Fossils as Votive Offerings in the Greco-Roman World

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Holly A. Raymond and Dr. David Johnson, Anthropology Often archaeologists fail to recognize objects of veneration and cult worship in religious contexts. These objects may at first glance be difficult to identify as votive offerings. Consequently, they are often overlooked because of their seemingly ordinary appearance and functional purpose. Robin Osborne says of votive offerings […]

Determining the Value of Subsistence and Cash Crop Farming in Tamil Nadu, Indian Family’s Subsistence Strategies

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Joseph Neil Ransom and Dr. Charles Nuckolls, Anthropology Department It is nearly impossible to asses the true conditions of a community from older books or research papers about neighboring areas. That said my background reading leading up to this research project had left me with the impression a large percentage of Indian farmers completely subsisted […]

A Hairy Tale Analysis of Adobe-Embedded Hair from Arrowhead Hill, Escalante, Utah

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Bradley A. Newbold and Dr. Joel Janetski, Anthropology During the Spring Term of 2004, the BYU Archaeological Field School excavated a portion of Arrowhead Hill, a Formative (or early agricultural) Period site a few miles west of Escalante, Utah. Two intriguing finds were made during that field season: two pit-house structures of varying style situated […]

Cultural Components of Infant Mortality in Asante, Ghana

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Adriana Matos and Dr. William Olsen, Anthropology Among the Asante people of central Ghana, health and healing are conceptualized quite differently than the western biomedical model. Religious cosmology has special significance in relation to healing. Health is thought of holistically; every illness is a product of physical, spiritual, emotional, and cosmological forces. Illnesses manifest themselves […]

Facilitating Effective Training Programs for Traditional Medical Practitioners in Ghana: Guidelines Based on Prior Successes and Current Attitudes

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Amy Lamprecht and Dr. William C. Olsen, Anthropology The medical system extant in Ghana today is a complex one made up of many different health care delivery sectors. As is often the case wherever competing systems of medicine exist, the traditional and Western medical systems that participate in health care in Ghana are not effectively […]

ORCA

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Erin Huff My ORCA project changed considerably from the time I applied for the grant, to when I stepped off of the airplane back in the U.S. after researching in Ghana. I initially wanted to study elder care in Ghana, but after reviewing the resources I had available to me in Ghana, I decided to […]

An Investigation of Ethnographic Musical Instruments for Presentation in a Public Exhibition

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Christine Echols and Dr. Marti Lu Allen, Anthropology I used my ORCA scholarship to study a significant group of ethnographic musical instruments that were held by the Museum of Art and the Museum of Peoples and Cultures at BYU. By research and study, I was able to address questions of patterns and commonalities in rituals […]

Discussing Gender Equality in an Unequal Environment: Misrepresentations of Life by Tamilian Women

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Evan Carpenter and Dr. Julie Hartley, Anthropology In May through September of 2005 I shot a documentary film about social progress for women in a village just outside the city of Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, India. The original purpose was to learn how the social and domestic roles of a family are affected by a […]

Relatedness and the Symbolic Substance of Kinship Among the K’iche’

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Stephen Brady and Dr. Janis Nuckolls, visiting professor of Anthropology Kinship studies was a central concern of socio-cultural anthropology for decades. The centrality of kinship within the discipline was due to the traditional anthropological practice of studying social structure among small-scale societies. Social anthropologists found that kinship provides people with an effective form of organization […]