Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Biology and Anthropology, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Oct. 2, 2009). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-02, Section: A, page: 0604. Adviser: Frederika A. Kaestle.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Anthropology, 2006. / "Title from dissertation home page (viewed July 3, 2007)." Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-08, Section: A, page: 3047. Adviser: Della Cook.

This dissertation investigates why men in small-scale societies participate in warfare. The answer to this question has implications for understanding the role of war in our species’ history, as well as the evolution of cooperation. I explore this question through ethnographic research using data from small-scale societies. A central component of this research was undertaken through fieldwork among the Nyangatom, a group of pastoralists in East Africa still practicing small-scale warfare. Chapter One provides an introduction to the primary question of this dissertation. It also provides details on the methods used as well as background on the fieldwork I conducted. Chapter Two develops the cultural-rewards hypothesis, which posits that cultures encourage participation in warfare through the development of positive cultural incentives for warriors. It tests this hypothesis using cross-cultural data from 20 small-scale societies and shows a positive relationship between cultural reward systems and risk-taking in warfare. Chapter Three introduces the Nyangatom, a group of nomadic pastoralists living along the border of Ethiopia, South Sudan, and the Ilemi Triangle. Chapter Four provides a detailed ethnographic description of warfare among the Nyangatom, including the first documented account of many ritual elements in warfare for any Ateker group. Chapter Five focuses on the question of whether warriors have additional wives or children compared to other men. Over a lifetime, warriors who participated in more small livestock raids had a greater number of wives and children. Leaders of large raids, however, did not have an increased number of wives and children. Chapter Six evaluates the role of sanctions in motivating participation in raiding parties for three groups, including the Nyangatom. It shows a possibly important role of verbal sanctions for raiding party participation but provides little support for the importance of more serious sanctions. Chapter Seven summarizes the results of this dissertation and briefly sketches future research that will continue to explore the question of why individuals participate in intergroup conflict. / Human Evolutionary Biology

This dissertation seeks to reconstruct the distribution of Neanderthals and modern humans in time and geographic space in order to better understand the nature of interactions between the groups. Because human fossils from the Late Pleistocene are so rare, the biogeography of Neanderthals and moderns is primarily inferred from radiocarbon dates of archeological industries, which are assumed to have been made by one group or the other. Following this methodology, I critically reviewed published radiocarbon dates and produced new dates from active excavations in three regions: the Levant, Balkans, and Northeast Europe. The resulting regional chronologies were compared to the distributions of Neanderthals and moderns predicted from interaction models of no overlap, rapid replacement, and prolonged coexistence. The scenario of prolonged coexistence was subdivided into models of integration, displacement, and avoidance. Informative archaeological chronologies were produced for each region. In Northeast Europe, my new dates and site chronologies for Ciemna and Obłazowa Caves, Poland, suggest that the Middle Paleolithic ended before 45 kcalBP. In the greater region, a number of distinct assemblages appeared during Marine Isotope Stage 3 (MIS-3), but the duration and sequence of these industries is not well resolved due to the large uncertainties of the available chronometric dates. In the Levant, the dates and chronology reported here for Manot Cave, Israel, help to clarify the timing of Early Upper Paleolithic industries and test proposed migrations of modern humans between the Near East and Europe. Specifically, at Manot the Early Ahmarian industry was present by 46 kcalBP and the Levantine Aurignacian occurred between 37-35 kcalBP. However, it was the results from the Balkans that were most applicable to the interaction models proposed in this dissertation, and therefore most informative on the nature of Neanderthal-modern human interactions. The new dates from Pešturina, Hadži Prodanova, and Smolućka Caves, combined with published dates from other sites, suggest that Neanderthals and moderns overlapped for several thousand years in the Balkans. During this period of overlap the groups occupied distinct geographic zones, consistent with the models of prolonged coexistence by displacement or avoidance. The period of overlap ended by 39,000 calBP at the time of the Campanian Ignimbrite eruption and onset of the Heinrich Event 4 cold phase. / Anthropology

A surge in commercial wild mushroom extraction since the 1980s has precipitated a need for research that examines harvester culture and the ramifications to forest conservation. My research looks at harvest practices in two key areas of the Pacific Northwest: the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, and Northwest Oregon. The primary data for this study were collected using ethnographic methods. Semistructured and informal interviews were performed with harvesters in fifteen months of fieldwork spanning six years. Additional interviews were also done with mushroom buyers, forest managers, law enforcement, and other stakeholders. Participant observation of harvester-associated activities included joining them in the forest to pick mushrooms, camping together, visiting their homes, and interacting in various social activities. Harvesters are a diverse group of people in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, class, and the physical distance that they travel in pursuit of mushrooms. Individuals typically harvest for a range of reasons beyond economic gain. Harvesters were found to have a strong connection to their patches as important physical places and in protecting the mushroom resource. Many engaged in investigating avenues of resource stewardship. An analysis of these findings using political ecology and common property theory concludes that trends in forest management such as restricting forest access through gates and regulations are stressing harvester culture and undermining stewardship attitudes and behaviors. This study contributes to anthropological knowledge by illustrating that, even in an industrialized country like the United States, individuals operating in social networks formed around resource extraction may develop attitudes and behaviors to mitigate resource degradation. This research comes at a critical juncture as forest management and policy are undergoing extensive revision; changes that are being influenced by a multitude of stakeholders concerned with how and for whom forests are managed. Mushroom harvesters have been largely absent from these debates and revisory processes. By looking at how mushroom harvesting is embedded in complex social systems of political, economic, and cultural opportunities and constraints, incentives, and disincentives, the study illuminates variables that act as restraints and influence the efficacy of forest policy and management. Through the use of ethnography and multilevel analysis, the views and lifeways of harvesters are partially revealed, and show why harvesters direct participation in forest management, policy, and scientific processes can improve and are probably essential to forest conservation efforts.

