the Geneva Convention of 1929. The investigation included archival research and archaeological fieldwork with …

Remembering Dearfield: A Study Of An Early 20th Century Black Community, Mary Connell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the different meanings of Dearfield, an early 20th Century black farming colony in northeastern Colorado, from the way the settlers’ conceived of their community, to the way that it was portrayed by the founder, to the way that it is remembered today. Through analysis of archival data and government records I show that there were two sides of Dearfield, that remembered by most of the settlers, and that portrayed by the founder O.T. Jackson. A magnetometer survey shows that the townsite was not as densely occupied as the common narrative of Dearfield would suggest, indeed many homesteaders …

Cultural Continuity In A Nipmuc Landscape, Joseph Bagley

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis examines the lithic assemblage from the 2005-2012 field seasons at the Sarah Boston site in Grafton, Massachusetts. The Sarah Boston site is associated with a multi-generational Nipmuc family living on the site during the late 18th through early 19th centuries. In total, 163 lithic artifacts, primarily quartz flakes and cores, were found throughout the site with concentrations north of a house foundation associated with the Nipmuc family. Reworked gunflints and worked glass were examined as examples of lithic practice associated with artifacts that are conclusively datable to the period after European arrival. Presence of quartz artifacts in an …

The Adair Site: Ouachita River Valley Relations Through Ceramic Analysis, Joanne Demaio

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Adair site (3GA1), located in the Upper Ouachita River Valley in Garland CO, Arkansas is an Upper Ouachita Caddo site. The people at the site are presumed to be at the center of cultural dominance for the area and had interaction with Caddo sites in the region. This thesis explores this by studying the whole vessel collections that were excavated at the Adair site in the 1930s. Comparing the Adair collection to three other Caddo sites provides information about the Social standing of the Adair site, its relations with other sites, and how it fits into the greater fabric …

Battle Mound: Exploring Space, Place, And History Of A Red River Caddo Community In Southwest Arkansas, Duncan Mckinnon

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research is a synthesis of archaeogeophysical and archaeohistorical data collected from the Battle Mound site (3LA1). Using these data, this research seeks to understand how the site is organized in terms of architectural variability and how differential use areas, such as domestic or community space, can be compared to ethnographic and archaeological data concerning Caddo community structure and landscape use. The research is formulated around three research questions related to spatial organization and settlement patterning, intrasite behavioral practices, and Caddo culture history. Results show that an examination at multiple scales of resolution can inform about the spatial organization and …

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 …

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 …

Experimentation In Sling Weaponry: Effectiveness Of And Archaeological Implications For A World-Wide Primitive Technology, Eric T. Skov

Department of Anthropology: Theses and Student Research

The sling is a simple, cheap and effective weapon that was widely distributed among prehistoric and historic populations. Well-known archaeological and textual evidence attests to its widespread military usage in Europe, South America, andCentral America. However, ethnographic and archaeological evidence also suggest that the sling was widely distributed among Native American populations. Experimentation presented herein suggests that previous scholarship and experimental efforts have significantly underestimated potential velocity, range and potential damage to target organisms. Given the world-wide distribution of sling technology, revision of basic assumptions of weapon capability can have a profound effect on interpretation of archaeological problems internationally and …

Subsistence In The Shrinking Forest: Native And Euro-American Practice In 19th-Century Connecticut, William A. Farley

Graduate Masters Theses

Southeastern Connecticut in the 19th century represented a setting in which Native Americans living on reservations were residing in close proximity to Euro-American communities. The Mashantucket Pequot, an indigenous group who in the 19th century resided on a state-overseen reservation, and their Euro-American neighbors both utilized local and regional resources in order to achieve their subsistence goals. This thesis seeks to explore the differences and similarities of the subsistence practices employed by these two groups. It further seeks to examine the centrality of forest landscapes to both Mashantucket and Euro-American subsistence, and to interpret the importance of the reservation to …

