Matching Items (25)
Description
Stable carbon isotope data for early Pliocene hominins Ardipithecus ramidus and Australopithecus anamensis show narrow, C3-dominated isotopic signatures. Conversely, mid-Pliocene Au. afarensis has a wider isotopic distribution and consumed both C3 and C4 plants, indicating a transition to a broader dietary niche by ~ 3.5 million years ago (Ma). Dietary breadth is an important aspect of the modern human adaptive suite, but why hominins expanded their dietary niche ~ 3.5 Ma is poorly understood at present. Eastern Africa has produced a rich Pliocene record of hominin species and associated mammalian faunas that can be used to address this question. This dissertation hypothesizes that the shift in hominin dietary breadth was driven by a transition to more open and seasonal environments in which food resources were more patchily distributed both spatially and temporally. To this end, I use a multiproxy approach that combines hypsodonty, mesowear, faunal abundance, and stable isotope data for temporally well-constrained early and mid-Pliocene mammal assemblages (5.3-2.95 Ma) from Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania to infer patterns of environmental change through time. Hypsodonty analyses revealed that early Pliocene sites had higher annual precipitation, lower precipitation seasonality, and lower temperature seasonality than mid-Pliocene sites. Mesowear analyses, however, did not show from attrition- to abrasion- dominated wear through time. Abundance data suggest that there was a trend towards aridity, as Tragelaphini (woodland antelope) decline while Alcelaphini (grassland antelope) increased in abundance through time. Carbon isotope data indicate that most taxa shifted to diets focusing on C4 grasses through time, which closely follows paleosol carbon isotope data documenting the expansion of grassland ecosystems in eastern Africa. Overall, the results suggest Ar. ramidus and Au. anamensis preferentially exploited habitats in which preferred food resources were likely available year-round, whereas Au. afarensis lived in more variable, seasonal environments in which preferred foods were available seasonally. Au. afarensis and K. platyops likely expanded their dietary niche in less stable environments, as reflected in their wider isotopic niche breadth.
ContributorsSeyoum, Chalachew Mesfin (Author) / Kimbel, William H. (Thesis advisor) / Reed, Kaye (Thesis advisor) / Campisano, Christopher (Committee member) / Alemseged, Zeresenay (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
Exchange is fundamental to the establishment and maintenance of social institutions and political economies in all scales of societies. While today people rapidly exchange goods and information over great distances, in the past, long-distance exchange necessitated the mobilization of vast networks of interaction with substantial transport costs. Objects traded over long distances were often valuable and challenging to obtain, granting them multifaceted significance that is difficult to understand using traditional archaeological approaches.
This research examines human interactions with scarlet macaws (Ara macao) in the United States (U.S.) Southwest and Mexican Northwest (SW/NW) between 900 and 1450 CE. This period saw large-scale cultural change in the form of migrations, rapid population aggregation, and an expansion of long-distance exchange relations in regional centers at Pueblo Bonito (900-1150 CE) in northwestern New Mexico, Wupatki (1085-1220 CE) in north-central Arizona, and Paquimé (1200-1450 CE) in northern Chihuahua. Despite the distant natural habitat of scarlet macaws, their importation, exchange, and sacrifice appear to have played integral roles in the process of placemaking at these three regional centers. Here, I use an Archaeology of the Human Experience approach and combine radiogenic strontium isotope analysis with detailed contextual analyses using a Material Histories theoretical framework to (1) discern whether macaws discovered in the SW/NW were imported or raised locally, (2) characterize the acquisition, treatment and deposition of macaws at Pueblo Bonito, Wupatki, and Paquimé, and (3) identify patterns of continuity or change in acquisition and deposition of macaws over time and across space in the SW/NW.
