Department of Anthropology Associate Professor Heather Howard and doctoral student Livy Drexler have been awarded a grant from the Spencer Foundation to carry out research for the project, “Special Education in Indian Country: Challenges and Insights from Applying Indigenous Models of Disability in Schools.” Indigenous children are overrepresented in special education programs and are 15% more likely than other groups to be tracked into special education programs. Yet, there has been little examination of the experiences of Indigenous students in special education nor of the intersection of Indigenous and disability identities. The research will explore this intersectionality by examining if there are culturally specific and appropriate Indigenous disability models which shape Indigenous students’ experiences of special education and provide insights for improving how models of disability are applied in Indigenous education settings. This study will uniquely engage disability critical race theory and critical Indigenous theory to understand the intersecting identities of disability and Indigeneity to provide a fuller understanding of Indigenous disability frameworks, and how these frameworks map with and against Western conceptions and understandings of disability.
The Spencer Foundation’s goals include investing in “research that is transformative, methodologically rigorous, and helps create a better society” while supporting “high-quality education research training… the diversity of scholars and scholarship in education research (to) strengthen the impact of education research for improving educational practice.” The $47,000 investment from the Spencer Foundation will support ethnographic fieldwork which will be conducted by Livy Drexler. Livy Drexler is an anthropology PhD candidate at MSU, a former special education student, and an older sibling to two autistic brothers. As a result of their background, Drexler will be able to contribute a unique and important perspective to this project. They will be guided by Indigenous methodological principles of knowledge production and the project will provide the participant communities with an informational resource for improving the education experience of Indigenous children in special education. Howard and Drexler are also delighted to collaborate with Dr. Troy Mariage who is serving as a consultant for this project. Mariage is an associate professor of special education in MSU’s counseling, educational psychology, and special education department.
Department of Anthropology Assistant Professor Dr. Carolyn Isaac, doctoral student Clara Devota, and MSU Anthropology alumni Dr. Jered Cornelison and Erica Christensen, M.S., recently published an article in the International Journal of Legal Medicine entitled: “The Repository of Antemortem Injury Response (REPAIR): an online database for skeletal injuries of known ages”. The article discusses the importance of The Repository of Antemortem Injury Response (REPAIR) as a reference for forensic casework, an educational tool, and database for research on dating fractures and healing rates.
Abstract: “An accurate assessment of time since fracture is an essential component of abuse and death investigations; however, little evidence-based research exists on dating fractures, especially those of the cranial vault. This is primarily due to difficulties in procuring human fracture specimens of known posttraumatic survival times. The aim of this article is to introduce a new database through which limitations imposed by sample procurement may be mitigated. The Repository of Antemortem Injury Response (REPAIR) is a digitally accessible database of cranial vault fractures of known ages with extensive contextual information and visual documentation in the form of photography, radiography, and histological photomicrographs. This repository is a multifunctional tool that serves as a case submission portal for cranial fractures of known posttraumatic survival time, a sample database for research on fracture healing and rates of repair, a resource for comparative assessments of cranial fractures in forensic casework, and an educational tool for healing fracture histomorphology.”
Department of Anthropology Associate Professor Gabriel Wrobel recently published two co-authored articles in Ancient Mesoamerica as part of a special issue called “The Preceramic and Early Ceramic Periods in Belize and the Central Maya Lowlands.” Ancient Mesoamerica is a flagship journal for Mesoamerican archaeology published by Cambridge Press, and both articles are open access, through an agreement between the MSU Library and Cambridge Press.
The first article is titled “Life And Death Among The Earliest Maya: A Review Of Early And Middle Preclassic Burials From The Maya World”, and is co-authored by Dr. Raúl Alejandro López Pérez (Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán), and Dr. Claire Ebert (University of Pittsburgh). It discusses the earliest Maya skeletal remains and the need for coordinated research into the biology of early groups.
Abstract: “This article presents a review of the earliest Maya skeletal remains thus far found, including a list of 398 burials dating to the Early (1800–900 B.C.) and Middle Preclassic periods (900–300 B.C.) and adjacent regions. These sites are spread throughout the Maya region and the data allow basic descriptive syntheses about early mortuary behavior and aspects of health and diet. Poor preservation and differences in scoring and reporting severely limit the scope of interpretation possible at this point, but it is hoped that this review stimulates coordinated research into the biology of early groups.”
The second article is titled “Before The Maya: A Review Of Paleoindian And Archaic Human Skeletons Found In The Maya Region” and is co-authored by Dr. Julie Hoggarth (Baylor University), and PhD student Aubree Marshall. This article discusses skeletal remains found in Mexico and Belize dating to the Paleoindian and Archaic periods.
Abstract: “This article presents a review of the earliest known skeletal remains in the Maya area, which are found in submerged caves in Mexico and rock shelters in Belize and date to the Paleoindian and Archaic periods. While few in number, several of these individuals have been the focus of intensive analyses, providing an emerging picture of life in the region before the transition to agriculture and settled village communities.”
