ANTHROPOLOGY

Margaret Bender
Fathers and Sons of Indian Country: Received Cultural Histories of Masculinity and Fatherhood among Oklahoma Kiowas, Comanches, Apaches, and Chickasaws
Amount: $2,500
Source: American Philosophical Society, Phillips Fund

From 1998 through 2000, this ethnohistorical component of the American Indian Fatherhood Project collected 375 interviews with 204 consultants (80% men and 20% women) from the Kiowa, Comanche, Fort Sill Apache, and Chickasaw tribes in Oklahoma on the topics of fatherhood and masculinity. Focus groups from each community, including representatives of tribal government, worked with researchers to design two interview instruments. Consultants were asked about influences on their beliefs and practices related to fatherhood and masculinity, and many hinted at the role of their own various tribal cultural histories in their shaping.

Dr. Bender will return to Oklahoma to interview the 30 most relevant consultants about the kinship and marital traditions, gender-related institutions and concepts, and masculine role models that have shaped their lives. These more in-depth and open-ended interviews will allow a detailed exploration of the ethnohistorical differences and similarities among these communities and contribute to our understanding of Native American men, whose experience has to date received little scholarly attention.

Steven Folmar

• Oppression and Mental Health in Nepal
  Awarded $159,937 for the period 7/1/12 to 7/31/14
  Source: National Science Foundation (NSF)

This project investigates the psychological dimensions of social oppression among three social groups in Nepal; specifically, whether the influence of social status on mental health is moderated by cultural models of society (CMS) by which people believe membership in their social group is essential and immutable or acquired and changeable. Following cross-cultural psychological studies in India and Nepal, the project focuses on CMS effects on depression and anxiety among 13-17-year-olds in three groups; high status (high caste), intermediate status (ethnic group), and low status (Dalit or untouchable). Education, which also has the potential to moderate folk sociologies and influence discriminatory behaviors, is another variable of interest. The sample of 300 respondants will include children of varying educational attainment in an ethnically and caste-diverse area of Nepal (Lamjung) where education is not universal. The sample will be drawn from an economic census and survey of 600 households, which will collect and measure important contextual variables.

• Methodological Development for Research on Tourism and Social Structure
  Awarded $8,050 for the period 5/2/05 to 11/1/05
  Source: WFU Social, Behavioral, and Economic Science Research Fund

This pilot study will field test nine data collection instruments needed to conduct theoretical work on the effect of tourism on host community social structure and to field train undergraduate students. Results will provide preliminary data for proposals to the National Science Foundation’s Cultural Anthropology program and Research Experience for Undergraduates program in August 2005. The study will be conducted in Godavari, a village in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal.

• Geology, Paleontology, and Biogeography of the North African Early Miocene
  Awarded $60,000 for the period 5/1/05 to 4/30/07
  Source: NSF, US/Egypt Joint Science and Technology Fund
  This international collaboration investigates early Miocene North African mammalian and primate evolution. Two locales in Egypt’s western desert are critical for our understanding of the earliest phases of higher primate evolution and for interpreting major mammalian biogeographic dispersal patterns in the Neogene of the Old World. Wadi Moghra in the northeastern end of the Qattara Depression is an important site for primate and mammalian evolution. A suite of fossil mammals (14 families) have been recovered there, including one of the world’s earliest known Old World monkeys (Miller, 1999). Moghra also contains the remains of an as yet unnamed ape (Hominoidea), so it documents the presence of two lineages shortly after their initial divergence. Much less is known about the Siwa oasis. Representatives of four terrestrial mammalian taxa have been recovered there (Hamilton, 1973), but the exact location of the original fossil-bearing beds has been lost.
  
