1-25 (134 Results)
Master's Thesis. In 1837 the Ioway Indians drew a map to bring to treaty talks with the United States government. The 1837 Ioway Map project uses Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to help extract cultural, archaeological, and historical information from this rare document. Project goals include: documenting Ioway cartographic conventions; georeferencing the Ioway map to a modern base map; extracting spatial, historical, ecological and archaeological information from the georeferenced...
Allegan Dam Site: An Upper Mississippi Occupation in the Lower Kalamazoo River Basin (1979)
The Allegan Dam site (20 AE 56) is located on the north bank of the Kalamazoo River in the Allegan State Game area. This thesis is the culmination of an investigation of the Allegan Dam site that began more than ten year prior to completion. An overview of the site, excavations, features, and artifacts recovered are described in detail within. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated.
An Analysis of the Fitch Site and its Relationship to the Hohokam Classic Period (1963)
The Fitch Site designated AZ:U:9:1 (ASU), is a Classic Period site of the Hohokam chronology. It is situated just north of Mesa, Arizona, on the second south terrace of the Salt River. The significance of the site to our knowledge of the Classic Period is in the fact that it is a small site consisting of a habitation structure with three rooms and connecting walls, the whole forming a compound unit. The emphasis of former research in this area had been on large sites such as Los Muertos and...
The Ancient Agroecology of Perry Mesa: Integrating Runoff, Nutrients, and Climate (2013)
Understanding agricultural land use requires the integration of natural factors, such as climate and nutrients, as well as human factors, such as agricultural intensification. Employing an agroecological framework, I use the Perry Mesa landscape, located in central Arizona, as a case study to explore the intersection of these factors to investigate prehistoric agriculture from A.D. 1275-1450. Ancient Perry Mesa farmers used a runoff agricultural strategy and constructed extensive alignments,...
Appendix A & B (2022)
Appendix A. Schist Artifact Database Appendix B. Distribution of Schist Artifacts by U.S. Highway 395 Postmile Marker
The Application of Reflectance Spectroscopy to Chert Provenance of Mississippian Symbolic Weaponry (2013)
Dissertation that examines the non-destructive application of visible/near-infrared and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy to chert sourcing. The study also examines the provenance of material used to manufacture a sample of Middle Mississippian sword-form bifaces.
An Archaeological Survey of Lassen Volcanic National Park, California (1974)
This study reports on a survey of the areas in Lassen Volcanic National Park most likely to reveal aboriginal human activity, with some work in the areas less likely to have sites. Despite the limitations, the survey includes virtually every major drainage, meadow, spring, lake, pond, and rock shelter. It represents a large sample of the total park area which would be suitable for human use. In total, forty-seven archaeological sites were located and described. Therefore, this report represents...
The Archaeology of 19th-Century Medicine in Troy and Albany, NY (2011)
Elevated concentrations of heavy metals in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century privy nightsoil samples raise questions related to historical medicine use. Historical evidence of medicinal practices demonstrates the frequent use of heavy metals in medicine. Previous archaeological studies of medicine have used medicine bottles to examine the potential differences in access to medicine across class. However, due to the difficulty of interpreting medicine bottles as evidence of medicine use, the...
The Archaeology of Hittite Imperialism and Ceramic Production in Late Bronze Age IIA Tarsus-Gözlükule, Turkey (2014)
The Late Bronze IIA (LB IIA) period signaled a change in the material culture of Tarsus-Gözlükule, an urban center in Cilicia, southern Turkey. Written sources and archaeological evidence indicate that the LB IIA coincided with the expansion of the Hittite Empire into the region. Previous scholarship has understood the changes in the archaeological record, particularly the introduction of a new type of pottery called Monochrome Ware (MW), as the result of imperial policies intended to...
ARTEFACTOS LITICOS ARQUEOLOGICOS DEL VALLE DE MALPASO (LA QUEMADA), ZACATECAS, MEXICO. (2017)
Guía ilustrada de artefactos líticos recuperados en el valle de Malpaso, Villanueva, Zacatecas. El trabajo incluye también tablas y gráficas interpretativas. En nuestro muetrario se ve un enfasis en la diversidad de raspadores pedunculados en existencia, sugierendo diferentes actividades relacionadas a nuestras herramientas, entre ellas el trabajo relacionado con el cultivo del Maguey.
Aspects of Land Tenure in an Ancient Southwestern Farming Society in the Mimbres Valley, New Mexico (2003)
This dissertation research focuses on the development of new communities in areas outside of the main Mimbres River Valley during the Classic period, ca. 1000-1150. Based on a review of ethnohistoric farming societies living in marginal areas, a model was developed for understanding when and under what conditions landless groups of people form in established communities and the decisions they then make for survival, including moving into empty, but marginal, agricultural zones and establishing...
Basketmaker III and Pueblo I Communities of Architectural Practice in the Chuska Valley, New Mexico (2015)
This research investigates communities of architectural practice of Basketmaker III and Pueblo I period (AD 500-875) residents of the Chuska Valley in northwest New Mexico to understand social networks and levels of interaction among groups throughout the Colorado Plateau of the American Southwest. Understanding social networks and migration patterns during the late Basketmaker and early Pueblo periods can provide insight into early population aggregation, population movement, and regional...
Becoming Chacoan: The Archaeology of the Aztec North Great House (2019)
Between 900 and 1140 CE, people at Chaco Canyon and throughout its region built multistory monumental structures with hundreds of rooms, known as great houses. This dissertation reports on recent archaeological testing on one such great house, the Aztec North great house at Aztec Ruins National Monument. I argue that Aztec North’s occupation represents an early, transitional period, as people previously not involved in the Chaco world made choices that increasingly brought them into Chaco’s...
