Department of Anthropology Associate Professor Dr. Ethan Watrall and colleagues Russell Townsend, Dr. Kathryn Sampeck, and Johi Griffin recently published an article in the International Journal of Historical Archaeology, entitled “Digital Archaeology and the Living Cherokee Landscape.” The article presents the digital repatriation project Cherokee Landscapes (http://firstlandscapes.matrix.msu.edu/), which is an interactive space for engaging with a multitude of information in ways observed by Ani-Kitu Hwagi (Cherokee) today. The platform for this project was developed by Michigan State University’s MATRIX: The Center for Digital Humanities and Social Sciences.
Abstract: “Cherokee Landscapes is a digital conservation project to protect and preserve heritage in ways determined by Ani-Kitu Hwagi (Cherokee) stakeholders. This digital repatriation project requires new ways of visualizing archaeological information and geographically integrating Ani-Kitu Hwagi materials that are dispersed among many national and international institutions. The platform for Cherokee Landscapes is mbira, an open-source program developed by Michigan State University’s MATRIX: The Center for Digital Humanities and Social Sciences. Mbira, an interactive map interface, and other open-source programs offer novel ways of visualizing spatial data that benefit archaeological professionals and the public.”
Matthew Go (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) and Department of Anthropology Assistant Professor Dr. Joseph Hefner recently published an article in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, entitled “Morphoscopic ancestry estimates in Filipino crania using multivariate regression models.” The article examines the use of probit analysis in estimating ancestry from cranial morphoscopic traits, and contributes to the understanding of human cranial variation in the Phillipines.
“Objectives: Probit has not been applied to ancestry estimation in forensic anthropology. The goals of this study were to: (1) evaluate the performance of probit analysis as a classification tool for ancestry estimation using ordinal data and (2) expand our current understanding of human cranial variation for an understudied population.
Methods: Multivariate
probit models were used to classify the ancestral affiliation of Filipino
crania using morphoscopic traits. Ancestral reference populations represented Africa,
Asia, and Europe in a three-group model, with the addition of Hispanics in a
four-group model. Posterior probabilities across these groups were interpreted
as admixture proportions of an individual. Model performance was also evaluated
for individuals with missing data.
Results: The overall
correct classification rates for the three-group and four-group models were
72.1% and 68.6%, respectively. Filipinos classified as Asian 52.9% of the time
using three ancestral reference groups and 48.6% using four groups. A large
portion of Filipinos also classified as African. There were no significant
differences in classification trends or accuracy rates between complete crania
and crania with at least one missing variable.
Conclusions: Multivariate
probit models using morphoscopic traits perform well when populations are
represented in both training and test samples. Probit can also accommodate
individuals with missing data. Classifying Filipinos showed only moderate
success. Filipinos are more phenotypically similar to Africans than the other
Asian samples used here, but still affiliate most closely as Asian. Ancestry
methods would benefit from including Filipinos as a reference sample given the
additional variation they provide to the continental category of Asian.”
Department of Anthropology Assistant Professor Dr. Kurt Rademaker and colleagues Dr. Lumila Paula Menéndez and Dr. Katerina Harvati recently published an article in the journal PaleoAmerica entitled, “Revisiting East-West Skull Patterns and the Role of Random Factors in South America: Cranial Reconstruction and Morphometric Analysis of the Facial Skeleton from Cuncaicha Rockshelter (Southern Peru).” The article discusses the affinity of a human skull uncovered from Cuncaicha Rockshelter with other Holocene South American specimens, and the implications of these findings regarding migratory pathways.
Abstract: “The aim of this paper is to
evaluate the craniometric affinities of the only Cuncaicha cranial specimen with
other early, middle, and late Holocene South American samples. To do so, the
skull was first reconstructed by using computer-aided techniques applied to
several μ-CTscanned fragments. Linear measurements were calculated in the
facial skeleton and compared to specimens from a previously available database.
