Browsing by Author "Dawson, Peter"

Now showing 1 - 14 of 14
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    Applying communication theory to public archaeology
    (2005) Kempenaar, Edward John; Dawson, Peter
    With easily accessible mass communication technologies and advanced presentation software, archaeology is increasingly relying on more complex communication processes to engage the public. With little academic recognition, however, communication studies in archaeology have largely been limited to commentary and speculation. In this thesis, variables that affect the mass communication process of a web-based archaeological message were tested to ascertain what areas of communication theory archaeologists should be examining (Arctic archaeology was used as an example). It was found that when grade six elementary school students accessed and wrote about what they had learned from a website pertaining to archaeology, multiple factors including content, medium, communication dynamics, and technology affected choice and information retention. This thesis demonstrates that for archaeologists to effectively deliver and maintain control over the perception of their discipline, they need to understand the processes by which they communicate.
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    Automated Floor Plan and Building Model Creation for Cultural Heritage Buildings from Laser Scanner Data
    (2021-06-21) Pexman, Katherine; Lichti, Derek D.; Dawson, Peter; O'Keefe, Kyle; Detchev, Ivan
    This research project developed and implemented an automated modelling system to create 2D floor plans and 3D building models of heritage sites. Without building plans, it is more difficult for an historic building to receive historic designation and restoration funding. Under current practice, the creation of such physical documentation is expensive and time-consuming. Physical documentation can include as-built architectural plans, elevations, profiles and photographs, whereas historic documentation includes important documents, artefacts, and historic photographs or archives. Important heritage sites whose building plans have been lost or destroyed or become inaccurate through renovations are often left abandoned or not kept up properly because they are unable to receive the necessary support. The current modelling process involves the utilization of CAD software and a trained modeller to digitally draw a 2D floor plan, or a more complex 3D building model, overlain upon the point cloud data collected by a laser scanner. As currently applied, point cloud modelling requires inefficient manual manipulation, editing and rendering of large datasets within a CAD environment to produce floor plans and building models. This research project used statistical methods such as principal components analysis (PCA) and M-estimator sample consensus (MSAC) to automatically detect building features from a point cloud captured through a 3D terrestrial laser scan (TLS) of the building site. Two novel methods were developed in this work to help in the automation of floor plan and building model creation. The first was a novel methodology for the automated separation of storeys within a multi-level, multi-storey building. The second was a novel methodology for the automated detection of doors and windows within a point cloud using a wall-defined search space. These new methods were implemented as components in an end-to-end modelling strategy for the creation of floor plans and building models, the final output of which is written in a CAD-accessible file format. The modelling strategy showed an overall accuracy of 92.75% for the tested datasets, demonstrating the ability of the developed program to accurately produce both 2D floor plans and 3D building models of multi-level building storeys with door and window features. The development of this automated process will allow a non-geomatics expert to create floor plans and/or building models of sites with significantly less manual effort and reduced cost. This will increase the ability of heritage sites to receive historic designation, allowing them to be better preserved over time.
