The ongoing public debate over teaching evolution is typically disembodied from the social reality in which it occurs and is framed as a collision of mutually incompatible beliefsâBible-based creationism vs. naturalistic science. However, this account ascribes an agency to beliefs, independent of the humans that profess them. In contrast, my project examines practices relevant to teaching evolution as they occur in local contexts. I conducted ethnographic fieldwork in churches and homes in one East Tennessee town to gain fluency in the discourse on teaching evolutionâhow it is and is not talked about. I also worked inside of the state education system, tracing an effort to âteach evolutionâ from the writing and negotiation of Standard 5, in the Tennessee Science Framework, to the interpretation of that document by teachers in various districts, and on to the responses of middle and high school students. The resulting dissertation argues that individuals participating in evolution education (students, teachers and bureaucrats) are acting and thinking within a social realm without which the enterprise and controversy make little sense. I support this thesis in six chapters. I first trace the intertwined histories of efforts to teach evolution and oppose its teaching. Second, I discuss belief as a practice, illustrated by examples culled from my ethnography of churches in a community in East Tennessee. Next, I provide an account of the development of Standard 5, the component in the Tennessee Science Framework that was intended to include evolution. As will be seen, Standard 5 was made deliberately ambiguous in order to assuage concerns from certain members of the public. Then I consider how 8th grade science teachers exploited that ambiguity to negotiate the implementation of Standard 5 in their classrooms. I follow the discussion of teachers by considering how students respond to instruction over evolution. Finally, I explain in the Conclusion how this approach helps to bring new insights to the controversy.

This dissertation examines how warfare engendered new forms of sociality and mediated political relationships during the Late Intermediate Period (AD 1000-1450) in the Colca Valley of the southern Peruvian highlands. I argue that this context of pervasive warfare facilitated the formation of cooperative relationships at multiple scalesâfrom settlement-level defenses to regional alliancesâand consider how this cooperation in war provided a foundation for the articulation of new community identities and horizontal political relationships. This period in the highland Andes has been understood as a time of regional fragmentation and political decentralization, perpetuated by long-term internecine conflict. At the same time, new social identities and political relationships emerged at the local scale. To understand these dynamics of fragmentation and coalescence, I examine how warfare shaped relationships between households and settlements through a multi-scalar examination of hilltop fortifications in the Colca Valley. Specifically, I present data from: (1) regional-scale documentation of defensive sites and their spatial distribution; (2) site-level analysis of settlement patterns and artifact distributions. The results indicate that conflict provided an important context for the development of cooperative relationships at multiple scales. At the local level, households collaborated in the construction of large scale defensive architecture. Defensive concerns further drew individuals from across multiple settlements into broader networks of mutual obligationâlinking them through both corporate labor projects and local defensive alliances. At a regional scale, surveillance of key access points into and out of the valley and dense visual connections indicate broader networks of alliances. I show how these relationships, while built on shared defensive concerns, were also actively cultivated and maintained through commensalism, commemoration and production, and provided a basis for emergent self-organization and collective action that was not dependent upon and did not result in political centralization or hierarchization. This dissertation contributes to broad anthropological concerns regarding the social and political consequences of war, by drawing attention to the importance of understanding war as both destructive and generative.