We conducted Principal Component and Discriminant Analysis, calculated
Mahalanobis distances to evaluate the similarities of the Cuncaicha specimen
with early/middle Holocene samples from South America, and estimated a Δ
statistic for testing the neutral hypothesis among Peruvian samples. The
results show that Cuncaicha presents shape similarities with Lagoa Santa and
Lauricocha, mostly in masticatory and respiratory components. Finally,
directional selection explains most of the diversification of Peruvian
populations. We discuss our results in the context of migratory pathways, as
well as the evolutionary processes behind human diversification in the Americas.”
Department of Anthropology Assistant Professor Dr. Chantal Tetreault and PhD student Sara Tahir published an article entitled “Muslim Women’s Ethical Engagement and Emotional Coping in Post-Election United States” in the Journal of Muslim Mental Health with colleagues from MSU’s Department of Psychiatry. In the article, they investigate Muslim religious practice related to frequency of Islamophobic experiences, socio-emotional/mental distress, and coping strategies among American Muslim women since the 2016 American presidential election.
Abstract: Muslim women,
especially those wearing headscarves or hijab, are targets of anti-Muslim
stereotypical rhetoric and violent attacks in the United States, with expected
adverse effects on their mental wellbeing. This pilot research examines Muslim
religious practice related to frequency of Islamophobic experiences, socio-emotional/mental
distress, and coping strategies among American Muslim women since the 2016
American presidential election. This is a mixed methods study surveying adult
Muslim women (n=35) living in the United States. Quantitative analyses included
overall frequency and percent differences in various experiences for Muslim American
women who always wear hijab (n=22) compared to those that do not always wear
hijab (n=13). Qualitative data analyzed were derived from a focus group and
from essays by survey respondents. All respondents (100%) reported a perceived
increase in Islamophobia since the presidential election, and 26.5% (n=9) of
respondents reported altering their religious practice as a result of the
political climate since the 2016. Places/situations associated with greatest
perceived vulnerability included: airports (74.3%), airplanes (45.7%), public
bus (28.5%), driving (28.5%), and shopping malls (28.5%). Places/situations associated
with high vulnerability in Muslim women was similar by hijab status with the
exception of higher vulnerability for hijab-wearing (40.9%) vs. nonhijab wearing
women in public bus transportation (P- value = 0.04). Experience of personal
direct anti-Muslim aggression, i.e., violent words and actions, occurred more
frequently (50%, n = 11) among women who report always wearing hijab compared
to non-always hijab-wearing respondents (38.5%, N=5). Likewise, selfreported experience
of fear over the past year was elevated (54.6% vs. 15.4%, P-value = 0.02) for
hijab-wearing compared with non-hijab-wearing women. On the other hand, respondents’
experiences of anxiety (59.1% vs. 61.5% P-value = 0.89) and lack of safety
(36.4% vs. 53.8% P-value = 0.31) over the past year was comparable for hijab
wearing vs. non-hijab wearing women. Hijab-wearing women report more direct
anti-Muslim aggression, experiencing more fear in general and feeling unsafe in
more places than non-hijab-wearing women. That said, women’s experiences of a
post-election U.S. political climate were not as divergent as we had expected, regardless
of hijab status. Rather, anxiety about Islamophobia and experiencing a lack of
safety by Muslim women are generalized experiences in a post-election moment in
the United States. More research will be needed to know whether our
participants’ responses reflected their immediate reaction to the election or a
more long-term coping mechanism for the heightened visibility that Muslim women
face in current American political rhetoric and foreign policy.
Department of Anthropology PhD student Micayla Spiros and Assistant Professor Dr. Joseph Hefner recently published an article in the Journal of Forensic Sciences entitled, “Ancestry Estimation Using Cranial and Postcranial Macromorphoscopic Traits.” The article discusses a combined approach of using cranial and postcranial traits in ancestry estimation and introduces a new web-based application for forensic anthropologists, ComboMaMD Analytical.