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    Caribou inuit traders of the kivalliq
    (2008) Walls, Matthew D.; Dawson, Peter
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    Dorset paleoeskimo warm season adaptations in Newfoundland and Labrador
    (2010) Hartery, Latonia; Kooyman, Brian P.; Dawson, Peter
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    Fission-Fusion Dynamics in Spider Monkeys in Belize
    (2016) Hartwell, Kayla Song; Pavelka, Mary; Notman, Hugh; Fedigan, Linda; Sicotte, Pascale; Ruckstuhl, Kathreen; Chapman, Colin; Dawson, Peter
    Most diurnal primates live in cohesive social groups in which all or most members range in close proximity, but spider monkeys (Ateles) and chimpanzees (Pan) are known for their more fluid association patterns. These species have been traditionally described as living in fission-fusion societies, because they range in subgroups of frequently changing size and composition, in contrast with the more typical cohesive societies. In recent years the concept of fission-fusion dynamics has replaced the dichotomous fluid versus cohesive categorization, as it is now recognized that there is considerable variation in cohesiveness both within and between species. This thesis is a study of the fission-fusion dynamics in spider monkeys to quantify and explain temporal variation in subgroup size, spatial cohesion, and stability. I collected behavioural, ecological, and genetic data from a group of spider monkeys at Runaway Creek Nature Reserve in Belize from January 2008 until September 2013. I found that most subgroups were small (1-3 individuals), contained only adult females, and changed membership every 30-40 minutes. Habitat-wide fruit availability showed a weak relationship with subgroup size, contrary to what I expected, but it did explain some of the variation in subgroup stability. Likewise, degree of relatedness between individuals was not correlated with an association index that measured the likelihood that any two individuals would be in the same subgroup together. This thesis also describes the feeding ecology of the study group, and explores their genetic structure. The latter revealed some unexpected patterns: although traditionally believed to be a male philopatric, female dispersal species, male spider monkeys at Runaway Creek were no more closely related to one another than were females, and both males and females were residents and immigrants. As expected, given the common characterization of spider monkey males as experiencing low levels of within-group competition for females, paternity analysis revealed no reproductive skew, with all males siring offspring. Further analysis is needed to identify and understand the variables that are affecting the temporal changes in subgroup size, spatial cohesion, and stability of this group. However, this study makes an important contribution to this much larger question.
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    Functional Diversity and Abundances of the Lemur Community at Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar
    (2017) Houston, Brianna Elyse; Johnson, Steig Eric; Sicotte, Pascale; Dawson, Peter
    Lemurs in Madagascar have been facing losses to population and diversity across the country, potentially resulting in a loss of functional and ecosystem diversity. While species diversity has long been studied, functional diversity allows us to more closely examine how abundances and traits of species are distributed in the community. I use lemur surveys conducted in 2004 at eight sites within Ranomafana National Park (RNP) to test the effects of habitat characteristics and anthropogenic disturbance on lemur functional diversity. In addition, I examine whether functional redundancy is present in the lemur community of RNP - that is, do multiple species fill similar functional roles. Niche separation should affect the traits present in the lemur community such that I expected functional redundancy to be low in most locations. Disturbance, elevation, and vegetation characteristics were all important factors in explaining functional diversity metrics. I found that most communities have low functional redundancy across all measures. I also resampled the site Valohoaka in 2015 to examine lemur abundances over time. The results suggest abundances have remained generally stable, however, Microcebus rufus abundances appear to be rising. Used in conjunction with individual species studies, the information presented here can be useful in understanding what is shaping lemur community composition and the sensitivity of these communities to environmental change. It is important to continue monitoring for long-term population trends and responses to both natural and anthropogenic change.
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    GEOPHYS: Design and Fabrication of Geospatial Physicalizations
    (2021-07-14) Djavaherpour, Hessam; Samavati, Faramarz F.; Levy, Richard M.; Oehlberg, Lora; Dawson, Peter
    Geospatial datasets are complex, difficult to understand, and hard to visualize. Although web maps have provided visualization of geospatial datasets using computer-generated 2D maps, such visualizations significantly deal with misinterpretations of areas and distances due to the mapping distortions. Digital Earth (DE) is an alternative solution for overcoming 2D map distortions and integrating various geospatial datasets. However, virtual 3D models of the Earth still suffer from common issues caused by projecting 3D scenes to 2D screens, such as losing one spatial dimension and inaccessibility for direct manual interaction. By providing tactile exploration and physical interaction, physical models facilitate cognition and understanding of data. This thesis argues that using 3D physical models supporting visualizations of geospatial datasets at different scales and resolutions can address challenges related to understanding and analyzing such datasets. To shed light on this hypothesis, we introduce a framework, GEOPHYS, to make tangible multi-resolution/multi-scale representations of geospatial data. Furthermore, GEOPHYS introduces a comprehensive, accurate, and repeatable physical rendering method for various applications and visualization scenarios, using accessible digital fabrication tools. A pipeline forms the core methodology of this thesis, which consists of data transformation, digital design, digital fabrication, evaluation, and the introduction of the final framework. In this thesis, the design and fabrication stages work hand-in-hand to transform the conceptual form into a visual representation, investigate the model for its manufacturability, and bring it into the physical world. Evaluations in the context of this thesis are technology-centred and human-centred. This thesis contributes to geovisualization and physicalization by introducing a method to visualize multi-resolution geospatial datasets in Large Areas, a physical rendering approach for creating landscape models, and a tactile representation of the RADAR imagery to facilitate the sea-ice travel for Inuit. We also provide an in-depth review of various methods by which physicalizations can be physically rendered. The results of our studies prove that models made using GEOPHYS are beneficial learning tools capable of creating interest and engagement to explore geospatial concepts.
