Purpose: Craniosacral therapy is used to treat conditions ranging from headache pain and temporomandibular dysfunction to developmental disabilities. It is based, in part, on the biological premise that physical manipulation of the meninges through the cranial vault sutures with low levels of force (~5gms) alters the rhythmic fluctuation of cerebrospinal fluid and intracranial pressure (ICP). The present study was designed to test this hypothesis by simulating a craniosacral frontal lift technique and measuring cranial bone movement at the coronal suture and resultant ICP changes in a rabbit model. Methods: Thirteen adult New Zealand white rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) were anesthetized for the duration of the study and 1.2mm "Y" microplates were fixed to the frontal and parietal bones on either side of the coronal suture using 4mm long screws. The ends of the plates were secured to a base plate caudally and to an Instrom load cell rostrally. Continuous epidural ICP measurements were made using a NeuroMonitor transducer positioned through a burr hole in the parietal bone. Distractive loads of 5, 10, 15, and 20 grams were applied sequentially at a rate of 0.5mm/minute to the coronal suture. Baseline and distraction radiographs and ICP were obtained. One subject underwent additional distractive force loads of 100, 500, 1000, 2000, 5000, and 10,000 grams. Plate separation was measured using a digital caliper from the radiographs. Two-way ANOVA was used to assess significant differences in ICP and suture movement. Results: No significant differences were noted between baseline and distraction suture separation (F=0.045; p>0.05) and between baseline and distraction ICP (F=0.279; p>0.05) at any load. No significant (p>0.05) correlations were noted among distractive load, plate movement, and ICP. In the single subject that underwent additional, higher distractive forces, movement across the coronal suture was not seen until the 10,000 gram force which produced 0.91 mm of separation but no ICP changes. Conclusion: Low loads of force, similar to those used clinically when performing a craniosacral frontal lift technique, resulted in no significant changes in coronal suture movement or ICP in rabbits. These results suggest a different biological basis for Craniosacral Therapy should be explored.

Politics in Eastern Europe has become increasingly defined by apparent paradoxes, such as majority voting for the ex-communist parties in the early 1990s and strong support for populists and the radical right later in the 1990s and 2000s. The tendency in political science studies is to speak about the losers of transition, and to explain success of the ex-communist, radical and populist parties and politicians in terms of the politics of resentment or protest voting. However, what subjectivities have been produced during post-socialism and why/how they are articulated in particular dialogues among politicians and people, are questions that have not been discussed in most studies. In this dissertation I explore political subjectivities to explain voting behavior in the period of 2003-2004 in Lithuania. I analyze nostalgia for socialism and individuals relations to social and political history, community, nation, and the state. I argue that voting is an enactment of a social text or a performance of social history, in which a subject embodies his/her experience and knowledge. Voting is a meaningful action not just a protest. Electoral politics is a semantic and symbolic competition. My analysis is informed by phenomenology, semiotics, interpretative anthropology, post-structuralist theory as well as post-socialist and post-colonial studies. The research was conducted in 2003-2004 in three village communities and the cities of Vilnius and Kaunas, Lithuania.

A significant focus of bioarchaeology is biodistance analysis, which seeks to determine the biological affinities of human groups and to support arguments about prehistoric and historic cultural topics, such as migration, marriage, and residential patterns. Although genetic comparisons are becoming more common, metric and nonmetric skeletal traits remain the primary source of information on human populations. Biodistance analysis is grounded theoretically and methodologically in phenetics, which is an approach developed by systematists to group organisms on the basis of overall similarity. However, while phenetics was adopted by physical anthropologists and bioarchaeologists as the foundation of biodistance analysis, systematists have long since moved away from phenetic approaches for determining relatedness to hypothetico-deductively based cladistic analyses. It is time for physical anthropologists and bioarchaeologists engaged in biodistance analysis do so as well. It is perhaps an irony that biodistance analysis, which seeks to delineate the biological relationships of group, begins by defining the groups (samples) on the basis of archaeological, cultural, or linguistic information prior to any morphological/biological comparison. However, the delineation and comparison of groups should be based from the beginning on the biology (morphology) of individuals and then of groups and, more specifically, on unique biological features, not cultural or linguistic criteria. A cladistic analysis can provide a biologically based delineation of groups. In this study I investigate whether unique, nonmetric characters can be delineated for small groups such as those traditionally the focus of biodistance analysis and, thus, whether cladistic analysis is an appropriate substitute for the phenetic approach in biodistance analysis. Four samples of skeletal material were examined. One, the Spitalfields collection, consists of burials of individuals whose familial relationships are well documented. The other samples are undocumented and compared to the Spitalfields sample in an attempt to delineate unique characters that might define groups. The result was that no unique characters could be delineated, which means that cladistic analysis, while perhaps applicable to study of higher-level groups within the species, fails at the population level. Consequently, while unsatisfactory, biodistance analysis must continue to rely on abiological criteria for defining populations.