No description available.

Spontaneous obesity of adult Macaca cyclopis, M. fascicularis, and M. mulatta at the New England Regional Primate Research Center was examined. Weight, crown-rump length, anterior trunk height, and abdominal, subscapular and suprailiac skinfolds were measured in 33 female and 9 male M. cyclopis, 61 female and 19 male M. fascicularis, and 125 female and 23 male M. mulatta. Correlations of skinfolds with weight-height indices showed that, of the skinfolds measured, the abdominal skinfold is most highly correlated with all indices. The Quetelet Index (weight/height('2)), substituting crown-rump length for height, was used to define obesity. Animals having Quetelet Indices one standard deviation above the mean for their sex and species were considered obese. Spontaneous activity, feeding behavior, and social and self-directed behavior of pairs of obese and nonobese subjects, matched for age, sex, species, and cage type, were recorded. A total of 38 animals was observed. Food consumption by age-matched pairs of obese and nonobese M. fascicularis and M. mulatta females was also quantified. Behavior of obese and nonobese subjects did not differ at statistically significant levels. However, obese animals spent more time than nonobese animals in grooming and in inactivity, and nonobese subjects spent more time in very active locomotion. Gross quantities of food consumed by obese and nonobese subjects did not differ at statistically significant levels. As differences in behavior and food intake of obese and nonobese subjects seem inadequate to explain the range of adiposity in these populations, it is deduced that much of the obesity in these macaques has a genetic basis / acase@tulane.edu

This study uses macroscopic and microscopic techniques to analyze cut mark morphology and patterning on the bones of human sacrificial victims excavated from Moche (A.D. 100-800) sites on the north coast of Peru. This project represents the first in-depth investigation of the methods and tools used in perimortem and postmortem modification of human remains from the north coast of Peru and provides detailed comparisons of iconographic and skeletal evidence of trauma. The data sample consists of human bones from the Moche sites of Huaca de la Luna, El Brujo and Dos Cabezas, and three comparative samples composed of human bones from a Lambayeque (A.D. 800-1375) mass burial at Pacatnamu, butchered faunal remains, and human bones from a modern forensic case. Cut marks were recorded and analyzed using drawings, photographs, negative and positive casts, thin sections, a light microscope, a scanning electron microscope and a micro X-ray fluorescence spectrometer. Results indicate that the perimortem and postmortem treatment of the sacrificial victims at each site was regular and systematic and, depending on the site, included activities such as facial and genital mutilation, throat slitting, opening of the chest cavity, decapitation, defleshing and dismemberment. With few exceptions, all cut marks in my sample are morphologically similar and have features characteristic of metal tool use. It is likely that metal tumis, the crescent-bladed knives used to slit the throats and decapitate sacrificial victims in Moche and Lambayeque art, were used for the same purposes in real life. Although cut marks on human and faunal bones show similarities in their location and morphology, the human bones' lack of breakage and other evidence of consumption found in the butchered faunal remains argues against ritual cannibalism. Although there was some variation in the practice of human sacrifice within and between Moche sites and between the Moche and Lambayeque cultures, overall patterns suggest behavioral continuity through time. The many similarities between the physical evidence and the iconography strongly support the argument that Moche and Lambayeque artistic depictions of prisoner capture, torture, sacrifice and mutilation reflect actual practices / acase@tulane.edu

The prehispanic Moche culture, which flourished on the North Coast of Peru in the first millennium AD, has been the focus of archaeological investigation for decades. However, questions still linger regarding the nature of Moche political structure and warfare. The current study seeks to add to the information researchers can turn to when theorizing about the Moche by providing a more thorough examination of the variation in and distribution of violent behavior, including armed combat and human sacrifice, as seen in the remains of the Moche people themselves. A study of fracture patterns was undertaken on five Moche skeletal samples, analyzing the frequency and location of fractures for insight into their causation. This pattern analysis has shed light on the level of both violent and accidental trauma occurring in different places and times and provides insight on differences in the ways in which violence manifested itself in the Moche world / acase@tulane.edu

A sample of 242 children from south Louisiana ages 6-16 underwent a dual densitometric and anthropometric examination for the purpose of investigating race and sex contrasts in physique. This group was comprised of 79 white boys, 64 white girls, 49 black boys, and 50 black girls. Black children were found to have less body fat than the white ones and boys less than girls. Median densities reflecting these differences were 1.060, 1.049, 1.044, and 1.035 gm/cc for black boys, white boys, black girls, and white girls respectively. Correlations of -0.73 to -0.87 were found between density and different skinfolds and -0.27 and -0.89 between density and circumferences at various sites. Stepwise multiple regression analysis with density as the dependent variable and selected anthropometric measurements as independent variables resulted in R('2) statistics between 0.77 and 0.90 for the different race-sex groups. Principal component analysis isolated a skeletal dimensions, an adipose tissue, a sex, and a race factor as accounting for most of the anthropometric variation in body build. Additional analyses demonstrated blacks of each sex to be leaner than whites internally as well as subcutaneously; showed pre-menarcheal and post-menarcheal girls to be essentially equivalent in fatness; and indicated body volume estimates made from anthropometrics to be as accurate in approximating body fat as those from skinfold equations A consideration of the nature of these physique contrasts leads to the conclusions that genetic differences in both fat amount and corporal distribution exist between the races and that different standards are required for the two races as well as the sexes in the assessment of body composition parameters / acase@tulane.edu