Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2015, Geography (Arts and Sciences)

The Muskingum drainage basin is of particular interest because of the application of new technology, the expansion on settlement work, and the lack of GIS software applied to spatial analyzation of settlement pattern in the context of terrain pertaining to pre-Adenan, Adena, and Hopewell sacred and secular settlements. Geomorphic and environmental conditions that previous literature has associated with mounds and earthworks are floodplains, proximity to water, and hinterlands. Earthworks are mounds or embankments of earth created by human agency and are anthropogenic spaces. Spatial analysis of anthropogenic space within archaeology has a category of millimeters for intrasite to kilometers for intersite analysis. This study applies data from OAI forms using a GIS database for intersite spatial analysis. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the existence and nature of relationships between the terrain and anthropogenic landscape in the Muskingum River basin between the Archaic period, ending near 1000 B.C.E. and the Woodland period, which peaked at approximately 350 C.E. It also seeks to determine if any temporal trends exist in the terrain settings of site types of each culture or over the cultural periods.

Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2024, Environmental Studies (Voinovich)

The earliest known people in Ohio arrived nearly 13,000 years ago, during a period of climatic instability. Immense volumes of water caused by Late Pleistocene deglaciation left a mosaic of lakes and wetlands covering much of the state. Although no formal tests of intensive use of wetlands are known, optimal foraging models predict that glacially formed kettles, lakes, and wetlands would have been attractive to early hunter-gatherers entering the region. My research tests the expectation that Paleoindians would have focused their subsistence efforts on glacial water features. Using existing datasets from the Ohio Archaeological Inventory, Ohio Fluted Point Survey, and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Geological Survey, I test three hypotheses about Paleoindian glacial lake and wetland use. The results of statistical tests suggest that glacial water features throughout most of Ohio were favored locations for hunter-gatherers during the Early and Middle Paleoindian Periods. During the Late Paleoindian Period, use of these features declined throughout the state except for the Huron-Erie Lake Plains, where glacial water feature use intensified. The trend of decreasing use of glacial water features throughout the Paleoindian Period may result from decreased productivity in those settings as population increases and fewer wetland caused a shift toward greater diet breadth. My findings add detail to current models of Paleoindian behavior in Ohio and elsewhere. More broadly and with increasing relevance, these findings potentially help to understand human adaptation in the face of climate change.

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2018, Anthropology

Naihehe Cave, a Navatu phase site, is located within the middle region of the Sigatoka river valley of Viti Levu, Fiji. This thesis reports on a series of original investigations of Naihehe cave, which began with field excavations of the site during May 2017 and continued with laboratory investigations over the following year. The research is innovative and exploratory, as Naihehe Cave had never been excavated before and the geoarchaeological methods applied in this research have never been applied in Fijian archaeology, and rarely elsewhere. There were many questions answered in this research, but the primary goal was to investigate if humans had occupied Naihehe Cave in prehistory, to understand what they might have been doing inside of the cave, and ultimately to see if human activities affected the natural environment and deposits in the cave. Understanding the archaeology of this cave site is deduced mainly by way of sedimentological “ecofacts” rather than material artifacts. Sediments were collected and analyzed through numerous testing methods. The methodology is diverse which allows for a thorough and data rich interpretation of natural deposition and human activities. It adds to the conversation of how traces of human activity can be discerned at the smallest of scales and understood archaeologically. The lab methods employed in this research include use of Scanning Electron Microscopy with energy dispersion spectroscopy (SEM-EDS), Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), organic matter loss-on-ignition, carbonate loss-on-ignition, macrocharcoal paleobotanical identification, and radiocarbon dating. Naihehe Cave is in a geographically and archaeologically significant area pertaining to the first agriculturalists in Fiji. Naihehe cave was investigated in order to assess the connection between the sites in this area. It was concluded that humans did occupy the cave in prehistory, during the time pe (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2002, Anthropology

