Landscape, social memory, and society: An ethnohistoric-archaeological study of three Hawaiian communities

Understanding the development of natural and social landscapes is central to studying the evolution of complex society. This research combines archaeological and ethnohistoric evidence of two processes--(i) the development of an intensive agricultural system and (ii) the rise and fall of chiefdoms currently known only through oral traditions---to examine their effects on the natural environment, people's everyday lives, and the construction of ritual sites on the Kalaupapa Peninsula, Molokai Island, Hawaii.;Although initially regarded as a 19th century phenomenon, the Kalaupapa Field System has a chronology similar to other rain-fed agricultural systems in the region---an initial early period of limited horticultural use around A.D. 1200-1300; rapid expansion of the fields at A.D. 1450-1550; abandonment during the early historic period; and, unique to Kalaupapa, a re-use of the fields in the mid-nineteenth century. Soil nutrient analysis presented here shows that this process caused an increase in wind erosion detectable in nutrient losses in windward areas and gains in downwind, leeward areas.;Large-scale social change had remarkably varied impacts on people's daily lives. On one hand, there is good archaeological evidence of the elite's power to influence settlement patterns late in prehistory. However, the results of analyses of faunal and shellfish food remains and lithic sourcing contradict the expected and show no evidence of intra-community food sharing and regular, direct access to lithic resources across community boundaries.;Attempts to reshape the ritual landscape through the construction of temples, shrines, and other sites progressed through several stages linked to the study area's political history. The first sites were constructed in tandem with increased social production and the 15th-century fragmentation of the island's founding polity. Next, in the 17th-century we find evidence of both Ko'olau district level polity formation and the construction of ritual structures across the entire landscape. Finally, the construction of a number of structures late in prehistory is interpreted as marking the importation of the makahiki ritual to the study area during the 18th-century occupation of Moloka'i by neighboring polities.;Overall, the results of this study suggest social, economic, and ritual changes between A.D. 1400 and 1650 represent the ideological foundation of later Hawaiian complex society.