Jeanne Sept

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Under the direction of Dr. Jeanne Sept, Mr. August Costa will collect data for his doctoral dissertation. His research will address the questions: Who were the first South Asians and when did they settle the Indian subcontinent? Such are among the most critical unresolved problems in South Asian anthropology. The aim of this research is to provide an archaeological test of the southern dispersal hypothesis, which suggests that anatomically and behaviorally modern humans Homo sapiens first colonized South Asia via a coastal route from Africa more than 50,000 years ago. The southern dispersal gained popularity in recent years due to genetic studies suggesting an antiquity of up to 70,000 years for some South Asian populations. Direct fossil and archaeological evidence for this scenario, however is currently lacking in South Asia and recent studies have not targeted sites of the appropriate age. In sum, no one has yet tested this migration scenario by searching for dated evidence of modern humans along the South Asian coast. <br/><br/>Mr. Costa will address this issue by reinvestigating known (<125,000 year old) archaeological sites located along the coast of the Saurashtra peninsula in Gujarat, Western India. This setting is one of few places in South Asia where Stone Age sites have been dated. Moreover, Saurashtra is the only place in South Asia where coastal Stone Age sites are known. This study will be accomplished by 1) reevaluating known sites from Saurashtra; 2) surveying Saurashtra, for new coastal sites (>50,000 years old); and 3) assessing artifacts from the area for attributes indicative of modern humans (e.g. symbolism: jewelry and art, technological and economic innovations: complex stone and bone tools, long distance trade). In contrast to other Late Pleistocene populations (e.g. Neanderthals), present day humans' direct ancestors exhibited certain novel behaviors (e.g. artistic expression, complex hunting) which are often apparent from the archaeological record. If the southern dispersal hypothesis is correct, Mr. Costa should find evidence of anomalous behaviors compared to the norms of indigenous pre-modern South Asians which heralds the emergence of our species in the region. <br/><br/>This work will hopefully illuminate the origins of modern people in a nation, which constitutes a geographical missing link to the story of human evolution. If confirmed this research would show that early humans settled India tens of thousands of years before their arrival in Europe and radically alter notions of who the earliest Eurasians were. This study would also have important implications for the peopling of Australia, Southeast Asia and East Asia. This research will help promote meaningful scholarly dialogue and further the role of India in prehistoric studies. The results of this work will raise awareness about the archaeological record of India among Western archaeologists through peer-reviewed publications and presentations of this research at scholarly meetings. Finally, this research will form the foundation of Mr. Costa's future career in Stone Age archaeology by establishing a study area, lab resources and a network of Indian researchers with whom he can continue to work with in the future.

Elinor Ochs

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Like many children in Africa and the rest of the world, Fulbe children in Maroua learn to use more than one language in their daily lives. Their linguistic repertoire comes to include Fulfulde, French, Arabic, and a simplified variety of Fulfulde. Thus, at an age when children are busy consolidating, re-organizing, and expanding their first language skills, Fulbe children encounter three new codes that they must also learn to use according to the linguistic and cultural rules of their families, schools, and peer groups. This project will investigate the development of communicative competence in multiple codes through a language socialization study. Over the course of nine months, or one school year, six children (three girls and three boys) will be observed and recorded as they learn to participate in routine language activities with more knowledgeable persons in home, neighborhood, public school, and koranic school settings. Data collection will be focused on three types of language routines: prompting, question-answer exchanges, and narrative. Annotated transcripts of these recordings will be complemented by participant observation and interviews with family members, teachers, and education officials. <br/><br/>The goal of this longitudinal, ethnographic study is to obtain greater understanding of how children growing up in a linguistically heterogeneous setting learn to use multiple languages and varieties thereof in culturally appropriate ways. More specifically, this study will document linguistic variation to which the children are routinely exposed, local language ideologies about languages and language varieties used in the community, and language socialization practices in the homes and schools of these children. Home and school language socialization practices will be compared and their impact on the children's development of communicative competence in Fulfulde, French, and Arabic will be examined.

