Anthropology

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/10342/56

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Open Access
SEGREGATION, SEX, AND LIFE EXPECTANCY: SURVIVAL GAPS ACROSS TIME IN A SOUTHERN COMMUNITY FROM 1915 – 2015
(East Carolina University, May 2025) Osusky, Grace
While global life expectancy dramatically increased across the 20th century, these gains were not uniformly experienced across individuals and populations. Public health researchers, who have sought to better understand these life expectancy gaps, have demonstrated a clear relationship between chronic stress and a heightened risk of premature death due to health conditions tied to inflammation, obesity, and cardiovascular disease. Broadly speaking, chronic stress accelerates the biological clock, wearing down bodily systems such as immune and heart function. Therefore, individuals who experience a disproportionately high burden of social stress are expected to suffer from both poorer health outcomes across the life course and a lowered life expectancy. Consequently, health is increasingly recognized as being, in part, socially constructed. That is, adverse social conditions result in distinct lived experiences and resultant divergent health outcomes across individuals and groups. However, as social conditions improve, life expectancy gaps are expected to narrow in response. To examine this predicted relationship, I target demographic data sourced from death certificates (n=8,484) from a small southern town across a 100-year time period (1915-2015). During the first half of this dataset, Jim Crow laws (1877-1965) resulted in policies that limited access to medical care, education, and employment for African Americans. However, following civil rights legislation, segregation ended, allowing for more equal access to resources and opportunities tied to increasing quality of life. Nonetheless, there is very little primary research on life expectancy gaps in the early 20th century, with most research in the southern U.S. targeting the post-Jim Crow period. Therefore, this work seeks to fill this knowledge gap through a longitudinal analysis of the survival probability of individuals during and after segregation. Results from Cox Regression modeling in R reveal statistically significant associations between an individual’s sex, race, and year of death with their age at death. At the beginning of the 20th century, there was a clear race-based rather than gender-based gap in life expectancy, with White individuals (during Jim Crow n=1438, post Jim Crow n=3094) living, on average, 10 years longer than Black individuals (during Jim Crow n=1693, post Jim Crow n=2259). However, following desegregation, while life expectancy increases for all groups, the race-based gap in life expectancy narrows with Black women, in particular, experiencing the most dramatic increase in age at death, surpassing that of White men (~69 to 67 years respectively). What is clear from our findings is that survival probability is malleable and influenced by social pressures present in a given time and place. Ultimately, this research highlights how the social environment, here shaped by legislative change, can positively, or negatively, impact a person’s health and resultant life expectancy.
Open Access
Revising Culture History in the North Carolina Coastal Plain: Investigating the Stratigraphic Sequence of the Barber Creek Site (31PT259)
(East Carolina University, May 2025) Hill, Robert C.
Barber Creek (31PT259) is a stratified prehistoric site located on a relict sand dune along the Tar River in eastern North Carolina. Previous analyses have identified multiple occupational components at the site, though the number and character of these occupations vary across studies. This thesis reconstructs the stratigraphic sequence of trenches excavated in 2000 and 2003 to evaluate the site’s stratigraphic and cultural chronology and compare the results to previous investigations. Using artifact frequency distributions, artifact backplots, and refitting studies, this research identifies two distinct occupation zones and a possible third. The earliest occupation is attributed to the Early Archaic period, followed by a tentative Middle to Late Archaic component, and a well-defined Woodland occupation marked by diagnostic ceramic types. The results align with previous analyses but most closely reflect the sequence proposed by McFadden (2009), who also identified Early Archaic and Woodland occupations, and a possible Middle/Late Archaic occupation. This research contributes to the refinement of Coastal Plain culture history and underscores the value of stratified dune sites like Barber Creek for understanding human occupation in the region.
