Originally presented as author's thesis (M.A.)--Jāmiʻat Ḥalab. / "Manshūrāt Jāmiʻat Ḥalab". Includes bibliographical references (p. 653-658) and indexes.

Thesis (M.It.)(Informatics)--University of Pretoria, 2000. / Includes summary. Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

This thesis explores the social significance of prestige artifacts from the site of San Andrés, which was part of the Barí riverine network that supported La Venta, a paramount Middle Formative Gulf Coast center located in present-day Tabasco, Mexico. In Formative period Mesoamerica, high-status goods were significant components of cultural practice and a source of social, political, and ideological power. Centralized control over systems of elite good acquisition, production, distribution, and consumption provided the means to structure relationships, compete for prestige, and define ideological conceptions of social order. This study investigates the role of these socially significant items in the context of subsidiary community and within the framework of a primary-secondary site relationship. / Submitted to the Department of Anthropology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Summer 2003. / July 8, 2003. / prestige, artifacts, San Andres, La Venta, status, gifting, ritual / Includes bibliographical references. / Mary E.D. Pohl, Professor Directing Thesis; Rochelle A. Marriman, Committee Member; William Parkinson, Committee Member; Michael A. Uzendoski, Committee Member.

It is the purpose of this paper to deal with the high state of culture attained by the mysterious Mayas of Central America and Yucatan. How old is their civilization? No one knows. Where did they come from? Who can say? What did they wish to tell us in their writings that have come down through those past thousands of years? No one can decipher them. The controversy over these points, and many others, has caused unlimited debate among scientists, and as yet, the questions remain unanswered. What, then, is there to write about? These people have left us beautifully carved stone buildings, palaces, and ruined cities that show careful planning; statues, pottery, etc., that show a remarkably high state of culture. This is to be the field of this paper.

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"The volume includes an introduction by Emil Haury who places the work along Cienega Creek in historical perspective. . . . Eddy and Cooley's work stands as an excellent example of multidisciplinary research in archaeology."—American Antiquity

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The human skeletal remains from Grasshopper Ruin, Arizona, constitute an excellent series for the study of growth and development. A total of 390 subadults, fetal through 18 years of age, have been recovered, in a mortality distribution comparable to that observed in most anthropological populations. Children are extremely sensitive to metabolic upsets during the growth process, and an individual's history of illness is often recorded in his bones and teeth. This research is concerned with reading this record and developing a picture of the biological quality of life during pueblo occupation. On the whole, incidence of skeletal stress markers is low. Just 145 children have one or more markers, indicating a low disease load for the subadult community. Based on ethnographic and clinical records of disease among Southwestern Indians, it is believed that most children without visible stress markers were victims of common and virulent gastrointestinal and upper respiratory infections. Those children with stress markers appear to have been subject to underlying morbid conditions (parasitism, dietary deficiencies) which would have intensified the effects of infectious diseases. In order to determine whether a particular sector of the community was at greater risk, the skeletal sample is partitioned into temporal and spatial groups. The impetus for this analysis derives from a long-standing archaeological research focus: the factors precipitating abandonment. Most evidence points to an environmental change and subsequent shortfall in the normal food supply. Behavioral responses to this stress have been documented, but until this research, no direct measure of the effect on pueblo inhabitants had been devised. Differences in stress marker frequency among temporal groups reveal no clear pattern. When spatial groups are analyzed, children from outliers are found to have significantly greater prevalence of Harris lines, implying a pervasive, recurring stress. These findings are interpreted in light of the unique temporal and spatial placement of outliers, and are believed to be due to a combination of factors including depletion of resources, differential access to resources, and increasing contamination of site environs.

This study presents the results of an analysis of the archaeological ceramics recovered from Maya sites on the island of Cozumel, Quintana Roo, Mexico. The field work was conducted in 1972-1973 by the Harvard University-University of Arizona Cozumel Archaeological Project which had as it focus the investigation of several aspects of long distance trade in Postclassic Maya society. The objectives of the study were (1) to analyze, classify, and describe the Cozumel ceramic remains, (2) to further clarify the island's prehistory through interpretation of ceramic data and relationships, and (3) to evaluate the Cozumel Archaeological Project's port of trade model from the standpoint of the ceramic evidence. Chapter 1 provides background information on the setting, history, and archaeology of Cozumel and adjacent coastal areas and summarizes the Cozumel Archaeological Project's research design and field investigations. This is followed in Chapter 2 by a discussion of the techniques of ceramic analysis employed in the study, including a brief summary of the type-variety system of ceramic classification. Chapters 3 through 10 present detailed descriptions of the ceramic complexes, arranged chronologically. Each variety of each ceramic type is described, including paste characteristics, surface finish, decoration, form, and comparative data. The Cozumel ceramic record indicates settlement on the island from Late Preclassic (ca. 300 B.C.-A.D. 300) through Late Postclassic (ca. A.D. 1250-1500/1550) times. An overview of the prehistory of Cozumel is presented in Chapter eleven. Chapter twelve presents the results of an attribute analysis of slipped serving dishes and unslipped jars which was undertaken to test the port of trade model. The model hypothesizes that Cozumel underwent a shift from a decentralized port of trade in the Early Postclassic, characterized by heterogeneity in archaeological remains, to a centralized trading center in the Late Postclassic, characterized by homogeneity. While the attribute analysis demonstrated an increase in intersite similarity and ceramic homogeneity in the Late Postclassic, results for the Early Postclassic were inconclusive. Chapter fourteen briefly summarizes the study's results and conclusions. Although the port of trade model was not verified by the ceramic evidence, there is considerable evidence that Cozumel may have been the site of a Toltec trade outpost in Early Postclassic times.