Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have demonstrated their utility in predictively modeling the location of archaeological sites, and providing a framework for cataloging sites eligible for heritage management status. The intent of this GIS-based study is to begin to create a geohistorically organized database of information culled from historic documents and archaeological excavation. In this case study of postbellum land tenure in Hillsborough County, Florida, a GIS-based approach is used to demonstrate the impacts of federal and state land ownership policy decisions during the Reconstruction Era and beyond. GIS data are also used to reveal information about how people use their allotted environment to non-verbally communicate their perceptions of the world and their place in it. Finally, GIS are shown to be ideally suited for allowing multi-scalar, diachronic comparisons of archaeological sites and materials. This research was conducted according to the concepts of Actor-Network-Theory (ANT), which assumes there is a generalized symmetry between the agency of human actors and non-human actants (i.e. it does not assume the primacy of human intentional action). ANT accepts that materials can carry non-verbal messages (e.g. colors, aromas, tactility), which affect how humans interact, communicate, and organize themselves in space. ANT allows for the use of scales based on human action, and analyses that are based standardized metrologies. Finally, ANT obviates being limited to strict categories of macro- and micro-, by accepting that networks may bridge both. This research shows that two rural communities have undergone similar growth trajectories, with a historically black community having experienced some setbacks in the early 20th century. However, the results show that the rural African American community was not more subdivided than the neighboring Euro-American community, contrary to initial expectations. Additionally, there is a suggestion that communities may move socially important buildings such as churches schools to the community center or periphery, depending on the intended recipient of the message. The study also documents the centralization, concentration, and clustering of the county's African American population through time.

The purpose of this thesis is to question the art historical notion of influences, specifically in the case of the seventeenth century Spanish Baroque artist Diego Velázquez. His work is often seen as an extension of the realist movements in Flanders and Italy at the turn of the seventeenth century, but that view is extremely reductive. Velázquez strove to depict the world around him as he saw it, attempting to incorporate the transient nature of the scenes before him into his works. The city of Seville, in which Velázquez lived and worked, provided the setting and cultural elements that would orient his work He was able to simultaneously break free of the conventions that had been placed on artists in the early seventeenth century and embrace his proto-impressionistic artistic style while developing himself as an artist. His paintings, especially his bodegones, showcase the low-class culture and citizens of Seville. Velázquez's subjective representation of these low class subjects and scenes allow him to re-create the city of Seville on his canvas, allowing the modern-day viewer to experience the represented environment. Velázquez's artwork allows his viewers to be immersed Interweltsien (in-the-world) and experience the world that he was depicting. This thesis will use both Place Theory and Phenomenology to better understand the works that Velázquez created while he was living in Seville.

Cemeteries are microcosms of society bound together in sacred spaces. As manifestations of social mores, cemeteries allow anthropologists to obtain information on social development and structure. Where noninvasive study is mandated, crucial methods of interpretation include studies of landscape design, floral incorporation, grave marker design and development, and grave mementos. This thesis discusses these and other methods as they are used to infer group mores. It also indicates how information acquired from methods can be adversely affected by outside influences, such as vandalism, weathering, and replotting. This thesis adds to known methods of cemetery research another unbiased, noninvasive tool that is the analyses of public cemetery sales records of a known society's municipal cemetery, Greenwood Cemetery of Orlando, Florida. Greenwood Cemetery opened at approximately the same time as the founding of its host city, Orlando, Florida. All burial and plot ownership, regardless of the social status of the owner, are publicly accessible in accordance with the requirements of the Florida Sunshine law. As the city and the cemetery followed parallel development, socioeconomic trends affected the city and the cemetery in a similar manner. Using public records dating from 1890 to 2010, a random survey was conducted that acquired sale dates, death dates, prices, numbers of plots purchased, and types of plots purchased. Using SPSS, the acquired information was statistically analyzed for correlations to known historic moments such as The Great Depression and the Florida Land Boom. Comparisons of data revealed fluctuations in the time between purchase and death: a decreasing length of time, an increasing length of time, and a repeated decreasing of time. The survey of the prices of plots revealed a positive correlation over time, indicating uniformity. A strong shift from the purchase of full body plots to cremation plots over time was evident, which was interpreted as a reflection of a shift in religious and social mores. Additionally, the study showed a significant increase in the percentage of purchased plots used. An ANOVA reveals that replotting is not significant enough to affect interpretation of cultural mores manifested in landscape design and spatial usage. While the results lend themselves to more questions and study, the analyses of cemetery sale records demonstrates its vitality as an unbiased, noninvasive, publicly accessible instrument. The analyses of sales records will also enable cross cultural comparisons.

