Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'African Archaeology'
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Pitso, Mathapelo. "Discovering hidden voices in South African forensic archaeology." Diss., University of Pretoria, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/78139.
Full textDissertation (MA (Archaeology))--University of Pretoria, 2020.
Anthropology and Archaeology
MA (Archaeology)
Unrestricted
Franco, Pina. "African amphorae from Portus." Thesis, University of Southampton, 2012. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/362725/.
Full textCodron, Jacqueline. "Annals of ivory : perspectives on African elephant Loxodonta africana (Blumenbach 1797) feeding ecology from a multi-decadal record." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/4169.
Full textIncludes bibliographical references (leaves 202-256).
This thesis explores the dietary responses of African elephants (Loxodonta africana) to environmental change by testing the hypothesis that diet switching (from predominantly browse-based to more grass-rich diets) is driven by cyclical patterns of climate and habitat change in a southern African savanna. Elephants are thought to have substantial impacts on their environments, primarily because they consume large amounts of vegetation over sustained periods. However, the woody plant composition of their diet varies considerably across space and through time, so that in some instances they have been found to be almost pure grazers. Tracking these changes by traditional approaches (e.g. field observations) is difficult because of the geographical and temporal constraints inherent to these methods. Stable light isotope tracking of diet allows diet switching to be studied over multiple space/time scales. Here, I use stable isotope data from elephant faeces, tail hair, and ivory to record short- (monthly), medium- (seasonal to annual), and long-term (decadal) ecological variability, respectively, of elephant diets in the Kruger National Park, South Africa. Results from faeces collected at monthly resolution for one year confirm findings of a previous study (based on biannually-collected samples over two years) that elephants generally consume more grass in the more wooded habitats of the northern Kruger Park, but that there is a greater degree of seasonal diet switching in southern Kruger Park habitats. Moreover, diet changes also relate to changes in underlying bedrock across Kruger Park. Isotopic time-series produced by serial profiling of tail hairs confirm patterns observed in faeces. Long-term diet histories of individuals are derived from serial isotope sampling of ivory, yielding records that represent several decades of an animal’s life, at sub-annual (seasonal) resolution. Overlaying individual ivory series in time produces the first, to my knowledge, multidecadal record of African elephant diet, dating from 1903 to 1993. Contrary to expectations, stable carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen isotope records from ivory do not correlate well with cyclical climate trends for the study region. Rather, pronounced diet shifts are observed during extreme climatic events (floods and droughts), and the greatest levels of intra- and inter-annual variability coincide with significant changes in park management policy during the 20th century, i.e. the introduction of water provision programs after the mid 1930s, and the onset of elephant population control in 1967. It is proposed that such direct intervention has played the biggest role in disturbance of elephant-plant equilibria during the 20th century, and further studies to improve our understanding of this phenomenon will be instrumental to development of appropriate management strategies for the 21st century.
Herries, Andrew Ian Richard. "Magnetostratigraphic seriation of South African hominin palaeocaves." Thesis, University of Liverpool, 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.288202.
Full textStump, Daryl Andrew. "Towards an applied archaeology of East African intensive agricultural systems." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2006. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1445862/.
Full textMcGhie, Lisa-Maree. "Archaeology and authenticity in select South African museums, and public entertainment spaces." Pretoria : [s.n.], 2007. http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-02072007-130253.
Full textZhu, Madeline R. M. W. "Reconstructing the diets of southern African farmers: comparing stable isotopes across body tissues." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/22719.
Full textDrexler, Carl Gilbert. "Dooley's Ferry: The Archaeology of a Civilian Community in Wartime." W&M ScholarWorks, 2013. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1539623627.
Full textSealy, Emma Georgina. "Archaeology education in South Africa : developing curriculum programmes in three Cape Town schools." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/9775.
Full textThe history of educational archaeology in South Africa and the intersection of the discipline and the South African school curriculum informed the choice of the research question for this project. This question is "What happens when an archaeologist develops educational programmes and curriculum materials for schools in order that the teachers' and learners have access to the archaeological knowledge and archaeological research skills?" The following assumptions were made at the beginning of the project and it was investigated whether they were valid or not, during the research process: 1. That the curriculum materials produced for an archaeological education programme should be able to be used by teachers without the intervention of an archaeologist. 2. That the teachers could be relied on to develop assessment exercises, which would satisfactorily test whether the learners had achieved the outcomes of the particular programme. 3. That the teachers would be willing to participate as critical partners throughout the research process by providing evaluations of the educational material and the particular programme in general. Three Cape Town schools were selected to participate in the project, which follows an action research paradigm, with each programme at each school being one action research cycle. Reflections on each programme informed the decisions made in the following one. Educational materials were developed for each school, with the assistance of educational editors and trialled in schools with assistance of teachers. Attention was paid to lesson structure, the pitching of questions and the sources of information used. The materials and the three programmes in general were evaluated with the use of questionnaires, which comprised open-ended and direct questions, formal interviews with teachers, which were recorded and transcribed, observation of classes and detailed note taking. The knowledge and skills learners developed as a result of their participation in the programmes was assessed in a variety of ways. Personal Meaning Maps (PMMs) were used by the researcher at Schools B and C in order to develop an understanding of the breadth of the learners' knowledge and opinion on the subjects of slavery and history. The teachers designed assessment exercises in the form of creative writing essays, a comprehension test and an assessment essay. It was found that the teachers at the three schools needed guidance in order to use the curriculum materials in their classrooms for the main aim of this research project to be achieved. The teachers understood the archaeological knowledge but not the archaeological research methods that were used to produce it, because of this it was also found that the teachers could not be relied on to produce satisfactory methods of assessment. In the process of undertaking research in the three schools in question, the teachers were willing to participate as critical partners if they felt that they were well informed enough about the discipline of archaeology.
