Recent archaeological studies have increased our understanding of Early and Middle Holocene prehistoric occupation in the western Mojave Desert. These studies have also helped to resolve nearly a century of debate and disagreement regarding what defin . . .

The individuals associated with the United States Military, including servicemembers, veterans, and military families, constitute a distinct social community that defines and characterizes itself in part, according to a categorical distinction between . . .

The Pre-Newberry period in the Inyo-Mono Region has garnered debate in terms of population and land use pattern. Initial thought centered on the abandonment of areas due to climatic fluctuations the prompted population depression. Subsequently, howeve . . .

Accurate determinations of age at death from adult human skeletal remains is highly problematic due to various influences (e.g., rates of growth and degeneration, environment, genetics, disease, activity level, etc.). Therefore, critical testing and a . . .

In 1956 an assortment of approximately 232 objects, photo albums, books, and personal papers were donated to the Sacramento State College Department of Anthropology. The Beardsley Collection, as it is now known, was amassed around the turn of the 20th . . .

Native Americans have endured many hardships throughout history. In modern times, tribal disenrollment is becoming an epidemic for many Native communities. Disenrollment is a non-traditional concept where an individual, or family, is stripped of their . . .

The world of evangelical humanitarianism is a sprawling social nexus, deeply rooted in Christian history, and constantly evolving on contemporary global scale. Since its earliest days, it has been fraught with cultural, religious, and political-econom . . .

Identification of closely related species is an enduring problem in zooarchaeology. This problem poses particular challenges for the Canine Surrogacy Approach, a model based on the premise that stable isotope signatures of dog skeletal remains can be . . .

The study of supernatural belief has been a constant in the fields of both folkloristics and anthropology but has rarely been addressed in a modern, Western setting.This lack of attention can be ascribed to many social and academic factors, not the le . . .

The American Neopagan Witchcraft community has made deliberate use of folklore to create a community identity and maintain social boundaries. The analysis of selected myths and legends in wide circulation among American Witches allows one to begin to . . .

This thesis offers just a glimpse into settlement patterns in the Truckee Meadows area. In an attempt to gain insight into prehistoric human adaptation, this thesis focuses on two major issues. The first is a study of Truckee Meadows obsidian hydratio . . .

This study is an investigation of cribra orbitalia and porotic hyperostosis as indicators of stress and adaptation in an historic Portuguese skeletal sample housed at the Bocage Museum in Lisbon, Portugal. The sample used from the Luis Lopes collectio . . .

This study aimed to examine the incidence of osteoarthritis in adult individuals from the Arikara Native American population. Samples from pre-contact, contact, and post-contact periods were broken down by sex and age to test the hypothesis that osteo . . .

Recent studies of faunal assemblages from archaeological sites in the Sacramento Valley, California have illustrated substantial anthropogenic impacts to local game populations and distributions during the late Holocene. Resource intensification analy . . .

Autoimmune diseases, such as asthma, are prevalent in industrialized populations. Although common, little is known about the causes of autoimmune disorders. Recent research has shown a co-occurrence of autoimmune diseases and the absence of parasites . . .

The Buddhist Churches of America (BCA) is the mainland United States branch of Jodo Shinshu Hongwanji, a branch of Buddhism that is very popular in Japan. The San Jose Buddhist Church Betsuin is one of the largest churches, with a large and thriving m . . .

Subsistence studies conducted on regional archaeological deposits indicate that in the Delta, as in the rest of the Central Valley, there is a decrease in foraging efficiency during the Late Period. A recently excavated site, CA-SAC-47, provides direc . . .

A mesa within the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest (Bridgeport Ranger District) named Tunna’ Nosi’ Kaiva’ Gwaa is rich with features associated with both pronghorn and pine nut procurement. It is inferred that prehistoric use of the area spans at leas . . .

Six arbitrary stages of bone weathering were identified in 1978 (Behrensmeyer 1978), using data gathered from animal bones located in surface depositional contexts in the Amboseli Basin of Africa. Since 1978, these six bone weathering stages have been . . .

For more than fifty years archaeologists have wrestled with the archaeological record of the Tahoe Sierra, an area in which chronological control and material preservation have remained generally elusive. This thesis represents an attempt to gain insi . . .

Human cytochrome P450 (CYP) 2A6 is largely responsible for the catalysis of coumarin and nicotine. In comparison to other human loci, CYP2A6 exhibits a high degree of polymorphism. Some CYP2A6 gene variants have a major effect on phenotypes and presen . . .

Population movements in prehistoric California have been difficult to decipher, none more so than the so-called Meganos Intrusion hypothesized by James Bennyhoff in 1986. This Intrusion described the westward expansion (ca. 500 A.D.) of a Penutian-spe . . .

Recent models of resource intensification in California argue for a decrease in foraging efficiency over the late Holocene for Northern and Central California. This decrease in foraging efficiency is manifest as an overall decrease in the abundance of . . .

The homeless in Sacramento suffer a loss of basic rights, human and civil, and this loss of rights exacerbates the factors that contribute to, and are experienced, as a result of homelessness. Moreover, the emotional, medical, legal and economic probl . . .

