. The primary goal of this work is to evaluate the evidence for feasting at a Late Preceramic site. The identification of feasting activities provides a way of examining the social practices, ritual and political, of the people who built Buena Vista...

It is possible to assess important archaeological questions about prehistoric individuals and groups, learning a great deal about their lives through bioarchaeological analysis of human skeletal remains. This dissertation analyzes a skeletal...

Chapter 1 Presents a brief summary of recent theory and research into religion from evolutionary cognitive psychology and behavioral ecology. Chapter 2 addresses the debate over whether religion is an adaptation directly favored by natural selection...

and the Missouri State Historic Office, a method is developed that allows paleozoological data to be used to assist modern conservation biology through biogeographic range reconstruction and historic landcover associations. This project reconstructs the precontact...

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 represented on three...

The discovery of small-bodied hominin fossils in 2004 on the island of Flores, Indonesia, unearthed a large debate within biological anthropology. This debate has exemplified that there are questions and research areas that biological...

. By the early 1900s, North American black bears (Ursus americanus) were extirpated from Missouri. Modern efforts to restore this species to the region are guided by the assumption that extant extra-local black bear ecology accurately depicts native Missouri...

Occupational concentrations within regions have the capability to influence infectious disease transmission as they shape the way humans interact within a community. The 1918 influenza pandemic is widely discussed as the "World's Most Deadly...

This research attempts to reconstruct the extent of prehistoric human interaction within the lower Chattahoochee-Apalachicola River valley and neighboring Gulf Coast for the period spanning 200 B.C. to A.D. 1000. Using evolutionary models...

contemporaneity. Compositional studies show that glaze wares and their ingredients were often transported around the landscape, driven by a mix of ritualistic and economic factors, but utility wares were also a common component of daily Pueblo activities...

nursing homes. Two dimensions, a home/hospital dimension, and a generalized/specialized knowledge dimension defined the spatial configuration of terms and attributes....

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 of a series of agentbased...

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 botanical remains from...

of habitual and/or strenuous activities. It is assumed that populations engaged in different forms of subsistence will express characteristic muscle marker patterns. This hypothesis was tested by analyzing a series of 60 variables collected from 145 (70 male...

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] This dissertation focuses on traditional postpartum care and its variation across different human populations using an evolutionary framework. Whereas traditional healthcare may...

by autosomal SNP population genetic distance using univariate Bayesian linear mixed models, and credible intervals were calculated for each trait. Results: Analysis confirmed a relationship between specific traits and climate as well as the magnitude...

The Amazonian Slash-and-Burn Model and the Succession Model, both agentbased models, were developed to help address how much influence prehistoric Amazonian populations practicing slash-and-burn cultivation had on their ...

from skeletal assemblages excavated from numerous Arikara archaeological sites along the Missouri River in South Dakota. These assemblages were selected for this study because they represent a single, culturally and genetically affiliated population...

Bony morphological features have been used to reflect biomechanical behavioral patterns among archaeological populations. Of most recent ones is the anterior femoral curvature (AFC). It has been proposed as a valid indicator for mobility and differs...