Cohen, Anne Louise. "A holocene sea surface temperature record in mollusc shells from the South African coast." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 1993. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/22468.
Full textBibliography: pages 140-163.
This thesis describes the construction of a Holocene history of sea surface temperatures in coastal regions of the southern Benguela and eastern Agulhas Bank of South Africa, using marine mollusc shells preserved in archaeological middens. Two independent palaeothermometers were employed: the traditional oxygen isotope technique and a new, alternative technique based on temperature-dependent changes in structure and mineralogy of the shell of a South African limpet species, Patella granularis. The relationship between the isotopic and structural aspects of shell composition, and habitat temperature was confirmed through examination of living populations.
Webley, Lita Ethel. "The history and archaeology of pastoralist and hunter-gatherer settlement in the North-Western Cape, South Africa." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 1992. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/17817.
Full textInvestigations in the archaeologically unexplored region of Namaqualand show that it was unoccupied for much of the terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene. Marginally more favourable climatic conditions circa 2000 BP encouraged re-occupation of the region. It would appear that Khoe-speaking hunter-gatherers with livestock and pottery first entered Namaqualand along the Orange River before moving southward along the Atlantic coast. Both sheep and pottery are present at /Ai tomas in the Richtersveld and Spoeg River Cave on the coast, some 1900 years ago. This is strong evidence for a western route of Khoekhoen dispersal into southern Africa and invalidates one of the hypotheses proposed by Elphick in 1972. Domestic stock was initially only a minor addition to the economy and these early inhabitants of the region continued utilising wild plant foods and game, slaughtering their domestic stock only infrequently. It is proposed that hunter-gatherer society may undergo the structural changes necessary to become pastoralists and that there is evidence for this in the archaeological record from Namaqualand during the period 1900 to 1300 BP. The historical and ethnographic records relating to the Little Namaqua Khoekhoen indicates that gender conflict structured much of the lives of the historical population and it is postulated that the pre-colonial period was also characterised by changing gender relations. Central to this thesis is a consideration of the active role of material culture in negotiating relations between various interest groups within a society as well as structuring relations between 'ethnic' groups. Certain material culture items are identified which were used to negotiate and structure gender relations. The archaeological material from Namaqualand are therefore analysed in order to determine changing social relations through time. It is concluded that ethnic distinctions between pastoralist groups and hunter-gatherers in Namaqualand became more stressed with the arrival of the Dutch as a consequence of increasing competition for resources. The collapse of Namaqua Khoekhoen society was brought about as a result of trading excess stock for luxury items rather than in establishing stock associations. This thesis proposes that material culture from archaeological excavations be analysed for evidence of the structuring of within-group relations and that material cultural changes dating to within the last 2000 years should not automatically be ascribed to the presence of two 'ethnic' groups.
Whitaker, Jamie L. ""Hark from the tomb" : the culture history and archaeology of African-American cemeteries." Virtual Press, 2007. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/1371679.
Full textDepartment of Anthropology
Barton, Christopher Paul. "IDENTITY AND IMPROVISATION: ARCHAEOLOGY AT THE AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY OF TIMBUCTOO, NEW JERSEY." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2013. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/241688.
Full textPh.D.
This dissertation focuses on the African American community of Timbuctoo, Westampton, New Jersey. Timbuctoo was founded circa 1825 by formerly enslaved and free born African Americans. The community operated as a "station" along the Underground Railroad. At its peak Timbuctoo had over 125-150 residents and supported a general store, "colored" school, AMEZ church, cemetery and several homesteads. Today the only standing markers of the nineteenth century community are the gravestones in the cemetery. In 2007, Westampton Township acquired roughly four acres of the nearly forty arces that once comprised Timbuctoo. From 2009-2011, Christopher Barton and David Orr conducted archaeological work at the community. The focus of this dissertation was the excavation and analysis of 15,042 artifacts recovered from the Davis Site, Feature 13. The Davis Site was purchased by William Davis 1879. Davis and his wife Rebecca raised their five children in a 12x16ft home constructed on the 20x100ft property. Between the 1920s to the 1940s the foundation of the Davis home was used as a community trash midden. Specifically, this dissertation looks at the practices of yard sweeping, architecture, construction materials, home canning and the consumption of commodified foods. A practice theory of improvisation is posited as a working model to explaining the reflexive practices used by marginalized residents to contest social and economic repression. This theory of improvisation seeks to complicate narratives of poverty through underscoring the dynamic disposition of material culture and everyday life.
