A survey of the Upper White River Valley located 76 new sites additional information on 6 previously recorded sites. After a preliminary literature review, artifacts from the Ball State University Archaeology Laboratory were reanalyzed and local artifact collectors were contacted to obtain additional knowledge survey area. The fieldwork focused on the floodplain and the location of Woodland sites in regards to Ross soil. Surface manifestations of Woodland-affiliated sites indicated that 33% of the sites in the project area were located in the floodplain and all Woodland components were represented on or adjacent to Ross soil. Results from the fieldwork indicate a positive correlation between Woodland sites and Ross soil in the Upper White River Valley of east-central Indiana. / Department of Anthropology

This is a general regional research design for the prehistoric archaeological resources of the Upper White River Drainage region of east-central Indiana. Following the example of McGinsey, Davis, and Griffin (1968), this design consists primarily of research problems, questions, and hypotheses suggested by the current state of the regional data base and the pertinent literature. These research problems are organized into three basic groups which represent the goals of the discipline of archaeology (that is, the study of culture history, extinct lifeways, and culture process). These groups are themselves expressed as a hierarchy to demonstrate the relative significance of the problems expressed in each. When used as part of a greater research design process (including more specific designs) this design has the potential to contribute to the scientific rigor as well as the efficiency of archaeological research carried out in this region.

Chultuns have served as a source of curious debate for most Maya archaeological projects. Although there is great speculation about the function(s) served by the chultuns, few theories are concrete. This study attempted to determine the specific use of chultuns as relevant to this particular site. During the 1989 field season at Caracol excavations were carried out in six chultuns. A team composed of one student and several workman were assigned to investigate each group. At least one test pit was placed within each group to search for other diagnostic material to compare with the artifacts recovered from the chultun. The data collected indicates that the chultuns of Caracol were primarily related to a burial function. However, the possibility cannot be ruled out that a different function was intended for these features and that they were only used as burial chambers when they were about to be abandoned. / Department of Anthropology

The mixture of Late Woodland and Fort Ancient ceramics found on sites in central Indiana has presented a problem for archaeologists for over fifty years. This unique combination of ceramic traits has become known as the Oliver Phase. Materials recovered from the Bowen Site, (Dorwin 1971) have in the past been used to define this phase. Originally, the Bowen Site was believed to represent the excavation of an entire synchronically occupied prehistoric site. A reanalysis of the distribution of diagnostic ceramic attributes from the Bowen Site suggests multicomponent occupations resulting from diachronic settlement. Therefore, the full range of ceramic variation originally attributed to this phase needs to be reexamined in the light of this new information, and it's usefulness as a diagnostic assemblage should be carefully evaluated. / Department of Anthropology

The study of paleopathology is intrinsic to the study of past human societies. Through analyzing gross bone abnormalities in the individuals of a population group, one can discover occurrences of specific diseases. Diseases are often associated with diet, demography, environment, and culture of a population group. Understanding the types of diseases present can therefore lead to much information about a population group. The intent of this research is to analyze the skeletal remains from three mortuary sites to ascertain the occurrences of particular diseases. The New Castle site (12Hn1) the White site (121-In10), and Windsor Mound (12R1) represent a sample of the Early-Middle Woodland population from east central Indiana. / Department of Anthropology

No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wyoming, 2008. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on June 24, 2009). Includes bibliographical references.

Images of rural activities become very popular in mosaic floor decoration in the Levant during the Late Antique period. I aim to explore different categories of iconography and discuss the images of people engaged in rural activities, such as pastoralism; hunting, fishing and activities connected with the vintage. I also aim to look at imagery that is often discussed in isolation without relation to other connected iconographic categories. The symbolic meaning of the representations of the zodiac found in synagogues, for example, is often discussed in detail without also looking at the rural calendars that appear in Christian contexts during the same period in the same region. I also want to explore the archaeological evidence for the activities that appear on the mosaic pavements. Studying both the archaeology and the iconography will, I hope, help us understand what the use of these particular categories of iconography in decorative schemes can tell us about the society that created them.

No description available.

This dissertation asks how knowledge about the past is made and transmitted, and what the role of material culture is in this process. Taking as its case study the Swiss lakedwelling collections acquired in Britain between 1850 and 1900, it uses a selection of these collections as primary sources of the material and social networks that were central to the development of archaeology as a discipline. The project not only supports the more widely held assertion that scientific knowledge is a form of cultural production (Lenoir 1998), but emphasises the material basis of such production, and the traces it leaves. In particular, it pays close attention to previously unexamined aspects of historic collections; namely the transformative practices - such as the conservation, packaging, labelling, cataloguing and illustration - by which lake-dwelling artefacts were salvaged, documented, and displayed. It uses this perspective to shed light on the social networks which motivated such practices, and develops a method of analysing the collections in dialogue with other contemporary representations, underscoring the variety of material contexts and media through which knowledge about lake-dwellings was represented and encountered. This research will hopefully reinvigorate further research into historic collections and their implications for the discipline of archaeology and the museum's own reflections on its historicity and methods of knowledge production.