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    It's Good to be King: The Archaeology of Power and Authority
    (The University of Calgary, 2011) Morton, Shawn; Butler, Don; Reese-Taylor, Kathryn; Dawson, Peter; Simpson, Steven
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    Listening to Community: Towards Best Research Practices in Pond Inlet, Nunavut
    (2024-01-17) Spiers, Kent Gordon; Peric, Sabrina; Draper, Dianne; Dawson, Peter; Oetelaar, Gerald; Hird, Myra
    What are the specific conditions and circumstances that can either prevent or facilitate an ethical, meaningful, productive, and respectful collaboration between Settler researchers and Indigenous People engaged in community or regional monitoring programs? How can I bring Settler research and Indigenous knowledge systems together to facilitate more equitable and proactive environmental monitoring programs? My research examines the connections between community-based environmental monitoring, research ethics, and the role of social science in climate change adaptation programs. In this dissertation, I examine the context, community concerns and recommendations for research that emerged during my fieldwork, interviews, and workshops conducted in Pond Inlet and Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, and Calgary, Alberta. It is widely recognized that over the last few decades, the planet has been undergoing rapid climate change, particularly in the Arctic. Climate change has led to a discussion about the role of Settler research and Indigenous knowledge in understanding and addressing environmental changes and community and regional priorities. In the North of Canada and other Arctic regions, the role of Settler researchers facilitating ecological monitoring, environmental changes, and local and regional policy changes has been largely overlooked. As more Indigenous organizations and communities continue to advocate and demonstrate the validity of their knowledge systems, levels of government and research institutions seek to facilitate and embrace the co-integration Indigenous Knowledge (IK) and Settler research. At an individual level, the co-integration of IK with Settler research will build skills and promote community resilience brought on by climate change. At a societal level, the benefits and potential of integrating IK with Settler research are a resource that needs to be investigated. It can add new and essential aspects to climate change adaptation strategies. However, it can also be problematic and reproduce already existing colonial dynamics. In this dissertation, I provide an overview and discussion of the potential role for Settler researchers in climate change research related to adaptation measures for Indigenous communities across the North of Canada and case study results. The outcomes of my research indicate that: 1) there needs to be a significant increase in the number of climate change adaptation projects that incorporate Inuit Knowledge (IK); 2) social science could play a role in the success and sustainability of climate change program development and deployment, and 3) the measurable and tangible ways communities may evaluate the success of adaptation programs. My research also outlines the concerns related to Settler researcher behaviors and practices that a group of Inuit from Pond Inlet and Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, experienced while working on university-based research projects and reports a series of recommendations they provided. My study also presents the concerns and recommendations of Inuit community members about the need to decolonize university ethics boards and research. The objectives of the workshop were to 1) get a sense of Settler research behavior community members saw as unethical, 2) synthesize the recommendations made by various Indigenous organizations related to ethical engagement and a decolonized research approach, and 3) develop a framework for an ethics workshop aimed at decolonizing university research ethics processes, which Indigenous peoples lead, and research in general. The findings indicate the great need for: (1) the inclusion of Indigenous epistemologies into university ethics training and certification processes equal to Settler science; 2) improved understandings of how academic disciplines should consult and work with Indigenous communities; 3) protocols and procedures for Settler research to be integrated with Indigenous Knowledge to be established. Each university, Settler researcher, and Indigenous community has specific circumstances, limitations, obstacles, research priorities, and capacities that need to be understood. The conclusions of my study are: 1) there is a need for Settler researchers to be aware of and recognize different epistemological orientations; 2) universities and researchers must make a concerted effort to spend more time supporting Indigenous-led research, and co-designing and implementing research projects collegially with Indigenous communities; 3) the relevance of Settler research projects needs to be clearly articulated with community members, and the research results need to be presented to the community in a variety of ways, such as through social media, town halls, plain language reports, etc.; 4) Settler researchers can make efforts to document community-level concerns in order for the community to be able to collaboration with Settler researchers on specific concerns.