The Bird of the Next Dawn: The husbandry, translocation and transformation of the turkey (2012)
This thesis follows the palaeopathological and social history of the turkey, Meleagris gallopavo, over a thousand years (AD 900- c. 1900) and illuminates the evolving nature of turkey-human relationships. Interdependent analyses of zooarchaeological data and historical documentary sources were undertaken for this project. Palaeopathological and metrical data were gathered from turkey elements excavated from archaeological sites in the American Southwest, the UK and Éire; these were used with...
Bison Jump Sites in the Northwestern Plains of North America: A locational Analysis (1979)
ABSTRACT BISON JUMP SITES IN THE NORTHWESTERN PLAINS OF NORTH AMERICA: A LOCATIONAL ANALYSIS BY Michael Robert Polk This study is a locational analysis of bison jump sites in the northwestern plains of North America. One hundred forty-six sites from Alberta, Montana and Wyoming were examined in an attempt to identify cultural preferences and environmental constraints which affected the site location decisions of prehistoric hunters. Bison Jump site data and associated...
The Black River: Deposits of Coal Silt Along the Susquehanna River, Pennsylvania (2014)
Deposits of coal silt are significant because they provide archaeologists a baseline for investigating changes in pre-industrial and post-industrial landscapes in Pennsylvania. Beginning in the 1790s, miners extracted coal from seams near the surface with a pick and shovel. Over the next 120 years, coal mining evolved into a booming industry. In 1917, production peaked at over 100 million tons. By 1950, geologists discovered reserves of crude oil and natural gas, leading to the overall decline...
Buffum Information (2001)
Nancy Rayner-Herter, The Niagara Frontier Iroquois, Ph.D., SUNY/Buffalo, Anthropology.
Ceramics of Aztec North and the Terrace Community, Aztec Ruins National Monument (2015)
This study reports on a ceramic analysis of nearly 1500 surface-collected potsherds from five unexcavated sites on the river terrace at Aztec Ruins National Monument, including the Aztec North great house. I conducted a detailed attribute analysis and mean ceramic dating. The mean ceramic date for Aztec North is AD 1104±39, while other terrace sites have later mean dates. Based on these dates, it appears that Aztec North was constructed before or contemporaneously with Aztec West, and it...
A chert sourcing study using visible/near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy at the Dover Quarry sites, Tennessee. (2009)
Prehistoric cultural material is commonly composed of chert due in large part to its physical properties that are conducive to tool manufacture. Despite its ubiquity, archaeologists are faced with an arduous task when attempting to source chert artifacts to known quarries/deposits. The application of Visible/Near-Infrared Reflectance (VNIR) spectroscopy to chert sourcing attains a cost-efficient, fast, non-destructive, and accurate means of identifying material type and geologic/geographic...
Cibola Corrugated: A Proposed New Pottery Type from the Southwest (1975)
The purpose of this thesis is to describe a heretofore undescribed and unnamed pottery type from the Southwest. This has been accomplished by the traditional observational method and through the use of statistical techniques identifying stylistic attribute associations. Discrete attributes have been identified on Clbola Corrugated Pottery. Twelve of these exhibit frequencies sufficient for statistical analysis. Two groups of associated attributes, four each, were identified. The first group is...
Coalescent Communities in Iroquoian Ontario (2010)
This study documents and theorizes the processes behind the coalescence of ancestral Huron-Wendat populations on the north shore of Lake Ontario. A multiscalar analytical approach is employed to examine settlement aggregation at the regional, local and community levels. The study draws upon cross-cultural models of coalescent societies and the archaeology of communities while being theoretically situated within an historical-processual approach. The settlement data presented demonstrate that...
Collections Management Internship at the Michigan Office of the State Archaeologist and Its Application for the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project (2010)
Details internship at the Michigan Office of the State Archaeologist and the application of this experience to the reorganization by raw material, function, then provenience of the collections obtained under the auspices of the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project at Western Michigan University.
A Colorful Past: Turquoise and Social Identity in the Late Prehispanic Western Pueblo Region, A.D. 1275–1400 (2017)
Turquoise is synonymous with the U.S. Southwest, occurring naturally in relative abundance and culturally prized for millennia. As color and material, turquoise is fundamental to the worldviews of numerous indigenous groups of the region, with notable links to moisture, sky, and personal and familial vitality. For Pueblo groups in particular, turquoise and other blue-green minerals hold a prominent place in myth, ritual, aesthetics, and cosmology. They continue to be used as important offerings,...
Conservation of Waterlogged Linoleum (2004)
Linoleum has been around for over a hundred years. With its invention by Frederick Walton in the 1860’s a new means of durable floor covering was introduced to the world. This new invention was promoted as durable, hygienic, and easy to maintain. In agreement with the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, a study was commissioned to seek the best means to conserve linoleum from a canal boat excavated in the summer of 2002 in Lake Champlain. The Sloop Island Canal Boat is part of an excavation project...
Constructing Hierarchy through Entitlement: Inequality in Lithic Resource Access among the Ancient Maya of Blue Creek, Belize. (2004)
ABSTRACT Constructing Hierarchy through Entitlement: Inequality in Lithic Resource Access among the Ancient Maya of Blue Creek, Belize. (December 2004) Jason Wallace Barrett, B.A., Rhode Island College; M.A., Texas A&M University Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Harry J. Shafer This dissertation tests the theory that lithic raw materials were a strategic resource among the ancient Maya of Blue Creek, Belize that markedly influenced the development of socio-economic hierarchies...