This study examines the role of prehistoric subsistence change and its impact upon settlement systems in Eastern Kentucky. Eastern Kentuckys rockshelters are well-known for their preservation of normally perishable organic plant remains. Archaeobotanical remains from rockshelter contexts have played a key role in the establishment of the region as an independent center of agricultural origins. By 4,000 to 3,000 years before the present (B.P.), prehistoric populations along the western edge of the Appalachian Mountains were engaged in the cultivation of weedy plants such as goosefoot, maygrass, sunflower, and squashes. The incorporation of domesticated plants into the diet has not received detailed examination in terms of its impact upon prehistoric settlement systems. This study acquired regional scale data to evaluate whether or not such an impact can be discerned. The results document that changes in the subsistence base did affect settlement configurations. Increased diet breadth throughout the Late Archaic period in upland contexts resulted in a reorientation of thesettlement pattern in order to better fulfill subsistence requirements. In the case of the more rugged upland portion of the study area, prehistoric populations took advantage of mid-slope rockshelters to locate residential bases. Location of residences within rockshelters afforded foragers an even access to a heterogeneous environment. By gaining access to all available ecological strata, foragers were able to sustain a broad spectrum subsistence pattern in areas where richer floodplain settings were lacking. With the incorporation of cultigens into the subsistence base during the Early Woodland period, the use of rockshelters continued to be an energetically efficient settlement strategy. With the appearance maize by the end of the Late Woodland period, utilization of rockshelter settings as residences was no longer tenable. The advent of a field agricultural subsistence strategy based upon maize by (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2005, Graduate School

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2023, Arts and Sciences: Classics

This dissertation investigates a suite of production changes that emerged toward the end of the 5th century BCE and ultimately came to dominate Attic red-figure vase painting in the 4th century. These include significant stylistic changes, exemplified in a large part by a loosening of draftsmanship, which I call attenuation, as well as a significant reduction in the number of shapes produced and the iconographic corpus with which they were decorated. I examine these shifts within the context of long distance maritime trade. I consider the pottery to be a prestige item in export markets, and ultimately argue that the preferences of consumers in far flung places, such as Iberia and the northern shores of the Black Sea, had significant impact upon the production of Athenian ceramicists. To draw these conclusions, I developed methodological and theoretical frameworks that eschew the traditional approaches of style-based attribution and dating that have dominated the study of vase-painting thus far. This was primarily executed through the articulation of an encyclopedia that provides information on each shape that was produced in the final phase of Attic red-figure vase painting. The encyclopedia guides the analysis of my three case studies, Athens, Pantikapaion, and Eastern Andalusia. The methodological and theoretical frameworks that I used diverge from previous scholarship significantly and allow me to demonstrate that not only is 4th century Attic red-figure vase painting distinct from previous eras, but also that pre-existing models do not allow for nuanced analyses of this new type of pottery. Therefore, by formulating a novel approach, I created space for the production changes to be analyzed as innovations in a process that were enacted primarily on account of the external forces of the export market.

MA, University of Cincinnati, 2023, Arts and Sciences: Classics

This thesis presents the initial steps towards an integrative, critical historiographical analysis of the UC Troy Expedition, its archaeological practice, interpretations, and publication strategies. Between 1932 and 1938, under the field direction of Carl W. Blegen, the University of Cincinnati carried out excavations at Troy in northwestern Anatolia. Since their publication in the mid-20th century, these excavations have been influential in scholarship on Trojan and western Anatolian archaeology as well as research focused on the Trojan War and aspects of the Homeric Question. The excavations and the epistemological approach of their director, Carl Blegen, however, have not previously been the subject of rigorous historiographical study utilizing the rich archival documents available. This thesis, therefore, focuses on the information available to be gleaned from the records and correspondence of the excavations' participants, with a particular focus on Carl Blegen and the project's main instigator, William T. Semple. Through close study of these documents alongside published information, this research allows us to reconstruct in greater detail than previously possible, the origins, organization, and objectives of the UC Troy Expedition as well as the processes of interpretation, the epistemological framework, and the publication choices made by the project. Particular emphasis is placed on the historical contingency of the research project and the importance of a wide range of institutional, intellectual, disciplinary, personal, and socio-political factors upon its ultimate articulation. For the first time, Blegen's excavations at Troy are viewed in the context of their contemporary political circumstances in 1930s Turkey and the recent history of Greek-Turkish relations and debates over the cultural patrimony of western Anatolia, which centered not least upon the history of Troy and the Trojans. When viewed in this perspective, it is clear that B (open full item for complete abstract)