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    Perceiving Arctic Landscapes Through the Sentiment Analysis of Inuit Place Names
    (2018-01-03) Hughes, Colleen; Dawson, Peter; Oetelaar, Gerald; Levy, Richard
    Landscape archaeologists have debated for decades over the use of phenomenology as an archaeological method. The analysis of place names has formed an important part of landscape approaches. Sentiment analysis is a natural language processing computer software that evaluates digital texts for negative, neutral, and positive opinions and emotions. This software was chosen to inform a determination of how and if a phenomenological method could be achieved within landscape archaeology through the sentiment analysis of place names. Sentiment analysis was used to analyse over 600 Inuit place name descriptions from the Kivalliq Region in Nunavut. I explore how analyzing place names using sentiment analysis can be used as a way to understand the phenomenology of surrounding landscapes. The results of the analysis indicate that some place names reflect areas on the landscape which illicit strong positive and negative opinions and feelings. The polarity of these opinions is often associated with events that can be associated with hardship and tragedy, as well as success, wellness, and happiness. While archaeologists have used place names to place archaeological sites into a context and as a site prediction method, sentiment analysis shows little or no correlation between positive or negative opinions about the occupation of archaeological sites. This has significant implications for the use of toponymic archaeological interpretation.
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    Quliaq tohongniaq tuunga (making histories): towards a critical inuvialuit archaeology in the Canadian western arctic
    (2007) Lyons, Natasha; Dawson, Peter
    The Inuvialuit of the Western Canadian Arctic have been both underrepresented and misrepresented in the annals of written history. The present study has sought to redress this gap both theoretically and methodologically through the process of undertaking a community-based archaeology project with the Inuvialuit. This study was formulated within a critical perspective, with a view to developing a localized critical theory suited to Inuvialuit worldviews and social needs. Methodologically, the project aimed to enfranchise Inuvialuit into the process of (re)telling their histories through the identification and (re)interpretation of Inuvialuit material culture. Inuvialuit Elders superseded this task by situating their traditional objects in a rich tapestry of personal stories, experiences, and remembrances. They demonstrated how Inuvialuit approaches to the past are fundamentally different from western perspectives of linear history. The study explores the convergences and divergences between how the Inuvialuit past is portrayed by insiders and outsiders, and also suggests how such representations are constructed within present cu ltural and sociopolitical circumstances . Inuvialuit Elders and community leaders asserted that their identities are constituted by their knowledge of a shared history and by their relationship to the land, and that these representations of the past are critical to understanding their present and to negotiating their future. The relationship developed over the course of this project between the Inuvialuit and archaeological communities has made strides towards both a critical Inuvialuit archaeology and towards the decolonizing of archaeological theory and practice in the Canadian north.