Open Access
An Examination of Variability in Dental Development Across the State of North Carolina
(East Carolina University, May 2025) Eddleman, Liam Gray
Contemporary research suggests that dental development is biologically stable across human populations. However, research examining trends in dental developmental variation tends to focus on broad population trends and often lacks nuanced information about small-scale relationships at the city and community level. As a result, these studies may gloss over localized genetic and/or environmental trends that may influence variation in dental development. Addressing this gap, tooth mineralization scores were collected from dental radiographs associated with subadult individuals (6–16 years of age) from Community Service Learning Centers (CSLC) affiliated with the East Carolina University School of Dental Medicine (SoDM) with a total sample size of n = 976. The CSLC locations are geographically and demographically diverse and include populations across North Carolina, such as Ahoskie, Lumberton (Robeson County), Ross Hall (Greenville, NC), Spruce Pine, and Sylva. Results were compared against previously published research associated with the Subadult Virtual Anthropology Database (SVAD) and contextualized within demographic factors such as geographic location, biological sex, self-described race, and ethnicity. The results demonstrate that the timing of tooth mineralization is similar across North Carolina regardless of geography or demographic composition. CSLC Sylva shows a high degree of delay in mineralization timing for age with most teeth scoring below their counterparts across North Carolina and within the SVAD sample. This delay is most severe during root development and may be a product of local environmental factors in western North Carolina (CSLC Sylva). Early forming teeth notably exhibit more extreme degrees of delay compared to their later forming counterparts. The results do corroborate the stability shown in previous research, but also capture the variation that may be missed when pooling samples by broad geographic or environmental categories.
Open Access
ARRRCHAEOLOGICAL CONSERVATION: PRESERVING THE QUEEN ANNE’S REVENGE AND OTHER ARTIFACTS
(2022-07) Lowery, Daniel
As partial fulfillment of a master’s degree, the Anthropology Department as East Carolina University offers an internship option. After choosing to pursue this option, a graduate assistantship was made possible through the Queen Anne’s Revenge Conservation Lab on ECU’s West Research Campus. Though archaeology and conservation are separate disciplines the two complement each other well, with each providing a foundation in the proper identification and care of artifacts. The QAR conservation lab is the primary location for the conservation of artifacts recovered from the wreck of the Queen Anne’s Revenge, and as such an internship at this lab provides students with an opportunity to handle and care for a variety of marine artifacts and witness the daily tasks necessary for their conservation. The student is tasked with daily and weekly conservation duties, as well as a personal project to oversee to completion. The skills imparted by this internship will prove invaluable in both a field and lab setting in any future career as an archaeologist, conservator, or museum worker.
Open Access
"Even God Seemed to Hate North Carolina.": The Tuscarora as Middlemen During the Tuscarora War.
(East Carolina University, December 2024) Purser, Mallory Alyssa
Long before Europeans stepped foot on North American soil, the indigenous societies had extensive trade networks. As European settlements spread across the continent new opportunities for trade arose. Indigenous societies began to incorporate and adapt European trade goods into their trade networks. In North Carolina, for example, oral histories, ethno-historical accounts, and other studies indicates the Occaneechi and the Tuscarora functioned as middlemen. In the 1990s the excavated artifacts from the Fredricks site, near present day Hillsborough, were used by R. P. Stephen Davis Jr. and H. Trawick Ward to conclude the Occaneechi were in fact middlemen for the neighboring Sara people. Despite the extensive historical research available on the Tuscarora no archeological research to date has examined their role as middlemen similar to what was performed by Davis and Ward on the Occaneechi. This thesis compares the artifact assemblage from Fort Neoheroka, located near present day Snow Hill, with the assemblages from the Fredricks site and Upper Saratown. The assemblage from Fort Neoheroka was recategorized using Davis and Ward’s methodology. Using their “middleman pattern” on the Fort Neoheroka assemblage demonstrated strong parallels with the Fredricks site. That is to say, Fort Neoheroka, like the Fredricks site, had more European weapons than ornaments. The results of this study suggest that the Tuscarora were likely middlemen during the early eighteenth century.