Temple University--Theses
Solomon, Anne Catherine. "Division of the earth : gender, symbolism and the archaeology of the southern San." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 1989. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/21818.
Full textGender studies in various disciplines, particularly anthropology, have shown that the opposition of masculine : feminine is commonly used to structure other cultural contrasts, and that the representation of this opposition in cultural products is in turn implicated in the cultural construction of gender content. This bidirectional problematic, supplementing the more limited critique of gender 'bias' and masculinist models, is the focus of this research into archaeological materials. Rock art is the principal archaeological 'trace' analysed. Because the impetus to gender studies comes principally from the critical standpoint of feminism, analyses of gender and gendering in archaeological materials are evaluated in the context of gender issues in the present day, in terms of archaeological 'reconstructions' as legitimising the existing gender order. Theoretical influences include feminism, hermeneutics, marxism, (post)- structuralism, semiotics, and discourse theory. Aspects of language, and, particularly, the oral narratives of various San groups - the /Xam, G /wi, !Kung, Nharo, and others - are examined in order to establish the way in which masculinity and femininity are/have been conceptualised and differentiated by San peoples. This is followed by an assessment of the manner of and extent to which the masculine: feminine opposition informs narrative content and structure. The analysis of language texts permits an approach to the representation of this opposition in non-language cultural texts (such as visual art, space). Particular constructions of masculinity and femininity, and a number of gendered contrasts (pertaining to form, orientation, time, number, quality) are identified. Gender symbolism is linked to the themes of rain and fertility/ continuity, and analysed in political terms, according to the feminist materialist contention that, in non-class societies, gender opposition is potentially the impetus to social change. Gender(ing) is more fundamental to San cultural texts than has been, recognised, being present in a range of beliefs which are linked by their gender symbolism. I utilise a 'fertility hypothesis', derived from a reading of the ethnographies, in order to explain various elements of Southern African rock art, Well-preserved (thus relatively recent) paintings, principally from sites in the Drakensberg and south-western Cape, were selected. Features interpreted via this hypothesis include: images of humans, the motif of the thin red line fringed with white dots, 'elephants in boxes', therianthropic figures, and 'androgynous' figures, including the eland. The spatial organisation of the art, the significance of non-realistic perspectives, and the problem of the numerical male dominance of the art are also interpreted from this standpoint. The analysis permits critique, of the theorisation of gender and ideology in rock art studies, and of the biophysical determinism implicit in current rock art studies, in which attempts are made to explain many features of the art by reference to trance states, altered consciousness and neurophysiological constitution. Rain, rather than trance, is proposed as the central element of San ritual/religious practices. Finally, the treatment of (or failure to consider) gender(ing) in the archaeological record is situated in relatio.n to contemporary gender ideologies, in the contexts of archaeological theory and practice.
Scerri, Eleanor. "The Aterian and its place in the North African Middle Stone Age." Thesis, University of Southampton, 2013. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/367294/.
Full textMitchell, P. J. "The Sehonghong bladelet industry in the context of the Southern African Later Stone Age." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1986. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.385606.
Full textLuyt, Julie. "Revisiting the palaeoenvironments of the South African hominid-bearing Plio Pleistocene sites : new isotopic evidence from Sterkfontein." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/4176.
Full textThis thesis offers a revised palaeoenvironmental reconstruction of South African PlioPleistocene sites based on δ¹³C and δ¹⁸O isotopes extracted from enamel of fossil fauna. New isotopic results from Sterkfontein Members 4 and 5 are reported to supplement existing data from Makapansgat and Swartkrans in order to examine the changing environment from approximately 3 to 1.4 million years ago (Ma).
Wares, Heather Lynne. "Maritime archaeology and its publics in post-apartheid South Africa." University of the Western Cape, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/11394/5106.
