Anthropology electronic theses and dissertations (MU)
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The items in this collection are the theses and dissertations written by students of the Department of Anthropology. Some items may be viewed only by members of the University of Missouri System and/or University of Missouri-Columbia. Click on one of the browse buttons above for a complete listing of the works.
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Item Intersectional social identity in Early Iron Age Dolenjska : a statistical analysis of grave goods from Kapiteljska njiva in Novo Mesto, Slovenia(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2025) Drechsler, Riley; VanPool, ChristineThere are two key components to understanding social identity: identifying important areas and understanding how they interact. Doing so in archaeological contexts is difficult but can be accomplished through the examination of grave goods, which provide a unique window into the individuals' identities. The present study explores the intersectional nature of social identity in the Dolenjska Hallstatt culture of Early Iron Age Slovenia (800 - 300 BCE) using grave goods from the Kapiteljska njiva cemetery. Three aspects of identity are included: gender, social role (identified using diagnostic artifacts), and social status (measured using number of items, number of prestige items, and types of prestige items). The interaction between the variables is tested using generalized linear models and chi-squared tests of association. Results indicate that expressions of gender and status are closely related, with women demonstrating status in ways that are most visible archaeologically. The role of weaver and warrior are closely related to feminine and masculine gender, respectively. Other roles, such as equestrian, are also limited by status. Statistical relationships between gender, status, and role confirm the intersectional nature of social identity in Dolenjska Hallstatt culture.Item Expanding knowledge of late prehistoric lifeways in Northeastern Florida : new developments and future research in St. Johns II archaeology(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2025) Johns, Sherman Lee, Jr.; VanPool, ToddThis dissertation examines the St. Johns II culture, a late prehistoric fisher-hunter- gatherer group in northeastern Florida during the Mississippian Period (AD 900--1500). Focusing on the Mill Cove Complex, the study integrates lithic and zooarchaeological analyses to explore social behaviors, material culture, and environmental adaptations. The research builds on prior work by Dr. Keith Ashley, addressing gaps in understanding St. Johns II lifeways through a detailed lithic typology, debitage analysis, and comparative study of small triangular points. These analyses reveal insights into tool production, raw material sourcing, and regional interactions, challenging traditional culture-history interpretations. Additionally, excavations at the Caracasi site illuminate subsistence strategies and adaptive responses to the St. Johns River environment. The study situates St. Johns II within the broader Mississippian social landscape, highlighting their distinct practices amid regional trends like increased sedentism and trade. This foundational work establishes a framework for future research into St. Johns II social networks, mobility, and cultural dynamics, contributing to a nuanced understanding of prehistoric Florida.Item Whooping cough among Western Cree and Ojibwa fur-trading communities in subarctic Canada : a mathematical-modeling approach(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2004) Williams, Emily G.; Sattenspiel, Lisa"European colonization of the New World, the Americas and Oceania, had a vast influence on the native people of the Americas--both epidemiologically and demographically (Kunitz, 1994). The European domination of the New World was assisted, and in some cases achieved, by the infectious diseases that they carried with them to the Americas and Oceania. The arrival of Old World diseases to the New World resulted in pandemics that devastated and demoralized certain indigenous populations (Ramenofsky, 1987). These are known as virgin-soil epidemics because indigenous populations in the Americas had no previously acquired immunity to these infectious diseases (Crosby, 1976). This thesis uses a computer model to explore the effect of a virgin-soil epidemic in a native population. Epidemic models of two Canadian fur-trade communities were made which reflected the unique structure of each. The first community modeled was the Moose Factory post and nearby Albany in the James Bay area of Ontario and their fur-rich hinterlands during the 1850s. The second community under examination was the Norway House post of the Keewatin District of Manitoba during the period of 1918-1919. Figure 1.1 shows the study communities in their respective provinces within Canada. These communities were chosen because ethnographic data in the Hudson Bay Journals as well as parish records were available for the years under study Pertussis, or whooping cough, and influenza are simulated in these community models. The reasons for choosing pertussis are four-fold. First, pertussis was a significant