OU - Dissertations

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Open Access
A Re-Conceptualization of the Fourche Maline Culture: The Woodland Period as a Transition in Eastern Oklahoma
(2011) Leith, Luther James; Wyckoff, Don G
The question: "What is Fourche Maline?" has been long debated in Oklahoma. It is argued here that use of a transegalitarian framework is useful in addressing this question. It is proposed that Fourche Maline culture represents transegalitarian complex hunter-gatherer-horticulturalists on the prairie/woodland boarder of eastern Oklahoma. To address this hypothesis the social organization, subsistence, bioarchaeology, settlement patterns, and evidence for territoriality are examined. This research also revises the chronology for the Woodland Period in eastern Oklahoma, and brings Oklahoma terminology into line with the surrounding states. Based on laboratory analysis of existing W.P.A. (Works Progress Administration) collections, more recent collections, and fieldwork (including geophysical remote sensing) indicate that Fourche Maline people are transegalitarian hunter-gatherer-horticulturalists.
Open Access
Adaptation during the Antelope Creek phase: A diet breadth and site catchment analysis of the subsistence strategy at the Two Sisters site.
(2002) Duncan, Marjorie Ann.; Vehik, Susan C.,
This study examines the subsistence strategies of the inhabitants of the Two Sisters site (34TX32), a Late Prehistoric period homestead of the Antelope Creek phase in the Oklahoma panhandle. Excavations in 1972 and 1973 revealed a four-room stone-slab house superimposed over a single-room adobe structure. Radiocarbon dates for the site are A.D. 1327--1440. By examining the artifact assemblage, which consists of over 99,000 items, in context with the climate, landscape, availability of floral and faunal resources, internal proximity of items to each other, and differentiation among these items, a picture of the daily activities of the inhabitants and their subsistence activities emerges. Site catchment and diet breadth (prey choice) models are used as a theoretical backdrop from which to examine the site. The result of this analysis is the story of a people who practiced limited horticulture that was constrained by an and environment, forcing them to forage for wild plant foods to supplement their primary subsistence resource of bison. As bison hunters, they initially located their permanent dwelling in an area rich with prey, near water, and with ample wild plant foods. This location provided sufficient resources for some time; however, these people abandoned the central-place strategy and became nomadic bison hunters, probably in response to diminishing floral and faunal resources in the area surrounding the site. Migrating herds, drought, and over-harvesting of floral resources may have contributed to this change in lifestyle.
Open Access
Alternate Pathways to Ritual Power: Evidence for Centralized Production and Long-Distance Exchange between Northern and Southern Caddo Communities
(2017-12) Lambert, Shawn; Livingood, Patrick; Winston, Michael; Hammerstedt, Scott; Pitblado, Bonnie; Randall, Asa; Regnier, Amanda; Warren, Diane
The Formative Caddo lived throughout the Arkansas Valley of eastern Oklahoma and the West Gulf Coastal Plain region of east Texas, northwest Louisiana, southwest Arkansas, and southeast Oklahoma between approximately A.D. 850 -1150. While these communities shared similar material traits, their ritual practices and traditions are rather distinct between the two areas. This dissertation uses a communities of practice approach for understanding the ritual dynamics and cultural variability of southern and northern Caddo people by conducting a detailed analysis of the different contexts in which groups produced, used, distributed, and deposited formative fine ware pottery. Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis is used to determine whether Formative Caddo finewares were made locally in the Arkansas River Basin or produced by their Gulf Coastal Plain neighbors to the south. The INAA results, in concert with a stylistic study indicating very few potters had the knowledge to produce them, show that Formative Caddo finewares were made in the southern Caddo region and exported north to Arkansas Valley mound centers where ritual elites used them for mortuary use. These findings suggest an extensive history of specialized ritual production and long-distance exchange between two diverse areas of the Caddo much earlier than expected.