Full textSince the end of apartheid and with that the construction of a new South Africa, archaeology has experienced what can be seen as a resurgence in the public domain. With the creation of a new nation imagined as existing since time immemorial, there has been an emergence of archaeological pasts providing evidence of a nation believed to have existed before apartheid and colonialism. Due to this resurgence of interest in the pre-apartheid and pre-colonial pasts, there has been a ballooning of research and exhibitions around paleontological finds, rock art sites and Iron Age sites indicative of early state formation. This has transported the nation back into what Tony Bennett has called 'pasts beyond memory'. Where mainstream archaeology focuses on sites which reflect a history outside of a colonial past, maritime archaeology has had difficulty. Being a discipline with its main object of focus being the shipwreck, it is difficult to unravel it from a colonial legacy. In an attempt to move away from these older notions of 'public' through the allure of the shipwreck, some maritime archaeologists have looked at different mechanisms, or what I call 'modes of representation', to construct new South African publics. Two such mechanisms are discussed in this thesis: the temporary exhibition of the Meermin Project, and the Nautical Archaeology Society courses on Robben Island. This is in contrast to the older Bredasdorp Shipwreck Museum, where I argue by using Greenblatt’s notion of 'resonance and wonder', that the wonder of the object salvaged is the central feature of the way it constructs its publics. This thesis discusses how a group of maritime archaeologists, located at Iziko Museums and the South African Heritage Resources Agency, attempted to construct new publics by locating resonance with its subject in an exhibition, and by making new archaeologists through a hands-on course.
Trakadas, Athena L. "Piscationes in Mauretania Tingitana : marine resource exploitation in a Roman North African province." Thesis, University of Southampton, 2009. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/366713/.
Full textLuyt, Catherine. "Stable light isotopes in fauna as environmental proxies in the Southern African winter and year-round rainfall zones." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/25347.
Full textWhite, William Anderson, and William Anderson White. "The Archaeology of the River Street Neighborhood: A Multi-racial Urban Region of Refuge in Boise, Idaho." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/624546.
Full textRoby, John. "The past in the present archaeology and identity in a historic African American church /." unrestricted, 2005. http://etd.gsu.edu/theses/available/etd-11142005-112944/.
Full textTitle from title screen. John Kantner, committee chair; Kathryn A. Kozaitis, Emanuela Guano, committee members. Electronic text (112 p. : col. ill.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed June 11, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 106-112).
Roby, John. "The Past in the Present: Archaeology and Identity in a Historic African American Church." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2006. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/anthro_theses/9.
Full textAustin, Karl Maddox. "The Morass of Resistance During the Antebellum| Agents of Freedom in the Great Dismal Swamp." Thesis, American University, 2017. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10265142.
Full textThe Great Dismal swamp straddles the North Carolina and Virginia state lines. From the seventeenth century until the Civil War this remote landscape became home to thousands of Maroons. These Maroon communities were comprised of runaway slaves, Native Americans and disenfranchised Europeans. The swamp was not only part of the passage for the Underground Rail Road (UGRR) but it was also a destination for individuals who lived on high ground and islands throughout the swamp. These self emancipated individuals developed complex modes of communitization. This dissertation uses a variety of theoretical perspectives, including agency theory, diaspora, and marronage to aluminate and understand the conditions and cultural transformations that took place over the course of several centuries and generations. The examination of these different communal groups will show that the each possessed and left behind different archaeological assemblages. Towards the end of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the outside world began to view the swamp as an exploitable resource and commodity. This led to increased forays by the outside world into the swamp and increased the possibility of contact with remote communities living on mesic islands deep in the swamp’s interior. As the outside world penetrated the interior of the Great Dismal Swamp it required the communities to adapt and transform. This dissertation will examine the cultural and communal transformations of a community that resisted contact with the outside world in response to loggers and canal laborers arriving in the deep interior of the swamp. The Great Dismal Swamp Landscape Study excavated The Crest of the nameless site during the 2009-2013 field seasons. These excavations ran in conjunction with American University’s Archaeological Field School. The excavations revealed a new architectural feature and artifact assemblage that represent a cultural transformation and the emergence of a new mode of communitization. These features and artifacts will be examined using a lens of agentive action to shed new insights into the Maroons who occupied a mesic island deep in the Great Dismal Swamp.
San, Antonio Michelle Cull. "Let's piece the past together writing a book about African diaspora archaeology education for middle school students /." CONNECT TO THIS TITLE ONLINE, 2007. http://etd.lib.umt.edu/theses/available/etd-05302007-120322/.
Full textHorton, Mark Chatwin. "The early settlement of the Northern Swahili Coast." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1985. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/250857.
Full textMahoney, Shannon Sheila. "Pay for Labor: Socioeconomic Transitions of freedpeople and the Archaeology of African American Life, 1863-1930." W&M ScholarWorks, 2004. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1539626447.
Full textSithaldeen, Riashna. "Phylogeny and phylogeography of the Chacma Baboon (Papio ursinus): the role of landscape in shaping contemporary genetic structure in the southern African baboon." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/10830.
Full textIncludes bibliographical references (leaves 146-175).