  This project will: 1) study the sedimentology and stratigraphy of Wadi Moghra to reconstruct the ancient deposits and link specific fossil materials to them; 2) use the biostratigraphy of Moghra to test hypotheses about early Miocene North African mammalian and primate evolution; and 3) locate, renew collecting, and tie the stratigraphy of the lost mammals at Siwa to what is known about Moghra to gain a better understanding of regional mammalian evolution in the North African early Miocene. Moghra and Siwa are particularly important because, although located in Africa, they are physically closer to Eurasia, which means they occupy a pivotal position for documenting the nature and extent of contact between Miocene African and Eurasian faunas.
• Adaptive Diversity among the Earliest Known Old World Monkeys
  Awarded $17,675 for the period 1/15/04 to 1/14/05
  Source: Leakey Foundation

Buluk, Kenya, is an early-middle Miocene (17 million years ago) locality that contains the remains of one of the earliest known Old World monkeys. At present, almost everything known about their evolution comes from work at a single site, Maboko Island, Kenya, leaving substantial questions about the range of their initial adaptations and their divergence from apes. This project will explore the degree of adaptive diversity and paelobiology of these earliest cercopithecoid monkeys by collecting new fossils from the Buluk site and making detailed museum comparisons with other fossil and extant Old World monkeys. Results will elucidate the origin and early evolution of Old World monkeys, including their divergence from apes, and provide a framework within which to interpret future cercopithecoid discoveries. The Buluk project will test hypotheses about what constitutes intra- versus interspecific and generic variation, and the methods used have clear application to parallel problems in early human evolution. This research is relevant to the university's mission, Pro Humanitate, as the split of Old World monkeys from apes was the last major divergence before the one in which hominids diverged from apes, so that investigations provide a context within which to interpret the evolution of our own line.

• Adaptive Diversity among the First Old World Monkeys
  Awarded $9,993 for the period 1/03-1/04
  Source: WFU Social and Behavioral Science Research Fund
  Buluk, Kenya, is an early-middle Miocene locality that contains the remains of one of the earliest known Old World monkeys. At present, almost everything known about early Old World monkey evolution comes from work at a single locality, Maboko Island, Kenya, leaving substantial questions about the range of adaptations present among the first cercopithecoids and the divergence of Old World monkeys from apes. This project will collect new fossils from Buluk and make detailed museum comparisons with other fossil and extant Old World monkeys to explore the degree of adaptive diversity among the earliest cercopithecoids. Results will enhance our understanding of the origin and early evolution of the Old World monkeys, including the divergence of Old World monkeys and apes.

Jeanne Simonelli

• Childhood Immunizations: Understanding Local and Global Practice and Perceptions
  Awarded $8,400 for the period 5/06 to 5/07
  Source: WFU Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research Fund
  

  This pilot research examines the social and public health implications of family and community choices about childhood immunizations in Chiapas, Mexico. Zapatista families systematically reject aid from the Mexican government, including immunization, yet anecdotal evidence suggests that they experience very little childhood disease. Acquiring baseline statistics on the incidence of childhood diseases among this group is critical to ethical provision of immunization and has implications for immunization policy.

• Forchheimer Visiting Professorship at Hebrew University, Jerusalem, spring 2005, to investigate peace and conflict resolution

• Living Maya Culture and History
  Awarded $1,200 for the period 9/6/04 to 10/31/04
  Source: North Carolina Humanities Council (NCHC)

Funds helped to support a two-week visit from FOMMA (Fortaleza de la Mujer Maya), a Mayan women’s cooperative that uses original theatrical productions to raise public awareness about global and local concerns. At Wake Forest and in venues throughout North Carolina, including public schools, audiences viewed plays and attended workshops that provided them a historical, religious, literary, and cultural framework for understanding indigenous peoples in the Americas, especially in North Carolina.

Paul Thacker
Local Raw Material Variability and Hunter-Gatherer Lithic Economy in the Portuguese Magdalenian
Awarded $70,059 for the period 1/1/04 to 8/31/05
Source:NSF

This 3-year project investigates how the form, diversity, size, and abundance of chert, quartz, and quartzite affected Magdalenian (16,000 - 9,500 BCE) hunter-gatherer stone use in central Portugal. Previous fieldwork has mapped three valley systems with very different lithic resources. High-quality, large chert cobbles were exploited throughout the Paleolithic period in the Rio Maior region in contrast to the Sor drainage, where no chert sources were found in the survey area. Quartz and quartzite cobbles are found in stream gravels and deflated pavements throughout all three valleys, but significantly larger cobbles characterize the Sor region.