Abstract: Ancestry estimation methods using
macromorphoscopic (MMS) traits commonly focus exclusively on cranial
morphology. The objective of this study was to demonstrate the value of
postcranial MMS traits, highlighting a combined cranial/postcranial trait
approach to ancestry estimation using quadratic discriminant function and a
variety of machine learning classification models including artificial neural
networks (aNN), random forest models, and support vector machine. Eight cranial
and eleven postcranial MMS traits were collected from the Terry and Bass
Skeletal Collections (American Black = 81; American
White = 173). Our classification models using cranial and postcranial
traits correctly classified 88–92% of the sample, improving classification
accuracies by nearly fifteen percent over models relying exclusively on cranial
data. These same results demonstrate the importance of a multivariate
statistical framework incorporating cranial and postcranial data and the nearly
unlimited potential of machine learning models to improve the accuracy of
ancestry estimates over traditional methods of analysis. To facilitate
implementation in casework, one of the more robust models (aNN) is incorporated
into a web‐based application, ComboMaMD Analytical, to facilitate cranial and
postcranial MMS traits analysis for ancestry estimation.
Dr.
Mara Leichtman is an Associate Professor of
Anthropology affiliated with the Muslim Studies Program, African Studies Center
and Asian Studies Center. Dr. Leichtman specializes in sociocultural
anthropology and the study of religion, migration, transnationalism,
humanitarianism, and economic development. She is currently co-facilitating an
interdisciplinary Trans-Regional Studies Scholarly Writing Group at MSU for
faculty and graduate students as part of the Academic Advancement Network’s
2019–2020 learning
communities, which “provide safe and supportive
spaces for complicated conversations.” Dr. Leichtman also serves as a board
member of the Society
for the Anthropology of Religion, a section of the American
Anthropological Association.
One of Dr. Leichtman’s research projects, which culminated in her book “Shi‘i Cosmopolitanisms in Africa: Lebanese Migration and Religious Conversion in Senegal,” investigated the location of Shiʿi Islam in national and international religious networks, the tension between Lebanese and Iranian religious authorities in West Africa, and the making of a vernacular Shiʿi Islam in Senegal. This work has prompted several new avenues for scholarship and collaboration, one of which is Dr. Leichtman’s recent publication.
This past September, Dr. Leichtman and co-editor Dr. Rola El-Husseini (Lund University) published a special journal issue entitled “The Shi‘a of Lebanon: New Approaches to Modern History, Contemporary Politics, and Religion” in the established Islamic Studies journal Die Welt des Islams. The idea for this collaboration grew out of the realization that there had not been a recent collection bringing experts of Lebanese Shiʿism into dialogue with one another. This interdisciplinary issue assembles the latest research within history, religious studies, and the social sciences and is inclusive of emerging scholars. Most scholarship begins with the social and political awakening of Lebanese Shiʿa in the 1960s that led to the establishment of the political movement Hizbullah in the early 1980s. This volume spans the early 20th century to the present and aims to broaden knowledge about Lebanon by focusing on less known historical periods, revisionist historical accounts, and understudied topics. Such understudied topics include Shiʿi schools, involvement in the Lebanese Communist Party, ecumenicalism and gender reforms in Shiʿi Islamic political thought, and transnational ties between Hizbullah, Iran and Syria.
Dr. Leichtman and Dr. El-Husseini’s introduction makes a case for the concept of “Arab Shiʿism,” and, more specifically, “Lebanese Shiʿism.” As social scientists, they posit that historical, political, and sociocultural distinctions between Iran and the Arab world have become more pronounced since the 1979 Iranian revolution. Yet Iran tends to be a primary area of emphasis of the growing sub-field of “Shiʿi Studies.” Furthermore, whereas Islamic studies scholars often focus on theological texts, which prioritize the writings of male religious scholars, social scientists are interested in the overlapping of religious, secular, ethnic, gendered and nationalist modes of identification and belonging. Thus the special issue is also a call for a more inclusive Shiʿi Studies that encompasses a wider range of disciplinary fields, historical periods, and contemporary lived experiences of Shiʿa outside of Iran—and in particular the unique situations of minority religious communities.
