<p> This thesis is a study of the archaeological concept of site. This study is done by first examining the term site as it appears in general archaeological literature, and in various State and Federal compliance archaeology guidelines. This thesis also looks at elements within the term site, such as artifact density and significance, as well as element outside of the concept, such as the National Register of Historic Places, and the State Historic Preservation Office, that have an impact on the concept of site. This thesis will also examine some of the issues inherent with these elements. Finally, this thesis looks at the impact of theory on the term site, and uses landscape archaeology to provide new ways of thinking about the term site.</p>

<p> Demographic expansion and colonization of new territories by agriculturalists is characteristic of Neolithic transitions around the world. The central San Juan region of the northern Southwest was first colonized by ancestral Pueblo farming populations during the Basketmaker III period (A.D. 500-725) after nearly 1000 years of avoidance by early farmers during the previous Basketmaker II period (500 B.C.-500 A.D.). This thesis examines the social processes that contributed to this demographic shift through historical reconstruction and an assessment of architecture and ritual features during colonization. These analyses demonstrate that what began as a socio-political boundary between culturally distinct populations was transformed by historical events and social adaptation into a multi-cultural colonization frontier organized around burgeoning social institutions.</p>

<p> The rise of urbanism in third millennium BCE Western Anatolia involves the widespread emergence of a new type of settlement organization, characterized by neatly packed megaron rowhouses, which open onto a central open space, and are located inside a circuit wall. While previous studies have successfully documented the distribution of these settlements in time and space, and established typologies that highlight key formal and stylistic attributes of their architecture, they fail to address the social significance of this change in settlement pattern. Consequently, little is known about the novel ways in which the shift from village to city life impacted individuals, communities, and systems of authority, in the Early Bronze Age. </p><p> In this study, I approach urbanism at the Early Bronze Age Phase B settlement of Seyit&ouml;mer H&ouml;y&uuml;k from an interdisciplinary perspective that investigates how the fixed features and spatial arrangement of the urban built environment shape movement and interaction, which in turn impacts social production, community formation, and power relations. This perspective emphasizes the built environment as an active participant in the recursive relationship between actors and the built environment. </p><p> In order to address these issues, I analyze the Phase B settlement, using an integrative approach to architecture and social organization. This approach is modified from Fisher (2009), and combines insights from nonverbal communication (Rapoport 1990), space syntax analysis (Hillier and Hanson 1984), and architectural communication theory (Blanton 1982). The integrative approach stresses that the built environment is a context for social interaction, and offers an empirical means by which to link archaeological remains, such as streets, walls, and features with messages of identity, status, and ideology. </p><p> There are four groups of buildings (&ldquo;analytical sections&rdquo;) identified in Phase B. As a result of an investigation of the architecture, fixed and semi-fixed features of each space in the settlement, the Rowhouses West and Rowhouses East are characterized as non-elite residences and pottery workshops; the Administrative Complex is characterized as a seat of local administrative authority, with evidence for economic specialization and social inequality; and the Central Megaron Complex is characterized as a distinctive building, important in the symbolic/ritual life of Phase B inhabitants. These insights, when integrated with quantitative spatial analysis, reveal that the three busiest routes of pedestrian movement in Phase B terminate at the entrance to spaces for public/inclusive occasions; that rooms used for private/exclusive are always accessed via offset entrances that increase the perception of physical and social distance; and that megaron style buildings used in non-elite residences are a solution for privacy in a densely populated settlement. This demonstrates that the built environment embodies individual agency through personalization; community identities with the standard treatment of physical elements; and power relations through control over movement and the structuring of public/private relations. As a result, this study enlivens our understanding of urbanism as a social process.</p>