This study investigates the incidence and severity of plantar heel spurs in recent modern historical skeletal remains in order to better understand the etiology of plantar fasciitis. The clinical literature strongly correlates plantar spurs with plant . . .

Some women choose not to reproduce. This is counterintuitive from an evolutionary theoretical perspective as individual reproductive success requires one or more offspring. The main issue is why individual women might choose not to reproduce and wheth . . .

The difficult transition from ones home into an institutional setting is rising due to the current population of older adults who are living longer with chronic diseases and disabilities. The move from home into an institutional setting can be traumat . . .

This study explores the mortality patterns and presence of porotic hyperostosis and cribra orbitalia in the ancient population of La Ventilla. La Ventilla was a high status neighborhood in Teotihuacan. These skeletal lesions are indicators of health a . . .

Archives are critical sites for investigating intersections in contested history, for mapping the social and material landscape upon which humans engage with one another—violently, unsteadily, compassionately, creatively—and for expanding the depth of . . .

The Zallio Collection of Native North American basketry is an old and poorly documented collection comprising 106 specimens. Part of a much larger corpus of material amassed by Italian immigrant Anthony Giuseppe Zallio, it represents a late 19th and e . . .

In Southwestern archeology Field Houses are given different terms and labels. These different functional labels convey different meanings and interpretations. A "farmhouse" could be interpreted as a different functional unit than a "ranch house", or a . . .

The rise of numerous holiness and pentecostal denominations in the recent history of the United States has proven to be an interesting and important development in the past two decades. The growth of these groups has been phenomenal. For many years th . . .

Museum anthropology faces many challenges in working with American Indian people and material culture. This thesis embodies, explores, and contributes to these historical challenges and shared goals through a case study involving research for the coll . . .

This study tests the hypothesis that aspects of human mental illness also occur in chimpanzees. Because humans and chimpanzees are so close evolutionarily, with regards to genes and sociality, it was hypothesized that these species might also share a . . .

Commercial cinema has influenced how we perceive other filmmaking modes; even when we are aware of the alternate intentions of a film. It is invested in clear cut narrative renderings of familiar plots. Our responses to commercial fictionalized films . . .

Although shell bead research within California has focused on a number of themes, the question of what social and cultural processes moved shell beads across the landscape remains unanswered. This study provides a refined assessment of these processes . . .

The Medieval Warm Period or, alternately, the Medieval Climatic Anomaly (MCA) has been extensively cited in archaeological literature as an explanation in whole or in part for observations of change in human health and behavior. The MCA was a long-ter . . .

This study analyzes variability in ground stone tool density within four Great Basin pinyon zones. It tests the prediction that milling equipment, a proxy measure of residential activity, should be comparatively more abundant in pinyon-dense woodlands . . .

This work is a critique of neoliberalism, and approaches the subject from the political economic crisis developing in late capitalism. I contend that the expansion of neoliberal policies during the 1980s and 1990s was a contributing factor to the rise . . .

The present thesis is a study of late prehistoric projectile point morphology in the southern North Coast Ranges of California and the degree to which it reflects patterns of social interaction. Late prehistoric projectile points in the southern North . . .

The study of human population has a long history in American archaeology, where it has played a central role in the study of settlement and subsistence patterns, sociocultural evolution, and technological change. Population estimates for Owens Valley, . . .

Bioarchaeologists have used fluctuating asymmetry to compare the levels of environmental stress a skeletal population may have encountered during life. Fluctuating asymmetry is traditionally scored on the dentition, though recent studies have also exa . . .

Recent research has sought to reintegrate the once closely related fields of history and prehistory, highlighting the potential of each to contribute to the other. Studies in the Inyo-Mono region of eastern California have had similar goals, focusing . . .

This thesis research examines diabetes as one playing field on which Native groups and individuals reposition and reassert identity by simultaneously exploiting the language and premises of biomedicine to frame and to inform traditional Native concept . . .

Fluctuating asymmetry is frequently used as an indicator of developmental stress. This study assesses asymmetry in a Roman Imperial sample from the coast of Italy. The purpose of this investigation was to analyze asymmetry in the adult dentition of 54 . . .

Knowing what factors influenced pre-hispanic people’s choice of raw materials for maize-grinding tools is important in increasing our understanding of intensified maize preparation and changes in patterns of social, economic, and political development . . .

Ethnographic, biogeographic, and archaeological data suggest that root crops were an important part of the Late Archaic diet in northeastern California. Definitive evidence for the prehistoric existence of this pattern remains equivocal, however, requ . . .

The Borax Lake Pattern represents a unique pattern of technological organization found throughout northern California during the early/middle Holocene. The technological organization of the stone tool assemblage is thought to reflect a residentially m . . .

This thesis seeks to investigate the influence of evolved human cognitive mechanisms on contemporary perceptions and categorizations of food with a particular focus on the meaning of “natural”. The first research question of this thesis asks whether p . . .

Despite several decades of archaeological work in Owens Valley, lands along the river have been neglected. This thesis investigates prehistoric use of the Owens River and its surrounding environment. The research seeks to identify how use of riverine . . .