<p>This research involved low powered microscopic analysis of usewear patterns on the utilized edges of formal and informal tools sampled from the Nenana component (C1) and the Denali component (C2) of the Dry Creek Site. Dry Creek is one of the type sites for the Nenana Complex, which is often contrasted with the Denali Complex in Late Pleistocene archaeological studies of central Alaska (12,000&ndash;10,000 B.P.). There are twice as many unifacial scrapers than bifacial tools in the C1 formal tool assemblage. The C1 worked lithic assemblage contains a relatively high number of unifacially worked endscrapers and side scrapers when compared to the number of bifacial knife and point technology. The technological makeup of the formal tools sampled from the Denali component is characterized by the manufacture and use of a higher number of bifacial knives and projectile points. The presence of microblades within C2 and the absence of microblades in C1 are often cited as the most significant technological difference between these two tool kits. The analysis presented here suggests that with or without microblades, the Nenana and Denali components are different tool kits. However, differences in utilization signatures between formal bifacial knives and scrapers tools indicate that technological variability within C1 and C2 at Dry Creek may largely be shaped by early hunting and butchering versus later stage butchering and processing activities. </p>

<p>The 2011 excavation of Feature 9, a 3800 cal B.P. semisubterranean house at ADK-00237 on southwest Adak Island, is the only Neoglacial house excavated in the central Aleutian Islands and the only upland site excavation in the Aleutian Islands. House structural features, lithic debitage and tool analysis, sediment analysis, and spatial analysis are used to determine if upland household activities in Feature 9 differ from household activities in coastal Neoglacial houses. The complex hearth features at ADK-00237 are similar to those at the Amaknak Bridge (UNL-00050) site on Unalaska Island. The artifact assemblage at ADK-00237 is similar to other Margaret Bay phase sites in the eastern Aleutian Islands with the notable absence of fishing and hunting equipment and midden remains. Core and blade technology include one microblade core and two blade-like unifaces. Unifacial technology was more prevalent than bifacial technology and most tools were informal flake tools. The comparable tool assemblages suggest similar activities occurred in Feature 9 as at other Margaret Bay phase houses in the eastern Aleutian Islands. There is no evidence the Arctic Small Tool tradition (ASTt)-like artifacts from Chaluka (SAM-00001) and Margaret Bay (UNL-00048) were identified at ADK-00237. The measurable differences in the upland site of ADK-00237 to coastal houses are that Feature 9 and the two additional houses were not stone-lined, it has a smaller assemblage size, there is a lower frequency of points within the assemblage, and no definitive fishing or hunting equipment was found. Given the available evidence, ADK-00237 was likely a lookout location, based on its proximity to a coastal village (ADK-00025) and its views and easy access to three other water bodies, Adak Strait to the west, South Arm Bay to the north, and Bay of Waterfalls to the southeast. ADK-00237 could also have been a refuge.

<p> Arapaho is an Algonquian language with few remaining speakers, but it is well represented in the literature (e.g. Salzmann 1961). The Arapaho dialect of Plains Indian Sign Language has also received a considerable amount of attention (e.g. West 1960). However, there is scant attention to an easily observable property of Arapaho: The manual gestures used by Arapaho speakers are cross-linguistically atypical. The configurations and precision of the gestures, as well as how they are integrated with speech, are much more conventional than what has been reported for other spoken languages. In this dissertation, I take a first step in describing the relationship between gesture and speech in Arapaho, and I use the term 'bimodalism' to underscore the linguistic nature of this relationship. </p><p> I also address the problem of how to approach a description of bimodalism. The classic approach to language description has framed researcher interests, methodologies, and documentational techniques in a way that does not motivate an analysis of the linguistic potential that gesture might have together with speech. I therefore use an interactional approach, which has a methodology and theoretical framework that is more sensitive to bimodalism (e.g. Fox 1987; Hanks 1990; Goodwin 1996; Enfield 2003; Blythe 2010). </p><p> I build on previous work on Arapaho grammar (notably Cowell and Moss Sr. 2008) by using the interactional approach to examine linguistic reference within Arapaho speakers' spontaneous narratives. I argue that hand pointing and spoken demonstratives are complementary resources that Arapaho storytellers use to signal discourse relevance, which involves the relational statuses and spatial arrangements of the characters in their narratives. I show the depth of the relationship between pointing and demonstratives in Arapaho by examining a bimodal construction that I call the &ldquo;viewpoint anchoring construction&rdquo;.</p>

