In 1742, the settlement of Augusta was established as an outpost of English royalization on Roatán Island, Honduras. This military camp housed a mix of English soldiers, English colonists, and local indigenous Miskitu peoples. While the settlement was occupied for only a brief span of seven years, the material record of the community provides insight into Miskitu-English interactions during the royalization process. Royalization encompassed strategies deployed by the English Crown to bring about loyalty to the state. In this dissertation, I discuss the concept of royalization from an agent-centered perspective to consider the intentions behind the occupants' usage of objects and spaces in everyday practice. This interdisciplinary research integrates documentary evidence with the results of four field seasons of archaeological investigations, which have unearthed mixed deposits of English and Miskitu material culture. I contend that such deposits indicate that Augusta's occupants were participants in the royalization process, but that these strategies were not fluid or enforced. The royalization of Augusta was complicated by a number of factors including the settlement's distance from the Crown, its local environment, and the diversity of its occupants. By considering the historical and archaeological evidence, I contend that elements of English lifestyles were integrated into Miskitu identity, and that this integration reveals some of the ways in which the process of royalization was adapted to the unique social and natural landscape of the western Caribbean.

Over the past two decades, developing countries have recognized the economic value of attractive marine resources and the need to actively protect these resources. Many of these conservation projects rely on limiting extractive activities to protect habitats, which restricts local livelihoods, and promoting marine resource-based tourism to provide financing for conservation. Using a political ecology framework, this dissertation investigates two connected aspects of tourism and conservation: tourists' seafood consumption and the Go Blue Central America, a geotourism project initiated by National Geographic. It also explains the value of considering the local environmental knowledge of a diverse group of resource users, with a specific focus on professional scuba divers. Given the importance of scuba diving as an activity and tourism attractor on Utila, professional scuba divers on the island are well-positioned to serve as a source of environmental knowledge data on Utila's dive sites, including on their condition, species sightings, and changes over time. This knowledge is not without its problems as it may lead to conceptions of local participation that fail to include those actually from the community of concern. Thus, this dissertation calls attention to the possibilities of using divers' environmental knowledge in conservation and environmental management while also remaining attuned to the potential complications that may arise from doing so. Ultimately, this dissertation calls for the development of additional tourism alternatives and more comprehensive tourism planning and management which includes the potential for damage done by nonextractive resource users. For Utila, this will entail altering existing business practices to increase local ownership, shifting away from backpacker and budget oriented tourism toward a more expensive product, and involving more of the local community in the decision-making processes which affect tourism and the environment.

<p> This report is the only detailed study concerning the fresh water cobble beaches of the Georgian Bay Islands. It includes extensive studies on the morphological characteristics, especially the platform development and profile configuration, and the sedimentary provenance of the cobbles. </p> <p> It was found that the platform configuration (step topography) acts as a substrate control for the cobble beaches. The presence of two cobble generations, angular and well-rounded, indicate that t he shore platform is the source for these cobble beaches. </p> <p> The roundness values of these cobble generations depends on t heir mode of transport. Evidence indicates that longshore movement of cobbles increases their roundness values, but their angular shape i s indicative of their lack of transport. </p> <p> Very little proof was found within this study to correlate relict cobble beaches with any specific stage of the Lake Huron Basin, although it was possible to generalize and state that the relict cobble beaches were generated by high-energy wave events during the transition from the Algoma stage to Lake Huron. </p> <p> Clast analysis determines the relationship between the length of the wave fetch and its related energy environment. It was found that high-energy coastal environments have oblate cobbles with a high roundness and low sphericity. In each case, the samples were associated with a large fetch. Those cobbles of a low-energy coastal environment have a high sphericity, low roundness, and are associated with smaller fetches. </p> <p> The steepness of the beach profile results from the increase in wave height, generated by an increase in shallowness. It also depends upon the volume of backwash. The backwash is reduced by the increased percolation rates through the cobbles, thus reducing the combing down effect of the backwash. </p> <p> This study also provides a discussion on the minor morphological features such as sinkholes and imbrication. </p> / Thesis / Bachelor of Arts (BA)