Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 277-284).

Typescript, etc. / Digitized by Kansas State University Libraries

Thesis (Honors)--College of William and Mary, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 75-78). Also available via the World Wide Web.

In Great Plains archaeology, differences in projectile point morphologies are used to define typological groups, which are subsequently inferred to reflect unique cultural groups. The goal of this project was to investigate the variability between projectile points dating to the Late Middle Prehistoric period (2,500 – 1,300 BP) since some researchers associate these cultural remains with one group (Besant phase) while others separate them into Outlook, Besant, and Sonota phases/complexes. Metric and non-metric attributes of projectile points from six single component sites, Fincastle, One-Eleven, Happy Valley, Muhlbach, Fitzgerald, and Ruby, were statistically examined. The results showed that basal attributes remain relatively constant, while blade aspects vary greatly. Since the base of a point is considered more typologically indicative than the blade, which is connected to functional aspects, it was concluded that, based on the projectile points, these represent one typological group. / xii, 277 leaves ; 29 cm

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2009. / Title from title screen (site viewed October 15, 2009). PDF text: vii, 292 p. ; 880 Kb. UMI publication number: AAT 3355633. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm and microfiche formats.

Research on soil organic carbon (SOC) within the northern Great Plains has not been clearly documented. Objectives of this study were (i) to inventory literature reporting SOC responses to agroecosystem management, (ii) extract data for the Northern Great Plains Rapid Carbon Assessment, and (iii) summarize data to identify relationships between SOC and land use management. Soil organic carbon at 0 ? 15 cm depth was 1.57 ? 6.87 kg C m-2, 1.56 ? 5.34 kg C m-2, and 1.48 ? 5.48 kg C m-2 under grasslands, conservation tillage (CST), and conventional tillage (CT), respectively. Soils with a Productivity Index (PI) of 80 ? 100 had greater mean SOC (4.14 kg C m-2) across all managements. Correlation between SOC and PI for CT was significant (r=0.240) (P=0.05) and highly significant (r=0.418) (P=0.01) for CST. Management practices for cropland soils combined with productivity potential appear to relate to the C accrual potential of northern Great Plains soils.

By Walter S. Phillips from Homer L. Shantz' records and negatives. / Contract: Office of Naval Research / Nonr-2173 (01) / Project NR 387-018

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1978 L35 / Master of Science

Master of Arts / Department of Geography / Kendra K. McLauchlan / Fossil pollen assemblages are widely used in paleoenvironmental reconstruction of vegetation regimes and climate conditions. The modern analog technique (MAT) is a popular method used for analysis of these fossil pollen assemblages, but a large modern pollen dataset, such as the North American Pollen Database (NAPD), is needed to provide modern comparisons for interpretation of analog/no-analog situations. While many climate types are well represented within the NAPD, the climates of the southern and central Great Plains of North America are poorly represented. In this study, I collected 31 sediment samples containing pollen from these underrepresented climate types across the Great Plains in the U.S.A. Analysis of these 31 pollen assemblages, along with 504 samples classified as “prairie” from the NAPD and 24 pollen samples from the Flint Hills of Kansas, U.S.A. was conducted to determine if the three major prairie types (short grass, mixed grass, and tallgrass prairies) could be delineated from pollen records alone. Two different MAT dissimilarity metrics (Squared Chord Distance and Canberra Distance Metric) were assessed for their ability to delineate among prairie types and Squared Chord Distance (SCD) was found to a be the better prairie type classifier than Canberra Distance Metric (CDM). Receiver Operator Characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to assess the ability of each metric to identify similar pollen assemblages. It has been show in previous studies that two genera found in this region – Ambrosia and Artemisia –respond to temperature and moisture availability in different ways. Using the ratio of the proportions of Ambrosia and Artemisia pollen grains in a pollen assemblage it was found that tallgrass prairies are significantly different from the other two prairie types. The Ambrosia/Artemisia ratio is also useful in determining climatic conditions. This ratio provides paleoenvironmental researchers with a simple quantitative tool to quickly assess general climatic conditions and prairie type.

No description available.