<p> Togo, this small West African nation, is still relative unknown, even in today's jet set world. The Western world is only now discovering the numerous advances Togo has made in it social and economic policies, but most of all in its political conjectures. After its Independence on April 27, 1960, Togo had barely begun its journey to democracy when the dictatorship of Gnassingbe Eyadema became the yoke of the people for over thirty-one years, on April 14th, 1967. The consequences of the stranglehold exercised by Gnassingbe was to shut the nation's cultural growth and cause the people to close in onto themselves and build a protective barrier between themselves and the rest of the world.</p><p> Yet, Togo had great beginnings. It was one of the pioneers of Sub-Saharan literature, publishing in 1929 one of the first true African novels still read today. In 1929, native son Felix Couchoro, was among the first Sub-Saharan authors to write a novel which gave agency to an African protagonist in a story set in Africa, with an African-themed plot, and with a conclusion that aimed at rethinking African society. Couchoro was the first to look deeply into his culture and the social identity of his nation. He brought forth suggestions that would help in Togo's growth and insure its successful battle for Independence. </p><p> In doing so, however, Couchoro also created great controversy around a subject which continues to plague not only Togelese people, but all Africans who feel pulled in two directions: preserving their authentic traditional customs while taking an active part in the modern world, through economic improvements as well as technological advances. In this dissertation, I will first study Couchoro's flagship novel which was the starting point of this quest for a modern identity, then analyze how subsequent Togolese writers have taken up Couchoro's legacy.</p><p>

<p> Despite decades of Chaco-style great house research, the impetus for their construction and the extent to which their communities directly interacted across the northern Southwest remain poorly understood. A key question is whether great houses represent an articulated system centered at Chaco Canyon or whether they are a regional conceptualization of communal activities enacted on a local scale. The amount of documented great house variability suggests that local social and environmental contexts played an important role in the construction and use of these structures. </p><p> I present a case study of three late Pueblo II (A.D. 1050-1130) communities in the southern Cibola sub-region, located on the southern extent of the Pueblo culture area, to evaluate the role of great houses within their local and broader social contexts. I argue great houses in this area were constructed as costly signaling displays directed by local leaders to gain community prestige and access to non-local resources. I draw on survey, architectural, ceramic, faunal, and compositional data from each community to identify links between these great houses and others across the northern Southwest, examine the nature of great house use within the context of each associated community, and evaluate patterns of interaction with local and more distant communities. I then expand this analysis to evaluate evidence for costly signaling activities between great house communities from across the Chacoan sphere. </p><p> The results suggest that southern Cibola great houses were locally constructed using elements from the traditional Chaco architectural canon, and utilized remodeling events to increase their architectural link to Chaco Canyon. These great houses hosted community-integrating activities that incorporated ceramics from both the Pueblo and Mogollon ancestral traditions, possibly in an effort to socially integrate a multi-ethnic population. No evidence was identified to support the historically dominant model that southern Cibola great houses were built and controlled by Chaco Canyon populations. Based on this analysis, a costly signaling model better accounts for the construction of southern Cibola great houses than others posed for a Chaco regional system. This inference is supported at other great houses across the Chaco sphere, given the available macro-regional great house data.</p>

<p> This master&rsquo;s thesis presents language community information, a descriptive grammatical sketch and analysis of structures in <i>maqlaqsyals </i> (Klamath-Modoc), a severely endangered isolate language traditionally spoken in present-day southern Oregon and northern California. The basis for this thesis is data from descriptive grammars from Gatschet (1890) and Barker (1964) as well as further linguistic and academic literature surrounding <i> maqlaqsyals</i>. This thesis is important because there is limited literature on <i>maqlaqsyals</i> that is accessible to the language community and this thesis fills the literature gap. This thesis is an example in practice of linguistic sovereignty. This thesis provides accessible linguistic resources written by an Indigenous community member asserting local control. Additionally, this thesis is crucial because children are on longer learning <i>maqlaqsyals </i> as a first language. Second language speakers must become more knowledgeable of language structure in order to converse with other speakers, setting a future environment in which children can be taught <i>maqlaqsyals</i> as a first language.</p>