and threatening infectious disease before the advent of vaccines; and second, an actual pertussis epidemic occurred at Moose Factory during the time period under study (1852-1862). The Hudson’s Bay Company Post Journals contain notations of an epidemic of whooping cough at Moose Factory in 1858--a time at which the Anglican Church parish records for Moose Factory became more accurate (Hoppa, 1998). Third, census data for Moose Factory was available for the year 1857. The fourth and last reason for choosing whooping cough for computer model simulations is that results from simulations of pertussis for the Moose Factory and Norway House regions can provide excellent insights into not only infectious diseases before the introduction of vaccines, but also how the structure of a community can affect the outcome of an infectious disease outbreak. Influenza was chosen as a comparison to pertussis for two reasons. The first is that influenza has been modeled by Sattenspiel and Herring (1998) for Norway House, Oxford House, and God’s Lake and these can be compared and to the pertussis simulations for the Norway House model in this thesis. Second, results from simulations of different diseases for the same communities can provide insight into how influenza and pertussis differ in terms of the severity of their epidemics. Comparisons of models of infectious disease, such as pertussis and influenza, can help provide an understanding of virgin-soil epidemics where few historical and ethnohistorical data exist."--Introduction.Item The cross-cultural use of poison by hunter-gatherers(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2024) Tapia, Niko Antonio; Walker, RobHuman beings are extremely proficient at utilizing every available tool in their surrounding environment in creative ways. Poison is a perfect example of these creative solutions being directed at the ever-present problem of extracting food from the landscape. This comparative analysis examines how poison is used to assist in food extraction technologies of the groups from Lewis Binford's dataset of 339 hunter-gatherer groups (information on poison use or not is available for 118 of these groups). Using this categorical data, I address the research question: what is the relationship between plant diversity, latitude, and the productive use of poison to aid in traditional food extraction? This study examines how traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) plays a role in the use of poison as a resource to aid in food acquisition, as well as how the community protects itself from the danger of accidental poisonings. This paper aims to shed light on the transmission of information within these groups on how this resource can remain effective without being a detriment. While several instances of poison use for hunting purposes are well known, such as the Hadza and various groups in Amazonia, my aim to understand how geographically widespread this hunting practice is. The study also touches on Optimal Foraging Theory and how poison assists hunters in having tools that are more lethal, and because of this heightened lethality, they are more efficient at extracting food from the environment. My initial hypothesis was that latitude would be a strong predictor for where we would find poison use, in particular lower latitudinal regions. I hypothesized that plant diversity could have some predictive abilities for poison use, however, my assumption was it would be far weaker than latitude. Poison use is a well spread hunting technology around the globe, out of 118 groups 83 (70 percent) use poison while 35 (29.6 percent) do not. Poison is not a localized hunting technology, but a widespread cross culturally used technology.Item Spirit roads of Taraco : a geographic information systems approach to the archaeology and ethnography of the Andean Plateau(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2024) Burkett, Justin Morgan; VanPool, ChristineDespite long traditions of landscape and ethnoarchaeological research in the Andes, these two traditions are rarely combined into a landscape ethnoarchaeology. My thesis fills this gap by evaluating contemporary Aymara landscape knowledge obtained through interviews to interpret spatial patterns in archaeological data collected from the Andean Plateau. I derive relevant variables from 13 interviews with Aymara speakers and integrate them with a set of ArcGIS point features that represent the archaeological sites of Bolivia's Taraco Peninsula in a Geographic Information System (GIS) framework, all courtesy of the Taraco Archaeological Project (TAP). Theoretically, this thesis combines the landscape and memory theory of Basso (1996), Van Dyke (2008), and Zedeno (2008) with an archaeology of materiality (Meskell 2008) and utilizes a qualitative GIS method that provides a means of analyzing subjective data gathered from interviews in the quantitative space of a GIS. By combining Aymara knowledge and archaeological data in a GIS framework, I will correlate modern Aymara spatial understandings of the landscape with spatial distribution of archaeological sites, revealing how patterns align between Aymara knowledge of the landscape and previous landscape archaeological analysis in the Southern Titicaca Basin.