The purpose of this research was to: (1) reconstruct climate for the malpais region from long-lived trees and remnant wood; (2) reconstruct the fire history of forests in the malpais; and (3) investigate short-term and long-term relationships between wildfire and climate. To reconstruct climate, I calibrated a 2,129 year long tree-ring chronology (136 BC - AD 1992) with annual rainfall (previous July to current July). Since AD 100, seven major long-term trends in rainfall occurred. Above normal rainfall occurred during AD 81-257, 521-660, 1024-1398 and 179 1- 1992, while below normal rainfall occurred during AD 258-520, 661-1023 and 1399- 1790. The prolonged drought from AD 258-520 was unsurpassed in its intensity, while rainfall during the most recent 200 years has exceeded any since AD 660. The reconstruction of long-term climate trends confirmed the general sequence of environmental change over the last 2,000 years for the southern Colorado Plateau. To reconstruct past fire occurrences, 217 fire-scarred trees were collected from nine sites representing the major habitat types of the malpais and dendrochronologically dated. Fire frequency was highest at sites on cinder cones and on the highly-weathered basalt flows (ca. once every five years), and lowest on the isolated kipukas and on the Hoya de Cibola Lava Flow (once every 10-12 years). Fire frequency decreased along a north to south gradient, reflecting changing vegetation properties. Combined information revealed fire occurred once every two years, while more widespread fires occurred once every 2.5 years. Fires were largely asynchronous between sites, suggesting the malpais landscape effectively hinders fire spread. Past fire history at El Malpais was characterized by four temporally distinct periods: (1) FH-1 (prior to 1782): high fire frequency, patchy fires, throughout the growing season; (2) FH-2 (1795 - 1880): longer fire intervals, widespread fires, mostly early season fires; (3) FH-3 (1893 - 1939): even longer intervals, decreased widespread fires; (4) FH-4 (1940 - 1992): longest fire-free periods during the last 600 years. The increase in rainfall and the simultaneous change in fire regimes ca. 1790 was likely related to an increase in summer monsoonal rainfall due to changes in hemispheric circulation patterns. The decrease in fire spread ca. 1880 was most likely due to intense sheep grazing, while the change ca. 1940 reflects greater efficiency in fire suppression techniques. The presettlement fire regime emphasizes that the current absence of fire in the monument exceeds the historical range of variability established for the presettlement period. Unless effects of past humanrelated disturbances are mitigated, fire regimes of El Malpais will continue to favor high-intensity, catastrophic fires.

The diploma work is focused on financing of cultural monuments which are privately owned. The paper defines the notion of cultural monuments and obligations of the owner resulting from the legislation. Included are the general conditions for obtaining grants. Funding of restoration of cultural monuments can be obtained from the state budget, municipal budgets, EU funds and EEA / Norway Financial Mechanism. Another option is to cooperate with socially responsible companies. The findings were applied to the cultural monument Jarošův mlýn and the specific options applicable to this monument are suggested. The biggest obstacles to obtaining the grants are mentioned.

North American black bears (U. americanus) and brown bears (U. arctos) can be difficult to distinguish in the fossil record due to similar dental and skeletal morphologies. Challenges identifying ursid material from Oregon Caves National Monument (ORCA) called for an accurate tool to distinguish the species. Ursid teeth have a high degree of variability and morphological features are not always diagnostic. This study utilized a large database of lower tooth lengths (p4, m1, m2, and m3) and ratios (p4/m1, m2/m1, m3/m1, p4/m3, m2/m3) in an attempt to differentiate U. americanus and U. arctos in North America. Further, this project examined how these linear measurements differ in response to ecoregion, latitude, and climate. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) found significant differences between U. americanus and U. arctos from across North America for every variable studied. Stepwise discriminant analyses (DA) found lengths separated species better than ratios with 99.1% correct classification versus 77.5% correct classification for ratios. When sexes were analyzed, ANOVA only found significant differences for lengths while DA found lengths and ratios could not accurately distinguish between sexes; only 72.1% of sexes were classified correctly while utilizing lengths and 61% for ratios. Seventeen previously identified fossil specimens from across North America, in addition to the ORCA specimen, demonstrated the utility of this study, confirming several identifications and rejecting others, proposing the need for new designations.

Diploma work consists of a realization of a light installation in the landscape and to realize a riding monument in an urban environment.

The gallery graves in Kronoberg county, Småland, are well known and archaeologists have been studying them since the 19th century. They were built in the Late Neolithic but this essay studies how these monuments were used in the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. A total number of 73 monuments have been analyzed. During the Early Bronze Age, the elite of the society was buried with high status metal objects in the gallery graves. Studies of the same kind of monuments in the neighboring county of Scania demonstrate that here they were used by the non-elite indicating variations in-between neighboring regions. Also, in the Late Bronze Age and in the Iron Age the gallery graves in Kronoberg county were used for burials, but these graves are generally less spectacular. The results demonstrate that the gallery graves in Kronoberg county have a long-term use and that the use of the monuments changed through time. The monuments’ biography begins in the late Neolithic and continues to the present, from being a monument and a grave to a gravel pit or a dump and now it is protected by law and an object of study.

