This project uses radionuclides from the uranium-238 decay chain series in conjunction with lead, strontium carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios to achieve accurate dating and geographical sourcing of human skeletal remains. A pilot study was conducted in order to test the hypothesis that 210pb stored within the skeleton during life decays at a known rate once death occurs. Samples of femur were used from 12 Portuguese individuals whose year of death was known.

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Walter Benjamin, in Thesis IX of his “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” wrote of the angel of history looking back at the past from the now-time of the present moment, at the historical wreckage, a single catastrophe as it were, piling in front of its feet, as it gets pulled forward facing back into the temporality of the future and the space of modernity’s violent excesses, heralded by the promise of apparent progress. As the title to my dissertation suggests, my study begins, following the angel’s look, with these three words, seeing what remains, and as such it is structured around the very nature of this arresting “look back” and that which is being regarded, the ruins, or the remains and remainders that exist after, and in the aftermath of, traumatic loss. Working with and across a variety of mediums, I conduct a series of exegetical studies of recent “texts” – literary, photographic, and cinematic – within which, I argue, this look back figures as central to the concern of how we might understand the simultaneous existence of the forces of remembrance and forgetting, and of mourning and melancholia in memory-work. The various “texts” within which I explore this look back are Anne Michaels’s novel Fugitive Pieces, the photographic series titled Library of Dust by David Maisel, the movies Hiroshima, mon amour by Marguerite Duras and Alain Resnais and Amour by Michael Haneke. I situate my exploration of the enigmatic nature of the look back in these different textual scenes alongside Sigmund Freud’s critical work on transference and transference love and Kaja Silverman’s rigorous expansion of the psychoanalytic objective of the “cure by love.” Here, it is my intention, as such, to work toward and expand on my thesis that this look, of the angel (or the materialist historian or the artist as witness), is a look of redemptive love, both against erasure and against the possibility of invisibility, “to awaken the dead” as it were, so as to address the loss inscribed in historical experiences with catastrophic temporality and to thereby redeem the ethical from within the scene of trauma.

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Animal scavenging is a major taphonomic process responsible for damage to bone and alternations to postmortem interval estimates. Despite the significant implications animals can have on altering forensics cases, extensive research on animal scavenging has yet to be done. The most notable research on animal scavenging comes from Haglund . Haglunds extensive research in the Pacific Northwest led him to create a model for the sequence in which animals scavenge and disarticulate a human body after death. The major goal of my research was to apply Haglunds model to 60 southern Arizona cases in order to see if animals scavenge a body in a similar fashion cross-environmentally. Aside from the sequence in which animals scavenge a body, I was also able to comment on the types of animals that scavenge in the area, the frequency and timing of scavenging by animals, and the areas of bone most frequently scavenged. A final section of my research investigated the interdependence between postmortem interval estimations and animal scavenging. Based on the data in southern Arizona, I was able to create a preliminary model of animal scavenging in the area. The large number of cases and difficulty identifying remains is a problem that will continue to challenge forensic specialists in southern Arizona. An increased discourse on taphonomic processes in the area will help forensic investigators greatly. The information I provided further contributes to a rather thin discourse on the major taphonomic process of animal scavenging. Continued research and experiments in southern Arizona will create a clearer picture for forensic scientists in future years.

In this thesis, I propose a new method for mortuary analysis. This methodological approach is based upon the premise that the social rank and statuses held by members of a community provide better structural referents to the composition of a social system. Three dimensions of social distinctions are targeted for analysis in this study: vertical, horizontal and special status distinctions. A new technique is employed to quantify these dimensions of social distinctions. A mathematical model that delineates the structural and organizational properties of a social system using ratio and interval scales is then used to monitor social development and change over time and space. The mortuary data from the Greek Neolithic (6500-3200 B.C.) is used to illustrate this new methodology and its applicability to the study of social formation. The concepts and qualitative methods developed in this thesis proved useful in the study of Greek Neolithic mortuary differentiation, social distinctions, and social development. Thequantitative methods employed in this thesis revealed patterns of social differentiation and development that in many ways parallel the qualitative suggestions of earlier research. There is strong evidence to suggest that rank and status differentiation existed in Greek prehistory far earlier than previously expected. Overall, the results of this analysis suggest that the Greek Neolithic can no longer be characterized as a time when various semi-nomadic and sedentary groups lived during a period of social equality. Instead, it appears the economic and social inequality that characterizes subsequent periods of Greek prehistory have their origin in the Neolithic. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

<p> Understanding the processes involved in retaining nurses in the Emergency Department is essential for future hiring and retention; turnover rates are currently at approximately 16% in the emergency department. Using Grounded Theory Methods (Glaser &amp; Strauss, 1967) and the conceptual framework of symbolic interaction, the process of becoming and remaining as an ED nurse was explored.</p><p> Data were collected through semi-structured, open ended interviews until data saturation occurred. The seven participants' ages ranged from 29-56 with ED nursing experience ranging from 1-17 years and nursing experience from 2-18 years. Five phases emerged from data analysis using constant comparative analysis of 183 pages of transcripts, through coding phrases, categorizing, and conceptualizing them. These phases, each with sub-categories, explained a process identified as <i>Seeking Status.</i> The five phases were: <i> joining the troops, working in the trenches, passing muster, earning stripes, </i> and <i>looking ahead.</i> <i>Passing Muster</i> emerged as the core category, the one that best explained the process and connected the other conceptual categories in this process.</p><p> The theory, <i>Seeking Status</i>, was compared to and contrasted with theories from nursing, sociology and anthropology such as socialization, rites of passage, adaptation, role identity, and reality shock. The theory overlapped with some of the theories explored; however it was unique in the finding regarding the significance of a two-tiered hierarchy of roles in the ED.</p><p> Implications for recruitment strategies, longer orientations and the need for preceptors for new nurses were described. Senior nurses, on the other hand, would benefit from increasing knowledge and skills regarding leadership and management strategies in their role.</p>

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