"Macaws is a field and laboratory guide to the identification of the Military Macaw and the Scarlet Macaw. Also included is a survey of all the Southwestern culture areas which have produced macaw remains...A "labor of love" by the author...Scholarly addition to our knowledge of Southwestern prehistory." --Southwestern Lore "Excellent monograph, well illustrated...Much useful and interesting data in this study."--American Antiquity

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What is the behavioral evidence of ritual prehistory? How can the development of new archaeological method and theory enable prehistorians to identify ritual deposits and reconstruct the ritual past? This dissertation addresses these questions in a case study of puebloan sites in the U.S. Southwest. Rather than attempting to identify prehistoric belief systems, it uses an artifact life-history approach to create expectations about how certain artifacts were made, used and especially disposed of in ritual contexts. Fill and floor deposits from ceremonial structures (kivas) at the ancestral Hopi pueblo of Homol'ovi II are interpreted using this approach. These deposits are then linked to a greater ritual disposal tradition whose roots extend into Basketmaker times. These findings are also applied to fragmentary skeletal remains that have previously been attributed to cannibalism and warfare. An alternative explanation, witchcraft persecution is offered.

Turquoise is synonymous with the U.S. Southwest, occurring naturally in relative abundance and culturally prized for millennia. As color and material, turquoise is fundamental to the worldviews of numerous indigenous groups of the region, with notable links to moisture, sky, and personal and familial vitality. For Pueblo groups in particular, turquoise and other blue-green minerals hold a prominent place in myth, ritual, aesthetics, and cosmology. They continue to be used as important offerings, deposited in shrines and decorating objects like prayer-sticks and adornments. Archaeological occurrences of turquoise in contexts such as caches, structural foundations, and burials demonstrate its important, perhaps ritually oriented role in prehispanic Pueblo practices. This research examines the myriad uses of turquoise and other blue-green minerals in the late prehispanic Western Pueblo region of the U.S. Southwest (northeastern Arizona and western New Mexico, A.D. 1275–1400). I assess the distribution and depositional patterning of turquoise to explore the role of social valuables in expressing similarities or differences among groups at various social scales. In recent decades, studies of material culture from late prehispanic contexts (most commonly ceramics) have broadened understandings of settlement-specific demographics, the direction and approximate size of distinct population movements, and the structure and transformation of social networks. Such studies have revealed complex and variable relationships between settlements, even those located within distinct settlement clusters. While building upon these insights, this study provides a different, yet comparable outlook by focusing on turquoise, its various uses in social or ritual settings, and its involvement in expressing social or ideological connections that may have differed from other material forms. The project employs a multidisciplinary approach, incorporating archaeology, geochemistry, and ethnography in an effort to address a central research question: How did the circulation and consumption of turquoise vary throughout the late prehispanic Western Pueblo region, and what are the implications for understanding interactions and identity expressions within and among aggregating settlements and settlement clusters? The ancient role of turquoise and other blue-green materials in social identification was explored through several angles, including: 1) spatiotemporal patterns in the stylistic characteristics of ornaments and painted media (e.g., shape and size of beads and pendants or designs on blue-green painted objects); 2) the context and content of archaeological deposits with turquoise (i.e., uses beyond personal and ceremonial adornment, such as ritual offerings); and 3) regional patterns of mineral acquisition and exchange using measurements of heavy stable isotopes. Interviews with Hopi and Zuni consultants—jewelers, artists, and cultural experts—augmented the study by incorporating the participation and perspectives of descendent communities. Taken together, patterns of use and acquisition provide novel means of assessing social or ideological connections between late prehispanic Pueblo communities, and help to clarify the complex and multifaceted ways past Pueblo groups materially expressed their social identities. Woven with contemporary Pueblo sentiments, these data provide indisputable evidence of a colorful and spiritual past.

Thirty-five species of chaetognaths belonging to fourteen genera and four families were identified in the waters of southwestern Taiwan from July 2009 to April 2010. In surface tows, thirty-five species of chaetognaths belonging to fourteen genera and four families were found, with mean abundance of 2911 ¡Ó 586 ind./ 100m3; in oblique tows, thirty species of chaetognaths belonging to fourteen genera and four families were identified, with mean abundance of 3180 ¡Ó 532 ind./ 100m3. The five predominant species were Flaccisagitta enflata, Aidanosagitta regularis, A. neglecta, A. delicate and Serratosagitta pacifica, together they constituted 72 % of the total catch. The hydrographic conditions in the waters southwestern Taiwan were affected by seasonal monsoons and water masses. Higher temperature, lower salinity, and higher nutrient concentration were found in summer, and lower temperature, higher salinity, and lower nutrient concentration in winter. Generally higher abundance of chaetognath was found in summer and in inshore waters, and lower in spring and in offshore waters. Furthermore, the abundance of chaetognath showed significantly positive correlation with copepods, but no significant correlation with temperature and salinity. The predominant chaetognaths were mostly stage I (47 ~ 89 %), adult stage(>stage III) was mainly found in April. The average body lengths (ABL) of Fl. enflata, A. regularis, A. delicate and Se. pacifica were larger in spring than in summer, while the ABL of A. neglecta exhibited larger in winter than in summer and autumn. This study implies that the distribution of weight mean stage (WMS) and ABL of chaetognath were likely influenced by the water masses, because the ABL of Fl. enflata and WMS of Se. pacifica were larger in high salinity waters, furthermore, this study found that the seasonal moonsons and the succession of water masses maybe played important factors in the distribution patterns of chaetognaths.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2003. / Supervisor: John E. Roueche. Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