This thesis contributes to our understanding of the role of climate and landscape change in structuring diversity within chacma baboons (Papio ursinus). The data set comprises molecular sequences from two mitochondrial DNA markers: the Brown region and the hypervariable D-loop. DNA was extracted from faecal samples of 261 free living chacma baboons across southern Africa. Phylogenetic and phylogeographic techniques, including coalescent modeling, were used to examine past and present population dynamics of chacma baboon populations. Bayesian tree constructions provide a timeline of diversification for the sample. Although the ecological drivers of ongoing differentiation remain unclear, it was shown that population contractions and expansions have also played a significant role in driving regional genetic structure within the species.
Smith, John Nicholas Leith. "Archaeological survey of settlement patterns in the Banda region, west-central Ghana Exploring external influences and internal responses in the West African frontier /." Related electronic resource: Current Research at SU : database of SU dissertations, recent titles available full text, 2008. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/syr/main.
Full textBoroughs, Jon Jason. "Gathering Places, Cultivating Spaces: An Archaeology of a Chesapeake Neighborhood through Enslavement and Emancipation, 1775--1905." W&M ScholarWorks, 2013. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1539623359.
Full textManthi, Fredrick Kyalo. "The taphonomy of a micromammalian faunal assemblage from the Saldanha Bay Yacht Club : a contribution to the study of the South African west coast palaeoenvironments." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/7710.
Full textThis thesis provides a broad outline of the effect of taphonomic and ecological processes on the accumulation and transformation of micromammalian faunal assemblages, and the importance of the signatures left behind by these processes in the reconstruction of ancient ecosystems. Micromammalian remains recovered from a rich Terminal Pleistocene site near the Saldanha Bay Yacht Club (SBYC) along the South African west coast have been examined following Andrews' (1990a) procedures. In the investigation of the effect of taphonomy on the SBYC faunal remains, murids (rodents) and soricids (shrews) have been examined separately and in as much detail as possible. The analyses have shown that the long bones of the soricids exhibit a relatively higher degree of completeness than those of the murids, suggesting preferential preservation of the former. Additionally, soricid jaws have yielded higher minimum number of individuals (MNIs) than long bone counts whereas for murids the opposite is the case. These observations have indicated the need for more taxonomically resolved analyses on the effect of taphonomic processes on micromammalian remains. Three micromammalian species represented in the SBYC faunal samples (Tatera afra, Myosorex varius and Suncus varilla) yielded much higher MNI counts than did other species. This reflects the intermediate selective behaviour of the inferred accumulator of the fauna, the barn owl, although the spotted eagle owl has not been completely ruled out. The study of the SBYC micromammalian fauna has underscored the need to integrate both taphonomic and ecological factors in the attempts to infer potential predators that might have been responsible for the accumulation of microanalytic occurrences. This is also necessary for understanding the environmental contexts in which the fauna was accumulated and/or derived. The micromammalian species represented at SBYC have suggested that in the SBYC area some 15,000 years ago, there was a mosaic of microhabitats including well-vegetated and moist microhabitats, and an admixture of bush and sandveld. Overall, climatic conditions in the SBYC area when the microfauna accumulated were moderate, and generally not different from the conditions prevailing today.
Ryder, Robin Leigh. "Free African-American Archeology: Interpreting an Antebellum Farmstead." W&M ScholarWorks, 1991. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1539625654.
Full textFourie, Nicolaas Hofmeyer. "Dietary ecology and niche separation among three closely related species (Parapapio jonesi, Pp. whitei and Pp. broomi) of South African Plio-Pleistocene Cercopithecoidea from Makapansgat Limeworks site." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/4171.
Full textIncludes bibliographical references (leaves 136-157).
Three sympatric, contemporaneous fossil cercopithecoid genera (Cercopithecoides, Parapapio and Theropithecus) are represented in assemblages from the Makapansgat Limeworks hominin locality in South Africa. The presence of such a variety of primate taxa in a single ecosystem at the same time suggests a certain degree of ecological and/or dietary differentiation between taxa. This research explores the possibility of dietary niche separation within this sample. Stable isotope (13C/12C, 180/160 ) and trace-element (Sr, Ba, Ca) techniques for palaeodietary analysis are employed to investigate papionin dietary ecology, and especially to search for evidence of subtle niche separation between the more closely related, morphologically similar taxa of the genus Parapapio. Previous studies of fossil cercopithecoid dietary ecology report disjunctions between dietary and taxonomic groupings, possibly as a result of the use of fragmentary specimens or isolated teeth and ensuing taxonomic uncertainty, or perhaps because of problems in the taxonomy itself. Because such taxonomic uncertainties impede the interpretation of dietary data, craniometric analyses were also performed to ground the dietary interpretations in a morphological context. Only complete or partially complete cranial specimens from which morphological craniometric measurements could also be taken were sampled. Dietary analyses indicated two widely differing dietary ecologies within the Cercopithecoides williamsi sample, consistent with published results for this taxon from Swartkrans and Sterkfontein. Results for Theropithecus darti indicated a predominantly C4 diet. Two overlapping dietary ecologies, loosely correlated to taxonomic groupings, were found within the genus Parapapio; specimens attributed to Pp. broomi tended to have C3-dominated diets with a larger rootstock component than Pp. whitei and Pp. jonesi, which included more C4 grasses in their diet. The morphological analyses found no clear taxonomic signal in the craniometric data for Parapapio, suggesting that the current taxonomic assignments of Parapapio specimens are problematic. Additionally, for all of the analysed anatomical regions, the Parapapio sample was no more variable than the single geographically circumscribed extant chacma baboon sample. To sum, while biogeochemical dietary indicators indicate distinct dietary ecologies within and between genera, disjunctions exist between the dietary categories and the taxonomic assignment of specimens. Given these results, and in light of the taxonomic concerns highlighted by the craniometric investigation, reinvestigation of papionin taxonomy at Makapansgat may be warranted.
