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Doctor of Philosophy / This thesis examines the material correlates of religious behaviour. Religion is an important part of every culture, but the impact religion has on structuring material culture is not well understood. Archaeologists are hampered in their reconstructions of the past because they lack comparative methods and universal conventions for identifying religious behaviour. The principal aim of this thesis is to construct an indicator model which can archaeologically identify religious behaviour. The basis for the proposed model stems directly from recurrent religious phenomena. Such phenomena, according to anthropological and cognitive research, relate to a series of spatio-temporally recurrent religious features which relate to a universal foundation for religious concepts. Patterns in material culture which strongly correlate with these recurrent phenomena indicate likely concentrations of religious behaviour. The variations between sacred and mundane places can be expected to yield information regarding the way people organise themselves in relation to how they perceive their cosmos. Using cognitive religious theory, stemming from research in neurophysiology and psychology, it is argued that recurrent religious phenomena owe their replication to the fact that certain physical stimuli and spatial concepts are most easily interpreted by humans in religious ideas. Humans live in a world governed by natural law, and it is logical that the concepts generated by humans will at least partially be similarly governed. Understanding the connection between concept and cause results in a model of behaviour applicable to cross-cultural analysis and strengthens the model’s assumption base. In order to test the model of religious behaviour developed in this thesis it is applied to a regional archaeological matrix from the Blue Mountains National Park in New South Wales, Australia. Archaeological research in the Blue Mountains has tentatively identified ceremonial sites based on untested generalised associations between select artefact types and distinctive geographic features. The method of analysis in this thesis creates a holistic matrix of archaeological and geographic data, encompassing both qualitative and quantitative measures, which generates a statistical norm for the region. Significant liminal deviations from this norm, which are characteristic indicators of religious behaviour are then identified. Confidence in these indicators’ ability to identify ceremonial sites is obtained by using a distance matrix and algorithms to examine the spatial patterns of association between significant variables. This thesis systematically tests the associations between objects and geography and finds that a selective array and formulaic spatiality of material correlates characteristic of religious behaviour does exist at special places within the Blue Mountains. The findings indicate a wide spread if more pocketed distribution of ceremonial sites than is suggested in previous models. The spatial/material relationships for identified religious sites indicates that these places represent specialised extensions of an interdependent socio-economic system where ceremonial activity and subsistence activity operated in balance and were not isolated entities.

Doctor of Philosophy / This thesis examines the material correlates of religious behaviour. Religion is an important part of every culture, but the impact religion has on structuring material culture is not well understood. Archaeologists are hampered in their reconstructions of the past because they lack comparative methods and universal conventions for identifying religious behaviour. The principal aim of this thesis is to construct an indicator model which can archaeologically identify religious behaviour. The basis for the proposed model stems directly from recurrent religious phenomena. Such phenomena, according to anthropological and cognitive research, relate to a series of spatio-temporally recurrent religious features which relate to a universal foundation for religious concepts. Patterns in material culture which strongly correlate with these recurrent phenomena indicate likely concentrations of religious behaviour. The variations between sacred and mundane places can be expected to yield information regarding the way people organise themselves in relation to how they perceive their cosmos. Using cognitive religious theory, stemming from research in neurophysiology and psychology, it is argued that recurrent religious phenomena owe their replication to the fact that certain physical stimuli and spatial concepts are most easily interpreted by humans in religious ideas. Humans live in a world governed by natural law, and it is logical that the concepts generated by humans will at least partially be similarly governed. Understanding the connection between concept and cause results in a model of behaviour applicable to cross-cultural analysis and strengthens the model’s assumption base. In order to test the model of religious behaviour developed in this thesis it is applied to a regional archaeological matrix from the Blue Mountains National Park in New South Wales, Australia. Archaeological research in the Blue Mountains has tentatively identified ceremonial sites based on untested generalised associations between select artefact types and distinctive geographic features. The method of analysis in this thesis creates a holistic matrix of archaeological and geographic data, encompassing both qualitative and quantitative measures, which generates a statistical norm for the region. Significant liminal deviations from this norm, which are characteristic indicators of religious behaviour are then identified. Confidence in these indicators’ ability to identify ceremonial sites is obtained by using a distance matrix and algorithms to examine the spatial patterns of association between significant variables. This thesis systematically tests the associations between objects and geography and finds that a selective array and formulaic spatiality of material correlates characteristic of religious behaviour does exist at special places within the Blue Mountains. The findings indicate a wide spread if more pocketed distribution of ceremonial sites than is suggested in previous models. The spatial/material relationships for identified religious sites indicates that these places represent specialised extensions of an interdependent socio-economic system where ceremonial activity and subsistence activity operated in balance and were not isolated entities.