This dissertation investigates how new forms of burial involving the placement of mummies in above-ground sepulchers impacted, and were shaped by, processes of identity formation and political change during the Late Intermediate Period in Peru (A.D. 1100-1450), a time of widespread conflict culminating in Inka conquest. Did mortuary practices intensify political fragmentation by reifying group boundaries, or did they mitigate social turmoil and resource risk by promoting inter-group alliance? This question is addressed through the analysis of human skeletal remains from the Colca Valley. Specifically, this dissertation examines: 1) patterns of cranial vault modification (CVM) to explore if mortuary treatment reinforced social differences marked on the body; 2) heritable traits on the human cranium to test if cemeteries were organized by biological kinship and evaluate scenarios of boundary maintenance via endogamy or alliance formation via inter-marriage; and 3) stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios from bone collagen to reconstruct diet and shed light on subsistence differentiation and resource access. Fifteen radiocarbon dates from human bone and mortar used in tomb construction facilitate the comparison of these data before and after the onset of Inka state formation. Results show that a transformation in social identity was articulated through, rather than apart from, longstanding mortuary traditions. After A.D. 1300, the proportion of the skeletal population exhibiting CVM dramatically increased, signaling an emergent ethnic identity, perhaps in response to encroaching Inka influence. However, modified and unmodified individuals were buried in the same sepulchers, and biodistance analysis of cranial non-metric traits suggests they actually belonged to the same familial groups organized around shared ancestry and burial customs. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios do not reveal marked differences in resource access or subsistence specialization between burial groups, but instead are consistent with a broadly encompassing subsistence economy oriented toward pastoralism. Notably, modified individuals exhibit slightly but significantly greater heterogeneity in dietary protein intake, possibly indicative of increased mobility between ecological and subsistence zones. By integrating multiple lines of bioarchaeological data, this research demonstrates empirically how social difference and intra-community cohesion intersect in daily life and in the ritual practices surrounding death.

This dissertation provides a historical and anthropological analysis of sanctuary-city policy formation, power, and governance in San Francisco, California. This dissertation focuses on the discourses, practices, tactics, policies, protocols, and political maneuvers that municipal employees create and utilize in their power struggles with each other and with immigrant-serving community-based organizations, undocumented immigrants, and state and federal officials. The dissertation examines the municipal sanctuary-city practices and municipal deportation practices city government officials bureaucratically implement as a result of such power struggles over sanctuary-city policy. It examines rational, legal, and moral grounds on which these actors formulate proposals for, define, codify, and justify these sanctuary-city practices.<p> The thesis of this dissertation is that in San Francisco, during the period analyzed from 1980-2010, the legislation and implementation of governmental sanctuary-city policy and practices functioned to achieve a multi-faceted and seemingly contradictory governmental logic - sanctuary-power - of linking municipal practices of serving and politically representing all residents regardless of immigration status with the programmatic demands of the state and federal government. This included first and foremost, clarifying how municipalities might relate to the federal deportation regime by defining the conditions when it is appropriate and when it is inappropriate for city employees to initiate contact with federal immigration authorities and initiate the deportation proceedings of undocumented San Francisco residents. In so doing, both governmental sanctuary practices and municipal deportation practices were continually clarified, routinized, codified in policy, institutionalized, and normalized with the expressed purpose of safeguarding the sanctuary city. Through the exercise of sanctuary-power and the implementation of sanctuary-city policies, the city not only stabilized undocumented immigrant lives, but also tore immigrant families apart by assisting immigration authorities in detaining and deporting thousands of San Francisco residents. This dissertation is based on qualitative and quantitative ethnographic field research, archival research, and extensive public records requests and analysis.

Stone tool assemblages have been central to Middle Paleolithic archaeology because they endure as the most complete cultural record from this period. For many years, the focus of analysis of these lithic materials has been concentrated upon retouched flake tools and variations in their relative frequencies. Although the significance of such variation has been debated for many years, the causes of Mousterian lithic variability have never been fully understood. This analysis of the Middle Paleolithic assemblages from the site of La Quina (Charente) was undertaken to integrate traditional studies with analyses of a more complete range of lithic remains. A total of 6392 artifacts including 1162 tools from thirteen archaeologically-defined strata were classified on the basis of sixteen attributes. Over ten thousand smaller flakes were counted and sorted by material, completeness, and cortical cover. Comparisons of these attribute frequencies between the strata at La Quina were then used to discern variability in Middle Paleolithic stone technology and typology. These findings form the basis for an interpretation of site activity as well as for a model of Middle Paleolithic subsistence in Southwest France. Assemblages that contained a predominance of even edged tools were found to vary differently from those with primarily serrated edged tools. Denticulates were recovered in association with all stages of lithic manufacture debris while scrapers occurred only with products of late stage reduction. This variation is suggested to be associated with different strategies of raw material use and intensity of reduction. These factors are in turn tied to environmental constraints and the mobility of Middle Paleolithic hunter-gather groups.

