Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series

Table of Contents   Abstract While violence in past societies has traditionally been inferred from weapons, fortifications, and texts, skeletal remains offer direct, long-term evidence of interpersonal conflict. This talk reviews how recent bioarchaeological studies have used skeletal trauma, especially cranial and weapon-related injuries, to examine interpersonal violence and peace over long time scales. Rather […]

Table of Contents Abstract We challenge the interpretivist/symbolic view that rain rituals are primarily social performances by analyzing 3,463 rain ritual episodes from late Qing and early Republican journals and periodicals (1870–1949). We find that rainmaking rituals were far more common in drought-stricken areas while rain-stopping rituals appear more frequently during flooding; regression further confirming […]