Open Access
Archaeology of the Tillett Site: The First Fishing Community at Wanchese, Roanoke Island
(1984) Phelps, David Sutton
The local inhabitants of Wanchese call it "Thicket Lump", a name at once remarkably specific in its description and quite ignominious in the lack of recognition of the origin point of a local tradition. The ignominy is not intended, however, for the Tillett site, or "Thicket Lump", today is nothing more than a drowning, remnant hammock supporting a thicket of yaupon and cedar surrounded by marsh, and hardly anyone would recognize it as the first known fishing community at Wanchese. Nevertheless, some 1500 years ago, when sea level had risen sufficiently to create the saline sounds and marshes around the south end of Roanoke Island, people of a culture previous to our own took advantage of this hammock beside the marshes and began to fish in the sounds and collect oysters and other shellfish from nearby beds. Thus began the traditional livelihood associated with the community of Wanchese, a dependence on fishing that has endured through at least two different cultures and has recently achieved a high point with the planned development of a major fishing port and seafood processing facilities. This report presents the results of an archaeological investigation of the Tillett site and the Native American cultures that occupied it during its first 1100 years of existence. It is perhaps appropriate that the archaeological research at Fits first ticking community was stimulated by the expansion of Wanchese Harbor to enhance further development of the modern fishing community. The Tillett site is also interwoven with other aspects of Roanoke Island history. The last Native American inhabitants of the site were probably members of the Carolina Algonkian Roanoke society, the same people whom the first English explorers visited on Roanoke Island in 1584. The Roanokes also figured prominently in relations with the English colonies of 1585 and 1587 established near what is now Fort Raleigh on the north end of the island. When the first museum was completed at Fort Raleigh it was artifacts and other material excavated from the Tillett site that were installed in the displays typifying the Carolina Algonkian culture. It is thus appropriate that the site be recognized for its contributions to knowledge of 16th century and earlier Native American culture during America's Four Hundredth Anniversary celebration.
Open Access
The Archaeology of Colington Island
(1981) Phelps, David Sutton
Colington Island is one of the chain of barrier islands which form the Outer Banks along the coast of North Carolina, separating the vast sounds of estuarine system from the Atlantic Ocean. It lies on the sound side of Bodie Island in Dare County, and was once a part of that island when sea level was lower than at present, Now it is separated from Bodie Island by the narrow passage of Colington Creek on the east and Kitty Hawk Bay on the north. The Outer Banks are a fragile barrier constantly changing through time in response to the dynamics of nature, and their form in any synchronic segment along the time continuum is the result of a momentary balance between the dynamics of rising sea level, winds, storms, tides and sedimentary processes. Although never completely stable, the Banks have maintained their current general form for approximately two to three thousand years, according to geological estimates. Archaeological studies also support that conclusion, having found no evidence of human use on the present surface of the islands prior to about 1000 B.C. and frequent use only within the past 2000 years. Colington Island is no exception to this; its initial occupation by native Americans probably occurred sometime between 200 and 300 A.D. and continued at least until the 14th century occupation by Algonkian people of the coastal region. There is a vast difference in the appearance of the island's surface of 200 A.D. and at the present; the original inhabitants would certainly be amazed, probably appalled, by the modern appearance, and perhaps some of the modern residents would prefer to see Colington as it was eighteen centuries ago. Human culture is, however, as changeable as nature, and the island has changed in response to both nature and culture. This paper describes the earlier inhabitants of Colington Island from about 200 to 1400 A.D., adding another chapter to the continuing history of the island and the coastal area.
Open Access
Dead Men Tell No Tales, but Animal Bones Do: a Faunal Analysis of Queen Anne’s Revenge
(East Carolina University, August 2024) Mayfield-Loomis, Jay
The Golden Age of Piracy was a historic period ranging from 1650 to 1720 CE which saw the rise of piracy across the Atlantic Ocean in response to the growing and changing global political climate. Since its end, pirates have become cultural symbols of rebellion and adventure as the lack of information about them leads to an air of mystery that many people seek to fill with tales. One pirate remains one of the most infamous in both history and fantasy: Blackbeard and his ship the Queen Anne’s Revenge. Archaeology has allowed us to interpret the material history that pirates have left behind in an attempt to establish and understand a pirate culture and reveal what was previously unknown. Part of the pirate culture yet to be fully established is their sustenance and how they survived as a criminal group who did not have standard access to ports to purchase provisions. Zooarchaeology, the study of faunal remains in context with human material culture, allows for us to interpret part of the diet within a site. Using Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge and comparing the faunal remains with those from contemporary ships La Belle and Earl of Abergavenny, we can study what a pirate diet looked like in comparison to other contemporary legal vessels.