Derbyshire, Samuel. "Trade, development and resilience : an archaeology of contemporary livelihoods in Turkana, northern Kenya." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2017. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:13527b7a-0f4e-46e9-a9df-8bdd53a6ce40.
Full textCrowder, Alexandra. "Community through Consumption| The Role of Food in African American Cultural Formation in the 18th Century Chesapeake." Thesis, University of Massachusetts Boston, 2018. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10788842.
Full textStratford Hall Plantation’s Oval Site was once a dynamic 18th-century farm quarter that was home to an enslaved community and overseer charged with growing Virginia’s cash crop: tobacco. No documentary evidence references the site, leaving archaeology as the only means to reconstruct the lives of the site’s inhabitants. This research uses the results of a macrobotanical analysis conducted on soil samples taken from an overseer’s basement and a dual purpose slave quarter/kitchen cellar at the Oval Site to understand what the site’s residents were eating and how the acquisition, production, processing, provisioning, and consumption of food impacted their daily lives. The interactive nature of the overseer, enslaved community, and their respective botanical assemblages suggests that food was not only used as sustenance, it was also a medium for social interaction and mutual dependence between the two groups.
The botanical assemblage is also utilized to discuss how the consumption of provisioned, gathered, and produced foods illustrate the ways that Stratford’s enslaved inhabitants formed communities and exerted agency through food choice. A mixture of traditional African, European, and native/wild taxa were recovered from the site, revealing the varied cultural influences that affected the resident’s cuisine. The assemblage provides evidence for ways that the site’s enslaved Africans and African Americans adapted to the local environment, asserted individual and group food preferences, and created creolized African American identities as they sought to survive and persist in the oppressive plantation landscape.
The results from the Oval Site are compared to nine other 18th- and 19th-century plantation sites in Virginia to demonstrate how food was part of the cultural creolization process undergone by enslaved Africans and African Americans across the region. The comparison further shows that diverse, creolized food preferences developed by enslaved communities can be placed into a regional framework of foodways patterns. Analyzing the results on a regional scale acknowledges the influence of individual preferences and identities of different communities on their food choices, while still demonstrating how food was consistently both a mechanism and a product of African American community formation.
Goode, Cynthia Vollbrecht. "Engaging the Tools of Resistance| Enslaved Africans' Tactics of Collective and Individual Consumption in Food, Medicine, and Clothing in the Great Dismal Swamp." Thesis, American University, 2018. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10786216.
Full textThe Great Dismal Swamp, located in Virginia and North Carolina, was a landscape of resistance for enslaved Africans who fled to its interior maronnage settlements. But how did the enslaved workers who were forced to participate in the slavery-based capitalist economy find avenues to perform acts of resistance within these circumstances, and were they able to interact with or facilitate maroons and refugees escaping through the swamp? This research questions the role of material culture consumption as a form of resistance in the Great Dismal Swamp by exploring the historical and archaeological records of Dismal Town, Site 44SK70, and Jericho Ditch Work Camp, Site 44SK506, where enslaved men and women lived and worked during the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. The Dismal Swamp Company (1763-1814), headquartered at Dismal Town plantation along the Washington Ditch, was one of the first corporations to exploit the swamp’s natural resources. Its successor was the Dismal Swamp Land Company (1810-1871), headquartered at the sawmills at Jericho Town, with work camps spread throughout the swamp including the work camp on the Jericho Ditch. Opportunities for and tactics of resistance changed as the company changed its name and transitioned from a slave-owning, plantation-style labor system of agricultural production to a more industrialized, slave-leasing, task-based system of lumbering and shingle production. Because material culture plays a role in power-laden social relationships, the consumption and use of materials culture can constitute resistance on both an individual and collective level. This resistive consumption can take many forms, self-determination and persistence in expressions of cultural identity, or the ability to legally purchase freedom for one’s self or family with saved wages, or even the ability to supply and facilitate fugitives within the GDS through redistribution in an internal economy. This research will prove that resistance can be a pervasive, persistent, and hidden range of practices and tactics used by people in their everyday lives through the seemingly mundane choices of how to cook and serve food, prescribe medical treatments, and acquire clothing and personal items.