My master's thesis explores the photographic series "This Land is Mime Land," which Shelley Niro made in 1992. Despite this work's complex form and structure, there are currently no sustained studies of this series alone, or books solely dedicated to Niro's art. Instead, "Mime Land" is often discussed in compilations that address a number of Native artists, Western feminist practices, or multiple works in Niro's oeuvre. My thesis fills this gap, as I closely investigate how "Mime Land" asks the viewer to look at visual culture, histories and Niro herself. Bell hooks's definition of the "oppositional gaze" - meaning a way of looking that challenges the conventions of visual culture by implementing the media's tools (film and photography) to construct new images of self - provides the framework for my analysis. Specifically, I contend that the subject, form and structure of "Mime Land" critically intervene in mainstream visual culture by asking the viewer to look at Native American women's identities, cultures and histories in new ways; ways that disavow the conventions of dominant visual representations and return the power over one's image to Niro, her family and community. My study demonstrates this thesis through a close consideration of the context contemporary to the work's production; a detailed examination of the photographs in the series; and an analysis of the work's overall structure.

Developed in the early 1800's, Bulow Plantation is a prime example of the thriving sugar industry of East Florida prior to the Second Seminole War. Additionally, the layout of the slave cabins at Bulow Plantation in an arc centered on the main house is unique in Florida except for Kingsley Plantation near Jacksonville, FL. Despite its importance and the paucity of information available about even basic questions regarding life at Bulow Plantation, relatively little in the way of archaeological work has been done at the site. Using historical research and non-destructive archaeological techniques such as pedestrian survey, aerial LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), and remote sensing completed as part of recent work by the Alliance for Integrated Spatial Technologies (AIST) (Collins and Doering 2009a; Collins et al 2010) this work examines not only the material landscape of Bulow Plantation but also the social and cognitive landscapes that might have shaped life for both enslaver and enslaved. Using data collected as part of AIST's larger project (Collins et al 2010) an analysis of the pedestrian survey data, as well as a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) created from aerial LiDAR data, revealed the locations of several previously unrecorded slave cabins as well as some large scale landscape features. Although there are three competing theories as to why the Bulow slave cabins were arranged in an arc, without subsurface archaeology it is impossible to endorse one interpretation over another. While the analysis of landscapes generally privileges the view of those in power, suggestions for future archaeological work are made so that the voices of those who were enslaved at Bulow Plantation can begin to be heard.

This thesis examines the relationship between mass tourism and heritage tourism in the construction and perpetuation of histories and identities of local stakeholders on Roatàn Island, Honduras. I explore how identity is constructed by and through the tourism industry, and how much of the agency in forming identity and telling cultural stories resides in the hands of key stakeholders involved in the development of tourism on the island. Local cultural stories that focus on the people who live and have lived on the island for centuries are becoming increasingly silenced by a more commoditized, tourism driven, picture of life on Roatàn. Here, I examine how this silencing takes place, what its effects are on tourism and development, and consider what elements of the tourism industry have contributed to this silencing. On Roatàn, the issue of identity as interpreted through museums has become increasingly contested, as the tourism industry now controls the presentation of cultural and archaeological history of the island. This control influences how tourists visiting Roatàn interpret the past and present the heritage of local groups.

The use of geochemical analysis for characterization studies of archaeological material has been increasing for decades. In recent years, advancements in X-ray fluorescence (XRF) instrumentation have led to hand-held portable XRF (pXRF) instruments capable of on-site, rapid, non-destructive analysis. The addition of pXRF to the archaeologist's toolkit has the potential to revolutionize geochemical characterization studies as research design can be informed by field analysis, once off-limits museum collections may now be analyzable, and data can be gathered on in-situ objects without disturbing their context. This new instrumentation has shown promise in characterization studies on a variety of archaeological materials, including ceramics. Particularly, it has been shown to generate data useful in distinguishing the geochemical provenance of artifacts. While most existing provenance studies that employ pXRF involve obsidian, it is possible that pXRF is a suitable analytical tool for ceramics as well, since instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) and laboratory XRF have both been used in provenance studies of obsidian and ceramics. This thesis reports research that utilized a Bruker hand held pXRF analyzer to study ceramics and plaster floors from Classic Period (ca. AD 250-1000) archaeological sites in southeast Mesoamerica. The data gathered from this analysis are used to examine the ability of pXRF to address archaeological questions of archaeological provenance on ceramic material and human activity patterns on archaeological plaster. The data gathered on ceramic material is analyzed to determine if "valley profiles" (or "chemical fingerprints") can be created for samples excavated in the same valley and to investigate inter-valley trade. Data from the plaster samples is examined to determine if pXRF can detect human activity patterns on plaster floors and, if so, if the activity is identifiable. The results suggest that, while pXRF results can be used to create "valley profiles" for provenance research, it is difficult to ascertain if it can be used to identify items of trade. This investigation also shows that, while pXRF data can identify human activity on plaster, it is difficult to determine what those activities were. This leads to the conclusion that pXRF has potential for both provenance and prospection studies on earthen materials. However, methodological development is necessary to fine tune research design. This thesis contributes to a greater understanding of the potentials and limitations of pXRF instrumentation in characterization studies of archaeological materials as well as understanding cultural-historical details in Classic southeast Mesoamerica.

