MA Anthropology Thesis Defense-FR

Event Details:

Title: A GIS Approach to Ancestral Wabanaki Canoe Routes and Travel Times by Chris Shaw.

Abstract:  A GIS-based approach to modeling Ancestral Wabanaki canoe routes and travel times during the Maritime Woodland period (3150-550 BP) of prehistory is developed in this thesis using least-cost analysis (LCA). These results are integrated into regional discussions of hunter-gatherer mobility, seasonal transhumance, and pre-contact territoriality, with an emphasis on how seasonal and annual variability in riverine paddling conditions may have impacted route selection and travel times between Maritime Woodland period archaeological sites. This thesis concludes that regional models of hunter-gatherer travel practices should account for the ways Indigenous peoples reacted dynamically to contingency in environmental conditions, as well as the ways riverine paddling conditions impacted the social landscape on short time scales.

Building: Annex C

Room Number: 31