Archaeological Anthropology Commons^™

Archaeology Of Yellowstone's Cascade Corner: Findings And Diet Breadth Modeling, William Brent Powell

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In the summer of 2025, archaeologists from the University of Montana conducted a pedestrian survey through the southwest corner of Yellowstone National Park to take inventory of cultural resources. Over nearly 50 miles of trail survey, the team identified and recorded 17 new archaeological sites, mostly consisting of sparse lithic scatters on the surface. The findings indicate recurrent use of the Bechler area since the Paleoindian period. This thesis aims to provide a comprehensive and detailed report on those findings, followed by an interpretation of the data through the lens of optimal foraging theory and diet breadth modeling. The first …

Migrations And Malthusian Demographics Amongst Two Pioneering Paleo-Inuit Traditions, Skyla Moyer

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Understanding the ways in which resource variability, environmental conditions, and cultural behavior impact population movements has been a central concern both within the subfield of arctic archeology and within anthropology as an overarching discipline. To provide insights into these questions in Greenlandic contexts, Saqqaq and Independence I occupation movements have been examined through an analysis of broad trends in the radiocarbon record throughout the duration of these two cultural traditions. While the ultimate goal of this analysis is to recognize patterns in occupational progressions as indicated by the radiocarbon record, the demographic and environmental forces of change involved in the …

Evaluating The Accuracy Of Stature Estimation From Tibial Radiographs Using Known And Newly Developed Regression Formulas, Atlantis Kae Baron

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study assesses the accuracy of stature estimation from tibial radiographs using digital measurements as an alternative to traditional osteometric tools. Stature estimation is crucial in forensic anthropology for identifying individuals, especially cases involving skeletal remains. Traditional methods rely on physical measurements and established regression formulas, such as those by Trotter & Gleser (1958).

This research analyzed tibial radiographs from the Forensic Anthropology Skeletal Trauma (FAST) database with ImageJ software to measure tibial lengths digitally. The sample included 59 tibiae, with measurements compared against three regression formulas; Trotter & Gleser (1958), Simon et al. (2023), and a new regression formula …

Workable Seams, Jackson Mills Smith

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In Jackson Mills Smith’s Workable Seams, readers encounter the stories, landscapes, and lives of rural Knox County, Indiana, from the oscillating vantage of a Hoosier boy raised with a Cajun sensibility. After relocating from Louisiana to the river bottoms of the crossroad state at a young age, the speaker gradually uncovers a local history only previously understood in fragmentary shards and fading glimpses.

Alternating between semi-lyrical embodied experiences and memories, documentary pieces in conversation with the state’s historical archive, and the retelling of exaggerated local yarns, poetry is a means of inquiry in Workable Seams. Topics range from …

Organization Of Lithic Technology At 48ye240 Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming: Bifaces As Indicators Of Environmental Predictability, Hunter Alan Watry

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

48YE240 within the Hayden Valley of Yellowstone National Park is a pre-contact hunter-gatherer site recorded on two separate terraces along the Yellowstone River. This site and the two terraces are divided by the Grand Loop Road. The higher terrace is west of the road, while the lower terrace is east of the road, adjacent to the Yellowstone River. The lower terrace was excavated in 1999 and included a hearth feature dating to the Middle Archaic. The higher terrace was excavated in 2020 and contained intact cultural deposits. This thesis presents a lithic analysis of the assemblage recovered from the higher …

Pathways And Places: Mobility And Lithic Use At 48ye238 In The Late Archaic And Late Prehistoric Yellowstone, Jacob Q. Wilmoth

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Through the lens of Central Place Foraging Theory, an analysis of lithic remains from 48YE238, a medium to high-density archaeological site in the Hayden Valley of Yellowstone National Park, has provided insight into both material value and decision-making among Late Archaic and Late Prehistoric hunter-gatherers of the Hayden Valley. First, an examination of lithic materials and the stages of bifacial reduction, in relation to sourced lithic materials, offers insight into changing ideas of material value between these two periods. This is especially evident when considering the cultural and societal changes that influenced regional residence during the Late Prehistoric period, compared …

Recovering The Nium Trail: A Journey Through Collaboration And Multidisciplinary Mapping, Crystal West

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study explores and maps an ancient, historic, and contemporary travel corridor that follows the San Joaquin River in the Central Sierra Nevada of California. It is called the Nium or People’s Trail by the North Fork Mono Tribe, the French Trail in historic archives, and the Mammoth Trail on contemporary US Forest Service maps. When I agreed to the request by Chairman Ron Goode of the North Fork Mono Tribe to map the Nium Trail, I was saying yes to a different, more broad and inclusive approach than I had previously taken as an archaeologist documenting archaeological sites and …

Following The Footprints Of Iron, Marve William Nelson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