Elemental analysis of pottery sherds provided insights on the ceramic production in the Huancabamba Valley (northern highland-Peru) and the way in which the Incas administrate the provinces. The pottery sherds from six archaeological sites selected for elemental analysis indicated the use of similar clay sources in the manufacture of pottery. The production of ceramic vessels took place at the local level without the strict control of the Inca state. The Incas built administrative structures in the Huancabamba Valley in order to maintain control of their road system, which connected the north area of Peru to Ecuador. The ceramic assemblage recovered from Inca sites does not illustrate typical Inca pottery style or decoration from the heartland. The administrative centers built by the Incas throughout the Empire provided the means to support state activities such as pottery production of local wares. In addition, ethno-historic evidence suggests that during the Inca period coastal communities were relocated to highland settlements in order to serve as officers in state facilities, or to maintain the Inca road system. These coastal communities continue producing pottery following the traditional techniques from their homeland.

The Crystal River site (8CI1) in west-central Florida is famous as the southernmost major participant in the Hopewell Interaction Sphere, and certainly has the most Hopewellian goods of any Woodland site in Florida. Sharon Goad (1978), among others, proposed that Crystal River secured this position by controlling the production and exchange of marine shell ornaments and cups. I test this hypothesis through the analysis of marine shell recovered from previous excavations, recent surface finds, and shell debris from 58 core samples extracted from the Crystal River mounds, plaza, middens, and surrounding marshland. The analysis reveals an abundance of shell ornaments in burials, but only a limited presence of marine shell used in ornament production around the site, which contradicts Goad's original hypothesis. Therefore, I propose several alternative explanations for the disproportionate presence of Hopewellian items at Crystal River.

This research examines the relationship between the ways in which urban families engaged local landscapes and the development of shared identities at the prehispanic Maya city of Actuncan, Belize. Such shared identities would have created deep historical ties to specific urbanized spaces, which enabled and constrained political expansion during the Terminal Classic period (ca. A.D. 800–900), a time when the city experienced rapid population growth as surrounding centers declined. This research contributes to the understanding of urban processes of growth and decay in this region, and how they are linked to the behaviors of social factions in settlements. For communities, group identity can provide a sense of connection to place that integrates people at various social levels, provide an individual with social memories and meanings that can be applied to understanding and interpreting material life, and foster a common sense of self and awareness. Daily activities and their engagement with the material world entangle social meanings, values, and relationships. Further, spaces in which people reside and perform these tasks often affect the meanings and values associated with the activities themselves. The combination of shared practices and the spaces in which they occur is ultimately what helps to create and maintain group identity. To investigate household relationships, this research considers the nature and location of activity patterns in and around three commoner houses to infer shared practices and the shared identities that those activities both enabled and constrained. Importantly, this research investigates not only the architectural areas that each house comprises, but also the open areas surrounding them. The goal of this research is to determine similarities and differences in the use of space throughout the sample area. Were open spaces used in similar ways to residential groups? Did Terminal Classic residents of the Northern Settlement conduct similar activities in all of the residential groups? Alternatively, were these groups locations for different types of practices? To explore activity patterns, multiple methods were employed, including subsurface testing, soil chemical residue analysis, and macro– and microartifact analysis, to produce overlapping datasets of the sample area. Systematic testing using postholes was used to understand open spaces between architecture in addition to the architectural space itself. Through posthole sampling, macroartifacts, microartifacts, and soil samples were obtained for further examination. The aim of artifact analysis was to examine artifact diversity and density within the residential groups as well as between them to aid in the identification of activity loci. Additionally, soil chemical residue analysis was employed to investigate activities. Similarities and differences between artifact and chemical patterning can provide insight into shared practices. By creating multiple lines of evidence from independent datasets, inferences about activities can be more strongly supported. The artifact and chemical data were examined spatially using geostatistics as well as with quantitative assessment. The results suggest that Terminal Classic residents of Actuncan were extensively utilizing not only the formal patio spaces of residential groups but also the interstitial spaces in between. Additionally, it is argued that one group appears to have been a locus for affiliative ritual practices in connection with ancestor veneration.