Open Access
Constructing Cultural Chronology in the North Carolina Coastal Plain: Stratigraphic Investigations at Barber Creek (31pt259)
(East Carolina University, July 2024) Maldonado, Amanda
Barber Creek is a stratified prehistoric site located on a relict sand dune in eastern North Carolina. Previous research has determined multiple components are present at Barber Creek, however, two previous analyses into the chronological sequence identified varying numbers of occupation zones. The purpose of this study was to reconstruct the stratigraphic and cultural chronology of the central portion of Barber Creek and compare the results to the previous investigations from other portions of the site. This study identified three occupation zones buried in approximately one meter of aeolian sands. These occupation zones date to the Early Archaic, Middle to Late Archaic, and Early to Middle Woodland periods. The results of this research are consistent with the two previous analyses and solidify the occurrence of three occupation zones at Barber Creek. Interestingly, the previous stratigraphic analyses conducted on Barber Creek have lacked Middle/Late Archaic period diagnostic artifacts. A stemmed biface was identified during this study and is the closest evidence for the presence of a Middle/Late Archaic period at Barber Creek. After more than a decade of research, we have established a strong understanding of the stratigraphic and chronological sequence of Barber Creek however much can still be learned about who could have utilized the site and for what purposes throughout the three occupation components.
Open Access
Digging Deeper: Excavation and Analysis of Features West of Battery A at Brunswick Town/Fort Anderson State Historic Site
(East Carolina University, July 2024) Johnson, Mike E.
Brick and ballast stone features located in an area to the west of Battery A at Fort Anderson within the Brunswick Town/Fort Anderson State Historic site are believed to have been the location of barracks for troops during the American Civil War. Within the last twenty years, archaeological excavations have been performed at the site providing extensive data. However, the number of military artifacts recovered is somewhat limited when compared with archaeological assemblages at similar Civil War barracks sites. This has left the answer to the research question unconfirmed regarding the site’s occupants. Additional research was conducted to more clearly determine the occupants of this area to the west of Battery A, presently interpreted as a barracks site. During the 2017 ECU Summer Field School additional excavations were performed west of Battery A at the location of an undisturbed brick and ballast stone feature. Analysis of the material recovered once again revealed little by way of military artifacts. However, certain artifacts are suggestive of an early to mid-nineteenth century occupation of the site sometime before the Civil War. Subsequent archaeological analysis and historical research relevant to the site suggest that the area west of Battery A was the location of a settlement for enslaved African Americans associated with Orton Plantation during the Antebellum Period in the decades prior to Fort Anderson’s construction during the American Civil War.
Open Access
An Eighteenth-Century Archaeology of Socioeconomics in Historic Bath, NC
(East Carolina University, 2023-04-28) Scattergood, Chloe S
Studying the consumer choices of colonial North Carolinians can indicate much about their lives and status. Archaeological excavations of two eighteenth-century warehouses in Historic Bath can tell us about merchants and their clientele. The material from these warehouses suggests notable wealth disparity, not unlike today, in North Carolina's first established town.
Open Access
The Content and Structure of Reputation Domains Across 2 Human Societies: A View from the Evolutionary Social Sciences
(2021) Schacht, Ryan; Garfield, Zachary H.; Post, Emily R.; Ingram, Dominique; Uehling, Andrea; Macfarlan, Shane J.
