Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology Volume 10

Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology Volume 10 Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology Volume 10 Number 1 May 2019 Published by the Anthropology Student Union (ASU) at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, USA Editor-in-Chief Shaheen M. Christie Editorial Board Dr. William Balco Editorial Committee Robert Ahlrichs Alexander Anthony Ashley Brennaman Becky Buchanan B. Charles Matt Dalstrom Andrew Dicks Josh Driscoll Ann Eberwein Rick Edwards Lara Ghisleni Elissa Hulit Sarah Jones Catherine Jones Alexis Jordan Sammy Kailas Allison Kotowicz Laya Liebeseller Tori Pagel Cheri Price Abigael Rice Jessica Skinner Lindsey Jo Helms Thorson Demi Vrettas Faculty Advisors Dr. W. Warner Wood Dr. Benjamin Campbell Cover Design Alexis M. Jordan Artist Credit: Desmond Kinney (1974) Queen Maeve, Setanta Wall 15 Nassau St., Dublin, Ireland Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Department of Anthropology 3413 N Downer Ave 390 Sabin Hall Milwaukee WI 53211 USA 414.229.4175 fldnotes@uwm.edu http://studentorgs.uwm.edu/org/asu/FieldNotes Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology May 2019 Volume 10 (1) Table of Contents About the Contributors 6 Articles Geospatial Considerations Involving Historic General Land Office Maps and Late Prehistoric Bison bison Remains Near La Crosse, Wisconsin Andrew M. Saleh, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee 10 Frequency of Costovertebral and Costotransverse Osteoarthritis in the Schroeder Mounds Site Brian A. Keeling, Illinois State University 45 Doomed to Die?: An Examination of Demographics 76 and Comorbidity During the 1918 Influenza Pandemic in Milwaukee, Wisconsin Ashley L. Brennaman, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee A World Without Artists?: In Search of Medieval Welsh Stone-Carvers Emily R. Stanton, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee 105 Perpetuating the Architecture of Separation: An Analysis of the Presentation of History and the Past at the Riversdale House Museum in Riverdale Park, Maryland Ann S. Eberwein, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee 129 Envisioning a Safer Sex Culture: The Anthropology of Choice and Friendship in Treating the Whole Disease Clara Liang, Carleton College 155 Book Reviews Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology May 2019 Volume 10 (1) Table of Contents (Cont’d.) Jennifer Malkowski and TreaAndrea M. Russworm (eds.) - Gaming Representation: Race, Gender & Sexuality in Video Games, 2017 Joshua W. Rivers, University of WisconsinMilwaukee 178 Salvador Ryan (ed.) - Death and the Irish: a miscellany, 2016 Alexander W. Anthony, University of WisconsinMilwaukee 183 Contributors 5 Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology May 2019 Volume 10 (1) About the Contributors Andrew M. Saleh has conducted archaeological field work in the Midwest and Wyoming over the past five years. He is currently completing his MS in Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a GIS certificate. His particular research interests include Great Lakes zooarchaeology and archaeology implementing GIS. Brian A. Keeling received his BS in Anthropology from Illinois State University. His research interests are in Paleoanthropology, Bioarchaeology, and Dental Anthropology. He is currently a first year MA/PhD student in Anthropology at Binghamton University. His Master’s thesis research aims to study hominin mandibles in Europe using a 3D geometric morphometric approach. Ashley L. Brennaman received her bachelor’s degree in anthropology from the University of Georgia and her master’s degree in forensic anthropology from Boston University. She is currently pursuing her doctorate in anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her research interests include bioarchaeology, forensic anthropology, mortuary archaeology, historic cemeteries, paleopathology, health and demography, age-at-death estimation, human oral microbiome and geographic information systems. She is currently beginning research for her dissertation on the analysis of bacterial DNA from the dental calculus of individuals interred at the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery. Emily R. Stanton is a 3rd year PhD student in Anthropology and Museum Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She completed her Master's degree at Cornell University in 2017 with a thesis on early medieval pilgrimage in northern Wales. Currently, her doctoral research encompasses mortuary archaeology, gender archaeology, and Iron Age Europe. Ann S. Eberwein is pursuing a master’s degree in anthropology at Contributors 6 the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she also completed her coursework in the museum studies graduate certificate program. She received a BA in anthropology from the University of Maryland in 2008. She has interned with the Smithsonian Museum Support Center in Washington, D.C. and the Logan Museum at Beloit College and has also worked as a CRM field technician. Her thesis research focuses on a collection of carbonized food from a Late Neolithic-Bronze Age site called Robenhausen, located in Switzerland, which is part of the Milwaukee Public Museum’s permanent collection. Clara Liang is a junior American Studies major with a concentration in Race, Ethnicity, and Indigeneity at Carleton College. Her interests include editorial work, religion, and the intersection of health and environment. She is thinking about pursuing a journalism degree or going to medical school. Joshua W. Rivers is a Ph.D. student in Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who studies intersections of ethics, institutions and video games with a particular focus on massively-multiplayer online game developers. Growing up queer in the Deep South, Josh was drawn to anthropology because of its celebration of diversity and exploration. His work seeks to synthesize anthropological theory and methodologies with empirical investigations of ethics and institutions in order to better address the questions our societies face given our increasingly digital realities. Alongside his work in digital anthropology, Josh is an active queer anthropologist and is committed to utilizing queer theory throughout his work so as to better develop nuanced and nonbinary understandings of ethics, institutions and community. You can reach him at jwrivers@uwm.edu or via Twitter @Josh_Rivers. Alexander W. Anthony is pursuing an MS in anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a focus in archaeology. His research interests include mortuary archaeology, the archaeology of institutional confinement, and the Irish Diaspora. His thesis research is an analysis of material medical waste in recovered from burials at the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery in order to determine which medical institution the waste and thus the body originated. Death and the Irish: a miscellany Salvador Ryan (ed). Dublin: Wordwell Ltd, 2016. 