This dissertation examines the emergence of the ethnohistorically documented Quijos chiefdoms, in the eastern Ecuadorian Andes. It evaluates different alternatives that link the rise of centralized leadership with the organization of agricultural production. To this end I reconstructed the demographic history of a 137 km² region through a full coverage systematic survey, and the patterns of food production and consumption through the analysis of pollen, phytoliths and macroremains from the excavation of 31 tests at locations representing different environmental setting and settlement types. Based on a ceramic chronology established for this project (through the analysis of ceramic materials from 15 test pits and associated carbon dates) I propose a sequence starting at about 600 B.C., with the first manifestations of a regional system of centralized authority appearing after about 500 A.D. The most distinctive expression of this is what appear to be central places in each one of the three subregions encompassed by the survey. The analysis of botanical remains at these locations, and at others representing smaller and peripheral settlements did not show, however, signs of economic differentiation in terms of production or consumption patterns. Thus neither the varying local environmental conditions nor social status, alone or combined, produced distinctive agrarian practices or foodways. Along the same lines, the central places do not seem to have emerged as a strategic move towards controlling agricultural resources, and evidence of staple mobilization or trade networks involving the circulation of local or foreign durable prestige goods is null. Additionally, an analysis of a sample of obsidian artifacts collected through survey and excavations suggests that closeness to source, rather than status, determined the abundance of obsidian materials, while manufacture technology seems to have been standard across settlement types. I propose that frameworks that emphasize the control of economic resources or the importance of specialization of production in the development of complex societies are not useful for characterizing the social and political dynamics of the emerging Quijos chiefdoms, and that current understandings of this region as a hub of exchange activity can be readdressed in light of these findings.

This research examines Indonesian cultural conceptions of HIV/AIDS, including perceptions of risk. Two years of fieldwork allowed for an in-depth assessment of three diverse and important populations in Jogjakarta, Indonesia: (1) female sex workers, (2) waria, Indonesias third-gender, and (3) university students. Surveys (N=413) and interviews (N=60) were partnered with anthropological participant observation to form a more holistic understanding of the impact and efficacy of available HIV/AIDS education programs. Results suggest that Western notions of risk are utilized to define, construct, and fund HIV/AIDS education programs throughout the archipelago. These constructions often fail to adequately consider Indonesian cultural conceptions relating to HIV/AIDS. This dissertation problematizes notions of high-risk groups, as well as high-risk behaviors. An anthropological understanding of the nuances of local cultural perceptions around HIV and risk helps to illustrate how Western notions of risk are incompatible with local Indonesian realities. For instance, fieldwork with Indonesian sex workers illuminates the importance of understanding identity as it applies to perceived risk. Islamic ideas of polygyny often create an acceptable non-risky identity for sex workers as lesser wives. Information collected from and about Indonesias third gender illustrates how cultural categories within the parameters of religious ideologies allows a niche market in which sex with a waria, not being between a man and a woman, is not considered sex nor high-risk. Interviews with Indonesian university students exemplify how local realities and definitions of high-risk sex and low-risk monogamy often differ greatly from the definitions assumed by HIV/AIDS prevention and education programs. HIV/AIDS programs based on Western biomedical and cultural models can create pockets of misinformation and confusion when they fail to fully incorporate critical Indonesian cultural categories, identities, and definitions. Results of this study suggest that more effective HIV/AIDS educational programs in Indonesia would result from recognizing: (a) the multifaceted identities of the people for whom programs are provided; (b) the importance of cultural categories and how they operate within complex state and religious ideologies; and (c) that cultural and programmatic definitions of risk are often inconsistent. Understanding Indonesian cultural conceptions allows for a deeper understanding of effective ways to implement culturally sensitive and appropriate HIV/AIDS programs and policies throughout the archipelago.