Four Upper Paleolithic open-air campsites will be excavated to obtain large lithic assemblages with associated radiometric dates: two in the Alcobertas valley (Sertão and Carapua) and two in the Sor valley (Vale do Bispo Cimeiro and Corças). Intrasite, 3-D analysis of piece-plotted levels will determine the impact of postdepositional processes and the degree to which the site assemblages are comparable. This sampling strategy will provide at least one Early and one Late Magdalenian assemblage in each region, facilitating local and regional comparison.

While faunal remains, pollen, and other organic material are unlikely to have been preserved at these open-air sites, residue and use/wear studies will inform interpretation. New data will help to explain raw material constraints in Portuguese Magdalenian lithic technology or acquisition and reduction behaviors that were social rather than functional. Results will have broad significance for both middle-range theory in lithic studies and understanding how hunter-gatherer technological organization and lithic exploitation relate to subsistence and settlement strategies.

Stephen Whittington, Museum of Anthropology

• Samurai and Kimonos: Japanese Culture
  Awarded $2,350 for the period 6/1/10 to 7/31/10
  Source: Center for Global Partnership/Japan Foundation

The Museum of Anthropology offers 3 one-week sessions of a summer camp for 15 children ranging in age from 6 to 12. On Monday, children will be introduced to Japanese culture. During the week, they will learn some basic words and phrases. They will paint their own kimonos and learn how to wear them. We will discuss the history and role of the samurai and demonstrate kendo, Japanese fencing. The children will hear traditional Japanese music and learn a folk dance. They will have the opportunity to make a kite, a fish print, and several origami objects. On the last day, they will make sushi and prepare a bento box to take home. Dressed in their kimonos, they will greet their families in Japanese and perform the traditional dance.

• Painted Hide Conservation
  Awarded $1,645 for the period 6/1/09 to 10/30/09
  Source: North Carolina Preservation Consortium

The project will conserve an important and endangered Comanche painted hide robe in the Museum of Anthropology collection. Once the object has been treated by a professional conservator, it will be used in exhibits and programs to teach the public about southern Great Plains culture during the midnineteenth century and featured in the online artifact database to highlight the importance of preserving historic objects for future generations.

• Korea and America: Intersections of Culture Film Series
  Awarded $1,200 for the period 12/1/08 to 11/30/10
  Source: North Carolina Humanities Council

The Museum of Anthropology will partner with the Korean School of Greensboro, Reynolda House Museum of American Art, and the Wake Forest University Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures to offer an exhibit of Korean artifacts and special events. "Korean Funerary Figures: Companions for the Journey to the Other World" will be open to the public from January 20 through May 16, 2009. Activities will include an opening reception, curriculum-based programs for K-12 students, a series of four films relevant to the Korean experience, two scholarly lectures on funerary figures, four Cultures up Close programs, and a Korean Family Day, featuring traditional crafts, performances, and storytelling.

• Development of the Korean-American Audience for the Museum of Anthropology
  Awarded $6,000 for the period 7/1/08 to 5/31/09
  Source: North Carolina Arts Council

The Museum of Anthropology will host the exhibit, “Korean Funerary Figures: Comparisons for the Journey to the Other World,” in spring 2009. Public programming at the museum and the Reynolda House will include a film series, scholarly lectures, Family Sundays, and Family Day to encourage various ethic groups to mingle and to appreciate each other’s cultures.

• Web Access for the Museum of Anthropology’s Archives
  Awarded $50,561.17 for the period 8/1/08 to 7/31/10
  Source: Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)

The Museum of Anthropology will prepare its archives for public access on the web. Employees will digitize documents and photographs and assist the registrar in creating a catalog record for each. The archival records will elucidate the cultural and environmental context of the collections and help with interpretation of unfamiliar archeological and ethnographic objects. Project activities will include a marketing campaign and workshops to make primary and secondary school teachers and students, university faculty and students, independent researchers, and the general public more aware of resources and better oriented for their use.

