title: The potential for an independent source of Younger Dryas tree-ring radiocarbon data from the Lake Ontario region, North America, and its palaeoenvironmental context

authors: Griggs, Carol

abstract: Tree rings are the gold standard for the calibration of radiocarbon dates into calendar years with limited error due to their annual record of radiocarbon content in the atmosphere. Currently, the tree-ring 14C data used in the International Radiocarbon Calibration curve (IntCal13) are from multiple sources back to ~ 10 ka cal BP for the northern hemisphere. However, the source for tree-ring calibration data prior to ~10 ka cal BP, including the Younger Dryas (YD) and most of the Early Holocene (EH) chronozones, is limited to central Europe. Substantial quantities of logs found in the lowlands of Lake Ontario in North America, dating from 12.1 to 11.2 ka cal BP, have great potential for providing unique YD-EH tree-ring 14C data from a new, previously unrepresented, geographic location and for adding a new perspective to ongoing debates such as the timing of the YD/EH transition in continental North America. Preliminary fieldwork yielded over 43 logs, predominantly spruce (Picea spp.), found buried in alluvial strata over 0.2 hectares of the floodplain at Bell Creek near Fulton, NY. Dendrochronological analysis of 32 spruce logs from this collection has produced several chronologies, one 183 years in length and a second of 147 years with a possible crossdate yielding a chronology of 260 years. Ongoing survey of the site suggests that there is high preservation potential in the same stratigraphic units in an additional ~2 hectares of floodplain, and sample collection with subsequent analysis will increase the chronology’s sample depth, extend its length, and potentially provide a robust, independent Younger Dryas – Early Holocene 14C record. Initial assessments of climatic, hydrological, environmental, and isostatic variations and events over time from the tree rings and their stable isotopes, as well as pollen, macrofossil, and sediment analyses and isostatic modeling indicate substantial changes in the Bell Creek Valley and surrounding lowlands both during the YD and into the mid-Holocene. These changes include significant alterations in the rate, volume, and direction of stream flow, and transition from a boreal riparian environment on a low-order river to a wetlands, then back to a riparian environment with much less streamflow and occasional flooding, similar to the Bell Creek Valley today.

text: The potential for an independent source of Younger Dryas tree-ring radiocarbon data from the Lake Ontario region, North America, and its palaeoenvironmental context Tree rings are the gold standard for the calibration of radiocarbon dates into calendar years with limited error due to their annual record of radiocarbon content in the atmosphere. Currently, the tree-ring 14C data used in the International Radiocarbon Calibration curve (IntCal13) are from multiple sources back to ~ 10 ka cal BP for the northern hemisphere. However, the source for tree-ring calibration data prior to ~10 ka cal BP, including the Younger Dryas (YD) and most of the Early Holocene (EH) chronozones, is limited to central Europe. Substantial quantities of logs found in the lowlands of Lake Ontario in North America, dating from 12.1 to 11.2 ka cal BP, have great potential for providing unique YD-EH tree-ring 14C data from a new, previously unrepresented, geographic location and for adding a new perspective to ongoing debates such as the timing of the YD/EH transition in continental North America. Preliminary fieldwork yielded over 43 logs, predominantly spruce (Picea spp.), found buried in alluvial strata over 0.2 hectares of the floodplain at Bell Creek near Fulton, NY. Dendrochronological analysis of 32 spruce logs from this collection has produced several chronologies, one 183 years in length and a second of 147 years with a possible crossdate yielding a chronology of 260 years. Ongoing survey of the site suggests that there is high preservation potential in the same stratigraphic units in an additional ~2 hectares of floodplain, and sample collection with subsequent analysis will increase the chronology’s sample depth, extend its length, and potentially provide a robust, independent Younger Dryas – Early Holocene 14C record. Initial assessments of climatic, hydrological, environmental, and isostatic variations and events over time from the tree rings and their stable isotopes, as well as pollen, macrofossil, and sediment analyses and isostatic modeling indicate substantial changes in the Bell Creek Valley and surrounding lowlands both during the YD and into the mid-Holocene. These changes include significant alterations in the rate, volume, and direction of stream flow, and transition from a boreal riparian environment on a low-order river to a wetlands, then back to a riparian environment with much less streamflow and occasional flooding, similar to the Bell Creek Valley today.