BA, Oberlin College, 2017, Anthropology

In this analysis, I seek to understand how three separate lines of evidence – skeletal morphology, archaeology, and genomics – are used separately and in tandem to produce taxonomic classifications in Neanderthal and paleoanthropological research more generally. To do so, I have selected four sites as case studies: El Sidron Cave, Mezmaiskaya Cave, Shanidar Cave, and Vindija Cave. El Sidron, Mezmaiskaya, and Vindija all have detailed archaeological records and have yielded Neanderthal DNA. Shanidar is one of the oldest and most well-documented Neanderthal sites. Alongside the four sites listed above, the findings of the full-coverage Neanderthal genome will be used as a “site” of sorts to understand how genetics can inform and supplement morphological and archaeological data. Ultimately, the data presented here is more useful to contextualize the meta-interactions between paleoanthropological subdivisions rather than to answer, “what is a Neanderthal?”.

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2018, Arts and Sciences: Classics

Between the fourth and second centuries BCE, Rome became the dominant power on the Italian mainland, establishing and maintaining control over newly conquered territories, in part, through the foundation of Latin colonies. These Latin colonies have traditionally been viewed as an essential part of the process of “Romanization” or integration of conquered territories into the Roman world. Through the study of four Latin colonies (Alba Fucens, Carseoli, Aesernia, and Beneventum) located in the Central Apennine region of Italy, this dissertation challenges the conventional view that these colonies served as important cultural or economic centers within their territories; rather, it demonstrates that colonies were neither intended to be, nor functioned as, a means of integrating conquered populations into Rome's cultural or economic sphere. This thesis, therefore, sheds light on the character of Roman colonialism and Rome's burgeoning imperialism in this period, and demonstrates that colonial processes were far from uniform; rather, colonization was an ad hoc, fluid process, informed by Roman ideas about urbanism, specific colonial needs, and interactions with local, non-Roman populations. This dissertation assesses Latin colonization through three distinct lenses: first, through an examination of the architecture, material culture, and historical behavior of these four colonies, I reconstruct the connections of these four colonies to their homeland, and demonstrate that formal ties with Rome, in terms of cults, colonial coins, or architecture, were limited, suggesting a degree of colonial independence. Second, based on an examination of colonial landscapes and individual spaces within the colonies, I argue that colonies did not serve as major focal points for interaction between colonists and local, non-Roman populations. Rather, specific locales within the colonies, such as workshops or sanctuaries, shaped colonial-local interactions in specific and limited ways, a (open full item for complete abstract)

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2017, Arts and Sciences: Classics

The archaeological evidence for foodstuffs is an underappreciated topic within the field of Classics. While syntheses and narratives exist for prehistoric periods, this project foregrounds evidence for foodstuffs within an examination of animals and social change in ancient Greece. This study presents primary datasets of animal bones and teeth from three ancient Greek settlements framed in a larger narrative of changing food practices and urbanism in Greece: the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age village at Nichoria, the Archaic town at Azoria, and the urban center of Classical Athens. Classical Greek urbanism is accompanied by significant changes in the mobilization, processing, and distribution of animal resources within communities. While Homeric heroes might have feasted on heroic portions of meat, their Early Iron Age audience did not. By the Archaic period, corporate groups (cultic or civic in nature) provided meat to members in expressions of communal identity through feasting. There is a shift in how animals were processed related to the development of professional butchery. It is possible to trace the development of an urban cuisine – from textual sources, ceramic vessels, and organic remains – a meatier cuisine prepared in new ways within the Greek cityscape. Food production strategies shift from a fairly homogenous set of strategies in the Late Bronze Age to a fairly heterogenous set of strategies in the first millennium B.C. It is perhaps possible to conceive this shift as an adaptation to changing climate around this time, with heterogenous strategies a better fit for various ecological niches. These heterogenous production strategies, wherein different settlements practiced different productive strategies, perhaps contributed to an increase in connectivity in the Mediterranean. A narrative foregrounding animal bones contextualizes our understanding of ancient Greek feasting, butchery, animal husbandry, sacr (open full item for complete abstract)

MA, Kent State University, 2017, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Anthropology

In the 1930s, archaeologist Dr. F. H. H. Roberts proposed that proximal-lateral edge grinding was executed on Paleoindian projectile points to limit damage to the lashings that attached them to their shafts. This assumption is logical and widely accepted, but remains empirically untested. Here, we present an experiment that examines the role of proximal-lateral edge grinding in replica Clovis projectile points made of Texas chert. We compare via controlled ballistics experiments large samples of points with lateral edge grinding versus those with sharp lateral edges, but otherwise similar in every other morphometric aspect. By analyzing and comparing the hafting performance of the ground-edged specimens and the sharp-edged specimens, we hope to better understand the function of lateral basal grinding from technological and ecological perspectives.