Alan Rogers

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ABSTRACT P.I. Alan Rogers SBR-9310105 During the past several years, a vigorous controversy has surrounded the origins of modern people, Homo sapiens. Much of this involves the interpretation of the new molecular genetic data (from mitochondrial DNA) originally marshalled in support of the "Eve" hypothesis for a relatively recent explosion of modern humans out of Africa, replacing archaic forms of humans around the globe (as opposed to the "multiregional" hypothesis of modern human origins, which sees evidence of modern human population relationships to older fossil finds – for example, a relation between modern Chinese and Pekin Man, who lived some 300,000 years ago). While this argument has generated a great deal of interest, it remains unresolved for a number of theoretical reasons. This project will provide a more rigorous test of the Eve vs. the Multiregional hypotheses by 1) formulating and testing quantitative models of modern human origins: 2) providing significance levels, confidence limits, and power analyses: and 3) using nuclear as well as mitochondrial DNA markers. The study will analyze materials from a sample comprising 75 representatives of each of three major continental populations. At least 150 mitochondrial DNA markers will be analyzed, and also at least 70 nuclear markers, including 9 on the Y chromosome. *** Panthrojfried9310105.abs # # 5 " " m5 " " 5 ' ' 5 * * 6 , , C6 : : y6 – – B N N B R;V ?V CV " ! ! ! D ( Times New Roman Symbol & Arial | | | Z " h G %M %L % p = Jonathan Friedlaender Jonathan Friedlaender

Andrew Apter

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This dissertation research project by an anthropologist at the University of Chicago examines how a dispersed Nigerian community maintains its Yoruba cultural identity through ritual performances of religious music in African as well as U.S. churches. The research focuses on the changes in cultural practices and transnational identities of Nigerian migrants through the performance of music, dance, and oratory in churches in Lagos and Chicago. The objectives of this ethnographic research are to describe and analyze the formal characteristics and aesthetic values of Yoruba church music, and to compare the effects of migration on local identities and practices. The methods to be used include participant observation, collection of demographic data, life histories, and migration profiles through surveys and interviews, and detailed ethno-musicological analysis of religious ceremonies. Through careful ethnographic study of the local as well as transnational networks produced through musical performance, this project will advance our understanding of the relationship between cultural and economic processes of transnationalism and globalization. Methodologically, the research will contribute to anthropological studies of music and ritual by focusing on the ways in which music structures and is structured by other ritual modes. Finally, the study will explicate the meanings of the term "diaspora" as a social scientific concept as well as a lived experience. In addition to contributing to the education of a young social scientist, the research will advance our knowledge of this region of Africa, and improve our understanding of how migrants preserve and modify their culture in both originating and receiving societies

Michael Hammer

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Hammer<br/>0216732<br/><br/>This research will use human genomic variation patterns as a tool for testing hypotheses concerning the early peopling of North Asia and the Americas and for assessing the relative effects of sex-specific demographic processes and natural selection in shaping North Asian genetic diversity. Within genetics, the study of lineages that are inherited paternally, maternally or biparentally can offer different insights into the origins and global dispersals of Homo sapiens. The genetic analyses will be applied to a panel of 16 males from each of 6 Siberian populations. Comparisons of intra-specific patterns of variation within and among human populations, and with levels of divergence between humans and great apes at these loci, will enable tests of the effects of natural selection and potential differences in male and female effective population sizes. Informative polymorphisms discovered in this Siberian ascertainment panel will be genotyped in a larger set of North Asian samples to allow further tests of the associations between linguistic, geographic, and genetic variation and the effects of genetic drift, migration, and admixture on North Asian populations. These results will be used to aid in constructing more realistic colonization models involving different stages for the early peopling of the Americas.<br/><br/>Results from this research will enhance our understanding of the evolutionary history of our species. Reconstructing the patterns and processes of human evolution in Asia is of interest because the the earliest dispersal routes of anatomically modern humans out of Africa are not well understood from the archaeological and paleontological records. Further, this region is the origin for subsequent migrations to Japan, Siberia, and the Americas. The 31 native ethnic groups of Siberia, 14 of which are available for this project, offer significant opportunities to examine the evolutionary forces that may have acted on early modern human populations. Until very recently many native Siberian groups retained traditional subsistence economies and lifeways that may have reflected a pre-Neolithic population structure. North Asian populations, especially those adapted to boreal climates in the northernmost regions inhabited by humans, are genetically subdivided, and genetic drift has played a key role in shaping patterns of variation in Siberia. Furthermore, the demographic history of Siberian populations has led to an unusually strong association between language and genetic variation. The proposed research is a first attempt to develop a comparative genetic framework using data obtained from the same set of samples.<br/><br/>The proposed research will directly address three major challenges that now face anthropological geneticists. The multiple locus approach to be taken here will help to understand: (1) which portions of the human genome are variable; (2) how genomic and evolutionary processes have interacted to generate observed patterns of diversity; and (3) what the relative roles of each of these forces have been over different periods of time and in different populations. In addition to having a fascinating evolutionary history, Native Siberian populations represent an ideal model system within which to address these timely issues.

