Historically, the introduction of childhood diseases such as measles or smallpox resulted in the infection of nearly every susceptible individual in a community. While smallpox has long been considered the deadlier of the ...

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] This thesis uses correspondence analysis and vessel wall-thickness time trends to investigate the type and location of decoration on the lips of pottery ...

The northern area of the Casas Grandes Medio Period (A.D. 1200-1450) was not well known archaeologically. 76 Draw is on the border of the Casas Grandes and Salado (A.D. 1275-1450) regions and the nature of interaction and ...

The three studies presented below address the relationships that exist between prehistoric population dynamics, settlement organization, climate, and subsistence in the central and lower Mississippi River valley and adjacent ...

This dissertation investigated alloparental care in two societies. Most prior research on alloparental care finds that close kin, matrilateral kin (especially grandmothers) are more frequent and more beneficial alloparents ...

Investigating intrinsic properties as determinants of bone survival has major implications in forensic anthropology. It is useful in the incomplete recovery of a skeleton to know if certain bones that are missing are those ...

This project contributes to our understanding of human adaptability to environmental stress and climate change in Long House Valley and Black Mesa, Arizona from AD 800-1350. This was accomplished through the development ...

Fluctuating asymmetry (FA) has been advanced as a tool for investigating the developmental instability of human populations and has more recently found its way into bioarchaeological investigations. The research presented ...

Cryptic species look morphologically similar but in fact are several different species lumped together. This is problematic as it hinders conservation efforts and makes it challenging to infer the evolutionary history of ...

Evaluating socioeconomic status in complex societies using zooarchaeological data has been the focus of several studies in the past two decades. Taking a novel approach that uses a theoretically informed model and food ...

Recent studies use geometric morphometrics, the quantitative study of shape and its variation, to examine aspects of the archaeological record. This thesis builds on such applications by applying morphometrics to the ...

This research tested the hypothesis that it is possible to differentiate fishers from farmers using muscle marker patterns. Muscle markers are imprints (tuberosities, grooves, and/or bony projections) left on the skeleton ...

An epidemic of scarlet fever on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada between 1875 and 1877 is analyzed in the context of a larger, world-wide pandemic of scarlet fever that occurred between 1825 and 1885. Data derived ...

Canine reduction in hominins is one of the original apomorphies to appear in hominin evolution. Canine crown size is sexually dimorphic in most primates, sexual dimorphism is linked strongly to sexual selection; therefore ...

This thesis is an examination of archaeobotanical remains from the Spoon Toe site, a Middle Woodland Massey phase site located in the uplands above the Lower Illinois River valley in Morgan County in western Illinois. The ...

The association of lumbosacral transitional vertebrae (LSTV) and low back pain, commonly referred to as Bertolotti's syndrome (Bertolotti, 1917), has a controversial history. LSTV are caused by the overlap or shift of ...

Agent-based modeling provides a new approach to the study of virgin soil epidemics like the 1918-1919 flu. By using this bottom-up simulation approach, a landscape can be created and populated with a heterogeneous group ...

This dissertation presents a new and practical method of adult age estimation with successful tests of its validity and repeatability. Six qualitative criteria evident in oral radiographs were developed from 37 subjects ...

In this project, an agent-based computer simulation was developed to model the spread of the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic within and among three Aboriginal communities in central Manitoba. Data from model simulations ...

This thesis employs microfossil data to add to our understanding of three factors (agricultural intensification, ritual, and trade) viewed as critical in the development of the Tiwanaku state during the preceding Formative ...