Findings from radiogenic strontium isotope analysis indicate that scarlet macaws from all case studies were primarily raised locally in the SW/NW, though at Paquimé, macaws were procured from sites in the Casas Grandes region and extra-regionally. Variation in the treatment and deposition of scarlet macaws suggests that despite their prevalence, macaws were interpreted and interacted with in distinctly local ways. Examination of the human experience of transporting and raising macaws reveals previously unconsidered challenges for keeping macaws. Overall, variation in the acquisition and deposition of scarlet macaws indicates changing strategies for placemaking in the SW/NW between 900 and 1450 CE.
This research examines human interactions with scarlet macaws (Ara macao) in the United States (U.S.) Southwest and Mexican Northwest (SW/NW) between 900 and 1450 CE. This period saw large-scale cultural change in the form of migrations, rapid population aggregation, and an expansion of long-distance exchange relations in regional centers at Pueblo Bonito (900-1150 CE) in northwestern New Mexico, Wupatki (1085-1220 CE) in north-central Arizona, and Paquimé (1200-1450 CE) in northern Chihuahua. Despite the distant natural habitat of scarlet macaws, their importation, exchange, and sacrifice appear to have played integral roles in the process of placemaking at these three regional centers. Here, I use an Archaeology of the Human Experience approach and combine radiogenic strontium isotope analysis with detailed contextual analyses using a Material Histories theoretical framework to (1) discern whether macaws discovered in the SW/NW were imported or raised locally, (2) characterize the acquisition, treatment and deposition of macaws at Pueblo Bonito, Wupatki, and Paquimé, and (3) identify patterns of continuity or change in acquisition and deposition of macaws over time and across space in the SW/NW.
Findings from radiogenic strontium isotope analysis indicate that scarlet macaws from all case studies were primarily raised locally in the SW/NW, though at Paquimé, macaws were procured from sites in the Casas Grandes region and extra-regionally. Variation in the treatment and deposition of scarlet macaws suggests that despite their prevalence, macaws were interpreted and interacted with in distinctly local ways. Examination of the human experience of transporting and raising macaws reveals previously unconsidered challenges for keeping macaws. Overall, variation in the acquisition and deposition of scarlet macaws indicates changing strategies for placemaking in the SW/NW between 900 and 1450 CE.
ContributorsSchwartz, Christopher Warren (Author) / Nelson, Ben A. (Thesis advisor) / Knudson, Kelly J. (Committee member) / Hays-Gilpin, Kelley (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
Crown Cercopithecoidea (Old World monkeys) share bilophodont molars characterized by four cusps arranged into two transversely-aligned pairs connected by crests or “loph(id)s”. This derived dental configuration provides a flexible template that has been modified in different lineages of Old World monkeys to meet the mechanical demands of food-processing in species with diverse and varied diets. This molar Bauplan evolved in the early stages of Old World monkey evolution, and one consequence of these morphological changes in occlusal morphology relative to apes and more basal catarrhines is a set of distinct patterns of tooth wear. Adaptive explanations for the origins of bilophodonty have emphasized dietary reconstructions but have not explored the implications of molar crown reorganization on the interaction between tooth wear and tooth function. This study combines description of new fossil material of early Miocene stem cercopithecoids and 3D dental topographic analyses of cross-sectional M2 wear series of extant catarrhines (n=511, 24 species) and Miocene fossil catarhines (n=81, 7 genera) to explore how functional aspects of molar topography are altered by tooth wear, to test whether the acquisition of bilophodont molars resulted in distinct occlusal topographies and patterns of topographic change with wear among Old World monkeys, and to determine whether differences in patterns of topographic change with wear reflect differences in diet.Descriptions of new fossils of the early Miocene stem cercopithecoid Noropithecus bulukensis confirm its generic distinction from Victoriapithecus macinnesi and highlight the dental metric and morphological variation that complicates identification of isolated teeth. Results of dental topographic analyses show that wear-mediated patterns of change in functional topographic metrics do not reflect broad dietary differences in extant catarrhines. While topographic features of unworn molars exhibit a phylogenetic signal, the pattern of wear-mediated topographic change does not. Molar topography of victoriapithecids is similar to extant cercopithecids with frugivorous and hard-object feeding diets, supporting previous dietary reconstructions. Victoriapithecid molar occlusal surfaces exhibit less complexity, less curvature, and higher relief than proconsulids prior to heavy wear stages. They are not distinct from occlusal topographies of small-bodied non-cercopithecoid catarrhines at any wear stage. Overall, these results suggest that the acquisition of bilophodont molar morphology in early and middle Miocene stem cercopithecoids was not associated with a shift in occlusal topography relative to more basal catarrhines. Rather, it is among proconsulids that shifts toward more complex, higher curvature occlusal surfaces are found.
