Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on Feb 25, 2010). The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Dissertation advisor: Dr. Thomas Dougherty. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Before the sixth millennium BC, peoples across Europe subsisted as foragers: by hunting wild game, gathering wild foods, and fishing from rivers and oceans. These subsistence strategies changed with the advent of the Neolithic as food producing economies and societies were introduced or arrived in southeast Europe from the Near East. This shift appeared earliest in the regions adjacent to Turkey and the Mediterranean and slowly expanded northward and westward during the late 7th and early 6th millennium BC. As a result of this change, most zooarchaeological and palaeo-economic studies conducted in the Balkans for Neolithic remains focused on domestic livestock and consequences for subsistence and settlement, to the neglect of our understanding of the wild component of Neolithic economies and the information they can provide on subsistence and settlement. In this thesis, I examine the wild component of Neolithic subsistence in order to understand their contribution to diet and overall economic adaptations. In particular, I examine the remains of deer, which are the most common wild mammal exploited during the Neolithic of the region, in order to characterize deer exploitation strategies. The thesis research demonstrates that the hunting of red and roe deer was not necessarily a background activity, but an important part of the Neolithic exploitation strategy, for both food and other kinds of resources. By understanding these processes and their importance to Neolithic society, we are better equipped to understand the overall picture of subsistence strategies and the exploitation of other resources in the central Balkans during the Neolithic.

published_or_final_version / Clinical Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

In China‘s expanded higher education, middle and upper middle class students continue to outpace those from less privileged backgrounds not only in job access but also occupational attainment. Literature depends mainly on social capital theory, attributing the advantages of middle class students in the graduate labour market to their higher status contacts and vaster social networks. Yet, literature has largely ignored the influence of growing market mechanisms in the graduate labour market, as well as the agency of individual job seekers. Inspired by cultural capital theory, this study is devoted to understanding the cultural processes that underlie individual advancement in a stratified society. Emphasizing the influences of cultural capital in the process and outcome of job searching, this study argues that the advantage of middle class students during job search is determined not only by the higher status contacts embedded in their family social network, but by the tight link between parental involvement, accepted institutional policies and practices, and ideal notions of personhood, i.e., a highly synthesized cultural advancement system. Between January and June, 2012, 60 fourth-year students from two universities in Wuhan were interviewed. Drawing upon these data, it is found that, firstly, the family cultivated certain qualities at the early stage before the student entered higher education. What‘s more, middle class parents always keep their children on the right track of the ‘standard middle class career path‘, and sometimes even act in a more assertive role to ‗correct‘ students‘ derailed inclinations. However, the parents of underprivileged students know little about campus life and the job searching experiences of their children. Secondly, the ―excellence‖ emphasized in school discourse aligns with middle class values. Middle class students are very familiar with the cultural codes and manners required to obtain this ―excellence.‖ Additionally, the evaluation criteria and award mechanisms prevailing on campus also favor the performance of middle class students. Their awards, usually in the form of certificates, prizes or titles, are directly interpreted into higher employability during their job search, contributing to greater opportunities of the middle class during their job search. And thirdly, shaped by their socialization both at home and school, middle class students manage to accumulate a whole set of class-based dispositions towards control and success while underprivileged students fail to do so. Guided by these dispositions, middle class students employ purposeful strategies and demeanours on campus in order to cater to the labour market‘s requirements. The findings suggest that social reproduction during job search is due to the mixed functioning of the cultural advancement system, taking into consideration the negotiation and interaction between the contextual features, i.e., the gradually implemented market mechanism, inadequate legal enforcement, and guanxi as a cultural psychology. This study suggests that the cultural advancement system could be extended through more scholarly thesis to explain how the middle class continue to pull ahead of lower classes, thus perpetuating class inequality in transitional China. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

No description available.

No description available.

Hunting is considered as the most masculine activity in our society. Historically, man has been described as the provider for his family, this in the forms of hunting and gathering. Today hunting is still associated with a male hunter, but women have started to infiltrate the hunting culture. In this study hunting culture is analyzed with a gender perspective. In a modern society with gender and equality as a big subject of debate it is interesting to examine this impact on a culture so linked with masculinity. By interviewing five female hunters, using a narrative approach and analyzing with gender theory, the results show that a masculine dominance undermines women and femininity in the culture of hunting. The results also show that women have constructed a feminine hunting form as a reaction to the male dominance.

No description available.

New regulations have been published under the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act ('the Biodiversity Act') that regulate activities regarded as 'restricted activities' by that Act involving listed species of flora and fauna. The regulations include several provisions relating specifically to five species of large predator (lions are a notable exception) and to black and white rhinoceros and represent the end of a lengthy law reform process. The regulations came into force on 1 February 2008. South Africa is a signatory to several international instruments concerned with the protection of biodiversity including the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species ('CITES'), the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and the SADC Protocol on Wildlife Conservation and Law Enforcement in the Southern African Development Community. The Biodiversity Act is the key national law concerned with management of large predators from a conservation and biodiversity protection point of view. Several Acts administered by the Department of Agriculture, such as the Animals Protection Act and the Performing Animals Protection Act, provide for the welfare of animals in captivity. However, the management of wild predators has up to now been regulated at provincial level by a series of outdated nature conservation ordinances that are inconsistent with one another and with the provisions of CITES. It is clear from the Game Theft Act, from national policy instruments such as the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan and from the draft Game Farming Policy that hunting and game farming are seen as important contributors to the South African economy with the potential to address rural poverty and create employment. Hunting is itself a multimillion rand industry in South Africa and a substantial part of that industry is trophy hunting. Large predators in South Africa are most affected by trophy hunting practices, but other animals and other predators are also affected. Large predators are also the subject ofboth national and international trade. In recent years captive breeding of large predators has increased dramatically in order to supply the trophy hunting industry. During the late 1990s concerns began to be raised in the press regarding so-called 'canned hunting' practices and the law reform process mentioned in the first paragraph was partially a result ofthis focus on canned hunting. The new regulations provide, among other things, for greater control of the wildlife industry and for the setting ofhunting off-take limits, but they have several weaknesses. On the most basic level, the regulations contain drafting errors, are overly complex and may conflict with existing provincial legislation. They are likely to impose a greater administrative burden on provincial authorities already struggling to implement the existing provincial legislation. It is submitted that the provisions relating to animal welfare (for example, those dealing with prohibited methods of hunting) should have been enacted elsewhere. The provisions relating to self-regulation of the hunting industry and black economic empowerment are ineffectual as currently drafted. Most importantly, the new regulations do not represent a significant departure from the utilitarian approach to wild animals that has characterised South African law since its earliest days. In this sense, the regulations conform to the current policy of 'making conservation pay'. / Thesis (LL.M.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008.

No description available.