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Fuel accumulation rate and total soil nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur following prescribed fires were studied. Three prescribed fires were conducted in S.E. Arizona ponderosa pine stands during the summers of 1979, 1980, and 1981. Samples of forest floor and larger diameter fuel and soil from the surface 1.5 inches and 1.5 to 3.0 inch layers were collected in the summer of 1981. Forest floor and total fuel accumulation averaged 5.4 to 6.7 and 6.3 to 8.9 tons/acre/year, respectively. Total nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur in the surface three inches of mineral soil were not significantly affected by burning. Soil nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur content averaged 0.21%, 344 ppm and 150 ppm, respectively, in the surface 1.5 inches and 0.11%, 285 ppm and 74 ppm, respectively, in the 1.5 to 3.0 inch layer.

The Picacho earth fissure transects subsiding alluvial sediments near the eastern periphery of the Picacho basin in southcentral Arizona. The basin has undergone land subsidence of as much as 3.8 m since the 1930's due to compaction of the aquifer system in response to ground-water-level declines that have exceeded 100 m. The fissure extends generally north-south for 15 km and exhibits horizontal tensile failure as well as up to 0.6 m of normal dip-slip movement at the land surface, with the west side of the fissure downthrown. The fissure was observed as early as 1927, following an earthquake, and is the longest earth fissure in Arizona. Vertical and horizontal displacements have been monitored along a line normal to the fissure. The survey line extends from a bedrock outcrop in the Picacho Mountains on the east, past an observation well near the fissure, to a point 1422 in to the west. From May 1980 to May 1984, the western, downthrown side of the fissure subsided 167 ±1.8 mm and moved 18 ±1.5 mm westward into the basin. Concurrently, the eastern, relatively upthrown side subsided 147 ±1.8 mm and moved 14 ±1.5 mm westward. Dislocation modeling of deformation along the survey line near the fissure suggests that dip-slip movement has occurred along a vertical fault surface that extends from the land surface to a depth of about 300 m. Slip was 9 mm from May to December 1980 and 9 mm from March to November 1981. Continuous measurements were made of horizontal movement across the fissure using a buried invar-wire horizontal extensometer, while water-level fluctuations were continuously monitored in four piezometers nested in two observation wells. The range of horizontal movement was 4.620 mm, and the range of water-level fluctuation in the nearest piezometer in the deeper alluvium was 9.05 m. The maximum annual opening of the fissure during the study period was 3.740 mm from March to October 1981, while the water-level declined 7.59 m. The fissure closed 1.033 mm from October 1981 to March 1982 while the water level recovered 6.94 m. Opening and closing of the fissure were smooth and were correlated with water-level decline and recovery, respectively, in the nearby piezometers. Pearson correlation coefficients between the water-level fluctuations in the deeper piezometers and horizontal movement ranged from 0.913 to 0.925. The correlogram of water-level decline as ordinate, versus horizontal strain as abscissa, exhibits hysteresis loops for annual cycles of water-level fluctuation as well as near-vertical excursions for shorter cycles of pumping and recovery.

The Condrey Mountain Schist (CMS) occupies a window through Late Triassic amphibolite facies melange in the north central Klamath Mountains in northern California and southwest Oregon. The schists owe their present level of exposure to a large structural dome centered on the Condrey Mountain Window. Transitional blueschist-greenschist facies assemblages are widespread in mafic schists in the structurally lowest levels of the window; structurally higher CMS near the window margins contains medium- to high-pressure greenschist facies parageneses. An ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar crossite age indicates a late Middle Jurassic age of metamorphism. All subunits of the CMS contain evidence of progressive, polyphase deformational and metamorphic histories. The styles and geometries of minor structures in the central part of the window suggest that early folding and transposition was the result of noncoaxial deformation, and that rotational strains were replaced by irrotational flattening strains with time. Rotational strains were accompanied by the development of epidote-crossite assemblages and the growth of deerite in meta-ironstones; irrotational flattening strains were accompanied and followed by the growth of albite, actinolite, spessartine, and the Ba-silicate, cymrite. Pressure-temperature estimates, the relative ages of mineral growth and deformation, and strain geometries are consistent with, but not restricted to, a subduction zone environment. High shear strains may reflect descent and burial, whereas flattening and late, static mineral growth occur during uplift. Pressure-temperature estimates for the overlying CMS greenschists suggest temperatures similar to those in the central part of the window, but at slightly lower pressures. Thrusting of the overlying amphibolites at 150-156 Ma occurred while the amphibolites were above about 500°C. Stretching lineations indicate a movement vector of about N45W. Comparisons of the sequence and timing of metamorphic and structural events, radiometric ages, and movement directions during thrusting indicate the CMS does not represent an inlier of Klamath Western Jurassic Belt flysch but is instead an older, isolated thrust plate. Similarities with the age of metamorphism and plutonism in the overlying amphibolites suggest the two plates may be remnants of the same Middle Jurassic paired metamorphic belt. / text