Open Access
Alternative Conceptions of Complexity: Sociopolitical Dynamics of the Mountain Fork Caddo
(2012) Dowd, Elsbeth Linn; Livingood, Patrick C
The Mountain Fork Caddo lived along the Mountain Fork River in southeastern Oklahoma between approximately A.D. 1000 and 1600. These dispersed, sedentary communities shared much in common with other southeastern peoples, including maize production and the construction of earthen mounds. Unlike some southeastern societies, though, little evidence for status differentiation or a strongly hierarchical sociopolitical structure is present among the Mountain Fork society. This dissertation develops an alternative model for understanding the sociopolitical dynamics of the Mountain Fork Caddo by conducting a detailed analysis of site chronology, social identity, and leadership in ritual contexts. It uses a data set drawn from the six significant excavations in this valley at the Ramos Creek, Woods Mound Group, Hughes, E. Johnson, Beaver, and Biggham Creek sites, focusing primarily on three main forms of evidence: pottery, radiocarbon dates, and paleobotanical samples.
Open Access
AN ETHNOHISTORY OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN EXPOSITION AT ANADARKO, OKLAHOMA: 1932-2003
(2009) Gaede, Jr., Eldon R.; Palmer, Jr., Gus
The American Indian Exposition achieved unprecedented national prominence between its founding in 1932 and its "Glory Years" in the 1940s and 1950s. As a result, Anadarko was proclaimed as the Indian capital of the United States. What strategies did the Exposition's founders implement to garner this status to insure its continued success? Insights gained by this study clarify our understanding of how Oklahoma's Indians, and by extension America's indigenous populations, adjusted to sweeping political, economic and social changes mandated by government agencies in the early 20th century. The American Indian Exposition represents a unique form of American Indian cultural renaissance that began in the early 20th century. My ethnohistory of the American Indian Exposition ameliorates its current obscuration by detailing its emergence, development and influences through firsthand participants' narratives and archival research so that future generations-Indian and non-Indian alike-might appreciate its true significance.
Open Access
AN ETHNOHISTORY OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN EXPOSITION AT ANADARKO, OKLAHOMA: 1932-2003
(2009) Gaede, Jr., Eldon R.; Palmer, Jr., Gus
The American Indian Exposition achieved unprecedented national prominence between its founding in 1932 and its "Glory Years" in the 1940s and 1950s. As a result, Anadarko was proclaimed as the Indian capital of the United States. What strategies did the Exposition's founders implement to garner this status to insure its continued success? Insights gained by this study clarify our understanding of how Oklahoma's Indians, and by extension America's indigenous populations, adjusted to sweeping political, economic and social changes mandated by government agencies in the early 20th century. The American Indian Exposition represents a unique form of American Indian cultural renaissance that began in the early 20th century. My ethnohistory of the American Indian Exposition ameliorates its current obscuration by detailing its emergence, development and influences through firsthand participants' narratives and archival research so that future generations-Indian and non-Indian alike-might appreciate its true significance.
Open Access
Anthropological Literacy: Toward a Holistic Understanding of the Varieties of Human Experience through Oklahoma Social Studies Education
(2021-12-17) McLeod, Allison; Pitblado, Bonnie; Marshall, Kimberly; O'Neill, Sean; Brugar, Kristy; Lewis, Cecil
In conversations about education in Oklahoma, there are differing views on how to handle equipping students to navigate a diverse world. Social studies education research has long sought new approaches to prepare students for global citizenship. Some conversations, among education researchers and the Oklahoma public alike, have revolved around the use of Critical Race Theory in education as one response to addressing diversity. Anthropology, as the holistic study of humans, offers another framework that moves beyond a focus on race. This study advocates for using the notion of anthropological literacy, or competence in core anthropological principles, as a new way of meeting the shared goals of anthropologists and social studies education researchers for educating students for citizenship. I assessed three different social studies curricula used to teach Oklahoma’s past to determine to what degree Oklahoma public school curriculum is already consistent, or not, with anthropological principles. I examined each for overt content relating to anthropology, and I used Critical Discourse Analysis to uncover covert citizenship discourses that either do or do not translate to contemporary anthropological values. Under the limitations of the COVID-19 pandemic, I also observed to the extent possible the instructional methods of three teachers, one for each curriculum studied, and interviewed the teachers on their experiences. The curricula contain some anthropology content, but they otherwise mixed messages about social power in relation to anthropology concepts. It is clear that greater attention to teachers’ instruction is the key to learning how to make social studies curriculum more anthropological and move toward a more anthropologically literate Oklahoma.
