The Dynamics of Economic and Sociopolitical Structure in Late Prehistoric Hawai'i: An Emergent 'Archaic State'

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With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Patrick Kirch and his colleagues will conduct one season of fieldwork at archaeological sites located on the Hawaiian islands of Moloka'i and Maui. In past research this team and others have located a number of house compounds and ritual structures which date from the period between A.D. 1200 - 1795 and these will form the focus for excavation. The team will collect both cultural and ecofactual data to: determine variability in territorial settlement patterns over time; reconstruct the chronology of settlement and land use; analyze architectural, food resource and prestige-good variation within household units; determine the distribution of non-local stone resources between territorial units; examine the agricultural and marine resource production base which supported the economy; learn how ritual architecture changed over time and space; and study the environmental effects of intensive land use. For many years anthropologists have used Polynesia as a unique test case to determine how state level societies evolved. The Polynesian islands were settled by a single cultural group over a relatively short period and at the time of contact they evidenced forms of social organization which varied greatly in complexity. Through carefully controlled comparisons scientists have attempted to place them in a developmental sequence and to explain the different stages reached in environmental terms. The highest degree of complexity was reached in Hawaii and ethnographers believe that in late prehistoric times a state level of organization was achieved. Dr. Kirch wishes to examine this process. He correctly notes that only archaeology can produce the data which can trace this step by step, and the goal of the research is to recover such information. This research is important for several reasons. It will yield insight into the processes of state formation an will provide data of interest to many archaeologists.