NEWSLETTER

2005

2003

Diane Hardgrave: studies the effects of ritualized altered states of consciousness on immune function.

Kelly Hattman : studies the influence of dental wear on Neanderthal mandibular morphology, or how heavy tooth wear affects the shape of the mandible in Neanderthals.

Jodi Dalton: is researching the manufacture and distribution of Shivwits and Moapa Plain and Corrugated pottery. She is interested in examining exchange and interaction between Ancestral Puebloans inhabiting the lowland regions of southern Nevada and those occupying the upland areas of southern Utah and northern Arizona.

Benjamin C. Wilreker is looking into American Neopaganism. Scholarship up to this point has treated the movement as a single, unified, new religious movement, and all sources agree that tying down the institutional specifics of the movement is quite difficult. It is my contention that the movement called “Paganism” is really a composite of at least four – and perhaps more – distinct subcultures, each with its own values, beliefs, folkways, and symbolic language.

Luz-Andrea Pfister is researching past human migrations through the analysis of ancient viral DNA extracted from prehistoric human remains.

Sheldon Markel is researching professionalism in American Culture, past and present and how if at all it has been affected by commercialism and materialism today.

Cheryl Martin is conducting research at Mt. Trumbull, a location of many Virgin Anasazi sites in far northwestern Arizona. She is comparing the lithic assemblages from three sites representing different time periods, and sourcing obsidian.

Sali A. Underwood’s thesis is entitled A BIOARCHAEOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF SIX ANCESTRAL PUEBLOAN SITES LOCATED ON THE MANUALITO PLATEAU, NEW MEXICO. She is studying issues of gender and status in a bioarchaeological context for the Pueblo II and Pueblo III (A.D. 900-1300) periods.

Robbie Keeley’s focus is medical anthropology with an emphasis on public health and gender issues. Robbie’s thesis features the creation of a culturally competent domestic violence prevention program for Hispanic women specifically targeted to the needs of the Clark County Health District. Robbie works for the Southern Nevada Area Health Education Center and has been honored by Governor Kenny Guinn, Senator John Ensign, and Senator Harry Reid for her efforts to raise HIV/AIDS awareness in the Hispanic community.

Michele Beluze is researching shape and structural variation of the lower limbs, and how this evidence can be used to reconstruct habitual activity patterns (subsistence practices). She is studying the biomechanical effects on shaping lower limb bone morphology in three archaeological populations (2 from California and 1 from New Mexico) that practiced different subsistence strategies.