In 1938, Robert C. Wauchopes Modern Maya Houses provided the first detailed description of traditional rural housing for the Maya area. Until today, no research has attempted to test Wauchopes notion of cultural continuity in Maya domestic architecture from the prehistoric past up to the time of his pioneering study. By examining data from three municipios located in the state of Yucatan, Mexico, I compared contemporary information collected during visits to residential areas with that published by Wauchope in 1938. An integrated approach to data gathering and analysis, that is, a combination of interviews, questionnaires, archaeological survey, and geographic information methods was used in order to evaluate the various mechanisms involved in the design and use of domestic spaces. My goals were to assess how the Maya define, use and conceptualize domestic areas, and to test the validity of Wauchopes assumption of cultural continuity in Maya housing. Survey of thirty-one solares and descriptive statistical analyses provided data for comparison and interpretation. Comparison of essential elements found in Yucatec houses revealed variants in each community surveyed. These variations along with the conditions responsible for them, such as socio-economic, technological, or ideological changes were used to build a model of Maya housing.

Many urban areas are using estimations of impervious surfaces as a means for better environmental management. This is because research over the last two decades indicate a consistent, inverse relationship between the percentage of impervious surfaces in a watershed and the environmental problems urban areas are experiencing. Although various methods for estimating impervious surfaces can be identified, few result in accurate and defensible estimations by which environmental problems can be assessed. This is especially important to rapidly expanding urban areas such as Baton Rouge, Louisiana where detailed records and planimetric data are lacking. Numerous studies have shown a potential for estimating impervious surfaces using remotely sensed satellite imagery however, none were performed in a sub-tropical geographical area such as southern Louisiana. Three different dates of Landsat TM multi-spectral imagery, corresponding to seasonal differences, were acquired for land cover type classification purposes. Seasonal dates of imagery were used to determine tree canopy effects and the optimum season for estimating impervious surfaces from satellite imagery. Unique to this study, the derived classified estimates were compared to an impervious surfaces reference estimate developed from high resolution, true color aerial photography. The impervious surfaces reference estimate was developed by digitizing over 15,000 polygons of impervious features throughout the watershed such as roads, buildings, and parking lots. Statistical evaluation of the seasonal classified images included the error matrix analysis, Kappa analysis (both overall and conditional), and the Pair-Wise Z test statistic. Results obtained in this research indicate overall accuracies of the derived classified estimates ranged between 75.33 percent and 81.33 percent while differing from the reference estimate by 10 percent or less.

Standard identification criteria for creating a decedents biological profile typically include ancestry, sex, age, and stature, but not body weight. Body weight information may not only assist in creating a more complete biological profile but may also provide insight into other forensic considerations, such as taphonomy and body transport and disposal. The current study seeks to establish multiple regression equations for the prediction of living body weight in skeletal remains. Specifically, the measurements of anterior superior iliac spine (ASIS) breadth and stature are assessed with regard to living weight. Research was carried out on both a skeletal sample and a living population sample of modern black and white Americans. This two-pronged approach was an attempt to identify possible difficulties encountered in using the ASIS/stature technique in a forensic setting. The skeletal sample consisted of 92 individuals with weight data, upon whom ASIS breadth measurements and stature estimations were carried out. Height, weight, and ASIS breadth were subsequently recorded for the living population sample of 85 individuals. Multiple regression analysis was performed on all subsamples showing significant correlations between weight and ASIS breadth and stature variables. Regression equations for weight prediction were then derived from the results of analyses. However, the resulting estimated weight values indicate that ASIS breadth and stature must account for more variation in weight if the technique is to be useful in forensic investigations.

During the decade preceding the height of the civil rights movement, a small population of Hondurans established residence in the New Orleans area. This Honduran migration was largely due to the trade relationship that existed between Honduras and New Orleans. Honduras was also experiencing political unrest and economic instability due to military coups, fruit company strikes and floods during the late 1950s. In response, the advent of the 1960s brought with it the first wave of Hondurans. According to the 2000 Census there were 64,340 people of Hispanic origin in the four parishes included in the New Orleans metropolitan area, of which 24% were Honduran (United States Census 2000). This first wave of immigrants settled into the lower Garden District of Orleans Parish, allowing them to be centrally located with access to both the bus and streetcar route into the central business district. As the population grew and the community prospered, an out-migration to the suburbs occurred establishing a stronger and more permanent presence. In order to gain a better understanding of this Honduran community, its identity and the way in which it establishes place and represents itself, I chose to construct two life histories that I believe offer a glimpse of the Honduran experience. One is of Pilar* who migrated in the late 1950s when she was just five years old. The other is of Mando who migrated as a twenty-six year old bachelor prepared to take on the world. They both engage in symbolic practices shared across New Orleans. These practices help define who they are as individuals and also play a part in creating a Honduran history within a New Orleans context.