Drawing on theoretical perspectives in critical medical anthropology, this dissertation focuses on the intersection between Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), aging and identity in urban China. It gives special attention to elderly peoples embodied agency in assimilating, challenging, and resisting political and social discourses about getting old. In most general terms my argument is that embodied agency is expressed by participating in daily health regimens referred to as yangsheng. With its origins in ancient Chinese medical texts and health practices, but also having incorporated many modern elements, yangsheng may be understood as a system of beliefs and practices designed for self-health cultivation. In light of major anthropological theories that provide an understanding of biopower, somatization and agency my argument is two fold. First, the state discourse on healthy aging, prompted by social, economic and demographic changes, has had a tremendous effect on how the elderly think and act with reference to their physical and mental health. Second, the elderly have adopted a life style known as yangsheng, and this enables them to engage actively with the state discourse and institutionalized, commercialized medicine. As a broad way of thinking and living that exists beyond the domain of medicine per se, yangsheng enables the elderly to maintain a positive attitude towards aging. More importantly, in a context of significant demographic and policy changes toward health care and social support for the aged, it provides modes of thinking and various practical methods for the elderly to take an active role in building up, maintaining and restoring their health. Therefore, TCM based yangsheng not only grants the elderly an alternative to, or escape from, the expense and alienation of institutionalized medicine; it also allows for more control over the social, economic and cultural implications of aging in todays China. Drawing upon interviews with elderly people who have actively sought alternatives to institutionalized health care, this research provides an important anthropological corrective to the literature that tends to presume the universality of what are in fact arbitrary categorizations such as being either healthy or sick and either old or young. I argue that both good health and aging are things that can be proactively and creatively negotiated.

In 1999, the Japanese government began approving the use of SSRIs, those antidepressant medications including Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil that had years earlier triggered the Prozac Revolution in the United States. Before then, depression was not commonly diagnosed in Japan, and it was argued that the infrequency was due to cultural factors. Since 1999, however, rates of diagnosis have surged and depression has garnered increasing attention in the popular media. As a result, the mainstream conception of depression is shifting from that of a serious mental illness affecting a small number of individuals to a less severe condition from which virtually anyone can suffer. In short, depression is becoming normalized. Based on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork in clinical settings in Tokyo from 2001 to 2003, this dissertation argues that Japan is fertile ground for the normalization of depression and that depression is increasingly resonating because of its ability to encapsulate the pressures and insecurity that are dominating the lives of many individuals. This normalization represents a medicalized response to a variety of novel stresses especially layoffs, financial insecurity, and overwork that many citizens are facing in the new millennium, with many of these stresses stemming from Japans ongoing economic restructuring. Depression is emerging as a means of discussing the impact of these stresses on the lives of working adults, especially men. The increasing focus on depression, therefore, represents changes in social experience and the increasing recognition of those changes. By showing the degree to which the emerging understandings of depression in Japan are embedded in the socio-economic context and by comparing Japans depression boom with Americas Prozac Revolution, this dissertation examines depressions capacity to operate as an idiom of distress within which modes of personal suffering are imbricated with wider socio-economic forces.

According to the early Chinese textual accounts, the polities of the Central Plain beginning in the Zhou, colonized the territory north of the Wei River, through the Ordos Region under the Great Bend of the Yellow River and north to the borders of modern Mongolia. The historical model suggested that military expansion and cultural diffusion expanded the agricultural lifeway of the empire through population replacement, but the texts do not describe the local social and political environment into which these policies were imposed. Liangcheng County, in central Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region, is an excellent location to study the integration of populations into the Central Plain political system (500 BCE200 CE). Archaeological survey provides the diachronic perspective that is necessary to examine the process of integration and to facilitate an understanding of how the intrusive social systems affected the indigenous social and political environment. During the chaotic Warring States period, Central Plain bureaucrats co-opted the feudal manor system of the Western Zhou and created a system of compact villages that assisted administrative control and increased agricultural production. The data here suggest that it is the village system that is exported to Liangcheng. Although the traditional interpretation suggests population replacement, in Liangcheng a settlement system characterized by single family homesteads on land that is not productive for agriculture persists from the Neolithic to the Han Dynasty period. The combination of new farming villages introduced during the Warring States period and the persistence of dispersed homestead sites suggests a gradual process of acculturation to Central Plain social norms, not a wholesale replacement of population. Not until the Han Dynasty does a majority of the populace move into villages on the best agricultural lands. The stability of the settlement pattern from the Neolithic into the Warring States period in similar locations that are not particularly advantageous for agriculture suggests that indigenous subsistence systems changed little until the Han Dynasty, implying that in Liangcheng, subsistence responded not to environmental fluctuation, but to social and political change.

