Households, Specialization, and Social Production in Society Islands Chiefdoms

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，Patrick Kirch博士和Jennifer Kahn博士将在一个国际学者小组的协助下，在波利尼西亚中东部的社会群岛进行两次实地考古工作。该团队汇集了来自美国、澳大利亚、法国、新西兰和法属波利尼西亚大学的专家，调查社会岛群岛酋长社会中新出现的社会和政治复杂性，以及精英权力的集中化。该项目的重点是奥普诺胡河谷的考古遗址，这是莫奥利亚岛上的一个主要生产和农业区；这个山谷也是一个居住中心，精英仪式活动的地点，主要是政治权力的所在地。社会群岛的史前晚期（公元1400-1800年）是一个重大的社会变革时期，政治和经济权力越来越多地掌握在高地位的酋长和其他精英手中。这些转变极大地影响了农业生存、剩余生产和仪式活动的性质和强度。这些变化可能对日常生活和人际交往产生了持久的影响，在平民与高地位和经济特权精英的生活之间造成了更大的鸿沟。历史资料记载，社会群岛是一个复杂的酋长领地的典型（类似于汤加和夏威夷），其中社会不平等、等级制度和地位差异明显，但社会地位仍有一些流动性，类似于不那么复杂的酋长领地。因此，这项研究将提供一个无与伦比的机会，结合文献和考古研究来调查一个主要的人类学问题：社会复杂性的发展，等级制度，以及酋长社会（国家的前身）的地位差异。我们的目标是了解导致不平等、等级和地位差异发展的特定途径，以及这些过程如何反过来影响社会关系、资源获取以及地方、社区和区域层面的日常用品和剩余物品的生产。研究的规模要求收集基本数据，主要是住宅区和纪念性寺庙的数据，以形成一个时间顺序和聚落模式序列。遗址将被绘制和挖掘，以重建社会分化、家庭经济和仪式实践。具体任务是：1)对两个传统政体的主要居住和宗教遗址群进行调查和绘制；2)对房屋建筑进行大规模发掘，对寺庙建筑群和专门的精英遗址进行小规模发掘；3)完成回收的地下地物（烹饪区、食物储藏区）的空间和功能分析；4)分析发现的石器，寻找制作石器的原材料；5)将调查数据与开挖数据相结合。这项研究的智力价值在于测试了新兴的社会政治复杂性和等级和地位不平等发展的模型，这是当前人类学考古学面临的两个极具争议的问题。更广泛的影响包括提供关于复杂的波利尼西亚酋长社会群岛的重要信息，以前缺乏任何重大的调查工作。这项工作将提供知识的实质性增长，使人们能够对通常被认为是国家前身的酋邦社会的科学理解进行重大修订。法属波利尼西亚、澳大利亚和美国的学生将参加这个项目，以加强他们的训练，增加他们对考古技术和波利尼西亚史前史的知识。

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Patrick Kirch and Dr. Jennifer Kahn, assisted by an international team of scholars will conduct two field seasons of archaeological work in the Society Islands of Central Eastern Polynesia. The team brings together specialists based in U.S., Australian, French, New Zealand, and French Polynesian universities to investigate emerging social and political complexity, and centralization of elite power, in the chiefdom societies of the Society Island archipelago. The project focuses on archaeological sites in the 'Opunohu Valley, a major productive and agricultural zone on the island of Mo'orea; the valley also served as a residential center, loci for elite ritual activities, and seat of chiefly political power. The late prehistoric period (AD 1400-1800) in the Society Islands was a time of major social transformation, whereby political and economic power was increasingly controlled by high status chiefs and other elites. These transformations greatly affected the nature and intensity of agricultural subsistence, surplus production, and ritual activities. These changes presumably had lasting effects on daily life and inter-personal interactions, creating a wider divide between the lives of commoners and those of high status and economically privileged elites. Historic sources document that the Society Islands are an exemplar of a complex chiefdom (similar to Tonga and Hawaii) in which social inequality, hierarchy, and status differences were notably pronounced, however some fluidity in social status was retained, similar to less complex chiefdoms. The study will thus provides an unparalleled opportunity to combine documentary and archaeological research to investigate a major anthropological problem: the development of social complexity, hierarchy, and status differences in chiefdom societies (the precursors to states). The goal is to develop an understanding of the particular avenues leading to the development of inequality, and rank and status differences, and how these processes, in turn, affected social relations, access to resources, and the production of daily goods and surplus items at the local, community, and regional levels. The scale of research requires that basic data, principally in residential areas and monumental temples, be gathered to develop a chronological and settlement pattern sequence. Sites will be mapped and excavated to reconstruct social differentiation, the household economy, and ritual practices. Specific tasks are: 1) to survey and map major residential and religious site complexes in two traditional polities; 2) to conduct large-scale excavations at house structures and smaller excavations at temple complexes and specialized elite sites; 3) to complete spatial and functional analysis of recovered sub-surface features (cooking areas, food storage features); 4) to analyze the recovered stone tools and to source the raw materials from which they were produced; and 5) to integrate the survey date with the excavation data. The intellectual merit of the research is that of testing models of emerging socio-political complexity and the development of rank and status inequality, two highly contentious issues confronting current anthropological archaeology. Broader impacts include contributing significant information on a complex Polynesian chiefdom, the Society Islands, that has previously lacked any major investigative work. The work will provide a sustentative increase in knowledge allowing for major revisions in the scientific understanding of chiefdoms societies, generally acknowledged as precursors to the state. French Polynesian, Australian, and U.S. students will participate in the project to enhance their training and increase their knowledge of archaeological techniques and Polynesian prehistory.