Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons^™

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 …

"An Ample Provision For Our Posterity": Transportation, Ceramic Diversity, And Trade In Historic Arkansas, 1800-1930, Katherine Rose Cleek

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation I present a method to study transportation using ceramic diversity and access to transportation infrastructure. Ceramic tableware richness, or the number of types present, is analyzed over time as a proxy for access to local transportation infrastructure at seven sites in Arkansas, dating from approximately 1800 to 1930. Previous efforts to look at trade in historical archaeology including Adams (1976), Riordan and Adams (1985), and Adams, Bowers, and Mills (2001) have not thoroughly assessed transportation as a means of trade. This dissertation looks at the many ways of assessing diversity in archaeology, biology, business, and economics, as …

The Railroad's Effect On Racial And Gendered Consumption Practice In Nacogdoches County, East Texas: A Case Study Of Melrose, Tx, Evadney Cooper

Undergraduate Research Conference

This project is an in depth look on the disproportionate lifestyles of black and white households during Nineteenth Century East Texas, from women's shopping records

The Metropolitan Myth: Catastrophic Language, Ecologies Of Violence, And The Storm Of Progress In A South Asian City, Kartik Amarnath '13

Honor Scholar Theses

Humanity is faced with an impending urban crisis, as the urban population is expected to move far beyond the rural in coming decades. With unprecedented rates of urbanization and sprawl, we find proliferations of informal communities such as slums and shantytowns. UNHCR estimates a population of 3 billion slum dwellers – a third of humanity – by 2050 (UNHCR). Much of this sprawl will take place in the Global South in mid-sized urban spaces, rather than present-day megalopolises. It is important for academia to engage with processes of urbanization, understanding how systems of power, culture, and production shape urban landscapes …

Revenge, Guilt, And Greed: Feast Scenes And Political Order In Shakespearian Society, Ashley Vanderweele

Academic Symposium of Undergraduate Scholarship

Feasts are a time of community unity, a time of imposed order even if chaos abounds. Feasts can be for celebratory reasons, they can be of a religious nature, and as Samuel Pepys points out, they can help mend rifts among people at odds with one another. Even when feasts have celebratory or religious purposes, they may also involve political matters. A monarch, for example, may host a feast to celebrate his wedding, but, while celebrating the joyous royal union, the guests are also celebrating the political union of two kingdoms. Many times a king marries to strengthen his kingdom …

Global Futures And Government Towns: Phosphates And The Production Of Western Sahara As A Space Of Contention, Mark Drury

Publications and Research

The study of natural resources lends itself to theorizing the politics of nature and the politics of time. The space of Western Sahara, where both remain highly contested, provides an opportunity to consider the ramifications of resources in political conflict at different historical moments. Drawing from environmental histories of North Africa and the Sahara, as well as the anthropology of time, the author focuses on two historical moments. The first, from 1945 to 1972, concerns the discovery of phosphate deposits during the Spanish colonial period and the implications of this discovery for political authority in the Sahara more broadly. The …

Stories Of The Stars: The History And Folklore Of Tibetan Ethnoastronomy, Mara Johnson-Groh

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Traditionally, the night sky played an important role in the lives of Tibetans. Stars and constellations were used in navigation and in telling time. Folklore and proverbs surround these constellations and there are myths about the moon and planets as well. However, many of the stories that can be found today either originate in or are influenced by Indian culture. With the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet, came Vedic texts on astrology, which had a profound impact on the culture of ethnoastronomy in the region. Adapted Vedic astrology, merged with practices from China, eventually replaced traditional ethnoastronomy. Because of the …

Ua12/2/7 Student Affairs - Panhellenic Council, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by and about the Panhellenic Council.

Representations Of Argentine National Identity Via El Museo Nacional De Bellas Artes, Lindsay Newby

Inquiry: The University of Arkansas Undergraduate Research Journal

National identity is a concept that every nation constructs and celebrates through the remembrance of important events or persons, the projection of literary works, and the erection of monuments. Yet, in order to truly understand a nation’s self-imagery, one must examine and chart all of its different periods through time. This allows one to avoid narrow, static definitions by viewing a nation in a more holistic sense. In this study, it is hypothesized that museums function to preserve, assert, and disseminate a sense of heritage and, in the case of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, a sense of what …

Soldiers Of Science--Agents Of Culture: American Archaeologists In The Office Of Strategic Services (Oss), Despina Lalaki

Publications and Research

"Scientificity" and appeals to political independence are invaluable tools when institutions such as the American School of Classical Studies at Athens attempt to maintain professional autonomy. Nonetheless, the cooperation of scientists and scholars with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), among them archaeologists affiliated with the American School, suggests a constitutive affinity between political and cultural leadership. This relationship is here mapped in historical terms, while, at the same time, sociological categorizations of knowledge and its employment are used in order to situate archaeologists in their broader social and political context and to evaluate their work not merely as agents …