The Truth Between The Teeth: An Analysis Of Interproximal Tooth Wear At The Ables Creek Cemetery, Amy Reynolds Warren

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Current archaeological knowledge suggests that, by the Late Mississippian period, inhabitants of the southeastern United States had adopted maize agriculture and that maize was a key component of the normal diet. However, in some regions where wild food resources were easily attainable, there is evidence that the transition to agriculture was delayed or did not occur at all. This thesis examines Late Mississippian skeletal collections from two sites in eastern Arkansas, Ables Creek and Upper Nodena. Analysis of differences in interproximal tooth wear facet size and caries rates between the two populations reveals that the diets at these roughly contemporary …

Fort St. Joseph And The American Revolution, Scott T. Macpherson

Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

Bennett’s Expedition 1779, Raid on Fort St. Joseph 1780, The “Spanish Raid” 1781, Deportation of the French, and Demise of Fort St. Joseph.

The Military At Fort St. Joseph, Scott T. Macpherson

Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

Showing the Flag, Troupes de la Marine, Militia, and Fort St. Joseph’s Military Actions.

Review Of Light From Ancient Campfires: Archaeological Evidence For Native Lifeways On The Northern Plains. By Trevor R. Peck., Matthew Boyd

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Despite the relatively long legacy of professional archaeological research in the northern Great Plains, few comprehensive syntheses of the region's 13,000- year human history have been produced in recent years. This is particularly the case for the Canadian side of the region, which has tended to be overlooked in most scholarly summaries of Great Plains prehistory. The shadowy nature of the Canadian prairies to the wider community of Plains archaeologists is not due to a lack of archaeological research in the region-Alberta, alone, has over 35,000 registered sites-but instead reflects the poor dissemination ofCRM (Culture Resource Management) reports and other …

Recent Investigations Of Mission Period Activity On Sapelo Island, Georgia, Richard W. Jeffries, Christopher R. Moore

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

Prior to their retreat to Florida in 1684, Muskogean-speaking Guale Indians inhabited much of what is now the Georgia coast. The arrival of Spanish missionaries in Florida and Georgia in the mid-1500s began what is known archaeologically as the mission period (1568-1684), a time of sustained interaction between the Spanish and the Guale people. Over time, population loss due to European-introduced diseases and conflict with English-backed Native American slave raiders resulted in a drastic reconfiguration of Guale society and the abandonment of the Guale's ancestral homeland (Worth 2007).

Sapelo Island (Figure 6.1) is the site of at least one Spanish …

Exploratory Studies Into Possible Uses Of Calcareous Dolostone On The Shivwits Plateau, Jennifer Durk, Lauren Falvey, Karen G. Harry

Festival of Communities: UG Symposium (Posters)

Excavations at pueblo habitation sites on the Shivwits Plateau suggest that calcareous dolostone was regularly procured and used by the inhabitants of the Mt. Dellenbaugh region. Calcareous dolostone, a soft, powdery calcium carbonate, is not local to these sites but was presumably procured from somewhere beneath the rim of the Grand Canyon. In this poster, we present the results of exploratory experiments into possible uses of this resource. Specifically, we evaluate the performance characteristics of powdered dolostone with reference to two activities: pigment production and ceramic manufacture.

Fur Trade 07: Native Peoples And The Fur Trade, Rachel B. Juen, Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

Panel 7. Shifting Political Alliances and Power, Transformations of Culture, and Religion and Worldview.

Fur Trade 01: Beaver: Mainstay Of The Trade, Rachel B. Juen, Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

Panel 1. Hunting, Hides, and Hats, Environmental Effects, and Why Beaver?

Fur Trade 06: How The Fur Trade Worked, Rachel B. Juen, Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

Panel 6. Government Regulation, From Montreal to the West, and Movement of Goods and Furs.

Fur Trade 09: Fur Trade Society, Rachel B. Juen, Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

Panel 9. Interdependence, Mutual Influences, and Métis and Country Wives.