This thesis presents a new way of thinking about medieval bestiaries. It adopts a locational lens to examine the context and monastic re-fashionings of the medieval Latin prose bestiary in Canterbury from 1093-1360. It has examined the catalogue and codicological evidence concerning the monks’ patronage, ownership, reading and interpretation of these books. It has sought to discover how the bestiary articulated the Canterbury monks’ affective and self-reflective thought modes and interacted with their other beast literature and animal art. This thesis forms a significant contribution to knowledge on the monastic perception and reception of the bestiary by reshaping our understanding through two original approaches. Firstly, it widens the definition of bestiaries to match medieval viewpoints and therefore includes extant copies and catalogue records of extracts and collations as well as whole and fragmentary bestiary books and contemporary Canterbury Cathedral Priory decorative inhabited and zoomorphic initials. Secondly, it pays close attention to the place, space, and context of the bestiary in terms of associated texts, Benedictine spiritual exegesis, and how, where, when, and why it was studied and for what purposes. This attention has led, among other findings, to the redating of the earliest Latin prose bestiary from England to the time of St Anselm’s archiepiscopate and confirmed M.R. James’s view that it was a Canterbury production. This new timeframe has allowed an analysis of the bestiary as part of the Anselmian cultural and intellectual revival and permitted the link between the bestiary and Benedictine preaching to the laity to be examined. It finds strong political reasons for the advancement of the bestiary by Canterbury monks in the twelfth century and for their continued study of the bestiary in the thirteenth century and into the fourteenth century. This thesis provides a methodogical approach regarding how Canterbury monks read their bestiaries and associated texts that is applicable to historians studying such materials elsewhere, thereby enhancing our understanding of Benedictine monastic culture.

xx, 404 p. : ill. A print copy of this title is available through the UO Libraries under the call number: KNIGHT DS911.72.K36 1995 / This dissertation is concerned with the formation of the Silla Kingdom, a protohistoric state located in the southeastern portion of the Korean peninsula. Combining theoretical issues and empirical data concerning state formation, I present a case study of how one prime mover, warfare, played a role in the formation of the Silla Kingdom between the first and fifth centuries A.D. Two hypotheses associated with the significance of warfare were formulated and tested against both historical and archaeological data. To examine alternative models about the role of irrigation works and long-distance exchange in the development of the Silla Kingdom, I analyzed relevant historical documents, stelae, and selected archaeological data. Both documentary and archaeological data suggest that irrigation works and long-distance exchange were not sufficiently influential to claim critical roles in the emergence of the state in southeastern Korea. To test hypotheses formulated about the role of warfare, a number of bronze and iron weapons excavated from burials in southeastern Korea were quantified and analyzed in conjunction with data on wars mentioned in the historical documents. In particular, an analysis of empirical data on various kinds of metal weapons that probably were used in battles strongly supports the premise that warfare was a significant factor in the state formation process of the Silla Kingdom between the first and fifth centuries. Both historical and archaeological sources also reveal that there was a continuous local indigenous development from lower-level sociopolitical stages to higher-level ones in southeastern Korea, finally dominated by the Silla kingdom. Furthermore, based upon the results of mortuary analysis, I conclude that the Silla Kingdom became a state-level society sometime between the middle of the fourth and the beginning of the fifth centuries during the reign of King Naemul (356-402 A.D.). / Committee in charge: Dr. C. Melvin Aikens, Chair; Dr. Vernon Dorjahn; Dr. William S. Ayres; Dr. William G. Loy

Multiple narratives about the past are created over time, with some surviving into the twenty-first century and some forgotten or ignored. Deerfield, Massachusetts, is a place where many such histories have been constructed, in large part based on evidence gleaned from a rich array of material culture, ranging from the carefully preserved and interpreted architecture of a house museum of Historic Deerfield, Inc., to an overlooked vest button buried deep in its dooryard. The village has long been a place where inhabitants have much concerned themselves with writing historical stories and curating objects from the past, particularly the late seventeenth and eighteenth century colonial period. Until recently, not as much has been recovered, however, of the narrative about and by the women who, over a century later, helped initiate a vital enterprise—an arts and crafts revival—that set the stage for a stable village economy based, even today, in local cultural and educational institutions. In addition, these women were among the first to restore and renovate houses here and create a house museum for the public. Accordingly, the early growth of several important historical trends can be traced here, including the historic preservation movement and heritage tourism. Further, this dissertation explores insights into how and why the history of the lives and work of these important women has, at various times, become obscured. Artifacts available to help re-create this marginalized history abound. They include not only decorative objects such as embroidered pieces done by women of the Blue and White Society and metalwork by artist Madeline Yale Wynne, but also the latter's broken ceramics, a chance subterranean find, as well as evocative professional photographs by Deerfield sisters Mary and Frances Allen. This dissertation is a study of the materiality, an anthropological archaeology, of several key Deerfield women and their activities at the turn of the last century. It provides entry into and a more nuanced understanding of a gendered world that provided not only important foundations for local economies, but also wider practices of the Colonial Revival, Arts and Crafts, and historic preservation movements.