Social Piracy In Colonial And Contemporary Southeast Asia, Miles T. Bird

CMC Senior Theses

According to the firsthand account of James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak, it appears that piracy in the state of British Malaya in the mid-1800s was community-driven and egalitarian, led by the interests of heroic figures like the Malayan pirate Si Rahman. These heroic figures share traits with Eric Hobsbawm’s social bandit, and in this case may be ascribed as social pirates. In contrast, late 20^th-century and early 21^st-century pirates in the region operate in loosely structured, hierarchical groups beholden to transnational criminal syndicates. Evidence suggests that contemporary pirates do not form the egalitarian communities of their …

Why Chinese Neo-Confucian Women Made A Fetish Of Small Feet, Aubrey L. Mcmahan

Grand Valley Journal of History

Abstract for “Why Chinese Neo-Confucian Women Made a Fetish of Small Feet”

This paper explores the source of the traditional practice of Chinese footbinding which first gained popularity at the end of the Tang dynasty and continued to flourish until the last half of the twentieth century.[1] Derived initially from court concubines whose feet were formed to represent an attractive “deer lady” from an Indian tale, footbinding became a wide-spread symbol among the Chinese of obedience, pecuniary reputability, and Confucianism, among other things.[2]^,[3] Drawing on the analyses of such scholars as Beverly Jackson, Valerie Steele …

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 …

"She Of Gentle Manners": An Examination Of The Widow Pomeroy's Table And Tea Wares And The Emerging Domestic Sphere In Kinderhook, New York, Megan E. Sullivan

Graduate Masters Theses

Following the American Revolution, the new gender ideologies of Republican Motherhood and the Cult of Domesticity gained in popularity that associated men with the public sphere and relegated women to the private domestic sphere. Women were now tasked with the important job of raising the future citizens of the fledgling Republic. The quality of family and home life took on extra importance, and the elaboration of meals and the ceramics used in these rituals changed accordingly. This thesis analyzes the table and tea wares from an archaeological assemblage located in upstate New York that dates to the turn of the …

Urbanism In The Northern Levant During The 4th Millennium Bce, Rasha El-Endari

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The development of urbanism in the Near East during the 4thmillennium BCE has been an important debate for decades and with recent scientific findings, a revival of this intellectual discussion has come about. Many archaeologists suggested that urban societies first emerged in southern Mesopotamia, and then expanded to the north and northwest. With recent excavations in northern Mesopotamia, significant evidence has come to light with the finding of monumental architecture and city walls dated to the beginning of the 4th millennium BCE, well before southern Mesopotamian urban expansion. These discoveries reflect important administrative systems and stratified sociopolitical structures within these …

How Do Latino Groups Fare In A Changing Economy? Occupation In Latino Groups In The Greater New York City Area, 1980-2009, Stephen Ruszczyk

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This study examines demographic and socioeconomic factors of racial/ethnic groups in New York City between 1980 and 2009 – particularly the Latino population.

Methods: Data on Latinos and other racial/ethnic groups were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa. Cases in the dataset were weighted and analyzed to produce population estimates.

Results: Trends from 1990 continued in 2000, with numbers of Puerto Ricans in production dropping to only 14% of that group. More than a fifth of Puerto Ricans worked in management and professional …

Bolick, Molly (Fa 579), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 579. Illustrated paper by Molly Bolick titled “Embodied Art: Identity, Adornment, and Style in Women’s Flat Track Roller Derby.” Analysis of the artistic process of choosing a derby name and the assemblage of dress elements and adornment in the context of the body as a canvas. This project was submitted for the 2011Folklife Archives Award competition at Western Kentucky University.

Identifying And Analyzing The Use Of Space In Ancient Mayan House Mounds In Kancab, Yucatan, Mexico, V. Camille Westmont

Kaleidoscope

No abstract provided.

Measuring Maya Politics: Demographic Research On Ancient Community Relations, Jacob A. Welch

Kaleidoscope

No abstract provided.

Bemis, Alfred Hall, 1883-1956 (Sc 527), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 527. Photocopies of manuscript entitled “Destiny,” which concerns Alfred Hall Bemis’ five years of residency in Pulaski County, Kentucky, and a brochure used by Bemis to advertise his lecture on the life, philosophy and background of the hill people of Kentucky.

Anderson, Linda Allen (Fa 77), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 77. “Stone Masons and Their Craft in the Bluegrass Area of Kentucky,” interpretive paper and interviews executed for a folk studies class at Western Kentucky University in 1986. Collection includes photographs of stone cutting and stonework in the Bluegrass region.