<p> Vegetation and plant resources can impact forager mobility and subsistence strategies. However, misconceptions about the preservation of organics in subarctic archaeological contexts and underestimations of the importance of plant resources to foraging societies limit paleoethnobotanical research in high-latitude environments. This research draws upon concepts from human behavioral ecology to address questions relating to site seasonality, plant resource use, land use, and deposition and taphonomy. The model developed in this thesis outlines expectations of seasonal archaeobotanical assemblages for Late Pleistocene and Holocene sites in interior Alaska. I consider these expectations in light of plant macroremains found in anthropogenic features from Components 1 and 3 (approximately 13,300 and 11,500 cal yr BP, respectively) at the Upward Sun River site, located in central Alaska.</p><p> Site-specific methods include bulk sampling of feature matrix in the field and wet-sieving matrix in the laboratory to collect organic remains. Analytical measures of density, diversity, and ubiquity tie together the model expectations and the results from Upward Sun River. The dominance of common bearberry in the Component 1 archaeobotanical assemblage meets the expectations of a late summer or fall occupation. This suggests that site occupants may have focused on mitigating the risk of starvation in winter months by foraging for seasonally predictable and storable resources. The variability in results from the Component 3 features could relate to longer-term occupations that extended from mid-summer to early fall, in which site occupants foraged for locally available and predictable plant resources such as blueberry or low-bush cranberry species.</p><p> In this thesis, I argue that large mammal resources were a key component in Late Pleistocene and Holocene subsistence strategies. However, foragers were flexible in their behavior and also targeted small mammals, fish, waterfowl, and plant resources in response to environmental conditions and cultural preferences. The results illustrate the long-standing use of culturally and economically important plant resources in interior Alaska and draw attention to aspects of human behavior that are under-conceptualized in northern archaeology, such as the gendered division of labor, domestic behavior, and potential impacts of plant resource exploitation on mobility and land use.</p>

Over the last 30 years UK Hydrographic Office marine surveys in the English Channel (the thesis Study Area) have helped uncover the wrecks of 63 German submarines (U-boats) sunk in both world wars. The author began to systematically dive on and record the wrecks in 1997, when it became clear that the distribution and numbers of the wrecks often conflicted with published histories of U-boat losses. This thesis sets out to test whether firstly; the U-boat wrecks themselves can be accurately identified from detailed examinations of their archaeological remains. If this could be achieved with a high degree of accuracy then secondly; a much clearer appreciation of U-boat losses in the Channel could be derived. This could then be used to thirdly; assess the accuracy of the original historical texts of 1919 and 1946 and reveal when and why the assessors at the time succeeded and failed in establishing the real fates of the U-boats. The U-boat wrecks themselves are either where the historic record says they should be, or they are located in positions where they reside outside of current historical knowledge. These latter cases, termed the mystery sites, are the key to understanding how, when and why inaccuracies appear in the historical texts and they were therefore accorded the highest priority during the research and were the most challenging cases to identify. Of the 63 U-boat wrecks in the Channel, it emerged during the fieldwork that 26 of them (41%) were actually mystery sites. Their impact on the accuracy of the historical texts is profound. Only 48% of the fates of U-boats recorded in 1919 are correct. The list of 1946 is 81% correct from D-day until December 1944, then only 36% correct thereafter. The accuracy of the historical record was found to be closely related to the volume of accurate intelligence on U-boat movements available at any given time and the quality of the staff work used to interpret and exploit it. Consequently the impact of Special Intelligence is keenly felt in 1944. Conversely during WW1 and in 1945 U-boat movements were not clearly understood and in both of these cases minefields emerge as the most successful weapon deployed against them accounting for over a third of the losses.

No description available.

<p> During the 4^th century BCE and the Hellenistic period (323&ndash;31 BCE), the cult of Isis increasingly appeared outside of Egypt throughout the Greek world. The widespread diffusion of her cult at this time occurred due to Alexander III of Macedon&rsquo;s conquest of the Achaemenid Empire. His conquest of the eastern Mediterranean and Egypt led to the reorganization of the Greek world politically and economically. This reorganization influenced the religious atmosphere of the 4^th century BCE and subsequent centuries for Greeks. Popular cults, like the mysteries of Demeter and Dionysus, often focused on the afterlife and individuals more than poleis. Isis fit the new religious atmosphere since she was a universal goddess with ties to the afterlife and daily life. </p><p> Under the Ptolemies, Isis became syncretized with Greek deities, such as Aphrodite and Demeter, which resulted in the increased likelihood of the reception of Isis&rsquo;s cult in Greek cities. Her Alexandrian cult emphasized sailing and healing through her connections with the Pharos and the healing cult of Serapis, her consort in the Ptolemaic Egyptian pantheon. Through a case study of sites with shrines dedicated to Isis in the Greek world, including Athens, Corinth, and Delos, it is evident that these sites had political and economic ties to Egypt and that her cult was often adapted at these sites based on the needs of the people at that location. </p><p> Previous scholarship regarding the cult of Isis has emphasized her role in Egypt during the Pharaonic period or her reception among the Greeks and Romans from the 3^rd century BCE to the 4^th century CE. There is little literature that emphasizes Isis&rsquo;s reception during the 4^th century BCE and early Ptolemaic period when her cult was first appearing at Greek sites or that discusses the relationship between Isis&rsquo;s cult and the political and economic factors of the Hellenistic period. This thesis attempts to examine the development of the cult of Isis in Egypt in order to trace the Hellenistic religious domain of Isis back to the potential origins during the Pharaonic and Macedonian periods in Egypt. </p><p> I argue that Isis&rsquo;s role as a protectress and establishment in Alexandria as a deity associated with sailors and navigation led to Isis&rsquo;s reception in Greece first in ports, such as Piraeus, Corinth, and Delos. Furthermore, while sailing was important to the spread and reception of her cult during a period with increased economic activity, Isis gained popularity at these sites due to her vast patronages that increased the likelihood of her appeal to a variety of people and sites. The adaptability of her cult led to the widespread diffusion during the Hellenistic age, and the endurance of her cult into the Roman period. Her role as a seafaring protectress starting from the 4^th century BCE indicates that there was a focus on economics and travel that resulted in a preoccupation with fortune and safety. Isis was a natural fit, as a protectress deity, for the religious landscape of the Hellenistic <i>zeitgeist.</i></p>

