Theses and Dissertations
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Browsing Theses and Dissertations by Author "Boone, Randall, committee member"
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Item Open Access Agrarian transition in the uplands of central Vietnam: drivers of market-oriented land-use and land-cover change(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Saylor, Kirk, author; Leisz, Stephen, advisor; Galvin, Kathleen, committee member; Boone, Randall, committee memberThis study presents an analysis of changing land-use and land-cover in the North Central Coast region of Vietnam for the period in recent decades, during which rural upland communities have become partially integrated into commodity markets. Market integration has resulted from the extension of transportation network infrastructure under the East-West Economic Corridor (EWEC) project completed in mid-2006. This project has improved market connectivity and accessibility between rural and urban areas, creating flows of goods, information, and money induce agrarian transition and influence land-use / land-cover change processes. Analysis of satellite imagery over the last decade shows some signs of possible agricultural intensification along the Highway 9 corridor, while elsewhere in the study area a clear and consistent trendline cannot be ascertained. Confounding factors include usability of imagery, temporal gaps in collection, and the resolution of available and usable imagery. The pattern of changing land-cover emerging along Highway 9 is hypothesized to result from changing land rents, where lower transportation costs and higher agricultural prices increase the profitability of cash cropping, incentivizing local populations to engage in market-oriented production. Such a microeconomic response would be consistent with von Thünen's extrinsic theory of land rent, as well as the multi-scalar frameworks of teleconnections and telecoupling. These dynamics are explored at the village level through a spatially explicit agent-based model that simulates household decision-making using empirically-fitted rules, to better understand the process of transition from subsistence cropping to a mixed mode of production with cash cropping.Item Open Access Communal hunting in the Colorado high country: archaeological investigations of three game drive sites near Rollins Pass, Grand County, Colorado(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Whittenburg, Aaron M., author; LaBelle, Jason M., advisor; Van Buren, Mary, committee member; Boone, Randall, committee memberThe pioneering efforts of James Benedict and Byron Olson demonstrated the importance of alpine communal game drives in the lives of prehistoric Native American populations living in northern Colorado. Their research resulted in numerous books and journal publications on alpine and sub-alpine sites from Rocky Mountain National Park southward to the Indian Peaks Wilderness. Unfortunately, their meticulous work on the spectacular sites at Rollins Pass remained unpublished. This thesis presents their data and additional data collected by the author, Jason LaBelle, and the Center for Mountain and Plains Archaeology at Colorado State University. This thesis is an archaeological investigation of three alpine game drive sites (5GA35, 5GA36, and 5GA37) and a nearby lithic scatter (5GA4268). As of September 2015, 80 hunting blinds, 1,935 meters of walls, and 15 cairns and two additional cairn lines have been recorded between the three game drives. Diagnostic projectile points demonstrate Late Archaic through Late Prehistoric use. The chipped stone debitage assemblage is representative of late-stage production or maintenance of stone tools and only a limited amount of initial reduction occurred on-site. Raw material types for the artifact assemblage are dominated by Middle Park sources, namely Troublesome Formation chert, indicating groups moved into the alpine zone from the intermountain basins from the west. Spatial analysis of blind morphology and density show that groups were constructing game drives in such a way as to maximize the number of hunters near areas of wall convergence in the kill zone, the most critical location of the game drive. The relationship between features and artifacts suggests that artifacts found within 20 meters of blinds are directly related to the hunt itself while artifacts found outside this range may relate to pre-hunt or post-hunt activities. Protein residue analysis suggests that elk and/or deer may have been a target species at these sites. Spatial analyses of the relationship of artifacts to features indicate a limited amount of post-hunt processing occurred in the kill zone, while blinds served critical roles throughout all phases of the hunt. 5GA4268 is interpreted as a specialized processing site associated with 5GA35. Use wear analysis indicates that scraping hide was the dominant activity at 5GA4268. This thesis illustrates the merit of applying spatial analyses to feature and artifact attributes to gain a more holistic interpretation of human behaviors associated with alpine communal hunting sites.Item Open Access Taxonomic distinctions in the 3D micromorphology of tooth marks with application to feeding traces from Middle Bed II, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Muttart, Matthew V., author; Pante, Michael C., advisor; LaBelle, Jason, committee member; Boone, Randall, committee memberReconstructing the ecology of Early Stone Age archaeological sites is critical to understanding the conditions and behaviors that led to these accumulations, particularly as hominins encroached upon the larger carnivore guild by regularly consuming flesh and marrow from mammal carcasses; a dietary shift which is often considered a catalyst towards increased brain and body size. However, due to the paucity of both hominin and carnivore body fossils in the archaeological record, little is known about the specific carnivore taxa that hominins were competing and interacting with. The abundance of carnivore tooth marked bone at these early archaeological sites highlights the potential of these traces to help refine our knowledge of past hominin and carnivore interactions by linking specific carnivore taxa to the feeding traces found on fossil bones. This thesis seeks to determine if variations in a carnivore's tooth mark morphology can be used to differentiate between carnivore actors using feeding traces found in the archaeological record. Previous research seeking to link carnivores to their feeding traces have examined gross bone damage capabilities, gnawing damage patterns, and measurements of tooth pits from digital photographs. These findings have only been able to link body size of consumers to the levels of damage or size of tooth marks inflicted on bone surfaces during feeding. These findings are limited by the qualitative or two-dimensional analyses on which they are based, but highlight the potential for more advanced techniques of data collection and analysis. Controlled feeding experiments were conducted for seven species of modern mammalian carnivores and a single species of crocodile. Scans of individual tooth marks were produced using a Nanovea white-light confocal profilometer, while 3D models of the marks were analyzed with Digital Surf's Mountains Software. Tooth marks found on fossils from Middle Bed II, Olduvai Gorge, were scanned and compared against an actualistic sample of tooth marks. Quantitative analysis and statistical comparison of 3D measurements can be used to characterize taxonomic distinctions of tooth mark morphology between certain species as well as to link some fossil feeding traces to specific carnivore taxa. This method provides a means to identify specific carnivore actors from their feeding traces, potentially enhancing our ecological reconstructions of Early Stone Age archaeological sites and understanding of hominin-carnivore interactions as they relate to early hominin diet and behavior.