The Hegemony Of English In South African Education, Kelsey E. Figone

Scripps Senior Theses

The South African Constitution recognizes 11 official languages and protects an individual’s right to use their mother-tongue freely. Despite this recognition, the majority of South African schools use English as the language of learning and teaching (LOLT). Learning in English is a struggle for many students who speak indigenous African languages, rather than English, as a mother-tongue, and the educational system is failing its students. This perpetuates inequality between different South African communities in a way that has roots in the divisions of South Africa’s past. An examination of the power of language and South Africa’s experience with colonialism and …

Reconstructing History: An Inter-Generational Perspective On Collective Memories And Constructed Identities In Post-Genocide Rwanda, Heather Randall

Inquiry: The University of Arkansas Undergraduate Research Journal

In the 18 years since the Rwandan genocide, which left approximately 1,000,000 people dead in 100 days, much has changed for Rwandans. This paper will examine the history of the genocide, including the international response to the killings and developments in peace and reconciliation. This paper also examines anthropological data from college-age Rwandese, whose names have been fictionalized, and historical information from older generations who lived through the genocide. I argue that the students represent a significant social change in the history of Rwanda. Their experiences contrast sharply with those of their parents, who grew up in a colonial world …

Ua94/5/5 Student / Alumni Personal Papers Bowling Green Business University Rex Toothman, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Scrapbooks and correspondence created by Rex Toothman during his time at Bowling Green Business University and while in the Navy.

The Impact Of Dakota Missions On The Development Of The U.S.-Dakota War Of 1862, Daphne D. Hamborg

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This thesis explores the relationships between three groups of people on the mid-nineteenth century Minnesota frontier: evangelical Protestant missionaries, the Dakota who converted to the Christian faith and lifestyle taught by these missionaries, and the Dakota who remained traditional in their outlook and lifestyle. It does this through an analysis of the impact of these relationships on the development of the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862. As is made clear through the use of both primary and secondary sources, the missionaries helped create tensions within the Dakota community, tensions expressed through shifting social structures, argument, alienation, and, at times, violence. As …

Mexican-Americans In Los Angeles: Strengthening Their Ethnic Identity Through Chivas Usa, Stephanie Goldberger

CMC Senior Theses

A large Mexican-American population already exists in Los Angeles and, with each generation, it continues to rise. This Mexican-American community has maintained its connection to its heritage by playing and watching soccer, Mexico’s top watched sport. In this thesis, I analyze how Major League Soccer's Chivas USA serves as an outlet through which many Mexicans in Los Angeles have developed their ethnic identities. Since the early twentieth century, Mexicans in Los Angeles have created separate residential communities and sports organizations to strengthen their connections with one another.

To appeal to Mexican-Americans, Chivas USA has branded itself closely to its sister …

Xrf And The Corrosion Environment At Camp Lawton: A Comprehensive Study Of The Archeological Microenvironment Of A Civil War Prison Camp, Amanda L. Morrow

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Author's abstract: Handheld X Ray Fluorescence (XRF) technology is a new and emerging method in the field of archeology. This thesis discusses the results of XRF comparative analysis and comparative chemical analysis between a given ferrous metallic artifact's corrosion environment (the surrounding soil matrix) and the subsequent corrosion products formed on the artifact. The hypothesis is that the data will demonstrate a chemical correlation between the two. Iron and chlorine are the two major elements discussed in the study. The artifacts in the sample set have been collected from Camp Lawton (9JS1), a Confederate Prison for Union Soldiers located in …

The Path To Peace: Conflict Theory And Northern Ireland’S Troubles (1968-1998), Ruairi Wiepking

Master's Theses

This paper is a qualitative historical analysis of Northern Ireland’s Troubles. Over a period of approximately thirty years, sectarian violence in Northern Ireland dominated the headlines of newspapers in both the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. Despite this violent history, Northern Ireland has enjoyed relative peace and stability since the passage of the Belfast Agreement in 1998. This paper aims to better understand why and how Northern Ireland endured a generation of brutal sectarian violence and emerged into a new era of peace and mutual understanding. In doing so, this paper incorporates theories from peace and conflict studies …

Consequences Of Contact: An Evaluation Of Childhood Health Patterns Using Enamel Hypoplasias Among The Colonial Maya Of Tipu, Amanda R. Harvey

Master's Theses

Located in western Belize, Tipu was occupied from 1541-1704. This Colonial Maya population from a Spanish visita mission church was analyzed to investigate health disturbances associated with European contact. Dental defect called enamel hypoplasias were scored to assess childhood health. Standard methods of scoring (Buikstra and Ubelaker 1994) were employed to assess frequency, severity, and type of episode in the permanent anterior dentition. For analysis, 325 individuals were placed into age groups of subadults (6-17 years), younger adults (18-35 years), and older adults (36-50+ years). The population was also considered for differences by sex and tooth type.

Results showed a …

The Latino Population Of New York City, 1990—2010, Laird W. Bergad

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This report examines demographic and socioeconomic factors concerning the Latino population of New York City between 1990 and 2010.

Methods: Data on Latinos and other racial/ethnic groups were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa. Cases in the dataset were weighted and analyzed to produce population estimates.

Results: The City’s Latino population continued its steady increase from 1.7 million people and 24% of the total population in 1990 to nearly 2.4 million and 29% of all New Yorkers in 2010. Within the Latino population …