Alexis Goots and Micayla Spiros discuss some x-rays with anthropology faculty member Carolyn Isaac in the new MSU Forensic Anthropology Lab in Giltner Hall.
During the summer of 2021, the Michigan State University Forensic Anthropology Lab (MSUFAL), moved from its longtime home in East Fee Hall to a new laboratory and teaching space in Giltner Hall. The move has been bittersweet, due to the history of groundbreaking research and fruitful collaborations that were forged in East Fee Hall, but the new lab in Giltner offers the opportunity to expand the consulting, training, and research for which MSUFAL is known.
The MSUFAL has been an integral part of the MSU landscape since the 1970s, providing a variety of forensic services including forensic archaeological recovery, decedent identification, trauma analysis, and expert witness testimony. The lab has provided these services for diverse types of cases such as positive identification of unidentified human remains, human skeletal analysis, trauma analysis, human vs. nonhuman bone, and field search and recovery. The forensic anthropology faculty comprises Dr. Todd Fenton, who is currently serving as Department Chair until 2024, Dr. Joe Hefner, and Dr. Carolyn Isaac, the current lab director.
From the late 1970s to the late 1990s, the MSUFAL, under the direction of Dr. Norm Sauer, was housed in the basement of an administration building on campus, which offered very little analytical space and only one small sink. During this time, most of MSUFAL’s work was done at the local morgue, as the on-campus laboratory facilities were not conducive to forensic casework. In the mid-1990s, the MSUFAL moved to its most recent home in East Fee Hall, where the larger space and the addition of Dr. Fenton to the faculty allowed casework, teaching, and research efforts to substantially expand.
Throughout the two decades during which the MSUFAL called East Fee Hall home, members of the MSUFAL participated in trauma research, ancestry research, bioarchaeology projects and dissertations, skull-photo superimposition, forensic image comparisons, and countless forensic cases. In addition, the location in East Fee Hall allowed for close collaboration with the anatomy department, medical school, and biomechanical engineers, all of whom also had labs in the building. While the MSUFAL was housed in East Fee Hall, MSUFAL faculty and graduate students consulted on over 1,200 forensic cases, averaging approximately 60 forensic cases per year. Further, over the past 14 years, MSUFAL faculty have garnered over $5,000,000 in external research funding, cementing MSUFAL as one of the premier forensic anthropology research laboratories in the country.
Given MSUFAL’s expanding faculty, increasing casework, and new research initiatives, and despite the great success of students and faculty over the last five decades, it became clear that the lab had finally outgrown the space in East Fee Hall. In May 2021, faculty and students packed up the laboratory and moved to a beautiful new space in Giltner Hall. This move was motivated by the prospect of a larger space and being in the same building as the other physical anthropologists, as well as Giltner’s proximity to the rest of the department in Baker Hall.
Alexis Goots works in the new MSU Forensic Anthropology Lab in Giltner Hall.
The new lab space in Giltner Hall has proven to be an upgrade in many ways, with its centralized location being perhaps the greatest advantage. Instead of the disparate lab spaces of East Fee, the new Giltner lab boasts a connected dry lab, wet lab, radiography and photography space, grad student office, lab director office, and a large classroom. Overall, the new lab is an ideal place to conduct sensitive casework, safely and securely house skeletal material, conduct meaningful research, and train the next generation of forensic anthropologists!
MSU investigators Claire Margerison (Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics), Danielle Gartner (Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians) and Heather Howard-Bobiwash (Department of Anthropology) were recently awarded a grant under the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Public Policy Research to Advance Racial Equity and Racial Justice program for their proposal entitled “Assessing whether Indigenous women of reproductive age had equitable access to and use of health care under the Affordable Care Act.” As a group, Indigenous pregnant and birthing persons experience high rates of morbidity and mortality while they also often hold citizenship in sovereign Indigenous Nations with whom the United States has agreements of fiduciary responsibility. In partnership with an advisory board of Indigenous health services and policy experts, this project will combine qualitative and quantitative research analyzing national datasets and interviews with expert consultants to provide understanding of how to make federal health policy work equitably for Indigenous people in the US.
Department of Anthropology Assistant Professor Kurt Rademaker recently published an article in Quaternary International. The article is titled “Comprehensive mapping and compositional analysis of the Alca obsidian source, Peru.” The article discusses the extent and composition of the Alca obsidian source as well as behavioral information about the humans who interacted with this obsidian source over a 12,000 year span.