In August of 2012, the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) sent a letter to President Barack Obama asking him to designate the Greater Canyonlands National Monument (GCNM). The proposed 1.4 million acre national monument would surround the already present 337,570 acre Canyonlands National Park, and would include public lands/waterways from five Utah counties. The OIA’s goal for the GCNM is to preserve the landscape for quality outdoor recreation by decreasing the amount of off-highway vehicle use and to eliminate the possibility of oil/gas drilling and mining. Given the proposal highlights outdoor recreation use benefits as the main catalyst for justification of additional conservation/protection of lands surrounding Canyonlands National Park, this study surveyed recreationists in the Indian Creek Corridor—an area within the boundaries of the proposed GCNM—to explore their attitudes toward the GCNM and the management of the area. This study examined how environmental orientation, place dependence, place identity, residential proximity, and recreational activity type related to attitudes toward the GCNM. Environmental orientation and residential proximity were both good predictors of attitudes toward the GCNM and the management of the Greater Canyonlands area. More biocentric-oriented people, and people who lived farther away from the Greater Canyonlands area, were more likely to have favorable attitudes toward the GCNM and were more opposed to land uses such as mining and energy development. In addition, visitors were largely “unsure” if the GCNM should be designated. Visitors felt most strongly that if the GCNM is going to be designated, the process of designation, the land that would be included, and management of the GCNM should be agreed upon by stakeholders before the monument is designated. This suggests a quick designation via public proclamation under the Antiquities Act of 1906 could largely exacerbate the already present conflict over public land management in the region, which would create an even more difficult environment for federal land managers.

This study deals with runic carvings as a monument. Through map studies I try to locate runic carvings near water and other remains from the viking age. Previous research has put their focus on the inscription and not as much on the monument itself. The monument stands there in the landscape and communicates with its own appearance. During the Viking Age, communication by waterways was important as the roads on land were not the best. The starting point for this study was a waterway from the Baltic Sea to Mälaren through Södermanland county in Sweden. This waterway consists of several lakes and smaller streams. This study is an attempt to investigate and discuss the possible role of runic carvings along Viking Age water communication routes.

This is a public history study of statues and monuments, and the stories they commemorate. “Teedyuscung, a Man, a Statue” examines, specifically, Native American statue and monument commemorations. I begin with the Tedyuscung Statue in Philadelphia’s Wissahickon Valley. In examining this statue and story surrounding it, I ask: Who does this statue represent? How does the Tedyuscung Statue affect passerby’s collective memory of Native American cultures and peoples? And how does the Tedyuscung Statue facilitate the creation and construction of an artificial, imagined, and colonized Indigenous space and place in Philadelphia’s Wissahickon Valley? In answering these questions, I examine how and why Teedyuscung, the man, was cast as an actor in the Wissahickon Valley’s history. I transition next into a broad study of Native American commemorative statue and monuments, such as: The Statue of Tamanend, Philadelphia, PA; The Nez Perce 1831 St. Louis Delegation Memorial monument, St. Louis, MO; the Kindred Spirits sculpture, County Cork, Ireland; and the Dignity: Of Earth and Sky sculpture, Chamberlain, SD. Through examining these studies, I answer several questions: How are Native American peoples represented in commemorative statues and monuments today? And further, do all Native American commemorations relay similar forms of Indigenous silence and erasure? This thesis, ultimately, reveals that statues and monuments can reclaim Indigenous space and place, narrating the stories Native Americans seek to tell. And, that statues and monuments can, conversely, create imagined spaces that silence Native Americans stories and histories. / History

This thesis work is a discussion on the relations between architecture and ideologies. Architecture possesses the unequivocal social and cultural power to produce representations of political coexistence through exemplary forms of built reality. As such, Architecture becomes a tool of communication; it can manifest power and  embody ideologies.Throughout history we can observe how political ideas influenced our built reality. A period in which architecture became a crucial role in forming national identities, were the fascist movements in Italy and Germany. Still today, these ideas can be traced in form of buildings and architecture; a ‚problematic heritage‘ which has to be discussed. For my thesis project, the Congress Hall on the Nazi Party Rally Ground in Nuremberg served as a case study. A building which was constructed to manifest an abhorrent ideology, but also a building with greatest architectural qualities. The repulsive attitude towards Nazism cannot be challenged. However, the built heritage that manifests this attitude is still part of our built environment. This statement lead me to my thesis question; How can a building be freed from its subservient ideologies and forces, it was built for? A very sensitive and difficult question. Architecture, buildings and material can not be fascistic, but intentions can be. The only possibility to dissociate the building from the ideology it was built for, is to associate it with new ones. My proposal should not be understood as a final solution, but much rather as an opportunity to test new strategies and learnings. In the design process I took the freedom I have as a student; I tested totalitarian design methods, focused on the qualities of the building and studied the question of the autonomy of architecture.

The Pueblo I period (A.D. 750-900) was a time of widespread change in population and settlement organization in the Northern San Juan region of the American Southwest. One major distinguishing feature of the Pueblo I period is the rapid appearance of villages in the late A.D. 700s. Monument Village in southeastern Utah was excavated by Brigham Young University in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but has never been adequately described. Monument Village has a substantial early Pueblo I occupation but the dating of various structures and the size of the overall settlement are unclear. This thesis re-examines architectural and ceramic data from Monument Village and compares Monument Village to better documented early Pueblo I Villages in the Northern San Juan region. Monument Village does appear to have been a small village comparable to other villages that formed in the early Pueblo I period.