• Rosebud Sioux Exhibit and Humanities Programs
  Awarded $8,789 for the period 6/1/07 to 9/30/07
  Source: North Carolina Humanities Council

The Museum of Anthropology and the Guilford Native American Art Gallery presented an exhibit of Lakota Sioux photographs and artifacts, “Rosebud Sioux – A Lakota People in Transition,” from 17 June through 18 August 2007. Ancillary activities included scholarly lectures, a Native American Festival, Native American Family Day, films focused on Native American cultural survival and revitalization, and Literacy through Photography workshops for underserved children. The free exhibit and programs provided people interested in Native American culture, photography, oral history, and genealogy with information about how Native American groups maintain cultural continuity with the past, while moving into the twenty-first century. 

• Web Access to the Museum of Anthropology’s Collection Catalogue
  Awarded $149,000 for the period 8/1/06 to 7/31/08
  Source: Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)

The Wake Forest University Museum of Anthropology has secured support for a registrar for 2 years, 5 student assistants for 18 months, and the museum’s educator to complete a web-based, public-access version of its catalogue for use by universities, scholars, school children, and the general public. The registrar will perform data cleanup and enter research data for the museum’s ethnographic collections. Students will assist with inventory, basic condition assessment, and digital photography of all objects not photographed before 2002. The project will provide physical and intellectual control of the collections, laying the groundwork for formulation of an intellectual framework statement, collections plan, and disaster plan. The website will greatly expand the museum’s educational and collections care missions, enabling it to become a global cultures center for Wake Forest University and the regional community. Through the web-based catalogue, the museum will expand outreach to underserved secondary schools through 4 teacher workshops on web catalogue navigation for student research and creating 2 lesson plans for web learning.

• Reanalysis of Ceramics and Obsidian from Teozacoalco, Mexico
  Awarded $2,120 for the period 5/06 to 5/07
  Source: WFU Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research Fund
  

Funds support a research trip to Oaxaca to consult with experts on ancient Mixtec ceramics and to reanalyze selected obsidian samples.

• Development of a Long-Range Conservation Plan for Museum of Anthropology Collections
  Awarded $5,000 for the period 1/1/06 to 6/30/06
  Source: National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)

The Museum of Anthropology will hire a conservator to work with staff in producing a long-range plan for its 27,433 archeological and ethnographic objects. The conservator will visit to assess policies, practices, and conditions that affect the care and preservation of the collections and prepare a report that summarizes findings and prioritizes recommendations for future actions. The document will be a key element in developing a plan to focus collecting and to control future growth and deaccessioning. It will also guide a disaster plan and the design of a storage facility to hold the collections, which are currently in crowded, unstable conditions.

• Anthropology/Hispanic Arts Initiative Arts Classes
  Awarded $3,000 for the period 7/15/05 to 6/30/06
  Source: Arts Council of Winston-Salem

The Museum of Anthropology (MOA) and the Hispanic Arts Initiative (HAI) are collaborating to present Hispanic arts classes on Saturdays and weeknights. Classes in puppetry, dance, piano, and chorus will be offered in Spanish to children from 6-18 years of age at Centenary United Methodist Church. The first three classes expand existing programs to include more low-income children; chorus is a new offering. Although the target audience is Hispanic, other children who wish to take advantage of the language and cultural immersion as well as the artistic opportunities are welcome. Teachers will provide some translation as necessary. This project represents the first collaboration between MOA and HAI and an expansion of the outreach activities of each to an underserved community.

• Travel Grant
  Awarded $7,485.97 for the period 5/16/05 to 6/30/06
  Source: Museum Loan Network

Two staff members from the Museum of Anthropology and two community advisors will visit the Quick Center for the Arts at St. Bonaventure University; the Field Museum; and the University of Pennsylvania Museum to negotiate long-term loans of ancient Maya artifacts. The resulting exhibit will strengthen relationships among the Museum of Anthropology, local schools, and the area’s Hispanic community by supporting the North Carolina social studies curriculum and through English and Spanish text and labels.