This qualitative study focuses on a planning process in Baton Rouge, Louisiana called Plan Baton Rouge, which began in the summer of 1998 and continues through the present. The overriding goal of the Plan Baton Rouge process is to revitalize downtown Baton Rouge and promote economic and cultural vitality while implementing the design practices of New Urbanism. New Urbanism is a design methodology that condemns suburban sprawl while promoting denser, early-twentieth-century-style townscapes and urban centers, focusing on mixed land use, pedestrianism, and aesthetic and architectural continuity. Through participant observation, this ethnographic account of New Urbanism in practice provides an in-depth case-study of how New Urbanism, a far-reaching international planning paradigm, works in a specially local context. Throughout the Plan Baton Rouge process, public participation was solicited through a charrette town-planning format. I argue that Baton Rouge is promoted in a particular way, creating a seemingly interactive dialogue between charismatic leader, local planners, politicians, and participants. Specifically, a powerful learning discourse is strategically implemented in the planning document as well as the public meetings to create an experience perceived as innovative and inherently progressive. But New Urbanism isnt always about looking forward. As New Urbanists draw directly from design elements of the past, they also depend upon solicited public local memories during the planning process to strengthen their use of neotraditional design. Through the use of memories and photographs, the way things use to be becomes a powerful and evocative selling tool in engaging both local planners and community participants. However, while it is certainly a powerful promotion tool, this nostalgic sentiment may not be a positive and productive force in the revitalization process as it depends upon highly selective, romanticized notions that may obfuscate the more complicated issues of creating a diverse and vibrant urban community.

Throughout the twentieth century difficult economic circumstances have resulted in reduced employment opportunities. In-migrants have long borne the brunt of these limitations, facing open hostilities from residents who felt that these "outsiders" were undeserving of employment and social services. Within the context of the 1930s Depression in the Central Valley of California, such negative public sentiment was often directed at "Okies," the 315,000 former residents of the "Western South" who crossed the California state line in search of employment in the agricultural fields of the Golden State. In this dissertation, I examine the changing conceptualizations of Okie identity throughout the twentieth century in California's Central Valley. In the early years after their arrival to the "Golden State," Okies found themselves the subject a public discourse that classified them as socio-spatial transgressors, unfit for inclusion in California society. Denied by social and economic means from easily participating in this discourse, Okies turned to their own venues or expressing their own public identity. Okie migrant constructions of their own public identity developed in direct response to the labels bestowed upon them by Californians. While Californians drew boundaries of exclusion along state lines, Okies turned to notions of inclusion based upon their American heritage. With the rise of World War II and a rebounding economy, Okies faded from public discourse for several decades. With their socio-economic rise, though, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Okies once again rose to public attention as they sought to reassert their own unique identity. Now a socially, economically, and politically dominant group in California's Central Valley, Okies have gained their own voice and begun to re-establish their own unique public identity. Importantly, however, like the Okie identity of the 1930s, Okies today continue to draw upon the past, but this time that past is 1930s California. Okie identity is culled from a social memory of the migrant experience and has come to represent the diversity of contemporary California identity. Without California, Okie identity would not exist. But without "Okies," contemporary California identity would not exist as it does today.