Since the advent of the Disability Rights Movement in the 1960s and 1970s, practitioners and scholars have sought ways of conceptualizing disability and understanding the strategies employed in its management. The push for a rights-based approach to disability first begun in North America and Europe has become globalized, influencing the discourse, strategies, and day-to-day activities of international policy-making bodies, non-governmental organizations working on disability, and individuals with disabilities worldwide. Scholarship within disability studies has fixed attention on a small range of models for explaining the meanings and experience of disability. However, the adequacy of these models in describing the relationship between international institutions, disability organizations, and individuals with disabilities has not been examined. Similarly, scholars have not examined the influence these different theoretical models have on the everyday work of organizations working with individuals with disabilities. This paper explores the way in which two organizations in South Asia have framed and defined organizational goals and a rights based approach to disability. It employs ethnographic data from preliminary field projects in Kathmandu, Nepal and Delhi, India to examine the underlying theoretical models of disability that each organization operationalizes through its programming. Analysis of each organizations values, programming, and disability discourse suggests that organizations are differently defining disability rights, leading to heterogeneity in the types of services available to people with disabilities. I suggest that this heterogeneity in available services across organizations, as well as within a single organization is the product of organizations employing different theoretical understandings of the meaning of disability. However, programming opportunities available to an individual with a disability not only stem from different theoretical models of disability, but also forge new hybrid models of disability that incorporate multiple theoretical constructs in order to address the challenges facing individuals with disability. This suggests that disability organizations are actively engaged in defining and transforming disability policy and discourse at the local level and beyond. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications these findings have on how we understand and study disability, as well as design and implement services for individuals with disabilities.

The focus of this research is the Hongshan period (ca. 45003000 BCE) chiefly community of Fushanzhuang, centered on a group of elite burial mounds and other monuments, located in the Chifeng region of eastern Inner Mongolia. Our purpose was to determine to what degree, if any, inter-household economic specialization (as opposed to ritual specialization) underwrote the emergence of social hierarchy at Fushanzhuang, and perhaps more generally during the Hongshan period. Fieldwork began with an intensive systematic survey for, and the intensive surface artifact collection of, a large sample of the core communitys constituent households. These data, along with those collected during subsequent micro-regional surface survey for additional outlying settlement, were used to estimate Fushanzhuangs duration of occupation, and its areal and demographic parameters. From analysis of surface-collected lithic artifacts we identified five distinct economic emphasesor specializationsamong households at Fushanzhuang. These emphases include initial tool production, tool finishing, tertiary tool production/maintenance, agricultural production, and generalism. Additional analyses of lithic reduction provided corroboration for these different activities. From analyses of ceramic decoration, paste, and vessel type, as well as information on personal ornaments, we inferred the presence of differences in both status and wealth accumulation between households, two dimensions of social ranking that did not correlate with one another. We also found that economic specialization did not co-vary with higher status at Fushanzhuang. Most of Fushanzhuangs higher status households were among its least specialized in terms of their activities. Nearly all higher status households were also among its least wealthy. In contrast, its most specialized householdsespecially those engaged in stone tool productiontended to be among the communitys wealthiest. Only a very few of these, however, also appear to have enjoyed higher than average social standing. These findings suggest two separate but co-extant social hierarchies in Hongshan society: one based on the accumulation of wealth via economic specialization, the other based on something elseperhaps ritual authority. Thus, although economic specialization contributed to community coalescence, and to the creation of wealth differentials at Fushanzhuang, it cannot be said to have exclusively underwritten the development of social hierarchy there.