Helm, Richard Michael. "Conflicting histories : the archaeology of the iron-working, farming communities in the central and southern coast region of Kenya." Thesis, University of Bristol, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/1983/71d3890f-3b5b-4ef9-a807-1bc19fd09d24.
Full textSilva, Agatha Rodrigues da. "A arqueologia da África através dos editoriais: uma análise dos discursos arqueológicos de africanos e africanistas nos boletins especializados." Universidade de São Paulo, 2013. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/71/71131/tde-18042013-111954/.
Full textThe archaeological societies and institutions, like others scientific organizations, they are fundamental spaces in the encouragement and in the support an intellectual\'s network of the research´s area. They can, through the distribution of its publications, like the newsletters, in the editorial section, to reaffirm traditions or offer innovative perspectives. We analyzed thirty and four editorial texts in The South African Archaeological Bulletin, Nyame Akuma and Nsi, intending to understand structure multiple images\' of Africans and Africanists Archaeologists in the post-colonial era, between 1987 and 1993, that, in our opinion, would it is happen before of that societies through its newsletters consolidate. According to the viewpoint their editors, the newsletters of our documental corpus were agile and efficient to fulfill the functions to make possible archaeologists interact, they knew about the fieldwork\'s progress, they were informed about the realization of Congress. Our temporal period is defined by the concomitant movement of the bulletins, with the exception of the year 1993, when Nsi was assimilated to Nyame Akuma. It\'s a period was marked by New Archaeology´s theoretical currents, Post-processualism, postcolonial studies and dissemination of archaeological research in the Africa and about the Africa in face of these approaches. We point as conclusion of the analysis like the bulletins, under the pretext of promoting the archaeologists and the scientific archeology in the Africa, during in this period, they conveyed, in fact, the ideal or rejected images of the interested archaeologists in Africa. These images were constructed in the editor\'s texts in discursive practice that they formulated. They were recurring statements of the contingent themes at the archaeologist´s work.
Mills, Glen Trevor. "The social meaning of domestic space : notes on a suitable research methodology for southern African architectural studies." Doctoral thesis, Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, 1986. https://hdl.handle.net/11427/32001.
Full textFicek, Douglas. ""Man Is a Yes": Fanon, Liberation, and the Playful Politics of Philosophical Archaeology." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2013. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/216541.
Full textPh.D.
What is the meaning of Fanonian liberation? That is the question that animates this work, which is (negatively) inspired by the reality of misanthropy, practical and theoretical, and neocolonialism, external and internal. To answer this question, I first situate Frantz Fanon within the larger discourse of liberation, emphasizing the relationship between his liberatory work and the work of Gustavo Gutiérrez, Paulo Freire, and Enrique Dussel. From there, I argue that there is today an unfortunate privileging of ethics, and that this privileging is used to discredit the political as an intersubjective domain. To establish (what I call) the primacy of politics, I carefully analyze Fanon's first book, Black Skin, White Masks, and his sociogenetic conclusions. I then turn to The Wretched of the Earth and to the phenomenon of petrification, which is, I contend, one of the most important features of colonialism and neocolonialism. To fully explain this phenomenon, I consider both its mythopoetic significance and its relationship to Jean-Paul Sartre's conception of seriousness. Finally, I argue that the solution to the problem of petrification can be found in Fanon's second book, A Dying Colonialism, in which there are rich descriptions of political playfulness and (what I call) philosophical archaeology, which can be defined as the descriptive and evaluative analysis of meanings as contingent human artifacts.
Temple University--Theses
Edwards-Ingram, Ywone. "Medicating slavery: Motherhood, health care, and cultural practices in the African diaspora." W&M ScholarWorks, 2005. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1539623482.
Full textO'Brien, Matthew Andrew. "Nearer, My Farm, to Thee: A Spatial Analysis of African American Settlement Patterns in Hillsborough County, Florida." Scholar Commons, 2011. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/3267.
Full textFancher, Jason M. "An ethnoarchaeological analysis of small prey bone assemblages produced by forest foragers of the Central African Republic." Pullman, Wash. : Washington State University, 2009. http://www.dissertations.wsu.edu/Dissertations/Spring2009/j_fancher_042109.pdf.
Full textDavison, Patricia. "Material culture, context and meaning : a critical investigation of museum practice, with particular reference to the South African Museum." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 1991. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/18276.