Open Access
Efects of Family Planning on Fertility Behaviour Across the Demographic Transition
(2021) Schacht, Ryan; Kramer, Karen L.; Hackman, Joe; Davis, Helen E.
Open Access
PIRATES IN THE GRAVEYARD OF THE ATLANTIC: CONSERVATION AT THE QUEEN ANNE’S REVENGE LAB
(East Carolina University, 8/5/2020) Eckert, Brandon
The Anthropology Department at East Carolina University offers an internship option for the partial fulfillment of the requirements of a master's degree. As a result of the academic partnership between East Carolina University and the Queen Anne's Revenge Conservation Laboratory, an internship in archaeological conservation was made possible. While conservation and archaeology are often viewed as separate disciplines, the methods and theory in conservation are integral to the goals of archaeology both in the field and the laboratory. Since 2003, the QAR Conservation Lab on ECU's West Research Campus has served as the primary facility for the management and conservation of artifacts recovered from the Queen Anne's Revenge shipwreck in Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina. An internship at the QAR Lab provides students with hands-on exposure to the routine operations of a conservation facility. This includes daily and weekly duties, as well as personal projects and special artifact treatments. The skills developed as a result of this experience are highly important for archaeologists in both field and laboratory settings, but also for archaeologists responsible for the management of museum collections.
Open Access
THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE SOCIAL SAFETY NET AT THE PITT COUNTY HOME
(2020-08-12) Grubb, Muriel
The Pitt County Poor Farm, also known as the Pitt County Home, was established in the early nineteenth century to feed and house the local poor population of Pitt County, North Carolina, prior to the establishment of the federal welfare system. The farm was continuously occupied and reorganized several times before it was closed in 1965. Four seasons of archaeological and cartographic work on the site have narrowed down the location of the poor farm buildings and expanded the interpretation of what life in rural eastern North Carolina was like for this underprivileged, disenfranchised population. The findings from Pitt County are comparable to other contemporary poor farm and farmstead sites throughout the country during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Open Access
THE PATTERNING OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN US CITIES AND COUNTIES
(East Carolina University, 2020-06-22) Pabst, Jennifer
Sexual violence against women is a global public health concern; yet determining its patterning is still largely understudied. Previous research has been useful in identifying key contributors of sexual violence, including the adult sex ratio, which is the ratio of adult men to adult women in a population, as well as elements of gender inequality. However, a more comprehensive and place-based understanding of sexual violence is still needed. Data from the U.S. Census and the National Incident Based Reporting System were used to explore the patterning of sexual violence against women in cities and counties in the United States. Through the use of generalized linear mixed models, the data were analyzed to assess the individual and joint impact that sex ratio and gender inequality have on sexual violence. The results indicated a positive association between both imbalanced sex ratios and gender inequality on sexual violence. Furthermore, models considering the two variables jointly were found to best fit the data, highlighting the benefits of including both for a more comprehensive understanding of sexual violence against women. The hope is that this research can assist in efforts to both better quantify and diminish rates of sexual violence against women.
Open Access
SEEKING HEALTHCARE? PERCEPTIONS AND BELIEFS AMONG AFRICAN AMERICANS
(East Carolina University, 2020-06-22) High, Jazmin
Multiple studies have documented health and healthcare disparities between African Americans and whites in the United States. Many studies have traced these disparities to socioeconomic barriers such as age, income, and level of education. However, it has been found that when variables such as income, access, and insurance are controlled for, health and healthcare disparities remain. A growing body of literature suggests African Americans possess certain health beliefs and perceptions regarding concepts of health, illness, and the healthcare system that influence health and health seeking behaviors. Using empirical generalizations and theory from medical anthropology, this study expands on this growing body of literature by investigating health seeking behavior among African American adults in rural eastern North Carolina, as well as exploring African Americans' perceptions and health beliefs to see how they relate to health seeking behavior. Interviews were conducted with 20 African Americans in two rural eastern counties in North Carolina (Halifax County and Northampton County). Through data analysis, I identified a pattern of health seeking behavior. In addition, thematic analysis revealed that African Americans possess certain health beliefs (e.g. The Body Will Heal Itself) and negative perceptions of the healthcare system (e.g. African Americans do not receive equal treatment), which also influences health seeking behavior. These perceptions and beliefs influenced the timing and decision to seek care. Ultimately, this research sheds light on several factors influential in African Americans' health behaviors that may exacerbate racial disparities in health and healthcare. Consequently, health professionals and policy makers should develop and apply individually appropriate and culturally sensitive policies and interventions.