Today, computer technology is producing new methods of investigation into the complex nature of serial killers; among these are geographic profiles. Yet, due to the lack of proven success, budgetary constraints, and the inherent multifaceted nature of serial murder, these geographic profiles have not been completely embraced by the law enforcement community. Because of this, the academic and law enforcement communities continue to refine and develop new methods to solve serial killer cases. This thesis investigates the possibility of identifying the location of the interaction site of a serial killer and his victims using a commercial geographic information system (GIS) as the primary tool. This will be accomplished by analyzing the daily activities of three hypothetical victims of serial murder. A comparison of survey results from the hypothetical victims of this study and their associates shows evidence that victim activity areas can contribute to serial killer investigations. This new method demonstrates that, instead of costly spatial analysis software used today in geographic profiling, geographic information pertinent to a serial killer investigation can be disclosed using a commercial GIS. The addition of a geographic method that adds the component of time and focuses on the daily routine of the victim will complement existing profile methods and provide investigators with a new tool in understanding serial killer phenomena. A law enforcement perspective of this method and GIS is also presented.

This thesis takes a close look at the lived world of Jamaican Rastafarians through the lens of food-related practices and preferences, working to define the group's characteristic strategies for maintaining wellness and illuminating their tastes and sensibilities. It strives to evoke a sensorial and discursive awareness of the activities through which Rastafarians nourish and heal their physical and social bodies, by focusing on ways in which they produce and use I-tal food-medicines. Rastafarian taste for I-tal has developed alongside collective engagement with the valorization and revitalization of traditional knowledge about health and land use. In addition to providing sites for bodily nourishment, food-related practices have become historically, politically, and culturally significant "ways of operating" (de Certeau 1984:xiv) in the Rastafarian lived world. First historicizing the emergence of the taste for I-tal and discussing how this preference has become embedded in Rastafarian ideology and ecology, I then demonstrate how and why Rastafarians objectify and manifest this taste in dietary norms, in culinary preparation and arrangement of kitchen spaces, and in medicine production and therapy. My goals are threefold: to illuminate the Rastafarian taste for I-tal and sensibility for natural living; to evoke a sensorial and discursive awareness of the everyday practices and strategies Rastafarians use in building, cleansing, and encouraging bodily growth; also, to show how and why my Rastafarian informants, in particular, struggle to maintain control over commoditization of I-tal products and related cooking-healing practices.

The Grateful Dead hold a unique niche in the musical, social, and cultural history of the United States. However, while the volume of available academic literature concerning the band is increasing, the Grateful Dead remain to be nearly ignored by academia and, to this point apparently, completely ignored by cultural geographers. This paper introduces the Grateful Dead into the field of geography. I analyze the geography of certain aspects of the band, such as its context in San Francisco, the carnival atmosphere of the entire phenomenon, the over 2300 tour dates, as well as the huge catalog of lyrics sung by the band throughout their thirty year career. I intend this thesis to serve as an introduction to geographic research of the Grateful Dead phenomenon as well as a basis for further geographic research of it, offering some ideas for further research in the final chapter.

This study seeks to apply the geological method of paleotempestology to reconstruct past hurricane activities for Central America and the Caribbean. Landfalling hurricanes may deposit distinct overwash sand layers in coastal lake sediments through storm surges and tidal overwash processes that can be dated to establish a chronology of past hurricane strikes. Proxy records from lake-sediment cores were taken for this study in the spring and summer of 2003 from Lake Sophie, Providenciales Island, Turks and Caicos, and from Laguna de Los Micos, Honduras. Loss-on-ignition analysis revealed many changes in the sediment stratigraphies for both sites that appear to represent overwash sand layers caused by past hurricane landfalls. The identification of the overwash sand layers through loss-on-ignition and grain size analyses and radiocarbon dating allowed for a preliminary estimation of return periods and annual landfall probabilities for the regions around Laguna de Los Micos and Lake Sophie. Four cores taken from Laguna de Los Micos, composed mostly of gyttja, contain two distinct sand layers deposited within 500 years of sediment. Radiocarbon dating indicates that the events occurred around AD 1660 and 1550, suggesting a return period of 250 years and an annual landfall probability of 0.4% for Laguna de Los Micos. The core from Lake Sophie is composed of marl and contains 8 distinctive layers of coarse calcareous sand that are interpreted to be hurricane overwash layers. Radiocarbon dating indicates the core to be around 4240 years old, suggesting a return period of 530 years and an annual landfall probability of 0.18% for Lake Sophie. The return periods and annual landfall probability estimates for these sites in Honduras and Turks and Caicos Islands were found to be comparable to those reported from the U.S. Gulf Coast. These results are the first proxy records of past hurricane strikes for Central America and the Caribbean region.