year: 2015

title: Proactive lucidity: Superconsciousness, creativity, and the virtually real

authors: Maré, Marian

abstract: This thesis considers the significance and relevance of the distinction between artificial and natural environments and virtual reality experiences which seem to directly confront the question what is reality?. In focusing on challenges and changes to human conceptions of reality, current discourse on virtual technologies and their implications tends to assume that existing conceptions of time and space are fundamentally altered. This study investigates the creative resource that apparently exists beyond the commonly accepted spatial and temporal boundaries of human experience. The nature, processes, and forms of virtuality and dream lucidity encountered by demonstrably-creative, artistically-imaginative, technically-competent productive artists and composers involved with the visual media, are identified and investigated. Related consciousness experiences are further explored. 
Among the common factors in patterns which appear to most vitally prefigure and accompany the actual production of innovative art works, this study finds a strongly perceived and contextualised awareness of creative drive and a sense of directionality in that perception to be most significant. 
Integral theory, transpersonal psychology, holonic structuralism, feminist epistemology, and a participatory approach to research, guide and inform the conduct of these case studies. The introductory chapters explain the meaning of the term integral, outline the philosophy behind integral psychology, introduce the topic of location in respect of spirit and consciousness and art, and propose the dimensions of creativity. 
Longitudinally obtained results initially gathered under the focal headings of: forms of awareness, creative process and technology, and associated context, show that the foundations of most of the important issues in our lives cannot be found in physical space with simple location. Non-simple locus and worldspace, an idea which will be developed with reference to a theory of holons throughout the thesis, are addressed in terms of their phenomenologically-real referents. Context-dependency is reviewed in terms of multidimensional life experiences and reality as a whole, and the topic of integral semiotics is raised. 
This thesis unfolds a case for transpersonal healing and creativity enhancement through receptive multiple-state consciousness and lucid rehearsal. Proactive lucidity is found to be the deliberately receptive experience of extra-awareness, perception-enhancement, self-reflective insight, and natural activities which spontaneously occur during and across various 'altered' or 'multiple' states of consciousness. Such states include lucid dreams, witnessing dreaming, within-dream visions, and similar trance-like re/visualisations. This study finds proactive lucidity to be an invaluable problem-solving resource in helping people cope creatively with life issues. 
The latter chapters summarise the participants' insights into what they discern as causal factors underlying the core issues which deeply link the broad-ranging topics raised and explored in the course of this study. They identify parallels which indicate a form of inbuilt directionality in the developmental stages of human life and consciousness, and suggest how the spiritual domain might be related to creative currents in matter and life and mind. 
By way of real examples and metaphoric imagery, this study then proposes that these currents-in-conflict explain the devastating effects and consequences of a grand-scale hegemony of reductionism which manifests as a widespread loss of the spiritual in the West. It also explains the resultant collapse of the multidimensional Kosmos into a monological cosmos. 
Finally, in terms of transpersonal interpretation and superconsciousness, this study suggests there is actual form and structure in certain leanings or moral intuitions fundamental to human and non-human alike. It further suggests that in working for the individual such intuitions work for the greater good. 
The core of this thesis is about the exciting way a group of people exhibit their creative processes by using proactive lucidity to transcend ceilings. This study finds that the greater the depth of consciousness (=height of awareness) the clearer the intuition of the ground of creativity from which it issues and of which it is comprised.

text: Proactive lucidity: Superconsciousness, creativity, and the virtually real This thesis considers the significance and relevance of the distinction between artificial and natural environments and virtual reality experiences which seem to directly confront the question what is reality?. In focusing on challenges and changes to human conceptions of reality, current discourse on virtual technologies and their implications tends to assume that existing conceptions of time and space are fundamentally altered. This study investigates the creative resource that apparently exists beyond the commonly accepted spatial and temporal boundaries of human experience. The nature, processes, and forms of virtuality and dream lucidity encountered by demonstrably-creative, artistically-imaginative, technically-competent productive artists and composers involved with the visual media, are identified and investigated. Related consciousness experiences are further explored. 
Among the common factors in patterns which appear to most vitally prefigure and accompany the actual production of innovative art works, this study finds a strongly perceived and contextualised awareness of creative drive and a sense of directionality in that perception to be most significant. 
Integral theory, transpersonal psychology, holonic structuralism, feminist epistemology, and a participatory approach to research, guide and inform the conduct of these case studies. The introductory chapters explain the meaning of the term integral, outline the philosophy behind integral psychology, introduce the topic of location in respect of spirit and consciousness and art, and propose the dimensions of creativity. 
Longitudinally obtained results initially gathered under the focal headings of: forms of awareness, creative process and technology, and associated context, show that the foundations of most of the important issues in our lives cannot be found in physical space with simple location. Non-simple locus and worldspace, an idea which will be developed with reference to a theory of holons throughout the thesis, are addressed in terms of their phenomenologically-real referents. Context-dependency is reviewed in terms of multidimensional life experiences and reality as a whole, and the topic of integral semiotics is raised. 
This thesis unfolds a case for transpersonal healing and creativity enhancement through receptive multiple-state consciousness and lucid rehearsal. Proactive lucidity is found to be the deliberately receptive experience of extra-awareness, perception-enhancement, self-reflective insight, and natural activities which spontaneously occur during and across various 'altered' or 'multiple' states of consciousness. Such states include lucid dreams, witnessing dreaming, within-dream visions, and similar trance-like re/visualisations. This study finds proactive lucidity to be an invaluable problem-solving resource in helping people cope creatively with life issues. 
The latter chapters summarise the participants' insights into what they discern as causal factors underlying the core issues which deeply link the broad-ranging topics raised and explored in the course of this study. They identify parallels which indicate a form of inbuilt directionality in the developmental stages of human life and consciousness, and suggest how the spiritual domain might be related to creative currents in matter and life and mind. 
By way of real examples and metaphoric imagery, this study then proposes that these currents-in-conflict explain the devastating effects and consequences of a grand-scale hegemony of reductionism which manifests as a widespread loss of the spiritual in the West. It also explains the resultant collapse of the multidimensional Kosmos into a monological cosmos. 
Finally, in terms of transpersonal interpretation and superconsciousness, this study suggests there is actual form and structure in certain leanings or moral intuitions fundamental to human and non-human alike. It further suggests that in working for the individual such intuitions work for the greater good. 
The core of this thesis is about the exciting way a group of people exhibit their creative processes by using proactive lucidity to transcend ceilings. This study finds that the greater the depth of consciousness (=height of awareness) the clearer the intuition of the ground of creativity from which it issues and of which it is comprised.

