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This project is concerned with obstetric complications and cesarean births in a Yucatec Maya community that has recently began interacting with global market economies and Western biomedicine. ​This research engages with maternal health, reproductive biology, colonial histories, and the global trend of increasing cesarean births. The Yucatec Maya are a short statured population [average adult female height 2010 = 143.2 cm] with historically low obstetric complications and maternal mortality. In the last 30 years, CS rates have risen to account for 25% of all births in this community. Because extreme short stature for population has been linked to obstructed labor and birth complications, this project was designed to determine if stature is impacting the rising rate of CS. Reproductive outcomes and obstetric complications were modeled against height in 3 age cohorts of mothers using one-way ANOVA with a Bonferroni-post hoc test and univariate general linear models. No statistical evidence was found to indicate that stature is related to reproductive outcomes or obstetric complications; however, there is an association between short stature and likelihood of cesarean birth. The dramatic change in birth mode in this population may be attributed to increased availability of biomedical resources, doctor-driven perceptions of indigenous women, and low capacity of rural public hospitals to serve numerous patients in labor.

The Pacific is a world of islands, so human migrations are necessarily part of the story of this world. It is somewhat surprising therefore to find that there are so many points of contention among archaeologists, linguists and biologists about the role that migrations have played in producing culture change in Pacific prehistory -just how many migrations are we talking about, on what scale, by whom, and when, and which discipline provides more reliable evidence? The specifics of the debate may be local, but the substantive issues have broader applicability. This thesis attempts to contribute to the debate by considering the archaeological evidence for a hypothesised migration during the post-Lapita period of people speaking non-Austronesian languages into the Main Reef and Santa Cruz Islands in the southeast Solomon Islands. It describes the theoretical and methodological difficulties in trying to assess whether cladistic or rhizotic processes best account for culture change. Previously unpublished archaeological material from two Main Reef Islands sites is presented, and is compared with the linguistic and human biological evidence pertinent to the case study. The narratives of cross-cultural encounters during the historic period are examined to investigate how such interactions produce change in cultural traditions, and to assess the archaeological visibility of these contacts. While the archaeological record testifies to cultural borrowings and lendings in the Reef-Santa Cruz case, the argument for either large-scale population intrusion or replacement is not well supported. The archaeological record appears to be in conflict with the prevailing interpretation of history reconstructed from historical linguistics and human genetics.

The Pacific is a world of islands, so human migrations are necessarily part of the story of this world. It is somewhat surprising therefore to find that there are so many points of contention among archaeologists, linguists and biologists about the role that migrations have played in producing culture change in Pacific prehistory -just how many migrations are we talking about, on what scale, by whom, and when, and which discipline provides more reliable evidence? The specifics of the debate may be local, but the substantive issues have broader applicability. This thesis attempts to contribute to the debate by considering the archaeological evidence for a hypothesised migration during the post-Lapita period of people speaking non-Austronesian languages into the Main Reef and Santa Cruz Islands in the southeast Solomon Islands. It describes the theoretical and methodological difficulties in trying to assess whether cladistic or rhizotic processes best account for culture change. Previously unpublished archaeological material from two Main Reef Islands sites is presented, and is compared with the linguistic and human biological evidence pertinent to the case study. The narratives of cross-cultural encounters during the historic period are examined to investigate how such interactions produce change in cultural traditions, and to assess the archaeological visibility of these contacts. While the archaeological record testifies to cultural borrowings and lendings in the Reef-Santa Cruz case, the argument for either large-scale population intrusion or replacement is not well supported. The archaeological record appears to be in conflict with the prevailing interpretation of history reconstructed from historical linguistics and human genetics.

The Pacific is a world of islands, so human migrations are necessarily part of the story of this world. It is somewhat surprising therefore to find that there are so many points of contention among archaeologists, linguists and biologists about the role that migrations have played in producing culture change in Pacific prehistory -just how many migrations are we talking about, on what scale, by whom, and when, and which discipline provides more reliable evidence? The specifics of the debate may be local, but the substantive issues have broader applicability. This thesis attempts to contribute to the debate by considering the archaeological evidence for a hypothesised migration during the post-Lapita period of people speaking non-Austronesian languages into the Main Reef and Santa Cruz Islands in the southeast Solomon Islands. It describes the theoretical and methodological difficulties in trying to assess whether cladistic or rhizotic processes best account for culture change. Previously unpublished archaeological material from two Main Reef Islands sites is presented, and is compared with the linguistic and human biological evidence pertinent to the case study. The narratives of cross-cultural encounters during the historic period are examined to investigate how such interactions produce change in cultural traditions, and to assess the archaeological visibility of these contacts. While the archaeological record testifies to cultural borrowings and lendings in the Reef-Santa Cruz case, the argument for either large-scale population intrusion or replacement is not well supported. The archaeological record appears to be in conflict with the prevailing interpretation of history reconstructed from historical linguistics and human genetics.

The Pacific is a world of islands, so human migrations are necessarily part of the story of this world. It is somewhat surprising therefore to find that there are so many points of contention among archaeologists, linguists and biologists about the role that migrations have played in producing culture change in Pacific prehistory -just how many migrations are we talking about, on what scale, by whom, and when, and which discipline provides more reliable evidence? The specifics of the debate may be local, but the substantive issues have broader applicability. This thesis attempts to contribute to the debate by considering the archaeological evidence for a hypothesised migration during the post-Lapita period of people speaking non-Austronesian languages into the Main Reef and Santa Cruz Islands in the southeast Solomon Islands. It describes the theoretical and methodological difficulties in trying to assess whether cladistic or rhizotic processes best account for culture change. Previously unpublished archaeological material from two Main Reef Islands sites is presented, and is compared with the linguistic and human biological evidence pertinent to the case study. The narratives of cross-cultural encounters during the historic period are examined to investigate how such interactions produce change in cultural traditions, and to assess the archaeological visibility of these contacts. While the archaeological record testifies to cultural borrowings and lendings in the Reef-Santa Cruz case, the argument for either large-scale population intrusion or replacement is not well supported. The archaeological record appears to be in conflict with the prevailing interpretation of history reconstructed from historical linguistics and human genetics.

'Alcohol', the strongest teratogen known to human-kind, is a commonly used legal drug which has the ability to cross the placenta and interfere with the development of the foetus resulting in a birth defect known as Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). This thesis looks at the historical knowledge base surrounding prenatal exposure to alcohol and presents the latest biomedical information available on FASD at the time of writing. The sub-discipline of medical anthropology, the associated methodology and it appropriateness for this kind of research is discussed. A historical look at the introduction and proliferation of alcohol in New Zealand from the macro-micro perspective, and James O'Connors' (1974) political modes of operation are presented, offering a broad analysis, of a dynamic political process involved with the lack of acknowledgement or action on the part of New Zealand governments. New Zealand specific research on women's drinking patterns, clinical practise and the experiences of those trying to obtain a diagnosis in regard to FASD within New Zealand are presented. Behavioural profiles pertaining to my participants' FASD charges are offered to the reader, all of which indicate serious repercussions for New Zealand society as a whole. Finally the labelling argument relating to the diagnostic terminology surrounding Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is discussed. The original contribution this thesis offers aside from being the first New Zealand anthropological PhD research on the subject of FASD surrounds education and action research. Knowledge creates empowerment and can facilitate individual change. My thesis has been a dialectical process whereby the more I learned from those care-giving for FASD individuals, the more I have been able to feed back to others and act in my capacity as a critical medical anthropologist, using action anthropology as a means to advocate for families affected by FASD, those whose voices of expertise by way of experience, are seldom if ever heard or listened too [sic].