Showing papers by "University of Bridgeport published in 1977"

The Native Population of the Americas in 1492

Abstract: Research by some scholars provides population estimates of the pre-contact Americas as high as 112 million in 1492, while others estimate the population to have been as low as eight million. In any case, the native population declined to less than five million by 1650. In this collection of essays, historians, anthropologists and historical demographers discuss the discrepancies in the population estimates and the evidence for the post-European decline. Woodrow Borah, Angel Rosenblat and William T. Sanders, among others, examine such topics as the Indian slave trade, disease, military action and the disruption of the social systems of the native peoples. Offering varying points of view, the contributions critically analyse major hemispheric and regional data and estimates for pre- and post-European contact.

Triassic-jurassic tetrapod extinctions: are they real?

Abstract: Terrestrial vertebrate fossils show that part of the Newark supergroup of the eastern United States, all of the Glen Canyon group of the southwestern United States, and the Upper Stormberg group of southern Africa are Early Jurassic. This new correlation demonstrates that the supposed widespread tetrapod extinction at the Triassic-Jurassic boundary is an artifact of spurious correlation.

The ornithopod dinosaur Dryosaurus and a Laurasia-Gondwanaland connection in the Upper Jurassic

Abstract: COMPARISONS of Upper Jurassic ornithopod dinosaurs show that Dysalotosaurus lettow-vorbecki (Tendaguru Beds, Tanzania, East Africa) is referable to the genus Dryosaurus (Morrison Formation, western North America). This extended distribution of Dryosaurus provides additional evidence for a land connection between Laurasia and Gondwanaland sometime in the Upper Jurassic.

OnStaurikosaums pricei, an early saurischian dinosaur from the Triassic of Brazil, with notes on the Herrerasauridae and Poposauridae

Abstract: The anatomy of the saurischian dinosaurStaurikosaums pricei Colbert from the Santa Maria Formation (Middle or Upper Triassic) of Rio do Sul, Brazil is redescribed.Staurikosaurus has 9 (or possibly 10) short cervicals, 15 dorsals and 2 sacral vertebrae, a modified brachyiliac pelvic girdle and an elongate hindlimb with the tibia longer than the femur.

Imaginative play training and perceptual-motor interventions with emotionally-disturbed hospitalized children.

Abstract: This study evaluates fantasy play training and perceptual-motor intervention methods which temporarily increased the imaginative behavior of severely emotionally-disturbed, hospitalized children. Increases in imaginative behavior were accompanied by positive changes in body image and by affective and social gains. Implications for further development and implementation of these methods are discussed.

‘Modern’ lizard from the Upper Triassic of China

Abstract: LIZARDS are the most numerous, varied and widespread of living reptiles. An essentially modern lizard fauna has existed throughout the Tertiary and members of many modern lizard families are known from the late Cretaceous. Earlier in the Mesozoic, very few fossils of lizards are known. Lizards from the Upper Jurassic may be related to the ancestors of modern groups, but are placed in distinct families. Lizards previously described from the Upper Triassic of Europe1 and North America2 are considerably more primitive, retaining many cranial features in common with their ancestors from the Upper Permian and Lower Triassic3. We give here the first description of an Upper Triassic lizard with an essentially modern cranial morphology. This specimen is interesting with respect to the origin, differentiation and zoogeography of the modern lizard groups.

Sexual permissiveness, sex-role rigidity, and violence across cultures

Abstract: The possible relationships between sexual permissiveness, sex-role rigidity, and violence at the societal level are examined. Two judges independently rank ordered the levels of sexual permissiveness of a random sample of 17 cultures chosen from the Human Relations Area Files. A second set of two judges rank ordered the rigidity of these cultures' sex roles, and a third set of judges rank ordered the cultures on their levels of intra- and extra-communal violence. An attempt to rank order the degree of achieved masculinity content of the cultures' sex stereotypes failed because judges could not rank them reliably. Sexual permissiveness was uncorrelated with either sex-role rigidity or violence, but sex-role rigidity was highly correlated with violence. The results are interpreted as being incompatible with theories of sex and violence that stress a single physiological or instinctual factor. The results supported two-factor theories which gave more emphasis to social learning principles than to physiological determinants.

Estimaciones sobre la población del Perú en el momento de la conquista

Abstract: En un articulo publicado en 1965, sostenia que la poblacion del Peru antes de la conquista podia calcularse mejor despues de un cuidadoso estudio de los sitios arqueologicos valle por valle y de un analisis de la maxima capacidad productiva de los sistemas ecologicos.