year: 2004

title: Insecure, unpredictable, hoping to survive: Four cases of Māori people living precariously in Hamilton, Aotearoa New Zealand

authors: Uerata, Lynley Moana

subjects: Māori

abstract: A conceptualisation of precarity is introduced and adopted. A critique of contemporary conceptualisations of precarity is presented, drawing especially on Stuart Hall’s interpretation of articulation and Marx’s concept of relative surplus population. Much of the literature on precarity focusses on the neoliberal mode of contemporary capitalism originating in the late 1970s. However, there is limited literature which explores precarity as a way of life. A precarious way of life is characterised by interacting forms of precarity which embed insecurity, instability, and unpredictability in the everyday lives of real people. An account of the Māori experience of precarity since the pre-colonial era to the present-day is presented. Māori are the indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand who were colonised by the British Empire in the 1800s. 
The main research questions addressed in my thesis are: What forms of precarity are present in the everyday context? How do forms of precarity relate to each other? How do forms of precarity relate to being Māori? What kinds of support do those living with precarity gain from social structures, institutions, and social actors? What is the role of culture in the way Māori experience and mediate precarity? An analysis of semi-structured in-depth engagements with Māori people living precariously in Hamilton, Aotearoa New Zealand in 2016, based on four case studies, shows the character and significance of forms, sources, and effects of precarity in everyday life. As historical processes continue to overdetermine experiences of social structures and institutions in the present, in a contemporary capitalist context precarity arises from a wide range of interacting sources, forms, and effects of precarity. Among the different kinds of actors and organisations which comprise the support systems constructed to mediate precarity in the everyday context, cultural practices and resources can play a significant role for people who are culturally connected. When people are integrated into their local and cultural communities, they can cope better with a precarious way of life.

text: Insecure, unpredictable, hoping to survive: Four cases of Māori people living precariously in Hamilton, Aotearoa New Zealand A conceptualisation of precarity is introduced and adopted. A critique of contemporary conceptualisations of precarity is presented, drawing especially on Stuart Hall’s interpretation of articulation and Marx’s concept of relative surplus population. Much of the literature on precarity focusses on the neoliberal mode of contemporary capitalism originating in the late 1970s. However, there is limited literature which explores precarity as a way of life. A precarious way of life is characterised by interacting forms of precarity which embed insecurity, instability, and unpredictability in the everyday lives of real people. An account of the Māori experience of precarity since the pre-colonial era to the present-day is presented. Māori are the indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand who were colonised by the British Empire in the 1800s. 
The main research questions addressed in my thesis are: What forms of precarity are present in the everyday context? How do forms of precarity relate to each other? How do forms of precarity relate to being Māori? What kinds of support do those living with precarity gain from social structures, institutions, and social actors? What is the role of culture in the way Māori experience and mediate precarity? An analysis of semi-structured in-depth engagements with Māori people living precariously in Hamilton, Aotearoa New Zealand in 2016, based on four case studies, shows the character and significance of forms, sources, and effects of precarity in everyday life. As historical processes continue to overdetermine experiences of social structures and institutions in the present, in a contemporary capitalist context precarity arises from a wide range of interacting sources, forms, and effects of precarity. Among the different kinds of actors and organisations which comprise the support systems constructed to mediate precarity in the everyday context, cultural practices and resources can play a significant role for people who are culturally connected. When people are integrated into their local and cultural communities, they can cope better with a precarious way of life.

year: 2021