Another development from Dr. Leichtman’s first book is a new research project entitled “Humanitarian Islam in Kuwait: Transnational Religion and Global Economic Development in Africa.” She is particularly interested in the interconnection of Islamic organizations in the Middle East and Africa, where South-South relations are understudied. Dr. Leichtman began this project as a visiting Fulbright Scholar at American University of Kuwait during 2016–2017. Her fieldwork of case studies studying Sunni and Shiʿi charities and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Tanzania and Senegal was funded by the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, West Africa Research Association, and MSU’s Humanities and Arts Research Program.
Dr. Rademaker (left) and Taylor Panczak surveying prehistoric lithic workshops in the Peruvian desert
Assistant Professor Dr. Kurt Rademaker is the Principal Investigator of a 3-year NSF Archaeology project entitled, “Social Adaptation in a Highly Varied Spatial Environment” (BCS-1659015), which will close next year. This project focuses on some of the earliest archaeological sites known in South America to learn about the timing of initial settlement, the routes used to settle various ecological zones, and the formation of inter-zonal social connections.
At the end of the last ice age, hunter-gatherers successfully colonized nearly every ecological zone in the western hemisphere within a few thousand years. In South America, these environments included the hyper-arid Pacific coast where fisherfolk exploited the bounty of the sea, and the rugged Andes up to 4500 m (~14,800 feet) above sea level where camelid hunters lived in base camps in highland oases. These coastal and highland sites are linked through shared raw materials and artifacts, but whether the sites were made by one group moving inter-zonally or multiple groups settling both coast and highlands is unknown.
Dr. Rademaker and students climbing a dune while surveying for archaeological sites in the remote desert of southern Peru
Dr. Rademaker has been leading an interdisciplinary, international team of senior scientists and students to study the functional relationships of these linked Paleoindian sites at the coast and highlands dating between 13,000 and 12,000 years ago. The project includes archaeological exploration of remote desert areas between the coast and highlands to discover additional sites in the settlement system, excavations, and analyses of materials from the sites using cutting-edge techniques. By determining the age and season of occupation of each site in the settlement system, and by teasing out behavioral indicators from the material remains from each site, the team will learn whether the coast or highlands were settled first, whether there were one or multiple groups, and more generally how humans have adapted to live in some of Earth’s most challenging environments.
To learn more about Dr. Rademaker’s research, visit his working group’s website: www.paleoandes.com
The Department of Anthropology congratulates Dr. Terrance Martin for his Distinguished Career Award from the Midwest Archaeological Conference. Dr. Martin joined the MSU Department of Anthropology as an Adjunct Professor in 2016 shortly after his retirement from the Illinois Sate Museum, where he had been a Curator for 31 years. He completed his PhD in archaeology from Michigan State University in 1986.
Dr.
Martin has significantly contributed to the advancement of Midwestern
Archaeology. In addition to his excellent contributions to archaeology and
zooarchaeology during his tenure as a Research Associate, Curator, and Chair of
the Illinois State Museum’s Anthropology Department, he has also mentored graduate
students and worked alongside numerous archaeological colleagues, participating
in excavations and analyzing faunal remains from across Midwestern North
America and beyond.
Dr.
Martin’s zooarchaeological research is well known and respected at an
international level. His research of prehistoric and historic American Indian,
French Colonial, European American, African American, and multi-racial sites in
the Midwestern United States has contributed to the understanding of variation
in foodways within and among sites and regions, use of animals for raw
materials, ritual and special importance of animals such as black bears and
sturgeon, reliance on domestic and wild animals, distribution of bison, and
early domestication of dogs.
Dr.