Edward Malecki

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People, businesses, governments, and other organizations rely on telecommunications networks not only to communicate with others but also as a key source of information. The Internet and its web sites have become a vast database, linked to nearly all points on the globe, yet its critical infrastructure (such as hubs of telephone networks and interconnection points with other networks) is concentrated in large cities. This research is designed to unpack the Internet into its component networks, particularly the large global networks that span national boundaries, and to identify their geography as nodes and links. This project will identify emerging and established hubs and gateways within the Internet's structure both in and outside the USA, and especially in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. The research also will identify how changes in industrial structure and location have affected telecommunications infrastructure at the local scale in the United States, where both deregulation and competition have created new but largely unplanned patterns of critical infrastructure. Telephone networks remain the hubs for Internet dial-up and broadband access for households and businesses. Thousands of telephone system central offices house the points of presence for local access to Internet backbone and long-distance networks, and are agglomerations of telecommunications infrastructure in cities. This project will utilize a geographic information system to determine the coincidence of network nodes, such as major co-location facilities, interconnection points, and major digital switching wire centers. The research will use bandwidth pricing data to estimate the demand for actual flows of digital information on dozens of routes and to estimate traffic flows. Focusing analysis on world cities where networks converge will untangle supply and demand for Internet connectivity via trends in the price of bandwidth. The research is synthetic and analytical, aimed to combine detailed characteristics of nearly 40,000 central office switches in the USA with trends in pricing data for 80 global routes. The global and local aspects of the research are merged only upon distillation of the central office and wire center data into a smaller number of urban nodes. <br/><br/>Telecommunications networks comprise a critical infrastructure on which the global economy increasingly depends. This research will track the continuing evolution of the Internet/telecom infrastructure, and relate this infrastructure at the global scale to the network of world cities. This research will monitor the major local elements of critical Internet and telecommunications infrastructure, including co-location facilities and large wire centers. The project also will update knowledge about the extent of Internet infrastructure and about the flows of data on its networks. As the telecommunications industry consolidates through bankruptcies, mergers and acquisitions, industry evolution affects the spatial form of the networks and their urban locations.<br/>

Richard Klein

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Under the supervision of Dr. Richard Klein, Jason Lewis will analyze faunal remains from archaeological excavations of the French cave site of Orgnac 3. This site, dating from between ~350,000to ~290 000 years ago, has yielded very large stone artifact and animal bone assemblages and seven fossil human teeth. For part of its depositional history, Orgnac 3 was a cave, and for another, it was a sink-hole. The site preserves large samples from short time periods within the long Middle Pleistocene interval. It contains charcoal/sooty lenses with burnt bones that have been interpreted as hearths and accumulations of artifacts and bones surrounded by natural rocks that may represent the bases of dwelling structures. For these reasons the Orgnac 3 materials lend themselves to answering many questions about human paleoecology during the middle and late Middle Pleistocene.<br/><br/>Much work in paleoanthropology has focused on one particular aspect of human paleoecology, that of subsistence strategy. When people started acquiring meat and other animal tissues, whether through scavenging or hunting, and how human subsistence strategies have changed over time, remain hotly debated topics. How different human populations might have foraged differently, and the evolutionary import of those differences, are important questions to ask of the archaeological and paleontological records. This is especially true when considering the Middle and Late Pleistocene, when different human species lived on different continents, but by the end of the Pleistocene, only one species remained: Homo sapiens. To reach the ultimate goal of understanding changes in subsistence strategy throughout human history, one must begin with a robust, scientific reconstruction of how a sample faunal assemblage passed through several stages in which hominid activity or natural processes could have altered its composition. This project adopts such a holistic approach to document the carcass acquisition and processing behaviors of the human inhabitants of Orgnac 3 and to examine how these behaviors have changed throughout the evolution of the human species. Once the carcass acquisition and processing behaviors of the Orgnac 3 people have been characterized, these can be compared to other Middle Pleistocene sites in Europe and Africa in order to elucidate how these behaviors have changed through time and across space.<br/><br/>Beyond research questions of interest to prehistoric archaeologists, this project will have a broader impact by providing assistance in graduate student training and strengthening collaborative relationships between institutions in US and France, specifically those between Stanford University and the Centre Européen de Recherches Préhistoriques in Tautavel and Institut de Paléontologie Humaine in Paris. This work will increase awareness of one of the oldest and largest fossil human sites in France. Furthermore, the primary data generated here will be made available to the Centre Européen de Recherches Préhistoiriques, for them to use in their own research, curation planning, and pedagogical development (in their educational materials and in the adjoining Centre Européen de Préhistoire ).