The contribution of Native Americans to the production of anthropological knowledge has received minimal critical analysis in the history of the discipline. This paper examines the academic career of Edward P. Dozier, the first Native American academic anthropologist, and founder/first chairman of the American Indian Studies Program at the University of Arizona. The changing insider and outsider positions of an indigenous anthropologist are explored historically through the diverse discursive practices in Pueblo and Euroamerican cultures. Edward P. Dozier (1916-71) was born in Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico. His primary contributions were in Southwestern Pueblo ethnology and linguistics, specifically acculturation and ethnohistorical studies. For his dissertation research in 1949-50, he studied the changing social and ceremonial traditions of the Arizona Tewa (Hopi-Tewa) at Tewa Village (Hano) on First Mesa, Hopi Reservation. In 1958-59, Dozier conducted fieldwork with the Kalinga of northern Luzon in the Philippines for comparative purposes. This study is organized to reveal correlations between Dozier's indigenous anthropological discourse and Pueblo discursive practices. Chapter 1 discusses Dozier's formative identity as an Anglo and a Tewa within the context of his parent's relationships to language and culture. Chapter 2 describes Boasian anthropology with its emphasis on collecting native language texts and its influence on Dozier's graduate education and early publications. Chapter 3 compares Dozier's discourse with Pueblo systems of knowledge and Pueblo discursive patterns. Chapter 4 describes Dozier's dissertation fieldwork with the Arizona Tewas as a graduate student at the University of California at Los Angeles. Chapter 5 contrasts Dozier's non-indigenous research with the Kalinga of Northern Luzon, Philippines. Chapter 6 examines the economics of Native American research and Dozier's leadership role in establishing the American Indian Studies program at the University of Arizona. The concluding chapter positions Dozier as an indigenous anthropologist in the history of the discipline. Overall, the historical predicament of a Native American academic anthropologist contests the oversimplified dichotomy of Self and Other in the academic construct of "culture."

The southwest coastal region of Bangladesh bears the mark of modernization, beginning with a high engineering water resource management, agricultural intensification and consequent integration into the global export market. The four-decade process of modernization has altered the coastal hydrology, rearticulated the patterns of social and ecological relationships and transformed resource access and management mechanism. The modernization of water management installed embankments, sluice gates, and polders and regulated the natural flow of saline and freshwater in the complex coastal system. In the early stage of this dimension of modernization, coastal communities became benefited in producing high yielding variety (HYV) rice. However, in the long run technical management of a complex hydrologic system caused prolong water-logging and caused a water disaster in many of the controlled coastal regions.The second dimension of modernization was accomplished through the process of trade liberalization and intensification of agricultural system. In the 1980s, the Government of Bangladesh launched a reformulation of land and financial policies to stimulate the growth of an export oriented shrimp industry, including prawn. The intensification of agriculture, as expressed in the mode of intensive prawn farming improved the economic condition of the farmers. However, the capital intensive prawn farming transformed local institutions and made the farmers vulnerable to external stresses as they become connected to global market system. Market price fluctuation, trade barrier and poor institutional support are increasing vulnerability among the farmers.Nonetheless, prawn farming that significantly depends on natural system has become challenging to the recent climate variability. An analysis of farmers' perception and different environmental data shows that changes in precipitation, temperature, salinity and other extreme climatic events have increased uncertainty to the future of prawn farming. The cumulative impact from a social (market) and environmental (climate change) have seriously undermined the farmers' effort of producing prawn for global market. Based on the findings elicited in the study it is recommended that there is an immediate need for prawn farming adaptation strategy.