Open Access
The anthropology of law :
(1983) Anderson, Charles Austin,
Much of the anthropological work on Middle American communities has generally typified local (community) informal law as "customary". The emphasis on only one type of dispute resolution agency obfuscates definitive conclusions in clarifying the complex juridical characteristics of Middle America. This complexity can be illuminated and made more lucid through a comparative analysis of de facto and de jure methods of conflict resolution. Therefore, this research was undertaken as an analysis and critique of the ethnographic literature in depth. These sources were treated as an ethnohistorian explores any historical documentation.
Open Access
Anxiety and Empowerment: An Ethnography of Science in the Middle
(2017) Doucette, Janessa; Swan, Daniel; Lewis, Cecil; Cifelli, Richard; Spicer, Paul; O'Neill, Sean
Stacked within the Frontier Strip, 70,000 square miles of land constitutes the 46th state of the Union, Oklahoma. The state is known for its agriculture, energy, and aerospace industries, as well as rich cultural history and diverse ecology, geology, and geography. Unfortunately, the state is also known for a perceived lack of commitment to education, as well as to scientific literacy and advancement. Oklahoma consistently ranks among the bottom for American states’ categories in education. We are 48th in per-pupil spending in public schools; and 70% of Oklahoma schools are Title I, receiving federal financial assistance through the Elementary and Secondary Education Act for children from low-income families. This dissertation is about public school teachers and their challenges in teaching science in the Bible Belt. It encompasses multimodal research activities on science education in Oklahoma, including ethnographic field research, surveys, interviews, and scholarly review. The majority of data were collected over the course of 24 months in 2015 and 2016 with Oklahoma teachers and students. Data were collected primarily through teacher workshop and K-12 STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, mathematics) programs designed by the author and funded through various public and private grants. The goal of this dissertation is to present a model for teaching called the Science Empowerment model, as well as to illustrate why the model is an ideal approach to science education.
Open Access
Architecture and community variability within the Antelope Creek phase of the Texas Panhandle /
(1984) Lintz, Christopher.
The study focuses on delineating cultural variability of the Antelope Creek phase, a late prehistoric village manifestation on the Southern High Plains of North America. Architectural remains from 28 extensively excavated sites from an 80 kilometer segment of the Canadian River are used to delineate the range of household and community patterns within the settlement system. Artifactual, mortuary, chronometrical and physical environmental information are used in conjunction with the architectural data to examine functional, social, temporal and spatial factors potentially contributing to the household and community variability.
Open Access
Aspects of land tenure in an ancient southwestern farming society in the Mimbres Valley, New Mexico.
(2003) Stokes, Robert James.; Gilman, Patricia A.,
This dissertation investigates the origin and effects of land tenure practices in a prehistoric subsistence-level farming society in the American Southwest. Land tenure is viewed as a social response to overpopulation in a restricted environmental setting, enabling long-established families to retain exclusive rights to traditionally used farmland. As a consequence of instituting inheritance rules to cope with growing population and limited prime farmland, a landless class within the society will likely form and may introduce instability to the society as a whole. A review of several ethnographic examples reveals that under these conditions, the landless attempt to better their position by choosing from several potential solutions, including (1) bending social rules to inherit land, (2) migrating to the periphery of claimed land and establishing new land claims, (3) resorting to violence, or (4) leaving the society for wage labor elsewhere. This dissertation focuses on the formation of new communities in areas peripheral to primary zones of occupation and farming as an outcome of choosing to migrate. The ancient Mimbres people of southwestern New Mexico appear to have labored under these conditions during the Classic (Pueblo) period (A.D. 1000--1130), with resulting settlement patterns reminiscent of patterns of land tenure seen in the ethnographic examples. This research demonstrates that privatized property can originate in the absence of elite classes under the right environmental and social conditions, and that archaeologists may need to reconsider what constitutes a complex society.