With the advent of lead isotope analysis in the 1960’s, metallurgic studies within archaeology have grown from their infancy of organizing artifacts into typological categorizations into their own sub-discipline of archaeology: archaeometallurgy. Archaeometallurgic researchers conducts muti-phase, chemistry-based, studies to determine provenance of source metal ores as well as microchemical and metallographic analyses to identify smelting and forging techniques, culminating in multidisciplinary studies which detect shifting commerce pathways and correlate them to periods of significant cultural change. The results of these studies have offered evidence for both verification and refutation of various previous hypotheses of cultural evolution through cultural transmission. Archaeometallurgy …

Swimming Through Time: Ancient Dna Analysis Of Salmonid Remains At Housepit 54, Bridge River, British Columbia, Canada, Kara K. Fox

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The application of ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis on archaeological faunal remains has proven successful in a variety of studies that have resulted in species identification and subsistence use at ancient village sites. Fisher-hunter-gatherer societies of the Pacific Northwest have depended heavily on seasonal salmon runs as a primary staple for foodstuffs and winter storage essentials. Determining which salmonid species were chosen provides a better understanding of ancient socio-economic strategies that impact food procurement and varying preferences of food items that can lead to resource access limitations. Ultimately, this thesis is a preliminary research project to establish the groundwork for successfully …

Foodway Comparions And Patterns Of Consumer Behavior: The Use Of Orphan And Salvage Archaeological Collections From Historic Missoula, Montana, Emily Thea Meick

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The goal of this project is to better understand and test theories about consumer behavior and meat consumption through faunal remains using orphaned and salvaged historic archaeological collections from three sites across Missoula, Montana, from the 1860s through the 1920s. Previous research underscored the need for properly defined units of analysis that represent what was being purchased and consumed. Using a consumer behavior framework and meat quality index, as indicated by price and meat yield, foodways comparisons between a Euromerican household that maintained renters, occupants of a Chinese store, Joss House, and residential dwellings within Missoula’s Red-Light District, and enlisted …

Bearing Witness: Ancient Dna Analysis And The Dynamics Of Food Procurement In A Historic Missoula Chinese Community, Sarah Elizabeth Grenfell

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In 2019, construction of a brewery called Cranky Sam Public House in downtown Missoula, Montana provided an unexpected opportunity to recover and preserve late nineteenth and early twentieth century archaeological evidence of a Missoula neighborhood that included a Chinese temple, a Chinese store, and dwellings with Chinese residents. The area, like many urban landscapes in the American West, also included a restricted, or red-light district. Teams of volunteer University of Montana graduate and undergraduate students conducted on-the-spot salvage archaeology monitoring and were able to recover a sample of artifacts and ecofacts from this once-bustling part of Missoula. The objectives of …

Ancient Migrations In West Mexico: Mtdna Analyses, Patricio Gutiérrez Ruano

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Despite the mounting evidence that suggests The Aztatlán tradition in West Mexico was a major cosmopolitan region during the Postclassic period (AD 900-1521) with connections to the rest of what is now Mexico, archaeologists have characterized items in West Mexico as culturally distinct from the rest of Mesoamerica. Recently, endogenous, and exogenous material culture has been interpreted as movement and exchange of goods and ideas between subregions and surrounding areas, all of which mention physical contact and trade were involved between Aztatlán and elsewhere. This has included interacting with areas as far as the U.S. Southwest, as well as in …

He, She, They, Other: An Examination Of Gender Associations With The Chatelaine In The Anglo-Saxon Culture, Dane A. Williams

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The purpose of this paper is to study the chatelaine as a marker of gender attribution and overall usage within the Anglo-Saxon culture. Chatelaines are artifacts used to suspend multiple items to be employed for such purposes as grooming, tools, or keys and have been used widely from the Roman occupation of England during which it was used by all genders, to the Ninth Century when it was primarily used by women. As such, it is asserted that a single artifact should not to be solely relied upon to assign a gender identity to a burial, that these should be …

Reading The Bones: A Taphonomic Investigation Of Archaeofaunal Remains Recovered From Site 48pa551, Northwest Wyoming, Morgan H. Thurman

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This is a preliminary taphonomy study of archaeofaunal remains found at site 48PA551, more commonly known as the Dead Indian Creek Site. 48PA551 is a well-known and commonly cited example of a McKean Complex occupation dating to between 3,800 and 4,800 B.P. The University of Montana held a field school at the site conducting small test excavations under the supervision of Dr. Anna Marie Prentiss in 2018. In the course of this testing a highly fragmentary bone bed consisting mostly of mammalian bone, cervids largely, was discovered eroding into the nearby creek. Ten 50 x 50 cm quadrants were excavated …

Buffalo In The Mountains: Mapping Evidence Of Historical Bison Prescence And Bison Hunting In Glacier National Park, Kyle Langley