Full textThe broad theoretical concern of the thesis is to elucidate the relationship between material culture and social relations, and to counter the analytical separation of cultural form and social practice, which is a pervasive problem in archaeology and material culture studies in general. This problem is addressed with reference to museum practice, focusing in particular on the social role of artefacts in two contextual domains - that of everyday life, as interpreted in ethnographic fieldwork, and that of a museum, which is in itself a complex cultural artefact. These two contexts are linked by the concept of recontextualization, which I suggest is a pivotal process in both museum practice and archaeology. The theory of 'structuration', as formulated by Anthony Giddens, is drawn on to overcome the problematic separation of cultural objects from social subjects. This leads to the conceptualization of meaning in material culture as being socially constituted and context-related, and the relationship of material culture to social relations as being one of mediation rather than objective reflection. Emphasis is thereby given to material culture as a resource that is actively implicated in the construction of social relations and identity. This theoretical approach is applied in two field studies and two museum studies. The former, undertaken in Transkei and the Transvaal Lowveld, investigate material culture in the social matrix of everyday use; the latter, undertaken with reference to the Ethnography section of the South African Museum, illustrate the process of recontextualization, which I regard as operating at both physical and cognitive levels. It is argued that processes of recontextualization, inherent in museum practice, inevitably change both context and the object-subject relationship, and therefore alter the range of meanings that objects evoke once located in a museum. Despite the apparent authenticity of exhibited artefacts, I argue that museum representations are composite artefacts of museum practice, rather than objective reflections of reality. I suggest that reflexive awareness of professional practice as social practice should be built into both archaeological texts and museum representations, through which knowledge of the social past is conveyed to the general public. This is consistent with the argument throughout the dissertation for an integration of object and subject, and a recognition of human agency, past and present. In conclusion, I argue for a more sensitive, reflexive approach to museum practice that would encourage an awareness of social context, and invite a more active participation by viewers in the generation of meaning. The dissertation is a contribution to this end.
Chami, Felix Lindahl Anders. "The Tanzanian Coast in the first millenium AD an archaeology of the iron-working, farming communities /." Uppsala : Societas Archaeologica Upsaliensis, 1994. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/oclc/31304831.html.
Full textAtkins, Stephen Charles. "An Archaeological Perspective on the African-American Slave Diet at Mount Vernon's House for Families." W&M ScholarWorks, 1994. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1539625859.
Full textHawthorne, John. "African red slip ware in the western Mediterranean : an economic and demographic reappraisal." Thesis, University of Southampton, 1998. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/42327/.
Full textBrown, Brittany. "Ancestral Landscapes: a Study of Historical Black Cemeteries and Contemporary Practices of Commemoration Among African Americans in Duval County, Jacksonville, Fl." W&M ScholarWorks, 2018. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1550154005.
Full textTurner, Grace S. "An Allegory for Life: An 18th century African-influenced cemetery landscape, Nassau, Bahamas." W&M ScholarWorks, 2013. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1539623360.
Full textRitchie, Gabrielle. "Dig the herders, display the Hottentots : the production and presentation of knowledge about the past." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 1990. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/19517.
Full textKnowledge and History have for many years been sites of struggle in South Africa and academic versions of the past are being challenged with commitment by oppressed communities all over the world. Archaeologists, as producers of information about the past, are necessarily involved in such struggles. The aim of this research project has been to demonstrate that our constructions of the past are deeply embedded in the politics of production and presentation of knowledge. The manner in which information is presented to the public is integrally linked to the manner in which knowledge about the past is produced. These politics form a particular dynamic with the way people perceive themselves and others. By examining the specifics of the construction of a Hottentot icon, and its links with constructions of gatherer-hunter histories, I have also tackled issues such as the contingency of research interpretations, the subjectivity of researchers, the myth of "scientific objectivity", and knowledge as a site of struggle in South Africa. I have also examined the links between writing, description, sexism, racism and colonialism, and educational methods and the authority of the expert. It is in the use of authoritative techniques in the production of knowledge and in the presentation of research interpretations that the problem lies. Authoritative techniques are pervasive and powerful, and function to inhibit public challenges to academic knowledge. The weight of notions such as science, objectivity and truth - which back up most presentations of academic knowledge - disallow the empowerment of communities towards participation in the processes of producing knowledge. I advocate a shift towards production and presentation that uses instead methods that encourage traditionally powerless communities to play an active role in the construction of their histories. I have focussed on the construction of authoritative herder histories, in both museums and other public media, in order to examine the role of archaeologists in struggles around the past. Whether we are conscious participants in these struggles, or whether we adopt a stance of objective neutrality, the information we produce has a powerful and important effect on the way in which people make sense of ourselves. A People's Archaeology - an archaeology dependent on community participation in research, interpretation and presentation - will require the development of democratic research methods. And this necessitates the initial steps of demystifying the process whereby academic knowledge is produced, and the development of an understanding of the origins of historical symbols. This project is a contribution to these debates, and will hopefully be, in some way, a contribution to the process of formulating different research methods towards the development of a People's Archaeology.