ContributorsLocke, Ellis (Author) / Reed, Kaye (Thesis advisor) / Schwartz, Gary (Committee member) / Kelley, Jay (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
This study was conducted in order to determine whether the lagomorphs of 111 Ranch- Aztlanolagus agilis, Hypolagus arizonensis, and Sylvilagus cunicularius- could be distinguished based on femora. This is because while there is a large quantity of disarticulated lagomorph postcranial fossils from 111 Ranch, the chief diagnostic traits of A. agilis and H. arizonensis are the enamel patterns on their third premolars, leaving a large swath of specimens unidentifiable by diagnostic traits alone. Specimens from the Arizona Museum of Natural History were measured and compared to specimens known to be from these genera. Additionally, morphological traits in mandibles were used to identify mandible specimens, which in turn were used to identify fossils with the same specimen label. Statistical tests such as t-tests and principal components analyses were used to examine the distributions of sizes and locate clusters of datapoints likely corresponding to each genus. Some of these could be linked to a genus based on one particular specimen, P15156, which had been identified as Hypolagus based on its mandible morphology and size. The majority of the Museum'a specimens were thus associated with one of the three species, save for those which were too damaged and intermediate in size to confidently categorize.
ContributorsTkacik, Stephanie Marie (Author) / Farmer, Jack (Thesis director) / Reed, Kaye (Committee member) / McCord, Robert (Committee member) / School of Earth and Space Exploration (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Violence has been characterized as a force for both political change and maintenance of the status quo in human societies. The present study examines how outbreaks of violent events led to a legacy of prolonged warfare among neighboring communities and shaped the formation of new political institutions during the late prehispanic era in the North-Central Andes. Drawing on data collected through archaeological excavation, osteological analysis of human remains, and radiocarbon dating, this work reconstructs life and death histories of 287 individuals recovered from nine archaeological sites to investigate diachronic patterns in physical violence. The observed individuals inhabited settlements located within the high-altitude, mountainous terrain of the Callejón de Huaylas, a region that has received little attention from bioarchaeologists, and the majority lived during the Late Intermediate Period (1000-1450 CE). Archaeological research has indicated local livelihoods changed significantly around 1000 CE. In the wake of Wari state disintegration and an increasingly arid climate, communities faced a series of social, political, and economic transformations. Less is known about how these shifts affected embodied practices of violence in the region. This study documents a stark change in who experienced head injuries during the Late Intermediate Period, as compared to data from preceding eras. Individuals of all ages exhibited both antemortem and perimortem trauma throughout the four and a half centuries. Results reveal people experienced novel forms of physical violence beginning in the mid-1200s—not only did more individuals sustain head injuries, including juveniles, but the inflicted trauma was more lethal and severe at this time. These trauma patterns persisted for generations, continuing through Inka conquest around 1450 CE. The frequency and type of observed cranial trauma are consistent with warfare documented ethnographically among some small-scale societies, suggesting an association between violence and political autonomy. Beyond identifying cultural transformations in victim identities and intergroup dynamics, this research contributes to a growing body of work across the Americas investigating mounting evidence of social strife and conflict from the 13th to 15th centuries. Finally, it sheds light on intergenerational consequences of violent actions by centering individual experiences within contexts of long-term historical trajectories.
ContributorsSharp, Emily Anne (Author) / Buikstra, Jane E. (Thesis advisor) / Knudson, Kelly J. (Committee member) / Stojanowski, Christopher M. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022