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study explores 10,000+ years of bison presence and bison hunting within Glacier National Park. Despite significant faunal evidence of bison presence in the area, few people today associate bison with Glacier National Park. Previous archaeological studies have found bison faunal remains and evidence of bison hunting throughout the eastern half of the park going back thousands of years. Furthermore, local tribes such as the Kootenai and Blackfeet maintain oral traditions that detail ancestral hunting strategies and practice in the region. This project reviews all of these sources to contextualize the archaeological signatures of bison and tell the story of …

Exploring Indigenous Involvement In The Fur Trade At The Bridge River Pithouse Village, British Columbia, Rebekah Jean Engelland

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Much research has been done on the Fur Trade period occupation of Housepit 54 at the Bridge River site. This thesis investigates the cause of resource intensification seen in the increase in projectile points, faunal remains, hide scrapers, and fire-cracked rock (FCR). In order to determine the impetus of this change, I compare the fracture patterns of FCR, the size of FCR, the densities of FCR, deer NISP, and slate scrapers, and the population estimate from the fur trade floor and roof to the last floor and roof of the previous occupation. This will determine whether the resource intensification was …

Summer Vacation In The Wild: An Historical And Archaeological Study Of Timber Land Fraud In The Tobacco Plains, Montana, Tyler Jay Rounds

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

During the 19th and early 20th century, Congress passed several laws intended to allow average Americans the chance to acquire portions of the public domain for their own benefit. However, contemporary observers and historians alike have noted that several of these laws—especially the Homestead Act and the Timber and Stone Act—were instead used by speculators and lumber companies to amass large landholdings by orchestrating and purchasing fraudulent entries. Local historical tradition suggests that Eureka Lumber Company, Bonners Ferry Lumber Company, and J. Neils Lumber Company employed this tactic within the Kootenai National Forest (KNF), though the veracity of such claims …

The Lost Histories Of The Shetayet Of Sokar: Contextualizing The Osiris Shaft At Rosetau (Giza) In Archaeological History, Nicholas Edward Whiting

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The Osiris Shaft is one of many archaeological signatures associated with Egypt’s Giza Plateau, the most well-known of which are the Great Pyramids. However, the role(s) the Osiris Shaft feature played in the religious and daily practices of ancient Egyptians remain(s) unknown. This research seeks to contextualize the Osiris Shaft in Egyptian history to learn more about this feature’s story. In order to achieve this goal, this thesis examines funerary deities associated with Memphis theology and explores archaeological investigations related to the Osiris Shaft, including the work of Dr. Zahi Hawass and investigations by the Giza Mapping Project. Thanks to …

Uncovering Cooperation In Housepit 54, Bridge River, British Columbia, Canada, Megan Denis

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

There is a significant amount of literature regarding the theory of cooperation, as well as ethnographies and data from modern populations that clearly show cooperation, yet it is difficult to tease that information out of the archaeological record. My thesis will focus on floors IIi to IIc of Bridge River’s Housepit 54 in British Columbia, Canada, which extends from the Bridge River 2 period to the Bridge River 3 period and includes two incidents of resource stress and one of resource plenty. These times of fluctuating resource availability should result in the population utilizing different approaches to social organization. By …

The Built Environment At Plaza H, Cahal Pech: A Study In Resiliency, Rachel A. Steffen

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis seeks to understand the human response to extreme environmental, social, and political change during the Terminal Classic (750-1050 CE) at Cahal Pech. Across the Maya lowlands, this period is distinguished by the end of divine kingships, the cessation of new monumental architecture, rapid changes in prestige goods and trade networks, and population decline at many major centers. Cahal Pech, a medium-sized ceremonial center, experienced great shifts in political power and access to resources during the Terminal Classic. This thesis attempts to understand the last occupation of the site, prior to abandonment. Field data for this study is derived …

Secrets Of Soil: A Geochemical Investigation And Spatial Analysis Of The Early Living Floors Of Housepit 54, Bridge River, British Columbia, Nathaniel Louis Perhay

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This is an exploratory study to assess the ability of using geochemical sampling to give insight into the subsistence behavior of the inhabitants of Housepit 54 and a look at the spatial organization of activity areas on floors IId, IIe, and IIf. The geochemical make-up of soils can give great insights into former actives that have disturbed or occurred in or around the soil. Anthropogenic soils are formed through the complex interplay between humans and natural factors. This geochemical study will use chemical signatures to tease out the daily activities that were performed by the inhabitants of Housepit 54. A …

A Chip Off The Old Rock: An Investigation Of Hunter-Gatherer Lithic Behavior At Site 48pa551 Using The Field Processing Model, Emma Lydia Vance

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This research examines the lithic and raw material assemblage at site 48PA551, a McKean complex hunter-gatherer site in northwest Wyoming, through a lens of human behavioral ecology, central place foraging theory, and the field processing model. The identification of lithic technological patterns through this theoretical framework results in understanding the relationship between the landscape, hunter-gatherer behavior, and raw material procurement strategies in the region 4500 BP. The goal of this research is to identify economic decision making in reference to management of toolstone within the lithic assemblage uncovered at site 48PA551 during the 2018 field season. The expectation put forth …