289 pp. ISBN: 978-0-993-35182-2. Price $29.50. Alexander W. Anthony University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA In Death and the Irish: a miscellany Salvador Ryan (ed.) has compiled an entertaining assortment of multi-disciplinary works into one volume. Squeezing 75 chapters into the book’s 282 pages, the volume manages to touch upon an enormous range of topics. Contributors include scholars from a variety of fields including history, anthropology, archaeology, linguistics, folklore, musicology, theology, and Celtic studies to name only a few. Refreshingly, the contributions have not been limited to academics. While the majority of the volume is centered around scholarly work, selected chapters include lived experiences from individuals who interact with death regularly; including contributions from an undertaker, a priest, and a palliative care worker. Ranging between three to five pages in the length, the chapters are kept necessarily short to accommodate their number. The brevity of each chapter acts as a double-edged sword, often leaving the reader’s appetite unsatiated at the end of a particularly interesting chapter. This, however, may also be one of the greatest strengths of the volume as well. The multi-disciplinary nature of the collection allows each chapter to serve as an appetizer (to continue the metaphor) which teases at both the breadth and depth of research being done within so many fields regarding the Irish and death. Thankfully, many chapters end with either a bibliography or a short list of suggested readings; a welcome addition for readers looking to sink their teeth into meatier material. With so many chapters it would be impossible to mention them all. However, particular chapters stand out as rich in ethnographic detail. In this respect, “Graveyard Folklore” by Clodagh Tait serves as an exemplar. A heavy two and half pages bursting with Irish folklore surrounding cemeteries and the dead. Early in the chapter the reader’s attention is grasped by tales of “...skulls with nails in them being used to cure headaches, and human finger bones being rubbed on the gums of those with toothache” (Ryan 2016, 183). The ritualistic analogical action Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology 10 (1): 183-185 (May 2019) Copyright © 2019 by Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology 183 Death and the Irish: a miscellany (Tambiah 1985) described above are followed by other folk beliefs as anthropologically useful as they are entertaining to absorb. Perhaps knowing that less than three pages will only leave the reader only wanting for more, Tait ends by offering four additional readings for those interested. Chapter after chapter reveals glimpses into Irish beliefs, customs, and rituals surrounding death. This often takes the form of historical narrative. In “The suicides of Thomas Judkin Fitzgerald (1864) and Lord Waterford (1895)”, Georgina Laragy examines public reaction to the suicides of two Irish landlords. Laragy concludes in nineteenth century Ireland, that for individuals trying to make sense of suicide “[m]eaning was sought not only within the details of an individual’s life but also from the actions of generations long dead” (Ryan 2016, 140). Shane McCorristine also utilizes historic narrative in “Captain William Coppin, the ghost and the lost Arctic” explorer as he details the use of spiritualism in the search for the lost Franklin expedition by the widow Jane Franklin. As stated earlier, several chapters relate lived experiences rather than scholarly study. These chapters are no less useful for their anecdotal nature, however. For instance, in his introduction “Death and the Irish: Reflections from a Moneygall childhood”, Salvatore Ryan relates stories of his own remembrances of funerals as a child. A charming narrative which serves to not only set the tone for the remainder of the volume but, in it we find ritual and customs surrounding death in modern Irish History. We are reminded that the subject of this book is not the dead, rather it is the people they leave behind, and their use of ritual, custom, and tradition in confronting death. In “‘Don’t have a row over a coffin’: an undertaker’s perspective” Gus Nichols shares some of his experiences working as an undertaker in Dublin. Nichols stories illustrate the familial tensions that can arise around death and funerals in Ireland and elsewhere. The volume contains tales of wakes, Catholicism, and traditional folklore (including an informative read entitled “The banshee” by Patricia Lysaght), but it is noteworthy that Ryan has been careful to avoid essentializing the Irish through the thoughtful inclusion of certain chapters. Modern and historical Ireland is populated by peoples of many backgrounds and this is reflected in this collection of readings. Chapters such as “The Muslim funeral prayer (Salat al-Janazah”) by Shaykh Umar Al-Qadri, “Irish Pres- Anthony 184 byterians and death” by Laurence S. Kirkpatrick, “Funeral rites in the Travelling community” by Nell and Michael McDonagh, and “A holy brotherhood? Death and the Irish Jews (1839-1914)” by Natalie Wynn remind the reader of the diversity of the Irish experience. Death and the Irish: a miscellany leans heavily upon the field of history. Very few chapters are dedicated to modern interactions with death and dying. The final chapter Keeping the dead alive: death and the use of social media in contemporary Ireland by Kevin Myers stands out in this regard. A welcome addition would have been more contributions along similar lines. Noticeably absent are discussions of media including movies, television, and the internet (aside from the previously mentioned). This is a minor shortcoming, however, in a volume which offers such a variety within its pages. The short chapters and beautiful color illustrations make this volume an attractive read to the general public. The brevity of the chapters limits the potential that the key to an allusive research question is hidden within this collection. Although each chapter delves only briefly into their respective thesis; the breadth of material contained within Death and the Irish serves as an extraordinary primer for any researcher interested in exploring new research perspectives. Teeming with folklore, ritual, custom, and ghost stories; Death and the Irish: a miscellany is as entertaining as it is informative. By any measure, it is a worthy read for any student of death or the Irish. References Tambiah, Stanley Jeyaraja, ed. 1985. Form and Meaning of Mag cal Acts. In Culture, Thought, and Social Action. Boston: Harvard University Press.