• Conservation of Ancient Maya Ceramics to Enable Scholarly Access and Publication
  Awarded $9,030 for the period 5/1/05 to 10/31/05
  Source: WFU Social, Behavioral, and Economic Science Research Fund

St. Bonaventure University has an undocumented collection of 72 ancient Maya objects. Its F. Donald Kenney Museum, in collaboration with the Wake Forest University Museum of Anthropology, plans to document, publish, and exhibit the collection to provide scholarly access. A major project expense will be conserving 36 ceramic vessels so that images and hieroglyphs on the surfaces can be studied and published in an exhibition catalog and on scholarly websites. Conservator Ronald Harvey, who has successful experience with Maya ceramics, will travel to St. Bonaventure to treat the objects in May 2005.

• Asian Games: The Art of Contest
  Awarded $1,200 for the period 4/5/05 to 9/30/05
  Source: North Carolina Humanities Council

The Museum of Anthropology will host an exhibition of games and sports equipment originating in Asia from 31 May through 16 August 2005. Activities include a Family Day, a lecture on Japanese baseball by a renowned scholar from Yale, and tours for chess, sports, church, and YMCA summer camps. The free exhibit and programs will provide people familiar with games and sports, such as chess, Parcheesi, and polo, with important but little-known information about their Asian origins and history, and especially appeal to members of the underserved Asian community.

• Collections Database Improvement for the Museum of Anthropology
  Awarded $54,869 for the period 10/1/04 to 1/31/06
  Source: Institute of Museum and Library Science (IMLS), Museums for America

Wake Forest’s Museum of Anthropology will purchase a data management program designed specifically for museums and hire a temporary registrar to facilitate data migration and catalog cleanup. The present program, ACCESS, is inefficient and awkward to use, and collections and collections research have outgrown it. Improved data management is necessary to complete entry for approximately 21,000 archeological artifacts and to correct its ethnographic collections catalog of some 5,000 objects. The new program, Re:discovery, will enable (1) more efficient access to collections data and tracking of object locations; (2) collections growth and expansion, including research notes; and, ultimately, (3) digital photographs of objects to accompany catalog information. Hiring a professional registrar will facilitate data migration, record entry on archeological materials from catalog cards, and catalog clean-up. These improvements will strengthen the museum’s application for American Association of Museums accreditation.

• Lectures on West Mexico
  Awarded $1,200 for the period 2/15/04 to 6/30/04
  Source: North Carolina Humanities Council

The Museum of Anthropology will present three, free public lectures in conjunction with "Images for Eternity: West Mexican Tomb Figures," an exhibit of ceramic figures made by artisans in Jalisco, Nayarit, and Colima two millennia ago. The project will help the museum to continue its program of outreach to, and education about, the Triad's Hispanic community.

• Archeological Survey, Oaxaca, Mexico
  Awarded $8,223 for the period 1/1/03 to 1/1/04
  Source: WFU Social and Behavioral Science Research Fund

Using El Mapa de Teozacoalco, an early colonial map and genealogy, as a guide, this archeological survey will continue fieldwork in a 30 by 70 km mountainous area around San Pedro Teozacoalco, Oaxaca, Mexico, inhabited by the Mixtec people. The project will address interrelated issues: association of Mixtec and Spanish place-names on El Mapa with archeological sites, natural features, and extant settlements; and testing of postulated continuities and discontinuities between postclassical and colonial settlements. The project will collect data demonstration what changes in settlement patterns accompanied two major cultural transformations in ancient Mexico.

• Ancient Mexican Ceramics Exhibit
  Awarded $1,200 for the period 10/7/02 to 2/28/03
  Source: North Carolina Humanities Council

The Museum of Anthropology will exhibit decorated ceramic vases made by Maya artisans of Mexico and Central America more than 1,000 years ago. At least 14 faculty members in seven Wake Forest departments and programs will use the exhibit, "Worldviews: Maya Ceramics from the Palmer Collection," to support their teaching. The exhibit will also be accessible to the public through special events, including lectures by visiting scholars, programs, including a children's program and gallery activities, tours, videos, and bilingual text and labels.

• General Operating Support
  Awarded $31,119 for the period 10/1/001 to 9/30/03
  Source: Institute of Museum and Library Services

Funds will contribute significantly toward the realization of the Museum of Anthropology's mission statement and long-range plan. They will partially support an Educator, to oversee public programs, and a part-time Collections Manager, who will insure that professional standards of object care are maintained.