<p> Gathering fuel wood was a regular chore for most people throughout time and certainly was a part of life for people living in 18^th- and 19^th-century Connecticut. During this period, the landscape was being altered due to rapidly expanding agriculture and, by circa 1850, would be at the peak of deforestation. During this period, the Eastern Pequot, a Native American nation in North Stonington, were living on their reservation (established in 1683) in a colonial environment and dealing with timber theft, a reduced land base, overseer control, and the overall environmental changes occurring in Connecticut. This thesis examines the charred wood found at four Eastern Pequot sites occupied from the 1740s to the 1850s, with a focus on what fuel use tells us about their interaction with the land at a household level over time, including if they could access and use high-quality fire wood, how they collected wood, and if they were affected by the deforestation taking place across Connecticut. </p><p> My research contextualized the tree taxa found by reviewing the environmental condition of Connecticut during this period, as well as the archival documents derived from the Eastern Pequot&rsquo;s interactions with the state and overseer system. I ranked taxa by abundance and compared those ranks, and I assessed the use of the Principle of Least Effort by comparing the wood to the historical forest composition as ascertained by witness tree data. My interpretation of the charred wood found at these sites was that the Eastern Pequot were still able to access high-quality firewood at least through the end of the 18^th century. The last site examined provides a different picture than the first three, and could indicate either a &ldquo;least effort&rdquo; fire, that the reservation was deforested, or that wood supplied to the reservation (derived from elsewhere) shows the deforestation of Connecticut. This research may help us better understand strategies for acquisition that are part of the everyday life of a community and how people negotiated the intersection between environmental resources and the social, political, and broader environmental aspects of colonialism.</p>

<p> The form and function of freshwater mussel shell rings in the Yazoo Basin was examined in this thesis. General and controlled surface collections, excavations, a seriation, and documentary research on flooding in the Yazoo Basin were completed. Four sites were investigated, including 22YZ513 (Rugby Farm), 22YZ605 (Light Capp), 22QU562 (Devil&rsquo;s Race Track), and 22QU569 (Drew Smith), in an attempt to address whether shell rings were a functional byproduct of flood-prone environments. Results indicated that the two Quitman County sites were not shell rings, even though they appeared as such from aerial photographs, and that they represent a different ceramic cultural lineage than the two shell ring sites in Yazoo County. The two shell ring sites support hypothesis 1: that a functional relationship existed between shell rings and flood-prone environments during the Middle to Late Woodland periods in the Yazoo Basin. </p>

<p> This thesis examines the social construction of technological practice of the Fairbanks Mining District (1902&ndash;1942) in order to enrich an understanding of the relationships among miners, mining endeavors, and cultures of work. Framing the study are the two theoretical approaches: sociotechnical systems and <i>cha&icirc;nes op&eacute;ratoires.</i> A regional analysis was conducted using archaeological data gathered as a part of a hazard mitigation study of abandoned mining lands. These data are combined with architectural reconstruction drawings, census data, geological reports, and archival materials to posit connections within the district, discern patterns, and examine how these changed over time. This study revealed that people&rsquo;s relationships in the district were diverse and dynamic, going far beyond simple class hierarchies of labor or capital. A preference for California style milling practices and mill architecture are clear, despite detractors like the inappropriateness for an Alaska climate or the mill&rsquo;s relative efficiency, indicating that preference ruled over efficiency.</p>