Open Access
HOW WOMEN IN THE ANDEAN HIGHLANDS OF PERU USE RELIGION TO MAKE HEALTHCARE DECISIONS
(East Carolina University, 2019-08-23) Cullen, Chelsea E
Religious syncretism is common in Andean highlands. Andean highland women and key informants were interviewed to study the influence Christianity has exerted on women's choice of medical care, i.e. modern medicine vs. traditional medicine. The data were collected during a summer study abroad program in the Callejon de Huaylas of Peru. The overall goal of the project has been to understand the influence that Spanish colonization and Christianity has had on how local women make healthcare decisions. Andean women are marginalized in Andean society and must manage the combined stresses of the household and intensive agricultural practices.
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Measuring and Assessing Food Insecurity Among East Carolina University Undergraduate Students
(East Carolina University, 2019-07-02) Midgette, Willa G.
Food insecurity has long been an issue nationwide, however, there has been little emphasis placed on food insecurity among college students. This thesis employed a cross-sectional survey of 1,170 randomly selected undergraduate students, utilizing a variation of the USDA Adult Food Security Survey Module to assess to determine the prevalence of food insecurity among undergraduate students at East Carolina University, and utilized bivariate analysis to assess the relationship between several demographic, academic and lifestyle variables and food insecurity status, as well as the relationship between food insecurity and academic success. The thesis found that food insecurity status is significantly affected by race, first-generation student status, Pell grant eligibility, financial aid use and use of a meal plan, and found that academic performance is negatively impacted by food insecurity. Additionally, this thesis utilized 10 interviews of undergraduate students to assess how current eating and grocery shopping habits and pre-college food security influenced current food security status and assessed how students cope with food insecurity. The study found that students who were food insecure early in life are more likely to be food insecure in college. Finally, this thesis assessed the feelings about and barriers to using the on-campus food pantry at East Carolina University.
Open Access
Metabolic Disease in Subadult Skeletal Remains from Late Ottoman-Era Tell Hisban, Jordan
(East Carolina University, 2019-07-25) Edwards, Emily Arlene
The site of Tell Hisban in Jordan was seasonally occupied by nomadic agropastoral tribes for over a thousand years. In the latter half of the 1800s, the Ottoman Empire instituted the Tanzimat, a series of reforms intended to solidify control over the region, including a new system of private land ownership. This new land law conflicted with traditional tribal-based land rights and resulted in intensification of agricultural production and diminished pastoralism in the regional economy. During this period of economic change, at least 62 individuals were interred in ruins on Tell Hisban, of which 55% were non-adults. Many long bones and cranial elements of non-adults within these commingled remains display evidence of vitamin C (scurvy) and D (rickets) deficiencies at a greater frequency than pre-Tanzimat or earlier regional cemeteries. Increased agricultural production may have impacted the availability of traditional foods high in ascorbic acid that prevented scurvy in past groups, and increased reliance on cereals, which lack key macronutrients. The resulting shift in diet would have disproportionately affected individuals more susceptible to nutritional stressors, such as pregnant women, infants, and weaning children. In the case of rickets, these nutritional stressors may have been exacerbated by cultural barriers which limited an individual's exposure to sunlight and may have resulted in the surprising presence of rickets in this high-ambient UV radiation environment. Together with genetic predispositions to scurvy or rickets, these biocultural changes likely contributed to increased frailty in the form of metabolic disease for infants and young children within this population compared to earlier groups at Tell Hisban and contemporary populations in other areas of Jordan and Israel.

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