Looking Past, Looking Forward: America's National Parks, Archaeology And Climate Change, Rachel Marie Blumhardt

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

America’s National Parks are rich with cultural history, flora, fauna and some of nature’s most impressive landscapes. As climate change continues to accelerate, these parks and their cultural and natural resources are being threatened. In this project, I will present a colorful, informational booklet that concentrates on 4 specific parks: Yellowstone National Park, National Park of American Samoa, Glacier Bay National Park and Mesa Verde National Park. I will focus on the archaeology and cultural significance of these parks, while also examining the ways that climate change is putting these, and other associated assets of the parks, at risk. I …

Learning From Stone: Using Lithic Artifacts To Explore The Transmission Of Culture At Bridge River, British Columbia, Anne V. Smyrl

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Inherent in all tool-making traditions is the necessity of teaching the next generation of toolmakers. The learning process, although crucial to our understanding of past societies, is difficult to study archaeologically, due to its intangibility. However, some technologies leave visible traces of their production. Key among these are chipped stone tools, known as lithics, which leave distinct archaeological traces of each part of the creation processes. Modern experimenters have recreated these processes, and as a result, have revealed archaeologically-visible differences between novice and expert knappers. These can be identified in archaeological lithic assemblages, and serve as a starting point for …

3d Printing Of The Proximal Right Femur: It’S Implications In The Field Of Forensic Anthropology And Bioarchaeology, Myriah Adonia Jo Allen

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

3D scanning and Printing have become useful in many scientific fields over the last few years, and Physical Anthropology/ Archaeology is not an exception. With skeletal collections decreasing all over the globe and the question of preservation on the rise, it has become necessary to look towards different methods in which one can obtain important information. 3D scanning has become useful over the last few decades and therefore it is important to establish where this new technology can be of use. This paper will bring 3D scanning and printing into question and determine whether this technology should be used in …

Reconnecting Indigenous Knowledge To The Sunlight Basin: Integrating Traditional Ecological Knowledge And Archaeology, Liz Dolinar

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) specific to plants has been developed over long-term connections to the environment, diligent observations, and practical experience by Indigenous communities. The traditional ecological knowledge of Indigenous peoples is a vital source for the contextualization and further understanding of past human environmental relationships in the Sunlight Basin of northwestern Wyoming. The Eastern Shoshone people, among many other groups, traditionally occupied the Sunlight Basin of northwestern Wyoming, a region of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. There is a growing necessity for collaboration with Indigenous populations within archaeological and anthropological research. The aim of this project is to develop a …

An Investigation Of Historic Euro-American Inscriptions At Madison Buffalo Jump, Jay Thomas Vest

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis explores the cultural significance and interpretive potential of historic inscriptions left behind by primarily Euro-Americans at Madison Buffalo Jump; a Native American bison jump situated in the Madison Valley of southwestern Montana. The inscriptions are analyzed through the lens of Cultural Landscape Theory and their typology, distribution, and content are examined in detail. By looking at these inscriptions in this manner, opportunities for ongoing research are highlighted, the future potential of these types of inscriptions to contribute to a new interpretive is examined, and the challenges of appropriate conservation strategies is considered. This thesis presents the argument that …

A Ceramic Analysis Of Two Terminal Classic Maya Sites: Examining Economic Ties Through Pottery, Kara B. Johannesen

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The objective of this thesis is to examine the relationship between two Maya sites, Cahal Pech and Xunantunich, during Terminal Classic (780-950 CE) through ceramic variability. Until recently the Terminal Classic (TC) was often misunderstood as a time of the “Maya collapse.” The TC period is now understood as a complex time with shifting political tides possibly due to environmental pressures. New evidence from a TC deposit at Cahal Pech known as “south of H-1” shows an abundance of a specific decorated ware known as Mount Maloney Black (MMB), a type more closely associated with the neighboring site of Xunantunich. …

Examining The Relationship Between Traditional Ecological Knowledge And Cultural Resource Management, Erin Chiniewicz

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

California Creek Quarry: Regional Persepctives And Uas Mapping, David A. Schwab

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Western Montana hosts an abundance of lithic deposits useful for precontact stone tool manufacturing. Lithic sources likely factored prominently into patterns of settlement, trade, subsistence and mobility for past populations in the region. The mining of these lithic resources results in a unique land use area, a prehistoric quarry. Prehistoric quarries in Western Montana have received very little research or spatial documentation. This may be due in part to their abundance and often overwhelming size and extent. Providing even basic spatial documentation for large quarries can be prohibitively time consuming and expensive. One such understudied quarry site is the California …