Open Access
At Home In The Lows: An Ethnography of Meaning-Making In Intimate Spaces
(2018-05-11) Oliver, Elisha; Harris, Betty; O'Neill, Sean; Anderson, Kermyt; Hill-Rankin, Lesley; Davidson, Lupe
There has been long-standing interest in the ways in which spaces are used by various cultures and communities. Through an ethnographic study of women, space, and narrative, this dissertation explores the ways in which spaces of cultural and historical significance are used in 1) the maintenance of biopsychosocial health in a rural marginalized neighborhood; 2) the telling of “stories” that detail the ways in which these historical and culturally defined spaces reinforce and maintain social networks; and 3) explain how women living in The Lows make meaning of their everyday lived experiences that occur in rural Northwest Oklahoma. The primary questions driving this research are first, what is the cultural significance of spaces within this community? Second, in what ways do these spaces affect the biopsychosocial health of women in the neighborhood? Third, how, and why do constructed, intimate spaces facilitate the telling and sharing of narratives? Fourth, in what ways are the telling of “stories” significant to the building and maintenance of community cohesion? Lastly, in what ways do the women living in The Lows make meaning of everyday lived experiences in a rural and aging community? By purposefully positioning the voices of the research participant and researcher —the stories and cultural frameworks attached to this community, along with the critical examination of the ways in which space is utilized as an emancipatory and empowering tool, my research, using thick description, provides an intimate ethnographic explanation of space that is both fixed and transitional. In addition, my research highlights the daily lived experiences of women living in a marginalized and dying neighborhood. This endeavor is a tripartite ethnographic construction of intimacy, experimentation, and auto-ethnography. The findings presented herein indicate that intimate space coupled with “story-telling” promote and strengthen social bonds, and are, critical elements in community cohesion, self-empowerment, and emancipatory practices regarding biopsychosocial health, in this rural and aging community. Keywords: The Lows, Narrative, Curanderismo, Othermothers, Biopshychosocial Health, Women, Mealtime
Open Access
The Ball Game of the Southeast: Stickball and Cultural Resource Management (CRM) in the Anthropocene
(2017-05) Ketchum, Terry; Spicer, Paul; McPherson, Renee; Meyers, Richie; Blanchard, Jessica; Marshall, Kim; O'Neill, Sean
Forests are an essential source of natural resources in the production of racquets used by Choctaw (Chahta) people to play Kapucha Toli, also known as stickball or the ball game of the southeast. Choctaw efforts to sustain culture depend upon preserving the ability to locate and gather Shagbark hickory (Carya ovata) making the game possible. As climate variations from human activity increase concerns about the future health of ecosystems and sustainability of natural resources, how can tribes integrate cultural values into current forest management plans? This dissertation case study argues that integrating cultural resources into natural resource management plans assures Choctaw sustainability goals become foundational in the collaborative stewardship of Oklahoma forests. Climate change data is projecting future disruptions to ecosystems that will directly implicate Choctaw communities and their ways of living in numerous ways (Bennett, T. M. B. et al. 2014). Choctaw communities and their cultures are vulnerable to competing interests for natural resources brought about by human induced climate variations (Bennett, T. M. B. et al. 2014). Cultural preservation is uniquely tied to sustaining Choctaw cultural interests in the natural resources of local ecosystems. In supplying natural resources for fabrication into cultural materials, forests enable socializing activities like stickball vital in the continuation of Choctaw culture.
