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Seahorsedad: A Study of Metaphors in Transmasculine Birther’s Instagram Posts
Get PDFDominant notions of pregnancy frame gestation as a solely female process. However, the experiences of transmasculine birthers challenge this assumption, demonstrating that pregnancy is not inherently tied to womanhood but is instead shaped by social and cultural narratives and representations. This paper explores the unique pregnancy and parental exercises of transmasculine birthers by examining public social media posts under the hashtag #seahorsedad on Instagram. Utilizing metaphorical criticism, I aim to uncover how transmasculine birthers, known within the community as “seahorse dads,” both uphold and resist traditional notions of gender, pregnancy, and parenting through a combination of textual and visual metaphor. As metaphors add to our understanding of complex phenomena, such as transmasculine pregnancy, a look into the metaphors that seahorse dads use to conceptualize their pregnancy experiences aids in understanding how they construct meaning, assert their identities, and navigate dominant understandings of pregnancy
PATHWAYS AND PLACES: MOBILITY AND LITHIC USE AT 48YE238 IN THE LATE ARCHAIC AND LATE PREHISTORIC YELLOWSTONE
Get PDFThrough the lens of Central Place Foraging Theory, an analysis of lithic remains from 48YE238, a medium to high-density archaeological site in the Hayden Valley of Yellowstone National Park, has provided insight into both material value and decision-making among Late Archaic and Late Prehistoric hunter-gatherers of the Hayden Valley. First, an examination of lithic materials and the stages of bifacial reduction, in relation to sourced lithic materials, offers insight into changing ideas of material value between these two periods. This is especially evident when considering the cultural and societal changes that influenced regional residence during the Late Prehistoric period, compared to the Late Archaic, as reflected in the intensification of communal hunting practices, advancements in technology, and increased sedentism. Furthermore, analysis of the “Least Cost Path” between material source sites and 48YE238 provides understanding of how terrain and distance influenced hunter-gatherer choices regarding where to obtain lithic materials. Overall, this study contributes to the academic knowledge of mobility and lifeways of regional inhabitants of the Hayden Valley and Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem over the last 3,000 years and serves as a starting point for future research on these topics
Organization of Lithic Technology at 48YE240 Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming: Bifaces as Indicators of Environmental Predictability
Get PDF48YE240 within the Hayden Valley of Yellowstone National Park is a pre-contact hunter-gatherer site recorded on two separate terraces along the Yellowstone River. This site and the two terraces are divided by the Grand Loop Road. The higher terrace is west of the road, while the lower terrace is east of the road, adjacent to the Yellowstone River. The lower terrace was excavated in 1999 and included a hearth feature dating to the Middle Archaic. The higher terrace was excavated in 2020 and contained intact cultural deposits. This thesis presents a lithic analysis of the assemblage recovered from the higher terrace at 48YE240, focusing on identifying the technological organization at the site. It addresses the relationship between the two terraces while testing two hypotheses regarding the composition of hunter-gatherer toolkits. The hypotheses proposed in this thesis examine hunter-gatherer preferences for incorporating bifacial technologies into their toolkits and how their adaptations to the Hayden Valley have influenced these decisions. The results of this analysis indicate that the higher terrace occupation dates to the Early Archaic. This makes 48YE240 one of the few Early Archaic sites located in the Hayden Valley. The analysis supported the second hypothesis, which suggested the incorporation of task-specific curated bifaces in the toolkit, while also concluding that the inhabitants of the site maintained tethered mobility. This thesis concludes that by incorporating task-specific curated tools into their toolkits, the hunter-gatherers had an intimate understanding of their environment. This understanding of their environment could be the result of their tethered mobility pattern along the Yellowstone River. Ultimately, hunter-gatherers’ toolkits can provide implications on how they have adapted to their environment and the predictability of that environment
