Browsing by Author "Glantz, Michelle, advisor"
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Item Open Access Between a boulder and a hard place: an actualistic experiment to infer the impact of cave roof fall on limb bones and its implications for the archaeological record(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Hajdu, Alexandru, author; Glantz, Michelle, advisor; Pante, Michael, committee member; Hess, Ann, committee memberOver 50 years of research has highlighted the important role hominins and carnivores play as agents of bone fragmentation. The work has largely been focused on differentiating the assemblages created by hominins from those modified by carnivores. Consequently, cave roof fall and other agents have received relatively little attention in this rich literature. Previous studies of cave roof fall have suggested it can modify assemblages in a manner that mimics hammerstone-on-anvil percussion of bones indicating the need for reliable criteria to distinguish between these two processes. Here, we conduct an actualistic experiment designed to simulate the effects of cave roof fall on bone assemblages. Sixteen (n=16) bison tibiae were fractured in four experiments with drop heights of 4.6 and 7.6 meters and rock weights of 6.8 and 13.6 kilograms. To represent a hominin assemblage sixteen (n=16) tibiae were randomly selected from a hammerstone-on-anvil collection created by Robert Kaplan and stored at Colorado State University. Bone surface modifications (BSM) counts that include pits, notches, grooves, and striations were created for both groups. Additionally, notch measurement ratios, Incipient notch counts, fragment counts, general fragment size frequency distributions, epiphyseal fragment measurements, percentages of fragments with BSMs, and presence/absence of stress relief traces (hackle marks and ribs) were collected from both groups. Results suggest that flake count, pit count and the percentage of fragments with pits and/or grooves are the variables which are different between cave roof fall and hammerstone-on-anvil percussion. These variables are significantly different between the two assemblages; however, they are not applicable to the archaeological record. This is because the traces that these variables were built upon are not distinguishable between the two actors. This qualitative approach to address the equifinality between cave roof fall and hammerstone-on-anvil percussion has failed to provide any valuable insights.Item Open Access Infanticide or demographic expectation?: the curious abundance of children's remains in the Iron Age necropolis at Kopila Hillfort, Korčula, Croatia(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Dern, Laresa L., author; Glantz, Michelle, advisor; Radovčić, Davorka, committee member; Lacy, Michael, committee memberMost archaeological sites yield few sub-adult remains and when recovered they are often too poorly preserved for analysis. A lack of children in the archaeological record limits our perspective on variation in human growth and development and the history of children in the past. In this context, the high representation of children in the abundant collection of remains from a Late Iron Age Illyrian necropolis on the island of Korčula, Croatia is somewhat curious and a remarkable resource. Is this curious pattern the result of an unusual preservation pattern, differential burial practices, or infanticide? Notably, large deposits of infants from Classical Antiquity and the Iron Age Mediterranean are controversially interpreted as the byproduct of infanticide. This study estimates age-at-death for 1177 isolated teeth from three tombs via assessment of dental development using Moorrees' and Irurita's systems, as well as Liversidge's tooth length regression formulas. The resulting relative age profiles are employed to test the null hypothesis that the assemblages are unusually preserved multiple-inhumation, family tombs, rather than tombs specifically designated for sub-adults or exclusively for the victims of infanticide. The unique size and quality of this sample allows for a refined reconstruction of age-at-death and examination of growth and development patterns in the Iron Age Adriatic. Despite, a lack of adult dental age estimates, the presence of adult post-crania and the low volume of remains suggests that Tomb 3 is a multiple inhumation family tomb. Alternatively, Tombs 1 and 7 appear to exclusively contain sub-adults, with a wide age range, who received differential burial treatment. Infanticide does not appear to be the impetus for any of the tombs, although the results do not preclude the possibility that some of the individuals included in the deposit were victims of infanticide. Future research will expand on these results with analysis of dental non-metric traits and post-cranial remains.Item Open Access Unpacking the trunk: pelvic-thoracic relationships in modern Homo sapiens(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Shaw, Zoë G., author; Glantz, Michelle, advisor; Du, Andrew, committee member; Throckmorton, Zachary, committee memberIt is generally accepted that throughout the history of the genus Homo, shifts in body morphology have aligned with the emergence of distinct hominin populations (Ruff, 1991, 1994, 2010; Schmid et al., 2013; Walker & Leakey, 1993). The human trunk, comprised of the ribcage, pelvis, and spine, contributes the most to overall body shape. However, how the thorax and pelvis are morphologically related in modern humans is not well understood. The fragmented nature of the human fossil record poses challenges in reconstructing the morphology of the trunk. Research on extant nonhuman ape morphology has suggested covariance between the inferior ribcage and upper pelvis, and it has been proposed that this pattern holds for premodern hominin groups (Schmid, 1983; Schmid et al., 2013). This expectation of covariance between the upper and lower portions of the trunk has allowed researchers to infer body shape and size with incomplete remains (Schmid, 1983; Schmid et al., 2013; Jellema et al., 1993). However, recent findings have served to challenge previously accepted trends in hominin body shape, calling into question whether the hominin trunk is integrated as was previously thought (Arsuaga et al., 1999; Day, 1971; Rosenberg, 2007; Simpson et al., 2008). The current study expands on previous work by Torres-Tamayo et al. (2018, 2020). Five linear measurements from a mixed sample of 85 living humans were taken from computed topography scans rendered in 3D. Results suggest a minimal correlation between pelvic dimensions and inferior ribcage width, with some variations observed by sex. Understanding this relationship in modern humans aids in evaluating researchers' expectations when interpreting past hominin body shapes and offers new insights into the origins of modern human and neandertal anatomy. Since evidence of integration is weak, results suggest that the thorax and pelvis may be under different selective pressures in modern H. sapiens.