Abstract: “The Alca obsidian source in southern Peru is one of the largest and most geochemically complex sources of volcanic glass in South America. Hunter-gatherers first discovered and used Alca obsidian for stone tools at the end of the Pleistocene. Alca later became one of the three most economically important and widely distributed sources of obsidian in the Central Andean region. Systematic mapping and geochemical characterization efforts spanning 20+ years have revealed an extensive high-elevation source region composed of six geographically and compositionally distinct sub-sources. Here we synthesize research documenting the 2000 km2 spatial extent of the Alca obsidian source, and we present expanded geochemical datasets for six Alca sub-sources (n = 238 geologic samples) obtained using neutron activation analysis (NAA), laboratory x-ray fluorescence (XRF), and portable (p)XRF. Results for Alca and for six other major obsidian sources in the Peruvian Andes illustrate the efficacy of these techniques to discriminate all major Peruvian obsidian sources, including Alca sub-sources. Comprehensive compositional data from the Alca source area, examined against accumulating obsidian artifact datasets from throughout Peru, reveal past human use of various Alca sub-sources. These cases contribute fine-grained behavioral information, made possible by a complex obsidian source with geographically patterned geochemical variation and a >12,000-year sequence of human interaction with this geologic resource.”
Doctoral student Sarah Meinekat working with other graduate students at the Cuncaicha rock shelter archaeological site.
The intersection of archaeology and geology tells the story of human connection and interaction with the earth. What if we could go back in time to understand how people lived in the highest altitudes in the Americas across time? The archaeological and geological record has left behind clues for MSU Department of Anthropology Assistant Professor Kurt Rademaker and his team.
“People at the end of the last Ice Age managed to live in the high Andes, an extremely challenging environment where modern nighttime temperatures drop to -10 C (15 degrees F) and where there is only 60% of the oxygen pressure relative to sea level,” Rademaker said.
“This highlights how incredibly adaptive our species is. This archaeological site records evidence of wet and dry climate phases over the past 12,000 years, and it shows that people shifted their settlement strategies according to those changes. Archaeology can be a powerful tool to learn about the relationship between people and their environments.”
Most recently, Rademaker and his team have published a new paper in the journal Geoarchaeology called “A site formation model for Cuncaicha rock shelter: Depositional and post-depositional processes at the high-altitude keysite in the Peruvian Andes” Rademaker and co-author Christopher Miller advise Sarah Meinekat, who is a doctoral student at the University of Tübingen and the publication’s lead author. The paper presents a detailed sequence of site formation processes and environmental change recorded in the highest-elevation Pleistocene archaeological site in the Americas. At 4480 m (14,700 feet) above sea level, the Cuncaicha rockshelter is the highest-elevation Pleistocene (Ice Age) archaeological site in the Americas
“The site contains a well-preserved record of episodic human occupations over the past 12,300 years,” Rademaker said. “Our team applied cutting-edge techniques to study the natural and human processes that formed the site’s sediment sequence. These methods have been applied to very early few sites in South America, but doing so is important for making reliable interpretations about past human behavior.”
The team learned two key insights during this phase of their research.
“One, we gained insights on the intensity of occupation through time, which tells us how people were using the site,” he explained. “The sediments show that people generated large quantities of ash from campfires and dense accumulations of artifacts and plant and animal remains, consistent with using the site as a residential campsite. Two, the timing of site occupations and abandonments is not accidental. The high resolution of our radiocarbon dating and stratigraphy links the site occupations with wetter climate phases and abandonments with arid phases.”
Rademaker has enjoyed being an advisor and mentor to Meinekat, doctoral candidate at the University of Tübingen.
“Sarah has done outstanding work on one of South America’s most important early archaeological sites! She is currently conducting similar investigations on other early sites in the Andes and Pacific coast of South America.”
To read their publication, visit http://doi.org/10.1002/gea.21889.
The timing of humans’ first arrival in the Americas south of glacial ice remains a topic of heated debate in archaeological circles. In the summer of 2020, a team working in Mexico claimed discovery of evidence for human occupation of a remote highland cave beginning over 30,000 years ago. Because this announcement was made in the journal Nature, it was disseminated broadly and thus rapidly became accepted doctrine in the public mind before it had been vetted by the scientific community. Today in the journal Paleoamerica, which focuses on first Americans issues, a group of 20 researchers from the US and Mexico, including MSU Anthropology Assistant Professor Kurt Rademaker, challenge the Chiquihuite claim on the basis of their review of the evidence.
They found that the Chiquihuite authors failed to consider the alternative hypothesis that the objects were the result of natural processes. Chatters et al. examined both hypotheses (human vs. natural agency) and determined that the Chiquihuite assemblage is probably composed of limestone broken through natural processes, or “geofacts.” Relevant data included fracture mechanics, where the stone pieces more closely match geofact expectations and the geochemical analyses which failed to distinguish purported artifacts from naturally occurring rocks. Thus, Chiquihuite Cave does not represent very early human occupations in the Americas, and does not support human arrival before the Last Glacial Maximum.
The Department of Anthropology is pleased to announce that PhD student Aubree Marshall has been awarded the Jane C. Waldbaum Archaeological Field School Scholarship. This award, sponsored by the Archaeological Institute of America, was established in honor of AIA Honorary President Jane Waldbaum and is intended to help students who are planning to participate in archaeological field work for the first time.
Aubree will use the funds to attend the Marco Gonzalez Archaeological Field School in Belize with MSU Anthropology Associate Professor Dr. Gabriel Wrobel during the summer of 2022. Congratulations, Aubree!