<p> My dissertation is a critical philosophical interpretation of selected constructs of Haudenosaunee culture addressing barriers to liberation from colonialism; the decolonization of the disruption of the original humanistic constructs rooted within Onkweh&oacute;nweneha; and what transformation means in the 21^st century. I also explore the contemporary realities of Haudenosaunee life from the Seven Spans paradigm of standards established by the Kaianerekowa &ndash; The Great Law of Peace; Gaiwiio &ndash; the Teachings of Handsome Lake; Indigenous deconstructive methodology framed by cultural transformation; and the construct of "extending the rafters" as a critical analysis of the Haudenosaunee from within. </p><p> Haudenosaunee culture is growing and flourishing, and in recent years, the young people who are driven by identity are seeking more understanding from life and culture. They are often met with resistance by self-appointed doorkeepers of the culture who are protectionist, and, in their attempts to protect, they discourage people. Their family's lack of activity in the longhouse community is often cited as reasonable cause. This is contrary to the original birthright of every Haudenosaunee person with respect to their culture. To challenge this issue, I advocate for more written cultural knowledge to be produced by Indigenous scholars as one critical step to cultural inclusion. </p><p> How we think, why we dream, how we solve problems, and what is important to a Haudenosaunee person are accumulating notions of cultural knowledge being forgotten as the Elders, the wisdom-keepers of repository knowledge, make their journey back to the Skyworld. It is vital that we explore these ideas in a process of decolonizing and experiential cultural learning connected to the important stories of the culture. This is an attempt at focusing that challenge with cause for dialogue.</p>

Between 1760 and 1812, the fertile lands around Lake Champlain's Missisquoi Bay were bisected by an international boundary. During this intense period of settlement, these lands were also subject to competing claims by various individuals, states, empires, and Native nations, all of who used grants, leases, surveys, and titles to further their claims. However, this copious property creation did not result in a coherent landscape, governed by authoritative states. Instead, participants used competing titles and overlapping grants to negotiate a spectrum of territorial claims. In many cases, the political, geographic, and economic ambiguities of property were seen as opportunities, rather than liabilities, by the diverse parties who claimed and occupied Missisquoi land. / Entre 1760 et 1812, les terres fertiles situées autour du lac Champlain, plus précisément de la baie Missisquoi, ont été coupées en deux par une frontière internationale. Durant cette période intense de colonisation, l'endroit fut également l'objet de revendications par divers états, empires, personnes et nations autochtones qui utilisèrent différents titres, baux, plan d'arpentages et concession pour faire avancer leurs demandes. Cependant, la création de ces nombreuses propriétés n'a pas abouti au façonnage d'un paysage cohérent, politiquement stable et soumis à l'autorité claire d'un état. Au contraire, les participants ont utilisé les titres litigieux pour négocier un spectre des demandes territoriales. Dans de nombreux cas, les ambiguïtés politiques, géographiques et économiques du concept de propriété furent considérées comme des opportunités plutôt que des inconvénients par les différents partis qui ont demandé et qui ont occupé les terres du Missisquoi.

abstract: ABSTRACT Diné Education is equal and is as valid as this nation's mainstream education, yet it does not share the same ideas, processes or goals as its counterpart. It is more complicated because it is based on oral traditions and the philosophies of Hózhó, a construct that requires a learner to embrace one's surroundings, actions, interactions, and being. A central part of Diné education focuses on spirituality and self awareness which are intertwined with every dimension of this universe. In order to become educated in the Diné world a learner must first learn to "walk in beauty" and have a positive self image. Being Diné, this researcher sought to capture his own childhood memories, including the special teachings and teachers that have guided his learning, as a way to document the process of acquiring a Diné education. The methods of inquiry for this research included self-reflection documented in a journal and an extensive literature review. The literature review was guided by three research questions: 1. What is Diné Education? 2. How important is it to today's Diné people? 3. What are the future prospects for the existence of Diné education? / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Curriculum and Instruction 2010

abstract: In this dissertation, I engaged the doctrine of cultural sovereignty to demonstrate that an operational paradigm of cultural sovereignty exists at Taos Pueblo, a federally-recognized Indian tribe in New Mexico, which was capable of application to contemporary decision-making practices and policy. I turn to the knowledge, history, and principles of my people of the Taos Pueblo for creating such a model. To be clear, I am not advocating for a wholesale return to a pre-European existence. Rather, I am advocating for the development of a culturally-grounded approach to evaluating the various aspects of modernity to determine what to embrace and/or continue to adapt. I produced an evaluative model that answers what is Taos epistemology, ontology, methodology, and axiology (EOMA)? And, what does Taos EOMA mean for Taos sovereignty, self-determination, and self-governance? What is the Taos pedagogy of sovereignty, self-determination, and self-governance? And, third, what is the Taos praxis of sovereignty, self-determination, and self-governance? By constructing a Taos sovereignty model that continues, repatriates, or reclaims our history, tradition, and cultural identity, we are in a better position to integrate and align the Taos way of life and our political sovereignty. My hope is that this model can help not only the Taos people but Pueblo people of New Mexico imagine a collective future that balances modern/contemporary non-Pueblo practices and systems with our own rich traditions and heritage. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Liberal Studies 2015