Christopher Green

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How and why do languages vary? Studying closely related languages can tell us important details of the nature of human language, by holding most grammatical properties constant while varying others, across a set of languages. Understanding the limits on such variation?and how such differences arise historically?requires an accurate description of a group of related languages. <br/><br/>The heterogeneous varieties of Luyia, a group of Bantu languages of Kenya and Uganda, provide a laboratory for investigating such micro-variation in grammar. This project will produce the first comprehensive descriptions and formal analyses of four underdocumented Kenyan varieties of Luyia: Bukusu, Logoori, Tiriki, and Wanga. A series of monographs will be developed for each language which include a grammatical outline, a detailed description of the tonal system, in-depth studies in syntax, a collection of texts, and a dictionary. <br/><br/>The diverse tone systems of Luyia are a major focus of this work. Luyia tone has many notable features, including a rare process by which High tones spread leftward across and within words. Complex tonal patterns mark inflectional differences among verb tenses, and syntactically conditioned rules are also found in the phrasal tonology. A solid understanding of these processes bears crucially on theories of the phonology-syntax interface, which are concerned with what kind of syntactic information can be used by a phonological system. These theoretically and typologically interesting features of Luyia tone will be systematically investigated through targeted paradigmatic elicitation. <br/><br/>This project models team-based, data-rich and theoretically informed linguistic description and analysis. The Luyia team draws on the expertise of linguists in multiple subfields and brings together US-based and Africa-based scholars, enriching the practice of linguistics by each group. The monographs, text collections, and dictionaries produced by the project will be made freely available online, and relevant materials will be disseminated within the appropriate local communities.

Christopher Green

[email protected]

How and why do languages vary? Studying closely related languages can tell us important details of the nature of human language, by holding most grammatical properties constant while varying others, across a set of languages. Understanding the limits on such variation?and how such differences arise historically?requires an accurate description of a group of related languages. <br/><br/>The heterogeneous varieties of Luyia, a group of Bantu languages of Kenya and Uganda, provide a laboratory for investigating such micro-variation in grammar. This project will produce the first comprehensive descriptions and formal analyses of four underdocumented Kenyan varieties of Luyia: Bukusu, Logoori, Tiriki, and Wanga. A series of monographs will be developed for each language which include a grammatical outline, a detailed description of the tonal system, in-depth studies in syntax, a collection of texts, and a dictionary. <br/><br/>The diverse tone systems of Luyia are a major focus of this work. Luyia tone has many notable features, including a rare process by which High tones spread leftward across and within words. Complex tonal patterns mark inflectional differences among verb tenses, and syntactically conditioned rules are also found in the phrasal tonology. A solid understanding of these processes bears crucially on theories of the phonology-syntax interface, which are concerned with what kind of syntactic information can be used by a phonological system. These theoretically and typologically interesting features of Luyia tone will be systematically investigated through targeted paradigmatic elicitation. <br/><br/>This project models team-based, data-rich and theoretically informed linguistic description and analysis. The Luyia team draws on the expertise of linguists in multiple subfields and brings together US-based and Africa-based scholars, enriching the practice of linguistics by each group. The monographs, text collections, and dictionaries produced by the project will be made freely available online, and relevant materials will be disseminated within the appropriate local communities.

John Tarduno

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The origin of the geomagnetic field is important for understanding the evolution of Earth's deep interior, surface environment and atmosphere. But defining the nature of the early geomagnetic field is challenging; even the best preserved rocks from the Archean eon (more than 2.5 billion-years-old) have seen low grade metamorphism (at 200 degrees C to 320 degrees C) related to geologic events after their formation. The acquisition of later magnetizations by these rocks is expected, precluding use of conventional paleointensity techniques. A newly developed approach to the problem, utilizing CO2 laser heating and DC SQUID magnetometer measurements, provides a means to obtain paleodirections and intensities from single silicate crystals which host magnetite inclusions. Using these techniques, 3.2 billion-year-old field strengths have been reported from Archean rocks of South Africa that are within 50% of the present-day value. This indicates that a viable magnetosphere sheltered the early Earth's atmosphere from solar wind erosion.<br/><br/>Rocks older than 3.2 billion years old are found in South Africa and Swaziland, potentially holding a 300 to 400 million-year-long record of geomagnetic field behavior preserved in single silicate crystals. The new paleointensity approach can also be used to examine these rocks. If the geomagnetic field was present during this interval, these data should provide bounds on its strength, and they may be used to make inferences on field morphology. Such constraints on the nature of the earliest geomagnetic field are of interest to a broad range of sciences interested in core and mantle processes.<br/><br/>Among the broader impacts of these investigations are that they form the basis for the dissertation studies of graduate and undergraduate students. Students take part in field and laboratory work, and assist in K-12 activities, integrating graduate and undergraduate teaching efforts at the University of Rochester with area school programs. <br/>