Open Access
Behavioral Region Analysis of the Ponil Canyon, Colfax County, New Mexico
(2008) Lail, Warren Keith; Vehik, Susan||Pailes, Richard
All human behavior is patterned. We act in patterned ways because doing so helps us fulfill the material needs and desires of life, or because we are acting in concert with cultural expectations or beliefs about the world in which we live. Two objectives of modern archaeology are to recognize these patterns initially, and then to find meaning in them. Because archaeology is necessarily tied to the land and its resources, there is a tendency to overemphasize human-environmental interactions at the expense of a broader understanding of the nonmaterial factors that contribute to the creation of the archaeological record. In areas of relative resource abundance, environmental-functionalist approaches often leave us with conflicting explanations for essentially the same behaviors. This is especially true in studies of prehistoric hunters and gatherers where material remains are few. Combining elements of environmental functionalism, regional analysis, and practice theory, I examine archaeological data for evidence not of patterned behaviors only, but of patterned behaviors suggestive of the practices, beliefs, and worldviews of the people who produced them. By examining such data against the backdrop of the geographic region or regions within which patterned behaviors were generated, I demonstrate how the patterns form around centralizing mechanisms - resources, objects or people that attract people to certain places at specific times for specific reasons. Plotting centralizing mechanisms in relation to archaeological sites allows me to examine human functional regions, or regions that exist because of repeated visits, whether economically or socially motivated, to those centralizing mechanisms. Plotting all the functional regions for a given period reveals a behavioral region. A behavioral region is a spatial reflection of the patterned behaviors of a group of people. Its shape, extent, and orientation are indicators of how far people will travel or otherwise project their social relations in order to meet the material and social needs of their lives. A behavioral region has a significant historical basis; it is a reflection of the perceptions, beliefs, practices, and interactions of the people whose behaviors create it.
Open Access
"Betting" on vanilla: Rural producers and development in Papantla, Veracruz, Mexico.
(2007) Pendley, Joy Leigh.; Cahn, Peter,
This dissertation focuses on small-scale vanilla producers in the Mexican state of Veracruz, and their experience with development projects aimed at reviving the cultivation of the crop after decades of decline. It begins with a discussion of the debates (among anthropologists) concerning the issue of development in general. The work then moves on to describe the tensions that have existed for centuries between these small producers and local elites and the insurmountable obstacles faced by one particular grassroots movement. This dissertation then focuses on two particular families and their common, pragmatic response to this context of conflict. Producers respond by diversifying their economic strategy, which includes modest investment in vanilla crops. Most importantly, these producers are looking for a more direct relationship with outside markets and developing projects that will create a new niche for vanilla that will better serve their interests in a global market.
Open Access
Black Rocks in the Borderlands: Obsidian Procurement in Southwestern New Mexico and Northwestern Chihuahua, Mexico, A.D. 1000 to 1450
(2016-05-13) Dolan, Sean; Pitblado, Bonnie; Gilman, Patricia; Suneson, Neil; Duwe, Sam; Minnis, Paul; O Neill, Sean
Over the past 50 years, geochemical characterization studies of obsidian artifacts from archaeological sites around the world have become an important way to examine long- and short-distance social interactions and procurement practices through time and across space. This is certainly the case for the North American Southwest and Mexican Northwest as there are approximately 40 to 50 known geochemically distinct obsidian sources on the landscape. As a result, precise identification of which sources people used is invaluable information to archaeologists interested in studying regional and temporal patterns of obsidian procurement. In this dissertation, I establish the first regional context for obsidian procurement in southwestern New Mexico and northwestern Chihuahua, Mexico from A.D. 1000 to 1450. I accomplish this by discussing the results of an energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) analysis of over 1,000 obsidian artifacts from 26 archaeological sites. I supplement previous studies of obsidian procurement in southwestern New Mexico, by incorporating data from new sites and adding to the database of sourced obsidian artifacts. I also present the first well documented EDXRF study of obsidian procurement in the Casas Grandes region of northwestern Chihuahua during the Medio period. The goal of this dissertation study is to examine variability in obsidian procurement through time and across space. Did people only use one or two types of obsidian, or was procurement more diverse which suggests that people extended their social networks to obtain different types of obsidian? The sourcing results demonstrate there are clear regional dissimilarities between the Mimbres Valley, the Deming basin and range, the Uvas Valley, the Animas Valley, and the Casas Grandes Valley from A.D. 1000 to 1450. My research shows there are diverse strategies of obsidian procurement. People from some regions never changed their procurement tradition. On the other hand, some obsidian traditions fluctuated through time and people in the same geographic region used multiple sources of obsidian. By discussing the homogeneity and heterogeneity in obsidian procurement in the five culturally and environmentally diverse regions over a long period of time, I expose diverse social histories regarding obsidian procurement traditions at the temporal, regional, and site levels. By doing so, I have moved toward a more dynamic understanding of the mutually constitutive relationships that linked groups of people who shared a tradition of obsidian procurement in southwestern New Mexico and northwestern Chihuahua.