The Precambrian-Cambrian transition is a period with enormous geological and biological changes. There is a wide distribution of black shale sequence in the Late Sinian and Early Cambrian strata along the passive southern margin of the Yangtze Platform in South China. The remarkable polymetallic sulfide extremely enriched ore layer is embedded at the bottom of the Lower Cambrian Niutitang Formation, but its genesis remains highly disputable. Known mechanisms can hardly explain the extreme enrichment and paragenesis of multimetal sulfides with regard to their highly variant properties. Here, a case study is performed about the polymetallic sulfide enriched ore layer and related strata from the black shale-dominated Niutitang Formation in Zunyi, Guizhou Province and Zhangjiajie, Hunan Province. A phosphorite-rich layer is situated near the bottom of the Niutitang Formation. A few meters above the phosphorite is the polymetallic sulfide enriched ore layer embedded in the carbonaceous black shale wall-rock. A Combination of different methodologies were used to examine the polymetallic enriched ore, the black shale wall-rock and the adjacent phosphorite samples, including optical microscopy, electron microscopy, Mössbauer spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, electron microprobe analysis, X-ray absorption spectroscopy, etc. Submicron-scale organic vesicles resembling green algae were noted in the polymetal sulfide enriched layer, indicating the key role of microbial activities during the mineralization of the polymetallic sulfide ores. Larger biogenic structures with possible hydrozoan and anthozoan (or algal) affinities were discovered from the polymetal sulfide ores and phosphorites, respectively, suggesting the participation of metazoan during the mineralization process. The ability of biomineralized molybdenite and apatite to preserve pseudomorphs is attributed to their fine crystal sizes, even if they were precipitated under drastically different geological conditions. The geochemical cycling of phosphorus and other nutrients probably involves multiple marine life-forms. Nickel and iron sulfides, on the contrary, were suggested to be incapable of preserving fine fossil structures because of high-degree recrystallization. In the polymetallic ores, pyrite was proved to be the predominant form of iron, and the uranium minerals were recognized as mainly coffinite and a small portion of uraninite. The uranium radioactive decay-caused carbonization effects were scrutinized in the micro-environment, suggesting the authigenecity of these uranium minerals. With these novel mineralogical, paleontological and geochemical evidence at the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary, new perspectives on the geobiology of the polymetallic sulfide ores are presented as follows. Both benthic and planktonic organisms might have actively participated in the early Cambrian metallogenesis. Polymetal biosorption by live and dead biomass, especially those from algal blooms, is hypothesized to be a major cause of the unusual polymetallic sulfide ore layer, followed by microbial reduction and immobilization in a stratified water column. This unique ore formation reflects the complicated mutual relationships between Cambrian biota and its paleoenvironment. These results may provide a better understanding of the role of biological activities in the problematic metallogenesis of the polymetal sulfide enriched ores and open a new window to the cognition of the hypothetic Cambrian Explosion. / published_or_final_version / Earth Sciences / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The primary goal of this research is to gain a better understanding of the spatial and temporal relationships between atmospheric circulation features and winter climate variability in the southwestern United States, and to investigate the variations in these relationships over the past three centuries. A set of six circulation indices is compiled that describes circulation features important to winter climate variability in this region. This set includes pre-existing indices such as the SOI and a modified PNA index, as well as regionally-tailored indices. A network of 88 tree-ring chronologies is then used to reconstruct the indices and the regional winter climate variables: numbers of rainy days (a variable not previously reconstructed with tree rings) and mean maximum temperature. Analyses suggest that three types of circulation features have influenced winter climate in the Southwest over the past three centuries. Although ENSO-related circulation patterns have been an important factor, especially in the 20th century, circulation patterns featuring a southwestern low appear to be as important if not more important to climate in some time periods. Results suggest that low frequency variations in atmospheric circulation patterns have occurred over the past three centuries and have had spatially and temporally varying impacts on winter climate in the Southwest.

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No description available.