MA, University of Cincinnati, 2011, Arts and Sciences: Anthropology

This study evaluates anthropological assumptions about prehistoric human use of the landscape with a spatial analysis in a Geographical Information Science (GIS) environment. Through a multi-stage, multi-method, cross-cultural analysis, this study proves that it is possible to predict where prehistoric archaeological sites are located on a highly dynamic landscape. Using each archaeological site found within a local scale as data points, the variables of elevation, slope aspect, distance from water and soils are statically evaluated and modified using GIS. The results of this analysis proves that not only is it possible to produce a predictive model of prehistoric landscape use, but it is also possible to make conclusions about prehistoric land use strategies.

MA, University of Cincinnati, 2009, Arts and Sciences : Anthropology

Landscape archaeology has been successfully used in the study of plantation contexts within the Caribbean and United States as a method of comparative analysis across regions and sites, and as a tool for detecting and interpreting the existence of agency, or the actions and resistance, of the slaves who inhabited those sites during the period from the 16 th through 19 th centuries. Within the Bahamas, however, there is a lack in landscape analysis; though surveys of former plantations reveal the standing remains of the built environment, these buildings are used for little more than locating site features and recording construction techniques used during the Loyalist period of 1783 to 1834. In this thesis the history of the Bahamas, its geographic and historical connections to other Caribbean islands and the American mainland, and its participation in the plantation economy of the 16 th to 19 th centuries are used to explain how employing comparative landscape studies in the archaeological analysis of the Bahamian plantation context would benefit the archaeology of the Bahamas archipelago by providing further insight to the role and experiences of the suppressed slave population, and how their traditions persist today within the living inhabitants of the Bahamas.

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2008, Arts and Sciences : Classics

The topic of Cretan state formation has attracted some attention over the past decade in the form of papers, however it has been over twenty years since the last monographs touching on the subject were published: Branigan's The Foundations of Palatial Crete in 1970 and Renfrew's The Emergence of Civilisation in 1972. It is thus hoped that this study comes at an opportune time, as it seems appropriate to reconsider the process of state formation on Crete in the light of new developments both in published data and in methodological perspective over the last generation. In order to provide a perspective on the influence of past works on current views of state formation in the Cretan Bronze Age, the first section of this work will present a historiography of works which have formed milestones in the topic's history. The identification of some effects of this long process is the goal of this section, and it will be concluded with the presentation of an investigative model which will be followed in the hopes of providing a methodological alternative to some of these long held assumptions. The second section of this work follows the investigative model which has been suggested, concentrating on integrating contextual site analyses to produce a model of intra-site organization and inter-site relations in the Early Bronze Age, coupled with a reconsideration of the character of the first palatial centers themselves. The result of this study will be the presentation of a model for Cretan state formation which stresses the roles which resource management, the exploitation of unusual status, and the effects of community interaction had on the development of the first Cretan state system, which is presented as a core-periphery system based on the elaboration of long standing cultural traits rather than a cultural invention stratified over old beliefs. Note: This dissertation was originally completed in 1994 and defended in 1995, although it was only processed and published in el (open full item for complete abstract)

MA, University of Cincinnati, 2002, Arts and Sciences : Anthropology

In the summer of 2001 I participated in the excavation of RB 62 Operation 5, a group of three mounds, as a part of the Program for Belize Archaeological Project (PfBAP) in northwestern Belize. This thesis reports on what was uncovered. More specifically, I analyze the mound group in terms the larger Maya settlement pattern. A review of Maya settlement patterns is presented in Chapter Two, followed by the analysis of the mound group, known as the Medicinal Trail Housemound Site. The site consisted of three well-defined mounds, with a flat area between them. Excavations revealed that the three mounds were constructed of cobble and gravel fill and that the flat area had undergone modification. Mound 2 contained the remains of a plaster floor and cut stone walls, but Mounds 1 and 3 had no apparent superstructure remains. These findings – that the site represented a household settlement with three dwelling platforms and a central patio area – were consistent with the hypothesis of Maya settlement patterns presented in Chapter Two. In the course of analysis of ceramic sherd density distribution throughout the mounds I constructed a theory of the development history of the site. A marked difference in sherd density distribution between the higher elevation northern portion and the lower elevation southern portion of Mound 1 represent two different phases of construction. The types of ceramics found within the cobble mounds are uniform throughout, suggesting that the multiple construction phases occurred within a relatively short period of time. This picture of the expanding household is consistent with the extended family model of household growth presented in Chapter Two.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2006, History