Open Access
Ceremony in miniature: Kiowa oral storytelling and narrative event.
(2001) Palmer, Gus, Jr.; Foster, Morris,
Everytime Kiowas tell stories they invoke a cultural and tribal framework their audience(s) can relate to in a meaningful way. Like any cultural group, Kiowas recontextualize ideas and themes from earlier contexts that symbolically reproduce and reinforce their way of life everytime they tell stories. In this study, I utilize an ethnographic approach of observation and participation and fundamental anthropological linguistic concepts and theories to understand contemporary Kiowa oral storytelling. I apply a loosely structured narrative as a means of revealing the narratives as a whole, but even more so to allow the consultants to speak their minds freely and move about as they might in every day life. In this way, I believe it is easier to enter the world of Kiowa oral storytelling. Furthermore, it clarifies the process by which Kiowas tell stories and enables one to raise other pertinent questions regarding oral storytelling for its appreciation and understanding.
Open Access
Cherokee and Dakota language letters: Illustrations of nineteenth century discourse.
(1999) Anderson, Laura Lee.; Foster, Morris W.,
This dissertation concerns nineteenth century Cherokee and Dakota discourse, exemplified by the individual writers of native language letters. The first chapter outlines the goals, the data, and the methods of this dissertation. Chapter two historically compares the nineteenth century Cherokee and Dakota literacy experience with the American's experience. Chapter three compares the norms of communication in letter form, the structuring, rhetorical presentation, the agency, and interaction in each language as manifest by native writers. Chapter four draws conclusions about the compared historical experience, adds a sociocultural description of nineteenth century Cherokee and a Dakota letter writing, and begins a description of Cherokee and Dakota discourse found in nineteenth century letters. Appendix I compares the orthographies as they pertain to language specific attributes influencing translation and the recoverability of language specific information.
Open Access
CHINESE INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS’ MIGRATION EXPERIENCES: A BIOCULTURAL ANALYSIS OF HEALTH, FOOD, AND MIGRATION
(2019-05-10) Dong, Yue; Spicer, Paul; Jervis, Lori; Lewis, Cecil; Anderson, Kermyt; Maness, Sarah
The main purpose of this dissertation is to use both biocultural framework and life course perspective to investigate the dynamic relationship among migration induced stress, health, and culture with a focus on the processual change of foodways among the Chinese international students at the University of Oklahoma, Norman Campus. By using quantitative survey, qualitative in-depth interview, photovoice, and participant observation, this study showed that the most important factors in shaping Chinese international students’ dietary behaviors are cultural factors such as healthy belief and gender roles, life events such as upbringing and critical events, as well as social support and social network. The results of this study also suggested that staying length has impacted the participants’ dietary behaviors. In addition, this research showed that the local food environment did not have a strong impact on their dietary behaviors. This research is to provide useful information for medical anthropologists who are working in the field of immigrant dietary health. Given the fact that there are increasing hostility toward immigrants, a rise of right-wing populism, and a resurgence of Sinophobia, the findings in this study could be used by anthropologist and activists to form policies to protect and help the community in this research and similar communities
Open Access
Coming to Kashi: Ethnography of an American Ashram.
(1997) Brown, Carol Lynn.; Whitecotton, Joseph,
Coming to Kashi: Ethnography of an American Ashram focuses on the growth and history of a "new religious movement, " its principal commune, Kashi Ashram, in Sebastian, Florida, and on the stories of its residents and the guru, Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati. In this study Globalization Theory (M. Kearny) is utilized to explicate the development of the movement. For interpreting the role and impact of the guru, theories include Max Weber's classic work on charisma and prophet types, among others. Here, adjustments have been made to rethink earlier theories, like Weber's, that present a clear demarcation between Eastern and Western religious traditions, especially in light of population flows and the distribution of information beyond national boundaries.