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    Re-imagining Shipboard Societies: A Spatial Approach to Analyzing Ships of the British Royal Navy during the 18th and 19th Centuries
    (2015-12-15) Moloney, Michael Joseph; Callaghan, Richard; Oetelaar, Gerald; Dawson, Peter; Levy, Richard; Kennedy, Margaret
    Investigation into underwater archaeology began, inevitably, with the investigation of shipwrecks. For decades whole divisions of our discipline have focused on studying the intricate characteristics and mechanisms involved in the propulsion, construction, and manipulation of ships themselves (e.g. nautical archaeology). However, as Mortimer Wheeler noted, “the archaeologist is digging up, not things, but people” (Wheeler 1954: 13), so how do we extract information about those crewing these ships from shipwrecks? In this study I examine the spatial organization of ships in an effort to reconstruct the social dynamics of shipboard society. Shipwrecks are often the result of site formation processes that ‘spill’ the artifacts that are integral to our ability to describe shipboard life. In order to adequately examine the nuances of shipboard culture we must combine an understanding of the material culture associated with shipwrecks with an exploration of the structures of the ships themselves. The quantitative and qualitative investigation of socio-spatial organization has been engaged for several decades within the fields of architecture and urban planning. In particular, the theories and methods of space syntax analysis have been utilized to successfully examine the relationships between spatial organization and social interaction within an urban context. Moreover, these techniques have been proven effective for the investigation of archaeological material as well. In this study I utilize these existing tools and apply them to the study of ships and shipboard culture. Through a spatial understanding of ship structures I will suggest connections between spatial organization and social relationships aboard ships, and the culture of shipboard societies as a whole.
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    The Use of Three-Dimensional Documentation Technologies in Archaeological Applications
    (2017) Jahraus, Adam; Lichti, Derek; Dawson, Peter; Levy, Richard; Shahbazi, Mozhdeh
    In archaeology, it is useful to document the shape of features of interest. There are many three-dimensional measurement technologies available that can help accomplish this task. An error model for a handheld 3D scanner called the DPI-7 was created. This error model reduced the errors in the in-plane directions by up to 59%. The levels of precision in two technologies, terrestrial laser scanning and computer vision assisted photogrammetry, were determined through the simulation of observations in a virtual environment. It was found that terrestrial laser scanning point observations had a standard deviation (in the direction of least precision) of 6mm, while photogrammetry could achieve a value of 10mm. The point cloud data from the scans of an excavation in the Canadian arctic were used to create a detailed and coloured visual model of the site, and was subsequently used in a virtual reality visualization of the site in question.
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    Tracking the Chemical Footprints of Taltheilei Settlement Strategies: Multi–Element and Molecular Analyses of Soils from the Ikirahak Site in Southern Nunavut
    (2015-10-02) Butler, Donald; Dawson, Peter
    This dissertation presents the results of chemical and physical soil surveys undertaken at a 2,000 year old Taltheilei hunter–gatherer site off the west coast of Hudson Bay in southern Nunavut. My goal is to develop archeological soil chemistry research in Canada. Research focuses on refining methods for determining whether northern soils can accept and preserve anthropogenic chemical residues, and for distinguishing natural from human chemical patterns. Linking the concepts of soilscapes and site structures, I also discuss how anthropogenic chemical archives are formed, and I highlight what these records tell us about hunter–gatherer site functions, residential mobility, and site seasonality. Archaeological site structure and soilscape analyses are used to define said variables at the Ikirahak study site. Results contribute to building understandings of the preservation of anthropogenic chemical records and to clarifying previously unrecognized Taltheilei lifeways, in turn better resolving diversities in their cultural identity. Over 100 soil and reference samples were analyzed. Methods included multi–element analyses using x–ray fluorescence and inductively coupled plasma – mass spectroscopy, mineral and bimolecular analyses using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, along with assessments of a suite of physical and chemical soil parameters such as porosity and cation exchange capacity. Statistical and spatial patterning were assessed using enrichment factor analysis, analysis of variance, principal components analysis, inverse distance weighted interpolation, and trend surface analysis. MgO, CaO, Cu, P2O5, Ba, K2O, MnO, and Fe2O3 were useful indicators of human influences on the Ikirahak soils. Calcite, carbonate hydroxylapatite, montgomeryite, and trans fats derived from human activities were preserved in the site soils. Crystallinity indices and carbonate/phosphate ratios for tested bone samples indicated high intensity burning. Soilscape analyses at Ikirahak provides unique insight into how Taltheilei people used settlement space. Evidence supports the argument that Ikirahak was occupied by groups of people from late summer to mid/late fall for the purpose of amassing surpluses of caribou products. The chemical footprints of this settlement strategy exemplify a key difference in Taltheilei and Chipewyan identities. Unlike their Chipewyan descendants, some Taltheilei groups made more extensive use of tundra environments for longer periods of time during colder seasons.