In this dissertation, I examine several issues related to the pre-hispanic utilization of wetlands by the Maya. Fourteen hypotheses associated with one model of wetland utilization, the Pohl-Bloom model are tested in this dissertation. The Pohl-Bloom model views the use of wetlands as being restricted in time and space, with wetlands only being utilized in the Preclassic along the Rio Hondo drainage. Rising sea levels caused a rise in the freshwater table, which ultimately forced the Maya to abandon their wetland fields at the end of the Preclassic. Patterns observed in wetlands outside of the Rio Hondo drainage are, according to this model, the remnant of natural features called gilgai. Before examining the Pohl-Bloom model several related aspects of tropical ecology and wetland ecology were examined, including deforestation and climatic change. Though deforestation can influence regional water tables, the deforestation in the Maya area appears to be to have been too early to have had any significant impact on wetland agriculture. Climate change is currently a major topic in Maya studies, with drought conceivably having an influence on wetland agriculture. The present examination of the climatic data, however, that there is not a good correlation between the timing of droughts and the timing of significant changes in Maya culture. Evidence is also presented that questions the reliability of the isotopic data that has been used to study climatic change in the Maya Lowlands. Examination of the Pohl-Bloom model resulted in rejection of all fourteen hypotheses. The available evidence on sea level changes indicates that water levels in the Preclassic were dropping, not rising, while there is no evidence for changes in the water table during the Preclassic. The environmental factors present in the Maya Lowlands are simply not capable of creating large rectilinear gilgai. Similarly, the shallow slopes and absence of the sorting of sediments by size can be used to rule erosion as a major factor in the creation of the wetland stratigraphies. Based upon the available evidence, it is argued that raised fields were utilized throughout northern Belize, having their most widespread distribution in the Late Classic Period.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of people visit the Native American ancestral lands in the western United States developed for tourism and recreation. The stewards of these lands seek to engage visitors and enrich their experience, and simultaneously to protect the lands' natural and cultural resources. To achieve their mission, protected areas regularly use interpretation -- materials and experiences that aim to educate visitors about resources and see them as personally meaningful. However, there is little literature on interpretive content in protected areas, few qualitative studies of interpretation as constructed by visitors and interpreters, and little literature on the representation of Native Americans in museums and protected areas. I consider the public presentation of archaeology at exemplary protected areas in the U.S. Southwest and Great Basin within a theoretical framework of governmentality and representation. Within a mixed-method research design, this project used participant-observation at thirteen protected area locales to identify interpretive content and representational strategies, and semi-structured interviews with 31 individuals to elicit staff and visitors' understandings of interpretation and display. This research found three types of narratives in the interpretation sampled-- scientific narratives, cultural narratives, and management messages. In general, scientific narratives appeared more frequently than cultural narratives and both appeared more frequently than management messages. Archaeology dominated scientific narratives, cultural continuity dominated cultural narratives, and orientation dominated management messages. In general, archaeology appeared with greater relative frequency than any other component of interpretive content. This study also found that interpretation predominantly adopted a third-person omniscient point of view and represented people predominantly in the ancient past. This study has both academic and applied outcomes. The work aims to contribute to the scant body of literature on interpretive content in protected areas stewarding natural and cultural resources, the few qualitative studies of interpretation as constructed by visitors and interpreters, and the existing literature on the representation of Native Americans in museums and protected areas as well as informing future interpretive practice. These findings inform a report on contemporary interpretive practice and recommendations for the public presentation of archaeology delivered to the US Fish and Wildlife Service in December 2013.

My research, centered at the Early Classic (350-450 AD) site of La Sufricaya, located in the Holmul region of Peten, Guatemala, examines a contested topic in Ancient Maya history âthe nature of cross-cultural interaction between the Maya and Teotihacán- through the lens of ethnic identity. In doing so I suggest that cross-cultural interaction creates moments of ethnogenesis in which Maya rulers created an elite imagined regional community that was based on symbols of rulership derived from Teotihuacán and cemented by the exchange, trade and gifting of foreign material culture that served as practices of affiliation. My research combines the analysis of archaeological material remains, historical hieroglyphic inscriptions, and art historical analysis of iconography to elucidate how contact with foreigners may have affected life at La Sufricaya, as well as the impact on elite Maya identity on a regional level. My excavations within the palace sought to elucidate the sociopolitical history of La Sufricaya, including its role within the Holmul region and the nature of cross-cultural interaction between the Maya of La Sufricaya and Teotihuacán. Evidence suggests that the lords of La Sufricaya were involved in, or witness to, the 11 Eb Entrada (378 AD) events that ushered in a new political regime that was tied to Teotihuacán and focused at the nearby site of Tikal.