The Roman city of Corinth, founded at the crossroads of land and sea, on the narrow Isthmus connecting northern Greece with the Peloponnese and the Adriatic with the Aegean Sea, became one of the most famous commercial centers of the ancient Mediterranean. The prominent image and myth of Corinth centered around its place as a commercial and traveler's cosmopolis, and its unity with its connective eastern landscape, the Isthmus. The physical landscape communicated the central myth and identity of the city, while stories and ancient literature reinforced a particular vision of the landscape. The eastern territory of Roman Corinth reflected and structured the image of the city. This is a study of the transformation of that city in its landscape in the period of Late Antiquity (3rd-7th centuries AD). In the course of Late Antiquity, the image of Corinth on the Isthmus was fragmented and redefined concomitant with the broader transformation of the Mediterranean world. The study analyzes two bodies of evidence that speak to this phenomenon. It discusses (Ch. 2-3) the wide array of literary testimony for the city and countryside and argues that during Late Antiquity, a strong tradition of conceptualizing and talking about Corinth as the traveler's crossroad and commercial city on the Isthmus ceased to cohere in light of a general decline in classical literature and the developing narratives of a Christianized society—the myth of ancient Corinth died. On the other hand, the dissertation discusses (Ch. 4-6) the archaeological evidence for extra-urban structures of trade, settlement, and land use in the eastern territory during this period. The rural structures of the eastern Corinthia remained stable in Late Antiquity, contributing to the city's commercial resources as long as broader Mediterranean networks of trade and commerce to which the city connected remained vital and flourishing. Only in the later sixth century is there strong evidence for the localization of the cit (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2004, Anthropology

In this dissertation I examine a problem in the study of Middle-Late Woodland period community re-organization in the Middle Ohio Valley through an analysis of the Strait site, a little known, third century A.D. archaeological deposit in central Ohio. Previous research in the region indicates that during a three-hundred-year period between A.D. 200 and A.D. 500 the organizational structure of settlements—the location and arrangement of households within communities—changed significantly through a process of household nucleation. I propose that artifact patterning at the Strait site resulted from the secondary refuse disposal behaviors of contemporaneously occupied household areas. To evaluate this proposition, I first develop a working model of household trash disposal patterns using principles of refuse disposal generated from ethnoarchaeological data. The expected pattern of refuse accumulation is then compared to the Strait site archaeological record through an analysis of debris collected during a shovel test survey. Artifact clusters are detected through a distributional analysis of four dimensions of artifact variability: size, function, density, and diversity. I conclude that the Strait site artifact patterning is consistent with the secondary refuse disposal patterns predicted by the ethnographically derived model. I then identify the possible locations of five to six households at the Strait site. Two of these locations are further examined using geophysical survey and block excavation. The partial remains of structures are identified at both. Assuming that these possible household clusters are contemporaneous, as I argue, the Strait site is the earliest known nucleated settlement in the region. The presence of a nucleated community at Strait during the third century A.D. indicates that the transition from dispersed to nucleated communities began at the peak time of Hopewell earthwork construction and use—sometime before the Hopewell decline. By the time th (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2004, Environmental Studies (Arts and Sciences)

This research is intended to demonstrate how SunWatch Indian Village/Archaeological Park presents possibilities for how restoration ecology and archaeology can augment and inform each other by looking at both the site and the environmental restoration at the site from an historical ecology perspective. There are two major themes of this work: first, the application of archaeological data to modern environmental issues and second, the importance of viewing landscapes as both natural and cultural phenomena which interact in a series of complex relationships throughout time. I present a comprehensive overview of the site, providing the paleothnobotanical data collected by previous researchers in order to show how such archaeological data can be used to inform restoration work. The research ends with a presentation of how SunWatch can provide a model for doing this work in other places, as well as a series of questions and criteria necessary for determining when and where it is appropriate.

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 1925, Graduate School

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2005, Graduate School