Martin has worked closely with archaeological colleagues from across the
Midwestern United States, often participating in the excavations. Many of the
projects that he has contributed to incorporated students and interns and
provided excellent hands-on learning experiences. Besides his work as a mentor,
Dr. Martin is fondly known as one of the ‘go-to’ zooarchaeologists for faunal
analysis throughout the Midwestern United States. Since his retirement from the
Illinois State Museum, he has continued to analyze faunal material for
archaeological research projects.
The Department of Anthropology is proud to announce that PhD
student Jeffrey Painter
won the graduate student paper competition at the Midwest Archaeology
Conference for his paper, entitled “Cooking Up a Common Ground: Vessel Use and
Social Interactions at Morton Village”. Read the abstract to his paper below.
“In recent years, research on cooking has become
increasingly important for understanding the past, as it can inform us about
many sociocultural issues of interest to archaeologists. Despite this growth,
analyses of ceramic use-alteration, damage that is the direct result of cooking
and vessel use, have been applied infrequently to these larger topics. In this
paper, I conduct a use-alteration analysis of pottery from Morton Village, a
multi-cultural occupation site located in the central Illinois River valley, in
order to gather information about social interactions and community building.
When these use-alteration patterns are compared against two related sites, the
results indicate that some vessel use traditions were maintained while others
were altered or invented, suggesting that food, cooking, and food presentation
played critical roles in the negotiation of community life at Morton Village.”
The Department of Anthropology congratulates alumna Dr. Susan Kooiman for receiving the Midwest Archaeology Conference Dissertation Award for her research entitled, “A Multiproxy Analysis of Culinary, Technological, & Environmental Interactions in the Northern Great Lakes Region”. Dr. Kooiman received her PhD at Michigan State University in 2018 and is now an Assistant Professor with the Department of Anthropology at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Read the abstract to Dr. Kooiman’s dissertation below.
“A novel combination of analytic methods is used to address
the decades-long debate about diachronic subsistence, settlement, and social
pattern changes during the Woodland period (AD 1 – 1600) in the northern Great
Lakes of North America. While some have argued for dietary continuity
throughout the regional Woodland, others maintain that certain specific
resources—including fish, wild starchy plants, and/or maize—were more
intensively exploited over time in reaction to various technological, social,
and/or environmental factors. The Cloudman site (20CH6), located on Drummond
Island off Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in Lake Huron, is a multicomponent
habitation site with two millennia of Middle Woodland, early Late Woodland, and
late Late Woodland occupations, as well as a late precontact component
characterized by Ontario Iroquois pottery. The ceramic assemblage is therefore
ideal for diachronic assessment of alterations in diet and technology in the
context of dynamic natural and social environments and is employed as a case
study for the multiproxy approach.
Ceramic typological classification and AMS dating of pottery
residues are used to reconstruct an occupational history of the Cloudman site
by which change over time can be evaluated. Functional pottery analysis of
technical properties and use-alteration traces reveals that ceramic technology
and cooking techniques evolved to facilitate new subsistence and processing
needs. Absorbed lipid residue analysis, and microbotanical and stable isotope
analysis of adhered carbonized food residue are used in tandem to construct a
chronological sequence of culinary practices, which are characterized by both
continuity of certain subsistence traditions, such as acorn and aquatic
resource consumption, and transformative food choice in response to social and
environmental change, including variable exploitation of maize and wild rice.
The diversity of the information captured and produced by
each method highlights the importance of multiproxy dietary analyses in
foodways studies for improving interpretive outcomes. Cooking and pottery
technology lend further insight into adaptive decision-making and cultural
tradition, and interpretations of past cuisine are further supported and
enhanced through comparisons with ethnographic and ethnohistoric accounts of
local indigenous cooking and diet. The rich data resulting from the
complementary nature of these diverse methods demonstrates a complex interplay
of technology, environment, and culturally-based decisions, and underscores the
potential applications of such an analytic suite to long-standing problems in the
northern Great Lakes and other archaeological contexts worldwide.”