Bibliography: pages 120-131. / Knowledge and History have for many years been sites of struggle in South Africa and academic versions of the past are being challenged with commitment by oppressed communities all over the world. Archaeologists, as producers of information about the past, are necessarily involved in such struggles. The aim of this research project has been to demonstrate that our constructions of the past are deeply embedded in the politics of production and presentation of knowledge. The manner in which information is presented to the public is integrally linked to the manner in which knowledge about the past is produced. These politics form a particular dynamic with the way people perceive themselves and others. By examining the specifics of the construction of a Hottentot icon, and its links with constructions of gatherer-hunter histories, I have also tackled issues such as the contingency of research interpretations, the subjectivity of researchers, the myth of "scientific objectivity", and knowledge as a site of struggle in South Africa. I have also examined the links between writing, description, sexism, racism and colonialism, and educational methods and the authority of the expert. It is in the use of authoritative techniques in the production of knowledge and in the presentation of research interpretations that the problem lies. Authoritative techniques are pervasive and powerful, and function to inhibit public challenges to academic knowledge. The weight of notions such as science, objectivity and truth - which back up most presentations of academic knowledge - disallow the empowerment of communities towards participation in the processes of producing knowledge. I advocate a shift towards production and presentation that uses instead methods that encourage traditionally powerless communities to play an active role in the construction of their histories. I have focussed on the construction of authoritative herder histories, in both museums and other public media, in order to examine the role of archaeologists in struggles around the past. Whether we are conscious participants in these struggles, or whether we adopt a stance of objective neutrality, the information we produce has a powerful and important effect on the way in which people make sense of ourselves. A People's Archaeology - an archaeology dependent on community participation in research, interpretation and presentation - will require the development of democratic research methods. And this necessitates the initial steps of demystifying the process whereby academic knowledge is produced, and the development of an understanding of the origins of historical symbols. This project is a contribution to these debates, and will hopefully be, in some way, a contribution to the process of formulating different research methods towards the development of a People's Archaeology.

This dissertation relies on anthropological, historical, and archaeological research in order to describe the historical archaeologies associated with Chinese immigrants to the United States who worked on the first transcontinental railroad in the mid-nineteenth century. The region of focus in the High Sierras region to the west of Truckee, California, in and around the Tahoe National Forest

No description available.

This thesis is one step in defining the parameters of archaeology in an aboriginal context. It is designed to be a practical guide for imagining the past from an internalist perspective because archaeological methods offer the opportunity to represent antiquity that is simultaneously rational and familiar. However, an ancillary objective is to utilize symbols from antiquity as markers of modern Indian identity. / Archaeology appeared on the radar of First Nations because their growing populations demand housing and economic opportunities. Recent settlement of land claims has brought large tracts of land under the control of Native people. Archaeological sites, by their very nature, are defined by their geographical location. Artifacts and sites are the products of past human labour and as such are a unique cultural legacy that must be understood within the context of a generalized world history. Internalist archaeology mediates between a local understanding of antiquity and the ancient history of humanity on a global scale. It is a product of the dialogue that began when the world system intruded on the local experience of aboriginal people. Modern prehistory was accessible only by employing archaeological methods and traditional history, as related in story, was relegated to the margins along with its authors. Myths were discounted as plausible sources of explanation for antiquity as archaeologists constructed their theories to explain the data they accumulated during their excavations. Internalist archaeology is an analytical tool that will play a prominent role in rehabilitating oral narratives by deploying methods to search for the signatures they would leave in the archaeological record. It is also a means to examine folklore so as to discover the messages that are encoded in myths. Myths act as mediating devices which connect the high levels of abstraction, those informing the traditional worldview, with lower levels of abstractions, as represented by customs. Ecological messages are encrypted in narratives which are then transmitted between generations. Each generation must decypher the meaning embedded in a myth to benefit from it. For internalist archaeology, mythology is a reservoir of explanation that has been ignored by mainstream research but which can be the basis for this brand of archaeological research. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Thesis--Universitat Bar Ilan, ha-meḥlaḳah le-limude Erets Yiśraʼel ve-arkhiʼologiyah ʻa.s. Martin (Zus); Ph. D., May 2004. / "Martin (Szuz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology." Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Florida State University, 2004. / Advisor: Dr. Cheryl A. Ward, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Dept. of Anthropology. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Jan. 14,2005). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Universiṭah ha-ʻIvrit bi-Yerushalayim,1985. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 282-298).